Trash

Read the rest of the "West" saga: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

“Higher!” Brooklyn squealed, pumping her legs out of rhythm, as if her knees were over-oiled hinges.

“You want to go higher?” Drew asked the toddler, tickling her under the arms as he pushed the swing. She squealed in response, tipping her head back as she swung away from him.

Jennifer watched her brother and her daughter from the edge of the school playground. She liked these quiet moments, watching Brooklyn with someone else. She felt she could see her more clearly. Tell if she was happy.

“Hey! How was work?” Drew called, noticing her.

“It was good,” Jennifer said, crossing the playground and taking the swing next to Brooklyn’s. “The almost-feminists have discovered the shop. How was your day, Brooklyn? Is Uncle Drew pushing you so high?”

“Yes! I’m a Neverbeast, and Drew’s a Tinkerbelle, and we’re FLYING!”

“What the fu--crap--is an almost-feminist?” Drew asked, catching the curse before it escaped into Brooklyn’s ears.

“You know. The women who come in and talk about how much they love Chuck’s shop because male mechanics treat them like they’re stupid and overcharge them for oil changes. The real question is, what the crap is a Neverbeast?”

“Some movie Mom streamed on-demand. Brook’s obsessed,” Drew said. “I still don’t get it. Why ‘almost-feminists’?”

“If they were real feminists, they’d learn how to change the oil themselves.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Drew said, laughing.

Jennifer rotated her swing in circles so that the chain twisted all the way to the top, then let go. The schoolyard blurred around her.

“Whoa, Mommy!”

“Today is totally throwback Thursday,” Jennifer said. “You remember? They used to sell ice cream over by that door.”

“I would pay some serious money for an orange push-pop right now.”

“Sick. Those were so nasty.”

Brooklyn slid out of her swing and wandered towards the monkey bars.

“You remember when Jimmy Pincetti broke his collarbone on that thing?” Drew said.

Jennifer grimaced.

“Honestly, that wasn’t as bad as when Katie McAlister fell and knocked her teeth out,” she said. “Monkey bars are a death trap.”

Brooklyn was squatting in the dirt inspecting a discarded cereal box, probably nicked from the school cafeteria.

“Brooklyn, don’t pick that up!”

“But Mommy, it’s Corn Flakes!”

“It’s trash!”

“You sound like a mom,” Drew said.

“She-ittttt,” Jennifer said, dragging the word into two syllables.

Jennifer’s phone vibrated in her pocket. For a second, her heart leapt into her throat at the flickering thought that it could be a text from Dena. She swiped the screen. An email coupon from Baby Gap. Jennifer rolled her eyes at herself.

“What is it?” Drew asked.

“Nothing. I’m a total mom.”

It wasn’t that she’d wanted anything. Dena was with Chris. Dena didn’t even live here. Dena was totally freaked out by the thought of Jennifer as a mother. Wasn’t she? Everyone else was. Jennifer could predict the rest of her story--people would see her kid as baggage for another ten years, and then half the dating pool would have kids, and it would be no big. She’d end up thirty, dating some goateed guy with two children from a previous marriage. Someone who thought it was sexy she could fix his motorcycle. Fucking basic as hell. She should really go back to college.

“So I’m thinking about quitting Best Buy,” Drew said.

“Uh, that’s stupid,” Jennifer said. “Hello? Money?”

“Kurt keeps making me chase people off the iPads if they’re not going to buy one. I know it’s not the public library, but Jesus. Give people a chance, you know? Not everybody can afford internet. Plus he keeps cutting my hours.”

“Kurt’s a dick. But isn’t that part of having a job? Being managed by dicks?”

It was conversations like this that made Jennifer feel out of place--as if she were the older sibling, not Drew. Drew’s life was on the cusp of getting really great. Sure, he still lived with their mom, but he wasn’t the brunt of her criticism. My son, the college graduate, she was always saying.

“Don’t you want to move out?” she asked, eyeing Brooklyn as she piled pea gravel into little hills by the slide.

“Yeah, but I don’t think Best Buy is the best I can do with a computer science degree. I was thinking I might see what’s up in California. Carl has a friend who works at Google.”

“You are a total fucking cliche, Drew,” Jennifer said.

“Whatttt. Kill me. It’s not like I’m going to turn into a surfer.”

Jennifer felt like trash. Everyone else, even her own brother, could pick up and head out at any point. And here she was, clinging on. First Dena, the only person in forever who had looked at her like she was something special. Now her own brother? Who would help her stay sane around their mom? She itched for a cigarette, but resisted.

“Whatever, it’s cool. I’m sure it’ll be awesome,” she said.

“You could come with me?” Drew said, turning his palms up in a pleading shrug.

Brooklyn’s scream more than answered Drew’s half-assed offer.

“Brooklyn? What’s wrong?” Jennifer ran to her daughter, who was still sitting in the gravel next to the slide. “What happened?”

Brooklyn’s legs, only just starting to lose their rolls of baby fat, were covered in fire ants. Jennifer picked up her daughter, smacking the ants from her legs. Brooklyn shrieked a noise so high it felt supersonic, like it was scraping Jennifer’s eardrums.

“Shh, shh, baby, it’s okay. Those mean bugs bit you, but we got them,” she cooed as Brooklyn wailed.

“Fuck,” Drew said, unfastening Brooklyn’s sandal where her ankle was starting to swell from the bites.

“I’ve got it,” Jennifer snapped, pulling Brooklyn’s foot away.

Drew looked at his sister and noticed what he didn’t understand before--the pain that could weave between one connected body and another.

