“It wasn’t a dream,” Max said. “I saw you out there. The night you littered the neighborhood with angels.”
“You did?”
Max nodded, and though his mouth held the shape of a little smile, his eyes were sad. “There was a huge snowstorm, and when I heard voices outside I was worried that someone’s car had gotten stuck. But it was just you. You and your dad. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you look so happy.”
Something vicious ripped through me at the mention of my dad. A desperate longing, a desire to go back to a time when my hand disappeared completely in his. Those days were too short, too fleeting, and the pain that had built up between us seemed insurmountable. And yet, for just a moment all of that fell away. Nothing mattered but the fact that on the very night that I needed him most, he was there.
My mother was unusually harsh that night. I don’t remember what I did or what she said, but I do know that she was angry enough to hit me. I was far too old for spankings, though I had endured the shame of that particular punishment much longer than I should have. But at a willowy eleven years old I already stood as high as my mom’s shoulder, and no matter how furious she was, spanking was obviously out of the question. So she slapped me.
It was a rather pathetic attempt at discipline, and her open-handed smack across my cheek was weakened by her intoxicated state. But it stung all the same, and tears sprang to my eyes even before she turned away.
“Go to your room,” she barked. But that was the last thing she had to tell me. I couldn’t wait to escape.
The room was cold, and frost formed on the darkened window in patterns that dipped and curled. I shut the door behind me and paused with my hand on the lock. It would feel so good to make the quarter turn that would close me in an impenetrable fortress, but I didn’t dare. Bev hated it when I bolted my door, and I knew that if she came to continue our argument and found herself locked out it would only stoke her fury.
I settled for climbing into my bed fully clothed and pulling the blankets up to the tops of my ears. Only my eyes poked out, and as I lay in the long shadows of a winter night, I watched the world outside my window for some sign that everything would be okay. All I could see was frost.
She had yelled at me before. She had hit me before. But something about the abuse that night burrowed deep inside me and leaked a slow, sad poison. Usually I could close myself off, exist in some quiet, inner place where I had the strength to breathe in and breathe out—to ignore what she had done. Not that night.
I tried to cry quietly, but each sob was torn from some secret place that held tight to such troublesome emotions. Soon I was burying my face in the pillow, trying to muffle the sound of my heart breaking for what had to be the hundredth time. I don’t know how long I huddled there in the dark, but by the time my tears began to wane it was hours past dark.
When a creak of bedsprings alerted me to the fact that I wasn’t alone, I whipped around, terrified that my mother had come to tell me to shut up. But instead of Bev, my dad sat on the edge of my bed. He was still wearing his work clothes, and he smelled of sawdust and metal. In the dim twilight of my bedroom, I could see the lines around his eyes, and a small, fresh cut high on his cheekbone. Even in the pit of my suffering, I wondered what had happen to cause the bright graze.
I tried to ask, but my throat was closed tight.
It was Dad who spoke. “Oh,” he sighed. “Oh, Rachel. I’m so sorry.”
I wasn’t sure why he was sorry. Bev had hit me, not him. But he looked like he was in pain, and when he reached for me I closed my eyes for fear that I might cry harder still.
My dad was not an affectionate man, so I was shocked when he peeled back the blankets and lifted me into his arms as if I weighed nothing at all. It didn’t cost him anything to support my seventy-pound frame, but I felt like he had pulled me from the wreckage of my childhood. I buried my face in his chest and clung to him as if I was a toddler instead of the young woman I believed I was.
We stayed like that for what felt like an age, the passing of one era into the next. I savored the feeling of being cradled in my daddy’s arms, his head bent over mine, forehead resting against my crown. When I was finally calm enough to hear the beat of his heart as it thrummed against my temple, I wondered how long it had been since he had last held me. Years, at least. Had he ever hugged me with such tenderness?
