Back to Chapter 13 part 2
Chapter Fourteen – Rumpelstiltskin Contracts - Part 1
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I
exited the courtroom zealous and pensive.
I picked up Penelope from Montessori school. We Bakers had a mini-reunion at the
rental. Pa Pa Timothy and Penelope
played a find the raisin under the bottle cap three-card-Monty game. We huddled in Penelope’s play area in a halo
of smiles over Penelope’s ignorant innocence.
The
property was not settled. December 15,
2009, brewed as a three hundred and sixty-five day Louisiana requirement cirrus cloud to file
for official divorce. Ashley was adamant
about the legal mathematic mandates for segregated roofs from inception.
I
was free. My greatest fear was
averted. I had pavers to the driveway
and a map of papers based on a judicial decree.
Tuesday was our day forever.
Court
was the cornerstone of our under-construction life. The ramifications had only a tangential
impact on Penelope. Tuesday evening was
as Tuesday morning. I fought for a
Houdini-dexterity to manifest continuity.
The Nottoway audience saw an object
floating. Given rudimentary
comprehension of Newton’s
laws, the crowd saw gravity defy the polarity of North and South. The domestic flock sat in frazzled awe.
My
immediate task was to traverse each day with the same result, absent the energy
required. Maybe I could develop a
perpetual motion machine of man based on magnets. North repels north. South repels south. Maybe I could use the opposing attractions
and incestuous repulsions to spin in a cyclone.
I could alternate my repulsion from Ashley with my pull towards Penelope
to find a balance to fuel survival in Nottoway.
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However
arduous the trial was, the aftermath from Ashley was worse. Ashley’s ferocity in the post-war landscape
was powered by a petulant disdain. The
outcome forced upon Ashley by the judge was an extension of my punishment to
Penelope. Ethan made the judge do
this.
I
poked the hornet’s nest of an infallible Nottoway Pharaoh’s daughter. Wrath was riding the wind. Hail ho, the eleventh plague, what happens
when the first born lives? Ashley placed
her father’s golden cross necklace around Penelope’s throat and told her she
could never take it off. Bath time, bedtime,
school: the collar was set like a blinking-dot constant reminder of where I was
and who “owned” who.
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My
life continued in slalom. During a fit
Penelope threw our egg-white belled kitchen-timer I got for time outs against
the carpet. Penelope loved Rafi’s Joshua
Giraffe and Laurie Berkner’s Goldfish song in my car. We were progressing in undulation.
Penelope
and I got a library book on prehistoric times displaying human evolution from
Cro-Magnon, Homo sapiens to early man.
We had a conversation about how people evolved from a common ancestor
with apes. Our evolution led us to
travel more standing up and on the ground.
Apes moved on to live more in trees.
Sons of Adam waited for English.
I
talked to Penelope about how we developed a thumb and the ability to use
tools. The library book had a
walking-chart of our evolution. I
proposed a perspective to Penelope about how our bodies evolved over millions
of years. Discussions like these were
about exposure, not for retained assessed knowledge, but for encouraging
questions.
I
tried to pull out age-appropriate kernels of thought. What was above a child’s head was above, but
interest often transforms the line of learning form work to play. Penelope was interested in dinosaurs and
asked, “When did humans come around?” The question linked into her brain. I tried to feed interest with exposure for
interconnections in the one everything, not scholastic ramifications.
One
night, I had a bit of a runny nose. When
we were getting ready for bath time Penelope told me how she told her friend at
school, “The snot is like a net that catches the germs so they don’t stay in
your body. You have to blow your nose to
get the germs out.” Maybe what I exposed
Penelope to did resonate. We read a
kid’s book on germs and microorganisms a couple of weeks before. I was not trying to raise Einstein, just a
daughter growing to be conscious of our interconnected and mutually-flawed
world focused on critical thinking rather than rhetoric.
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On
October 6, 2009, I was cuddling with Penelope.