Jennifer’s phone buzzed in her pocket again. She didn’t bother to check it. She cradled Brooklyn against her as the child’s heaving sobs turned to sniffles. She set off in the direction of her mother’s house, her brother trailing a few paces behind, still holding Brooklyn’s tiny pink sandal.

Written by: Dot Dannenberg

Photograph by: Daniel Vidal

Paloma

Continued from "Tequila Sunrise" and "Salt on the Rim."

“Can I play on the monkey bars today?” Paloma asks.

The playground stretches in front of them: an ancient thing, untouched by safety concerns. Vibrant paint peels to reveal shiny metal. It feels familiar to Lori, and that’s why she insists on coming here, even though there are four other parks closer to their apartment. Familiarity is a luxury.

“If you can reach ‘em today, then sure,” Lori replies. “If you fall, just spit on it.”

“Gross,” Paloma says, then nods. She tugs at the hem of her favorite sweater, mustard yellow with a big teal dove embroidered on the front. It’s starting to pull, and soon she won’t be able to wear it at all. Maybe Lori can make it into a cute pillow. Better yet, maybe Lori can hire someone to do it for her. It’s something Beth would’ve done.

“Hey, is there anyone here you like?” Lori knows from Paloma’s expression that she hasn’t phrased the question right, so she tries again. “I mean, do you have any friends here you might want to invite over? Like for a play date?”

“I like everyone,” Paloma says, and runs off to join an in-progress game whose purpose is only understood by children.

Lori realizes that without Paloma, she is alone. A dozen mothers mill around the perimeter of the playground, their pristine New Balance sneakers crunching over the bark. Most of them wear tasteful pea coats in shades of coal, pewter, and cocoa. There are a couple of outliers — a jade and eggplant — but they still feel restrained compared to the bright pink blazer Lori wears over her favorite gray sweater.

Lori stands off to the side, afraid to break into one of the established groups. How would that conversation even go? ‘Hey, have you ever thought about who your kids’ godparents are, and what that means? My sister didn’t. How about one of your kids comes over for a play date? Draw straws. I’ll wait.’

Her cell phone cuts through the silence of the morning. She has to get a new bag, one that won’t swallow everything she owns. Everything about her feels loud and obnoxious.

“I think it’s in your pocket,” the mother with the eggplant coat gives her a helpful smile. Lori groans and retrieves her iPhone from her blazer.

“Got an email from one of our little lovebirds. Whitney wanted to make sure you were doing okay. What should I tell her?” Nicole doesn’t bother with pleasantries.

“That I’m fine, of course.”

“Really?” Nicole asks.

“I can’t stop thinking about how Paloma will never know how great her mom was. She’ll never taste Beth’s triple chocolate brownies, or listen to her read the Harry Potter books, or make snow angels at Christmas. I have to do all of those things, except I almost put Kahlua in my last batch of brownies, and I can’t get Hagrid’s voice right, and my last snow angel looked disturbingly phallic.”

“You won’t let anyone forget Beth, but don’t suffocate yourself with the weight of her memory. Plus, I’m pretty sure Kahlua bakes out, but maybe Google it just in case? No one can ever get Hagrid’s voice right except Robbie Coltrane. Make snowmen instead.”

The two women make small talk until Paloma falls. It happens in slow motion: tripping over herself and splaying out in the bark. Lori hangs up on Nicole mid-sentence, watching her delicate niece right herself, inspect the skinning knee, and spit on it. Paloma looks up and waves at Lori.

“I think it worked!”

Unfazed, Paloma skips over, dark hair a tangled mess. She has Beth’s button nose, but her dad’s light blue eyes. Her smile is entirely her own.

“Look what I found!” Paloma chirps, cupping her hands around a small wooden heart.

“Cool,” Lori takes it from her. “Uh, you didn’t put this in your mouth, did you?”

Paloma shakes her head.

“Good, ‘cause you’re not supposed to do that.”

“Can we get hot chocolate?” Paloma asks.

“Sure,” Lori says. Paloma grabs her hand and Lori doesn’t flinch this time. It feels like a tiny victory.

She looks back at the wooden heart and a long-buried memory surfaces. It is a happy memory, one with Beth. They buried treasure together, when Lori was a kid and did everything Beth told her to without a second thought. Why did they bury it when they could have gone looking for it?

Grief has taken root in her, a dull throbbing ache that resides under the surface of her skin. Its only benefit is that it offers her perspective, gives her new acuity with which to view past events. At the funeral, Lori experienced an odd revelation about why Beth stopped lending her clothes. Beth’s were too adult, too sophisticated for a high school kid, and then too professional for a college kid. They grew apart in yards of fabric and heel height.

They buried the treasure because others might need it more than they did.

“I don’t think we should take it home,” Paloma says, pointing to the heart. “It belongs to the park.”

They find a small patch of dirt near the pond. The earth is damp, and their hands get dirty from digging. Lori tucks Paloma’s hair behind her small, perfect ear, and leaves a smear of dirt behind.

When the hole is large enough, Paloma places it in with the stoic reverence of a child mimicking adult behavior.

“When you plant a garden, you start with earth and seeds,” Lori says. “We’re lucky, because we live somewhere with good soil and good weather. We’ll plant it here and love will grow.”

“What kind of love?”

“Does it matter?” Lori smiles.

“Can it be like the way I love Mom and Dad and you?”

Lori can’t look at her. Paloma has seen too many tears. She has watched Lori’s grief beach itself, an immobile leviathan. Instead, she takes the child in her arms and hugs her.

“Of course it can,” Lori whispers.


Written by: Erin Justice
Photograph by: Pekka Nikrus