Dad was distant. Distant and busy and forever tired from the long hours he spent at work. Every once in a while he would catch Bev berating me and he’d give me a quick, guilty glance. I suspected that he knew he should do something to stop her, but he didn’t know how. So instead he avoided me. He avoided us. But this—this stolen moment that began with his heartfelt apology—made up for all of it. Almost.
I didn’t want to break the spell, but when Dad realized I was over the worst of it, he gave my back an awkward pat. “It’s snowing,” he said.
It had been snowing all day. “I know.” I sniffed and ran the back of my hand over my eyes, my nose. And with that, the magic was gone. My back was stiff and I was uncomfortable. I wiggled a bit and tried to remember what it felt like to feel so safe, so loved in the circle of his embrace.
“Your mother is asleep.”
I shrugged a little.
“Let’s go outside.” It was a strange, sudden request, and at first I thought he was joking.
“Outside?”
“You should see it, Rach. The snow is still coming down, and in the light of the street lamps it looks like the stars are falling from the sky. I feel like making a snow angel.”
I pushed back from his chest and regarded my dad with disbelief. “You want to do what?”
“I never taught you how to do that, did I?” He looked positively crestfallen at the thought. “In all these years I’ve never played in the snow with you. Not once. Every little girl should play in the snow with her daddy.”
“I know how to make a snow angel,” I told him. But it was the wrong thing to say. His mouth slipped into a forlorn little frown. I tried to soften the blow. “I could … I could show you if you’d like.”
Dad closed his eyes and nodded. He swallowed hard. “I’d like that very much.”
We didn’t bother with snow pants or any of the other winter gear that I’d usually don to play in the snow. Instead, we zipped on our winter coats and stuck our feet in boots, and crept into the winter wonderland like thieves. And I suppose we were stealing something: a few minutes away, a memory of our own. In the midst of all that was our dysfunctional family, it felt decidedly extraordinary to be doing something so normal. We were nothing more than a daddy-daughter pair on our way to kick up the new-fallen snow.
We tromped through the front yard, carving knee-deep tunnels in the powder-soft snow with our boots. It was perfectly still, and the flakes tumbled straight down, as big as silver dollars. They collected on our sleeves and anointed our heads with white halos that glowed in the gentle light of the dim street lamp. I held my arms out and studied the cool dusting of ice.
“It’s really pretty,” I said.
“Beautiful.”
I snuck a peek at Dad, but he wasn’t looking at the snow. He was looking at me.
Dad cleared his throat and motioned to the snow around us. “It won’t hurt if you fall, Rachel. Not tonight. Just let go. I’ll pick you up.”
So I did. I spread my arms out wide and tilted back until gravity had its way. There wasn’t a moment of hesitation in my descent, and when I hit the snow it puffed around me and drifted softly over my cheeks. I didn’t expect the sweet cushion of the fall, and I couldn’t stop the giggle that escaped my lips as I flung my arms and legs. I felt like a very little girl. Carefree. Light as air. Indescribably happy.
Dad kept his promise. When my snow angel was done, he caught me around the middle and plucked me from the center of my design so I didn’t have to ruin the white perfection with my footprints. We did it again and again, all over our yard and beyond, and each time I fell Dad lifted
me from the snow so that it looked like each careful pattern was the result of some delightful enchantment.
After we had littered the neighborhood with our divine gifts, Dad reached for my hands one last time. My cheeks were flushed but my fingers were frozen, and as he pressed them in between his giant palms, he gave me a mysterious smile. It was layered and complex, happy and bittersweet, hopeful but filled with regret. And then he did something so surprising I believed for years to come that I had dreamed up the entire astonishing night.
He bent and kissed my cheek. He whispered, “You are my angel.”
CHAPTER 11
RACHEL
October 20
With Cyrus in California, Lily and I decided to have a sleepover. We gathered her lavender pillow and a handful of teddy bears and watched a princess movie in the king-sized bed I shared with her father. Cyrus would have been furious if he knew that I spread a bath towel over the bedspread and painted Lily’s toenails in the flickering light of the TV, but for once I didn’t care. After reliving my snow angel memory, I was exhausted and dazed, tingling with emotions I hadn’t felt in a very long time.