After we read our stories, Penelope said, “Mommy told me, daddy only
pretends to love me.” I was quiet for a
minute.
I
knew we just went through the trial.
Ashley had her unsolicited education on the judge in some other
bedtime-story denominator. I said, “I
love you. Your mommy loves you. Believe
what you see and feel.” I gave Penelope
a look in her eyes and hug that I hoped could translate past a generation and
five-year-old homo sapien brainwaves to communicate a sentence that goes so far
beyond syllables.
The
following morning at breakfast Penelope recounted a conversation Penelope had
with her Oma. Penelope was excited about
displaying Oma’s Delftware baubles from Holland
at show and tell. Penelope said that Oma
told her, “When Daddy is being angry or yelling. The judge makes you go with daddy. Pretend that this pillow is the judge and you
can hit the pillow.”
I
was starting to look at homes to buy.
Ashley had deferred settling the property stuff until after the
custody. I could contemplate the number
of chain links on my anchor.
Ashley
sent me an email about the when and where for a dance class Ashley unilaterally
signed Penelope to attend. This schedule
was on Wednesday nights. Each week
Penelope would rotate between mom and dad.
I had two days. I scrambled for a
leotard, tap shoes, and ballerina slippers.
I was pretty-pink out of my color spectrum. I found a dance skirt and a kitten bag to
carry the shoes during my lunch hour. I
sequestered a pony tail into this kangaroo-pouch fake hair-bun contraption the
clerk sold me.
Penelope
and I just made it to five-thirty practice after work. I sat in the waiting area reading a Frankl
book, “An Unconscious God.” The trophies,
costumes and dance-mom bulletin-board pinterest ballerina-guinea-pig material
paraded. Feathers, rhinestones, mascara;
there must be attic bins for this bulimia of esteem-trophies. Risqué, crazy schedules makeup cases, gloss,
brushes, back-up pairs of eyelashes, earrings; mom’s ordered Pizza Hut after,
no time to eat dinner together, siblings did homework on the floor. I made pasta with Manda Sausage when we got
home. Guess it could be football or
baseball. Who am I to judge, this was
dance season one.
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October
10, 2009, on Saturday night Penelope and I watched the movie Babe to end the
evening before bedtime. About the
two-minute warning I told Penelope, “When the movie is over it is bath time.” Penelope wanted to view all of the credits.
I
pushed the line back for the credits.
Penelope pushed further. The
first credit song scroll was not enough.
Penelope kicked her legs and screamed.
Penelope started to swing punches.
I spoke, “Calm down. Hitting
hurts.”
Two
days later on Monday, I was making chicken fajitas for dinner. I rented Penelope a library movie called
“Witches in Stitches.” One witch gets
turned into a talking pumpkin for Halloween.
Penelope found the hexed-gourd humorous.
We watched the thirty minute opus the previous Tuesday. We made a fort out of two kitchen chairs, a
green blanket and the sofa as our cuddle theater.
Penelope
wanted a predicable repeat showing. I
needed time to make dinner. The
five-year-old world was not willing to wait.
I tried deflection. Then I
ignored the curtain-cat calls for immediate gratification.
Penelope
kicked her legs on the ground to convert me from chef to construction
worker. I said, “Be patient. Use big-girl words to get what you wanted. Throwing fits never works.” Penelope pushed, hit and screamed. Penelope’s
temper was lost in an overstuffed dryer lint-trap. Penelope had used up her warning. I put her in time-out. Penelope kept swinging and telling me,
“No”
I
tried so hard to try to teach Penelope skills to help her to de-escalate
herself. I felt like the battle of court
was over, but the victims were still under the guise of war. Juneteenth had yet to happen in Texas.
After
my rations were exhausted, I closed Penelope in her room. I held the knob, as if we were at the
porch-house bathroom and Ashley was crying with me. I imagined if Ashley saw this scene. Ashley would twist every molecule of blood
out of this towel to contort the whys and how’s of this moment to rationalize
why I should not be permitted to be Penelope’s father. How many miles can a shark smell a drop of
plasma? I was a parent pushed, calm, but
still holding that doorknob.
