WINTER IN THREE SCENES by Valerie Visnic
FourteenIt’s Friday night. Not 24-hours into winter break. High school, 1994. Me and Simone go to the mall, like normal, although the arresting office will be sure to tell us, What you girls did was not OK. Do you hear me? Stealing is a crime, Girls. And it is a crime, but in my head it’s a normal one. The handcuffs they put on us, those seem normal. My mom’s response as she’s driving us home to face my father? Probably normal and anyway, I can take it from her, she has a right. She’s been overseeing my fuck-ups for a while now. He, though. He’s not allowed. And because I believe my father does not have the right to tell me anything, All of a sudden–now? when we butt heads that night, it’ll be so bad we never will again. Although it’s more than a butting of heads. When he realizes he’s on top of me, both hands around my neck, I can feel him know he’s lost control. His grip is ashamed. And my neck? Brave. Then guilty, for making him do it. When Christmas comes two days later, we exchange gifts like normal and no one says a word about it. Not ever again. Thirty-FiveIt’s the second week of December. I’m 9 weeks pregnant. We haven’t told our kids yet, he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t say those actual words–I don’t want to tell them, he just won’t say the other ones I want him to. It’s early Saturday morning and the fight is big and quiet like we’ve learned to be so the boys don’t hear. They’re playing Xbox in the garage we’ve converted into a room for them.You need to leave, I tell him, shaking and red with hurt. He shrugs, as if helpless. OK, he says. How can you just say it like that? OK!? All calm?! And he says, It's your house, and I say, So that’s it? That’s all you’re gonna say? Tears streaming down my face. Aren’t you even gonna ask what I’m gonna do about it?” I don’t call it a baby. But he simply shakes his head as he folds the clothes he’s packing to take, and I grab my red beanie from off the bed and walk from our bedroom and the quiet yelling, to the garage where the three boys are–his two, my one. Come on, Train, I say. You’re gonna be late for practice. When we get to the beach, Train grabs his surfboard from the back, shutting the trunk behind him. Then walks barefoot across the parking lot like someone who will not be having an abortion in seven days. Sitting in the car, I watch him slog through the sand to the frigid gray waves as I cry, silently. Even though I can be as loud as I want now. After a few minutes, I make the drive back to the house. Hoping that when I pull up, he’ll still be there, packing. But as I make my way up our street, my heart falls through my chest, through the seat, through the floor of the car and clear out into our empty driveway where his car is no longer parked. And as I turn off the engine, car keys in hand, I vow to myself that for as long as I live, I will never call it a baby. No matter what. Forty-TwoIt’s Christmas Eve and Grandma and Train and I have already done the three mile hike up Mt. Roubidoux in the 85 degree December heat and now we’re fresh out of ideas to occupy the next 10 hours together before we can each retire to our own rooms at Grandma’s house and not seem like we’re being rude for wanting to be alone, or just, not together. Train’s visiting from college and me, from the chaos of my new life without him. What about lunch? Grandma asks. Applebees?Train says sure.I say nothing.Before we leave for the restaurant, Train corners me in the hall. Wants to know what’s wrong? I’ve been trying not to cry all morning. Trying not to feel like whatever a mother with a birdless nest might. Looking down at the white 12x12 ceramic floor tiles, I say, I wanna tell you but if I do I’ll just cry. Distracted, he grabs his phone from his back pocket, looks down at it and says plainly, emotionless, OK. At the restaurant after we all order, Train heads to the bathroom. My mother looks at his empty seat, then at me. The Game’s on, or rather, they all are. Kelly Clarkrson’s I’ll be Home for Christmas desperately tries to cut through the din of the many T.V. 's. A few tears laze down my cheek and slip into my tea. Mom takes a sip of hers, trying not to notice. I think it’s going really well, she says, swirling her napkin along the table. Cleaning a mess that isn’t there. I’m in hell, I say. She smiles. Because she doesn’t understand. Well. You’ll always be his mother, she says consolingly. Don’t forget that. I nod. Then why do I feel like just some woman now? I sit stirring my drink that’s already gone. And my mother, she doesn’t have to smile. Because she knows just what I mean.