When Rex looked at his daughter, he felt lost. He wanted to help her, to heal her, so badly. But he just didn’t know how. He saw the hickeys and the scratches and bloodshot eyes. He washed her sheets in the mornings that were soaked with urine.
He had a sense of the things that would help. A high five for a perfect score on a spelling test. A rub on the back when she walked offstage after a perfect performance at her piano recital. A good-night kiss. A fatherly hug. Any of those things could have reversed every rogue piece of hair and every red mark on her skin. Any of those things could have sent that invisible brick wall between Rex and his daughter tumbling down. But how would he even begin to do these things after all that had happened? After all that space he’d created between them?
Of all the preparation Rex did to get ready for fatherhood, nothing prepared him to handle this. Any of it. The drug-addicted wife. The divorce. The drug-addicted ex-wife. The ex-wife that his children adored. Whom he once adored and still missed. The sudden and tragic death of that ex-wife. The son—the simple and innocent son—who showed no signs that he had internalized anything that was going on. The daughter who didn’t love him. And might never love him. The eleven-year-old daughter who still wet the bed and still had to bring a change of clothes to school. The daughter whose change of clothes was another set of exactly the same clothes.
How was he supposed to know how to tell his children that their mother had died? He thought back to that moment in the car when he just told them plainly she was dead. He remembered the stunned silence, the thickness in the air, then the sound of tears. His heart ached for his children. His heart broke for them. He couldn’t even turn around and look at them. Come face-to-face with their sadness. Come face-to-face with his failures.
How was he supposed to know what to do? How to be a father in that moment? How was he to forgive himself for the awful way he shot that delicate news out at them?
And how was he supposed to know that a father should allow his children to mourn at their mother’s funeral? He so desperately wanted to spare them from any more pain. From seeing their mother in a casket. But when he found that puddle on the floor where he knew Willow had been standing, he knew his decision to shield them was wrong. He knew too late what a colossal mistake he had made.
But how was he supposed to know how to be a father in those moments? How was he to forgive himself for depriving his children of a critical component of finding closure?
How was he supposed to be a father to his children who loved their mother so, so much? How was he supposed to be a father to his children who couldn’t, and shouldn’t, be exposed to their mother’s flaws? How was he to forgive himself for not doing more? To save his children? To save their mother?
Rex saw so intimately what was happening that morning when he found his children so comfortable in Rosie’s bed with their caked-on makeup after what was undoubtedly a night dancing to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. He remembered being forced into this ridiculousness himself while living with Rosie in Manhattan—and yet loving every moment of it. He remembered having to wear nail polish and face paint and sometimes a boa, and feeling so uncomfortable in his outfit, but so happy with Rosie sprawled all over him. He could see so clearly that his children were experiencing this same sensation of being swept up and carried away by Rosie’s beautiful and terrifying tornado of love.
He knew this tornado so intimately. He knew that now it would be fishnet stockings and glitter blue eye shadow and kisses and love. And that later, there would be pain and aching as she slipped away and took her love with her. Because that level of fishnet stockings and glitter blue eye shadow and kisses and love was not sustainable. Her tornado would always have its aftermath. Its heartbreaking wreckage.
He knew because he himself was left broken from it once. Was still broken from it. And he was scared of what would happen to his children once Rosie’s tornado picked up momentum because he knew in his bones what would happen. He should have protected them. But how could he be a father that pulled his children out of the sky? Forced his children to run from their mother’s love? But how could he be a father who didn’t?
There were so, so many chasms. So many bridges he would have to build from scratch. “How?” Rex asked himself with his chin at his chest. “How?”
As an unfamiliar empathy moved around his body. Part of the sensation hurt, but part of it warmed him. This was a start.
* * *
As Rex paid more attention to his daughter in the weeks following Rosie’s death, he noticed a fire in his daughter he had never seen before. He saw intensity in her eyes. A seriousness in her chin. A firmness in her gait.
There was sadness and anger in all of those places too, but those he understood. Those he expected. The fire and intensity he witnessed were new and surprising. But although Rex knew his daughter was in pain, he swelled with pride when he saw that Willow had these traits running through her. Traits that he valued. Traits that he, himself, contained. It was the most connected he had ever felt to his daughter.
He and Willow had both been so fulfilled by Rosie. They had both been so inadvertently dependent on her special, specific, unique kind of love. And then he and Willow had both had it pulled away from them. Slowly and painfully. They had it taken away just when they needed it most. And in the wake of losing Rosie, they had both hardened. With sadness and anger and hurt. So much sadness. So much anger. So much hurt.
Yet they shared something now. Something so visceral. Something so real.
And then a flood of guilt filled up inside of Rex. Guilt for the way he looked past Willow all these years. Guilt for the way he gave her up to Rosie so shortly after she was born. It was so naive to think that his daughter had no room for his love. Of course she did. He was her father. He just needed to carve out space for it. He had so much love he was ready to give her. He should have tried harder to give it. And his daughter was so young. She would have absorbed it so thoroughly from him. They would have all been so much happier. They could all be so much happier.
And then Rex filled with hope. Hope that there could be a future in which they were so much happier. Separately and together. Separately by way of together.
Some changes would have to be made. By Rex himself and by his daughter too. But he was her father and the first step would be his. He was determined in this. Resolute in this. His heart, his whole body, his whole being, felt it so strongly.
It was always known that when Rex Thorpe wanted something, he made it happen.
And he wanted so badly to be better. He needed to be better. So, so much better.
Better than the man who walked away instead of helping his daughter kick a soccer ball.
Better than the man who looked away when his daughter appeared downstairs in her favorite outfit.
Better than the man who was so cold when he told his children that their mother had died. Better than the man who didn’t know to invite them to their own mother’s funeral.
Better than the man who didn’t give his children enough kisses. Enough hugs. Enough love.
Yes, he would be so much better.
More available. More open. More free with love.
More like Rosie.
For the first time in many months, Rex thought back on his ex-wife fondly. He wanted so badly to get through to Willow. And no one knew how better than Rosie did. It was true when Willow was just a little girl and it was still true now. Even in Rosie’s death.
Rex closed his eyes, inhaled and thought of Rosie. Admired Rosie. With her quirks and her floral-printed dresses. With her silliness and red lipstick. With her coolness and flowery skin. With her bounce and curly hair. With her special kind of nuanced love that she offered to everyone, everyone, around her. With her special kind of nuanced love that she so beautifully sent straight into the bones, the hearts, of her children. Especially Willow.
He closed his eyes even tighter and channeled Rosie.
Even if she couldn’t be his wife, even if she could no longer be Willow and Asher’s mother, and even if she could no longer be here at all, he still wanted a piece of her inside of him. He still needed a piece of her inside of him. He had been better with her. Lighter. Happier. Even if it was by accident.
And he could be better again. He just needed a little Rosie. And Willow did too.