I
hoped for a reprieve as if everything in Penelope’s angst could be allocated to
my sophomoric schoolyard failures. Ashley’s
judgment careened cannonballs in the sides of my ship everyday attempting to
navigate these waters. I had to stay off
radar.
I
read, How to Behave So Your Preschooler Will, Too, Girls! Helping
Your Little Girl Become an Extraordinary Woman, The Complete Single
Father, The Everything Parent’s Guide to Raising Girls, and a slew
of John Gray books. Where was the answer
to how to respond to what was on the other side of that dogmatic doorknob?
I
opened the door. Penelope screamed and
covered her ears over any sound that emanated from my lips. I was patient. I knew there was more to this outburst than
blanket-forts or movie credits.
Penelope
kicked the door so hard the smoke detector fell off the wall. Penelope screamed out, “I hate you daddy.” I knew this was not about heroes or villains,
fantasies or nightmares. This was
adult-life in an unfair cataclysm with a child’s frustrated-perplexed heart.
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On
the inside sometimes I was worried about having to be as perfect as Ashley
purported to be, to play her game. Hare
against my tortoise five-foot smidgen legs; I was tired. There was no margin for error. What if I forgot what calendar day it was,
just once?
Why
did I care so much if Ashley likes me or if we can be friends or make peace? How can any measure of self-worth be wrapped
up in that chaotic contradictory bullshit burrito? I was disappointed in myself.
I
went into Penelope’s room and sat down on the ground. Penelope scampered into the closet to hide
like a bunny in a form. Penelope was on
the descending side of the hill. I told
Penelope, “I love you. You don’t need to
be scared of daddy. Daddy is here to
help you, teach you, and love you. Are
you angry?” Penelope shook her head
yes. “Why are you angry?”
Penelope
said, “Because you and mommy are separated.
I don’t like it here. It’s all
different.” I asked Penelope, “Do you
know why mommy and daddy separated?”
Penelope said, “No.” I asked, “Do
you want to know?” Penelope said, “Yes, can we talk about it during bath
time?” I said, “Sure,” and picked
Penelope up in my arms and held her in my sway for two minutes.
429
I
was getting the train back on the tracks.
We started our bath routine.
While I was filling the tub I sat with Penelope in my lap. I told her the outline of the story about
December 15th in a way I thought was age appropriate.
I
told Penelope, “On the Sunday after we played in the snow daddy got a phone
call from mommy. Mommy told daddy that
we needed to talk. I asked mommy what
was going on and if we could talk. Mommy
said we could talk after work the next day.
The next day Daddy came home from work and the house was empty. Daddy was all by himself.
Then
mommy came home and said, “I brought Penelope to Oma’s house so we could
talk.” Mommy told daddy that she did not
want to be married to daddy anymore and that she wanted to be separated. Mommy said daddy could either go to a hotel
and leave or mommy was going to go over to Oma’s house, but that mommy and
daddy would not live together anymore.
I
told Penelope, “Daddy did not understand exactly why, only it was that mommy
just wanted to live in a house without daddy.
She still wanted to live with you.
This was not your fault. This was
between your mom and me.” I do not know
if it gave Penelope anymore answers to help or not.
Right
after Penelope asked me to make up a story.
I put Penelope in the bath. I
made up a story about a magic portal through a closet where a little girl went
to a magical world. I used hand motions
surfing bath toys. Birds picked the
little girl up and put her on a whale.
The whale was going to eat her, but the little girl’s daddy followed
through the magical world.
The
daddy ran super fast on top the water and saved the girl when she got on his
shoulders. The daddy picked up the whale
with his hands while standing on the water and chucked the whale into the
sun. Then the daddy and little girl ran
back to the beach. The girl pulled out a
magical flute. A door appeared. They went through the door and were back at
home.