It helped to listen to Lily’s gasps and giggles as a preteen beauty found her on-screen prince. But it was even more therapeutic to know that when my daughter remembered her childhood, it would be blessedly devoid of the drama I had endured. I had worked hard to give Lily a happy, stable life, and as I watched her lovely profile, I knew that I had succeeded. At least, in part.
I played in the snow with my daughter. Baked her cookies, told her she was beautiful, painted her toenails. And though Cyrus was far from the ideal father, he didn’t hurt Lily—physically or otherwise. He more or less left her alone. But with the truth of my one precious father-memory still stinging the frayed edge of my soul, I was sorry that Lily would never know that sort of love. Even if it was as brief and temporary as an extinguished flame.
“Lil?” I asked when the credits were rolling. “Are you happy?”
My daughter turned to me and crinkled her nose. The delicate dusting of freckles across the bridge rose and fell. “Of course, I’m happy. I have purple toes!” She waggled her feet at me.
“I don’t mean about your toes, I mean …” But I didn’t know how to say what I meant. It was too big, too heavy for someone so young.
Lily seemed to sense my hesitation. She crossed her legs beneath her and regarded me seriously. “There is something that would make me very happy,” she said carefully.
“What?”
“I’d like to meet my grandpa.”
A sad laugh burst from me before I could stop it. “Honey, I haven’t seen your grandpa in years.”
“Why?”
Why indeed. It was a sticky, impossible question and I didn’t know how to answer it. How far back did I have to go to find the place where our roads diverged? How could I explain that sometimes a thousand little things added up to something so big it had the power to crush a relationship? If I tried to tell Lily about every small argument and misunderstanding, they would seem like nothing at all. But when I stacked them all side by side, they became an un-scalable wall.
Never mind the fact that I had made my choice long ago. When Cyrus swept in like my personal Prince Charming, my dad seemed to automatically fall into the role of the wicked stepfather. In the light of the impossible romance that was kindled, everything my dad did and said was cast into shadows and suspicion. Did he have my best interests in mind? Had he ever? My bitter, teenaged heart was still torn from the knowledge that my dad chose my mother over me. So I chose Cyrus.
I sighed. “Honey, it’s been too long. I couldn’t go back, even if I wanted to.”
“Why not?”
Kneading my forehead with my fingers, I tried to come up with a way to explain that Cyrus had forbidden me to see my own father. He called my dad a blue-collar grunt, the sort of white trash that a Price simply couldn’t be associated with. Of course, I was naive and eager to believe anything that my newfound love declared to be true, but when I thought back to those pivotal years I was ashamed that I bought Cyrus’s ugly opinions of my family hook, line, and sinker. How could I admit that to my daughter?
“Why can’t I meet my grandpa?” Lily pressed. “You asked me if I was happy, and I’m telling you that this would make me happy. I want to meet him.”
“When I asked you if you were happy, I wasn’t talking about your grandpa. I was talking about your dad.”
“What does Dad have to do with this?” Lily looked confused.
“Everything!” I threw up my hands, exasperated. “I’ve tried so hard to give you a good life. To spare you from the sort of childhood that I had. But no matter what I do, I can’t be everything for you. I can’t be a dad.”
“And you can’t be a grandpa.”
I dropped my forehead in my hands and moaned. “Fine, Lily. You’re right. I can’t be a grandpa.”
She was quiet for a long minute, then I felt her shift on the bed. When I looked, Lily had flopped back on her pillow and was staring at the ceiling. “Maybe you have to stop trying to be everything,” she said. “And stop trying to do everything.”
“Isn’t a perfect life a happy life?”
“There’s no such thing as a perfect life,” Lily said seriously.
“Don’t I know it.” I sank back into my own pillow and rolled on my side to face my daughter. “Have I failed you completely? Will all of this come out in counseling someday?”
She giggled. “You bet. But, no. You haven’t failed. I just want what I’ve always wanted: the truth. I can take it, Mom.”
