Going in Circles (25 page)

Mom turns around to lean against the sink, devastated in a most dramatic way. “Your daughter is trying to get a divorce,” she practically wails. She's tattling on me like I just got caught sneaking the car out of the garage. “Tell her she can't,” she says, staring me down with disappointment.

Dad's face softens as he looks to me for confirmation. The disappointment in his eyes is crippling. “Is that true, Bunny?”

I start to defend myself. “I'm not trying to
do
anything,” I say, choking on the words.

“She moved out!” Mom says, her hands outstretched. “She already left him. Tell her to go home.”

Mom's so loud I worry the entire neighborhood has suddenly gone on pause, waiting to find out the details. I bet every single one of them is thinking,
“That Goodman girl is a disaster.”

Dad joins me at the table. I like how he drinks coffee at night. I still associate that smell with the end of the day, with getting into my nightgown and dragging a pillow into my parents' bedroom. I'd climb up onto the bed, snuggle beside my father, and have him pet my head as he read me a bedtime story. It makes me want to crawl back to the time when he was the only man who mattered. I didn't know how great I had it back then, to be blessed with someone who would never make me wonder if he loved me.

“Jeez, Bunny,” my father says to me now. “I knew something was up, but I didn't think it'd be this. You guys just got married.”

Dad almost didn't walk me down the aisle. Seconds before the music started, he grabbed my arm, clutching so hard I had to gently pry his fingers loose.

“I don't think I can do this,” he said, trembling. “It's too much.”

“Everybody looking?”

“No. It's too sad. I'm giving away my baby girl. You'll be someone else's now.”

As I held him to me, feeling him shaking from head to toe trying to keep from shedding even a single tear, I whispered, “It's going to be okay.” Just like he used to soothe me when I woke up from a bad dream, I was now holding my father, assuring him there was nothing to be afraid of.

“Let's do this,” he whispered back.

We walked down the aisle together, surrounded by people on their feet, smiling at me in that way that's reserved just for brides—a combination of awe and heartbreak over this one moment, knowing that if it ever gets to come at all, it only comes once in your life (or at least, that's the plan), and it's so
heartbreakingly brief. Everything is frozen in perfect potential, and then over in seconds.

I remember in that moment how I squeezed my father's hand and asked, “Not so bad, right?”

“Not anymore,” he said. “Your Aunt June gave me a pill earlier and it just kicked in.”

My father is looking at me now with that same reserved confusion. “You think splitting up is for the best?”

“I don't know. I don't know what to do.”

Mom shouts from the pantry, “You go back to your husband is what you do.”

“Elaine, cool it,” Dad says as he takes my hand. “If you want to yell at someone, go check the dining room table. I'm sure I set it all wrong.”

My mother heads straight for the dining room, because while she knows he's being sarcastic, she also knows he probably did set it all wrong, most likely on purpose, just so she'd have something to fuss over while he sneaked off to play a round of online poker. This might be exactly what marriage is, finding ways to keep someone right on the line between adoration and insanity. And if that's the case, then perhaps I've been too hasty with Matthew. I should be thanking him right now for keeping me teetering on the edge.

I tell my father the truth. “A few months after the wedding, Matthew had some doubts. He took some time, moved out.”

“Your mother said you moved out.”

“I did. Once he came back.”

“Because he left you, and you thought he might do it again.”

I nod, wiping my nose on the inside of my wrist. Dad hands me the handkerchief he keeps in his robe pocket. I
bring it to my face, not to use it but to inhale the scent of his aftershave on the fabric.

“Did he ever hurt you?” he asks.

I stare at the fabric of my jeans, wiping my free hand up and down my thigh, making the color change from light blue to dark and back. I quickly shake my head. I've turned into a little girl, unable to answer questions with more than a shake or a sniff.

“What about this?” Dad turns over my palm and points at my wrist. There's a purple and green streak circling from my thumb down to where my pulse is thumping.

