The Burning Side(59)

His hand is reaching toward me as though I’m on the edge of a cliff. “Those pills are hard to get,” he says. “Let’s at least keep them tucked away? A lot of people change their minds.”

“A lot of people do this for someone who’s in unbearable pain! That’s different!”

He does not argue. Just watches to see what I’ll do with the pills.





APRIL


August 9–10, 2022

FOURTEEN DAYS LEFT TO RESPOND to the divorce petition, and it’s just sitting on the desk in my room while I get the kids ready. They are going to stay overnight with Leo for the first time. When he first suggested this, the question escaped me automatically: “You want our kids to stay in a trailer?”

He bristled. “What’s wrong with them staying in a trailer?”

I felt the familiar waterfall of shame. “Nothing.” And there wasn’t. I didn’t know why I said that. Whenever Leo wilts with fear or I thorn with shame, our conversations stop before they start. We quiet our questions and injuries and angles on truth. So I didn’t tell him that I was worried about security, because by the time the words reached my mouth, I’d answered my own question: our kids will be secure because they’ll be with the same dad who carried his daughter out of a burning house.



* * *



When we arrive in Argyle, crows are spread across the grass like chess pieces. Otto waddle-runs toward the birds, who glare at him and take to the sky.

Sadie waves at our tarped home. “Hi, house.”

Otto mimics his sister. “Hi-ho!” Like one of the seven dwarves.

For the umpteenth time, I check their bag for Bear Bear and Pull-Ups and toothbrushes.

At the door of the trailer, they sashay inside and take off their shoes. Sadie’s sneakers strobe a quick rainbow, and Otto tugs his Velcro. I hand their bag off to their dad, and I feel like an intruder in his tidy little home. The futon has been made into a plush bed, the head framed with twinkle lights. A bed rail is secured to one side, and two new stuffed animals sit upright on two fresh pillows, with a stack of Mo Willems books on the table beside. A kids’ playlist is on low volume, and I notice the photo of Leo’s dad tucked under a David McCullough book on the counter.

I get the urge to kick off my shoes and run inside and drink horchata. How could I have thought this wouldn’t be secure when I know who Leo is? But also—I watch Sadie and Otto settle in—how can I leave here without them?

But I make myself do it.

And as I go to bed alone on Lexington Avenue, I’m surprised to find that my prevailing feeling is pride that I chose to marry Leo, because now two little people have a dad who well and truly loves them. I picture them snug beneath twinkle lights, and I marvel that while Leo had no real home growing up, his children will now have two.



* * *



Getting woken by my bladder at three in the morning has been a dull and inconvenient fact of my life ever since I bore children. In the dark bathroom, I barely notice the beetle in the sink. I flip on the light, squint, and wash it down the drain, adding pest control to my mental list of ways to help around here.

I dissolve back into my mattress, guiltily enjoying my child-free bed. Micro-coils and memory foam put an end to all thoughts of sink beetles and to-do lists.

But two hours later, I bolt awake, gasping in revelation.

It is five o’clock in the morning, and a memory is jabbing me in the ribs.

“No,” I say out loud. “It can’t be.”

I have got to talk to Dad.



* * *



Dad crosses an ankle over his knee, his pants hiking up to reveal patterned socks from some Father’s Day or another. “Sure, I remember him. Ricardo.” Dad scratches his chin. “No, wait. Robert?” He pauses. “It was definitely an R name. Great guy.”

I drop to the couch beside him, shaking my head. “This is nuts.”

“What is?”

I remember trying not to stare at that store manager’s green eyes or his sleeve of tattoos: a beetle, a semicolon, and—right in the middle of his arm—a lion, ready to pounce. There are thousands of Ricardos, but there are not thousands of Ricardos with seafoam-green eyes and a lion tattoo.

“Nothing,” I tell Dad. I won’t bring anyone else into this until I’m certain.

“You sure, kid?”

“Yeah.” I wave it off. “I just remembered something.”

“Ah.” He slurps his coffee as though remembering something explains everything.

“Where’s Mom?”

“She’s—” He frowns. “Sleeping.” Then he asks, “You want to play a round of chess?”

I hesitate. The kids are gone until tonight. So no, I don’t want to play chess. I want to drive to Waco. I want to find the manager of Jed’s Hardware, confirm that he is who I think he is, and give him a piece of my mind.

But my dad is here with his patterned socks and degenerative disease, and I don’t know when the day will come that he might look at me and draw a blank.

“Sure,” I say. “But just one round. I have some errands to run.”

As always, he plays black and I play white, giving me the advantage.

As always, he wins. With us, it’s less about the outcome and more about the play.