“You’ve been getting it. Big, fat doses of the truth. It’s ugly, isn’t it?”
“Sometimes.”
“And you still want it?”
“Always.” Lily tucked her hands beneath her cheek and stared at me with eyes so big and deep they seemed bottomless. “I’m not afraid. Besides, God is my shield. You don’t have to be.”
I bit my bottom lip and considered the wisdom and maturity of my amazing daughter. “Where did you hear that God is your shield?”
“It’s in the Psalms.”
“And since when do you read the Psalms?” The Prices were a churchgoing family, always had been, but we weren’t the scripture-quoting type.
“Sarah has devotions before pageant practice. Yesterday she talked about that passage. It’s a promise. Sarah says God is my defender and deliverer.”
“I thought I was.”
Lily just blinked.
“Okay.” I reached out and smoothed a piece of hair from her forehead. “I get it. You’re growing up. You’re strong and grounded and amazing in every way. And you’re old enough to know why you can’t see your grandpa.”
“I am?”
“Apparently.” I blew a hard breath through my nose. “I didn’t think you were. But I guess I’ve been wrong about a lot of things.”
My mother’s death rocked me to the core, and not just because it was so unexpected. In the wake of her accident, I battled a dozen different emotions, from grief to shock to something I was much less inclined to acknowledge: relief.
I could hardly even admit to myself that one of the side effects of Bev’s passing was the gradual lightening of the cloud that seemed to perpetually hang over me. The house was empty without her, cavernous even, but there was an undeniable peace in the echo of those silent rooms.
It was summertime, my father’s busiest work season, and since I had nothing at all to occupy my time, I spent several days after Bev’s funeral holed up in my room, confined to the only space where I had previously felt safe. The four walls of my bedroom were a security blanket of sorts, a place where I could hide—and even lock the door, now that my mother was no longer around to forbid it.
I don’t remember exactly when it happened, but there came a point that I realized my self-inflicted captivity was totally unnecessary. I could go wherever I wanted to go. Do whatever I wanted to do. At a fragile fourteen years old, it was a diz
zying, thrilling, terrifying thought.
My first foray into the world without my mother was far from earth-shattering, but it changed the entire landscape for me. One afternoon I emerged from my bedroom and surveyed the dusty clutter of our outdated living room. Everything seemed fuzzy and stale, and though I blinked my eyes to clear the haze, the picture didn’t change. So I picked my way across the crumb-littered carpet and pulled back the heavy curtains. The day outside was bright and clean as polished glass, downright blinding to my unsuspecting eyes.
Since Bev didn’t like to have the windows open, it took me a while to coax the rusting lock to turn. It eventually let loose with a wooden exhalation, a creak that seemed to say, “Finally.” I threw the double-hung pane as high as it would go and watched as the warm breeze from outside transformed my living room. The fresh air filtered into every corner, exposing all the places that time, and my mother, had forgotten.
It took me the rest of the afternoon to clean our living space. I filled an old ice cream bucket with warm, soapy water and wiped down the walls. Then I dusted and carefully moved every stick of furniture into the dining room. It was an exhausting endeavor, but I was determined, and I managed to exile everything but the couch. When the room was empty, I vacuumed for an hour at least, scouring carpet, baseboards, and even the blades of the ceiling fan. It was suppertime before I stepped back and surveyed my handiwork.
Nothing was the same. I had ripped down the heavy curtains and left only a light, bamboo shade in their place. And everything was rearranged, from the furniture to the outdated knickknacks that populated the tables. It looked like a different room. A different room in a different house. There wasn’t even a hint of my mother in the new, sunny space. It was exactly what I wanted.
Dad came home before dark. I knew that there was a lot more work for him to do at the construction site, but since Bev’s passing he felt obligated to be home for me as much as possible. That included awkward, nightly suppers around the big table in the dining room. Someone from the church brought over a different meal every night, but whether we dined on lasagna or chicken casserole, it all tasted the same to me.