“That's from . . . working out.” As much as I could use the distraction, now isn't the time to explain roller derby to my father. I'm not sure if he'd get it, and he might freak out if he knew I was intentionally slamming myself into other people in my free time.

He whistles through his teeth. “That is some gym you go to.”

“Mom is so mad, but I didn't mean for this to happen. With Matthew, I mean.”

“These things sometimes happen, Charlotte. But you never know. It might work itself out.” My father leans back in his chair, bending his knees until he slides into a slump. “Don't be too hard on yourself,” he adds. “Just try and make it through today. There's nothing you can do right now, right? Whatever is supposed to happen will happen. That's life. Life is unpredictable, and we just hang on for the ride. Hopefully, with a seat belt. And if you're not wearing a seat belt, maybe because you're on a motorcycle, at least you should be wearing a helmet. Although that doesn't protect your heart, does it?”

“Dad. What are you doing?”

“I don't know.”

“You sound crazy.”

Dad shakes his head, bringing his thumb to the bridge of his nose. “I know. I'm sorry. I don't know what to say, and you're not talking, so I'm saying a bunch of bullshit.”

I lean into his shoulder. “Well, I appreciate the bullshit.”

“You do what you have to, Bunny. And I'm here if you want to talk. Now go to your room and hide out until dinner's ready. I'm going to tell your mother I grounded you.”

It's not really my room at all anymore. Not that it should be; I haven't lived here in almost ten years. But I'm not sure what kind of room it's supposed to be. Mom keeps a few pieces of antique furniture in here, as well as a bookshelf filled with cookbooks and encyclopedias, none of which she's ever opened. I'm their only potential overnight guest, yet they haven't found the time to get a spare bed.

I open the closet in search of the air mattress and the electric pump. Instead, I find my old art box. My beloved Caboodle from when I was a little. It's shoved behind Mom's abandoned macramé projects and a box I choose to ignore that she's labeled For When I'm Dead.

The Caboodle is purple and covered in My Little Pony stickers. I'm rather shocked at how girly it is, because I don't really remember myself being that kind of kid.

I open the box to find everything I need to make a miniature. It's been a long time since I've held even the simplest materials. I haven't had the slightest desire to start a new project. But right now, perhaps only because I'm trying to avoid my mother, my fingers are itching to see what I can come up with in an hour.

I grab a few pieces of wood and an X-acto knife. I stack a few cookbooks and my cutting board into a makeshift table and get to work.

The day my mom first let me use this knife was a big deal. It meant she trusted me not to cut off my own fingers, and I remember thinking at the time it made me very grown up, using the same tools real artists used. Dad called my miniatures my Occam's razor. “You take the big things and make them smaller. The simplest solution is the best.”

It's funny that I can do that in my miniatures, harness something large into something you can hold in your hands and inspect from all angles. I can break something down to the bare minimum, if I need to. Hint at detail where there is none, make one stroke of paint represent something hundreds of times its size.

Why can't I do that with the rest of my life? Make all the questions go away, and find the simplest, tiniest way to illustrate the enormity I feel?

The door whips open, startling me out of my world. “There you are,” my mother says, as if she's been searching for me, which I know she most certainly has not. “I figured you'd run away from home.”

“Dad sent me to my room,” I say. “For not finishing all my marriage.”

Mom sighs. “I'm not cleaning that up,” she says, pointing at the work in front of me.

“I know. I'll do it. I'm sorry.”

“What is that you made? A wooden doughnut?”

“It's nothing. Just playing around.” I miss the days when she would crouch beside me and ask all kinds of questions about what I'd just done and what made me so creative. She'd smooth my hair and kiss my face and call me her little artist. Something came between us as I got older. My life gained speed as hers slowed down and I guess we sort of passed each
other. The distance between us hurts, but only when I allow myself to stop and think about it.

“Dinner's ready,” she says. “Go wash your hands. They're covered in glue.” She shuts the door behind her with too much emphasis. I take a second to admire my little wooden derby track. It's not bad, considering I didn't have much more than some balsa wood and a few Popsicle sticks. I know I can do a better version, but this one's a start.

•   •   •

We get through almost our entire meal in silence. To stave off complete boredom, I've started to count how many times I'm chewing each bite. With my last hunk of chicken I managed to chomp sixteen times before there wasn't anything in my mouth but a soup of liquefied meat—that almost made me get sick at the table. So now I'm seeing how quickly I can swallow each bite.

One, two, three, four—gulp.

Got it. Next bite.

One, two, three—gulp.

Awesome.

One, two—

A piece of chicken lodges in the back of my throat. My hands fly up to my mouth and I immediately start trying to cough. The lurching and retching makes my tailbone scream in pain, which makes
me
want to scream in pain, but I can't do anything other than hack and try to breathe.

My mother's on her feet, hurling the pink Peeps coat to the floor. “Abe! She's choking!” she screams.

I'm in so much pain I'm making an actual chicken noise, squawking and choking as my father rushes behind me, puts
his hands under my sternum, and gives me the Heimlich maneuver.

One, two, three—

The chicken lump flies out of my throat and onto the table. My parents stare at it expectantly. I guess they figure with such a dramatic entrance, it should continue with a soliloquy.

“Oh, God!” I wail, one hand on my throat, the other on my butt. I'm rocking back and forth, hurting from end to end. “Thanks, Dad,” I manage to scratch.

“No problem, Bunny,” he whispers, and I can tell he's shaken.

“Jesus, Charlotte,” my mother says, rubbing the crease between her eyes. “Don't kill yourself before you meet your
next
husband.”

In the shocked silence, her eyes meet mine. We both break into laughter. True, good, honest laughter that says all the things words can't. It's as real as the tears of grief we're soon wiping from our faces as she walks over to me, leans down, and embraces me. I nuzzle my forehead into her warm neck and breathe in her lemony perfume.

“I'm sorry, Mommy.”

She pushes my hair aside and kisses the bridge of my nose. “Me too, baby. We'll get through this. We're strong.”

My father dramatically lowers a napkin over my hacked-up chicken wad. He glances at his watch before he solemnly intones, “Time of death: 9:27.”

A
s I sign the form for the Rookie Rumble, I don't even recognize my signature. I'm trying to work this pen, but it's difficult while wearing a wrist guard. It's like a monster scrawled, “
BROKE-BROKE
.” Maybe the other girls will think Frankenstein is skating the Rookie Rumble and will be too scared to sign up.

But I did it. I signed up. Now that I'm committed, everything has a new perspective. I'm here for a reason. I'm in training. I've got a competition coming up, and now every skill I learn, every hour I log on my skates, is getting me prepared. Just over a month left. I've got a lot of work to do to be an asset to my team.

Teams!
I still can't believe I'm going to be on a team. I think of all the years my mother wouldn't let me near anything even slightly athletic, and I wish I'd gotten to experience just a taste of this earlier.

Still, this isn't right without Francesca. She's the one I want to be stretching with, discussing the bout. I need her strength, her determination. And I need her pep talks. I wouldn't even mind fighting with her again, just so I could hear her voice.

“Broken!” I hear from the other side of the track. “What the fuck are you doing?”

It's Bang-Up. She's wearing little pink shorts with silver stars on each butt cheek. Her tank-top says,
EAT SLEEP DERBY
. I skate over to her.

“Hey. I signed up for the Rumble.”

“Great. Now go home.”

“What?”

“Or go sit in the bleachers, but get off the track.” She smacks me on the helmet. “You've got a broken tailbone, dumbass. You can't skate. Technically you can't train again until you're cleared by a doctor, but if you get out of here before anybody else notices you, I'll let you come back in two weeks.”

My heart sinks. “Two weeks! But I need to practice for the Rumble!”

“Even if you weren't an insurance lawsuit waiting to happen, you can't scrimmage. You can't do crunches. You are useless to me. Get out of here.”