Penelope
apparently wanted to change the subject to some imaginary fun and let the real
story of her life sink into her background-thoughts. Penelope was five. Penelope was capable of understanding pieces
and what context I could put it in was a moving target. I just tried to be me and go with my gut.
At
bedtime we read our stories. One was
about a bear going to sleep in a cave and he kept asking for lanterns. We cuddled and went to sleep. Penelope told me she loved me. We prayed our goodnight “Our Father.”
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Penelope
was caught in this middle. Ashley
attributed Penelope’s fits to me. There
was no duality. Whatever tantrums
occurred in Penelope’s other-world were probably either placated by ice cream
cones, McDonald’s drive-through toys and cartoon-afternoons or allocated to
me. Ashley could not fathom how Penelope
could yearn for that which Penelope knew when it was the totality of a man
Ashley was rejecting. To consider such
canards was political suicide. Ashley was
spewing such a compendium of scandalous propaganda within her clan. Exposure could kill votes. A kindergartener’s deliberations were clearly
apparitions of contemplation.
October
20, 2009, we read books on the sofa. I
made red beans and rice. I mixed orange
juice with tropical punch Kool Aid and put a Halloween pumpkin straw. Penelope made up Halloween names for all the
food. The sausage was a snake. Beans were bugs. Drink was witch’s brew. We played “Guess Who.” Penelope lost one of her front teeth the day
before she arrived.
That
morning in my car Penelope said, “I love you daddy.” I told her, “I love you too sweetheart.” Penelope said, “I like when you call me
sweetheart.” We sang “Aiken Drum” from
our Rafi CD about a guy whose face is made of spaghetti and pizza and
cheese. Penelope was turning a
corner.
431
I
stated to look at houses on the weekends Penelope was with Ashley. I had previously prepared all the
computations and papers, but Ashley had still not committed to moving forward
with the property settlement.
October
24, 2009, I picked Penelope up from the porch-house at nine a.m. in my biweekly
revisit ritual of sublimation. Driving
up to the house was intimidating in its wide girth. The house was built catty-corner in the curve
with the porch stretching from left to right with the height of the four
second-story dormers and the tower window in the center. The estate expanded to the right with the
drive to the three-car garage.
Penelope
seemed sad and wanted to stay with Ashley.
Penelope cried and clung. Jeffery
and Hilton’s trucks stood sentry like gargoyles. Hilton was in the background for every Saturday
exchange like a hired security witness mowing grass or drinking in the kitchen
even with the court date behind us.
I
gave Penelope space and spoke succinctly.
I wanted to eliminate these transitions on Ashley’s porch and pick
Penelope up after school on Friday afternoons.
After court and the rants on Magic Card Fridays I was still pulling into
that driveway twice a month.
Ashley,
Penelope and I sat on the porch bench outside the Dutch door as a three of us
with Penelope as the peanut butter. We
talked to Penelope together. Ashley held
Penelope who cried in trickles. Penelope
said, “I don’t want to go.” Ashley
carped, “Am I going to have to put her in the car-seat crying again?” I said, “I am not in any hurry. We will wait until she’s ready.” Ashley enacted her own recusal inside. Penelope followed like a gosling.
I
sat in silence. Jeffery came out and
said, “I don’t see how going back and forth from house to house is good for a
kid. If it were up to me that kid would
be in one house all the time. I don’t
understand that judge. This is
crazy.”
Penelope
was right inside. Jeffery started talking
about his fantasy football team. A few
years ago when the Patriots went undefeated I guided Jeffery to a championship
with all his friends in a willful neglect of my own progeny according to
Ashley. Those days were gone. I was not in the mood.
Ashley
stood with Penelope in the mudroom mini-hallway leading to the Dutch door. I over heard Penelope say, “You and daddy
were talking. I want you and daddy to talk so you can get married again.” Ashley did not say anything.
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The
concept of Ashley verbalizing that her decisions had hurt Penelope’s feelings
was like trying to explain that Cro-Magnon timeline to a Garden of Eden
enthusiast. Ashley was blind to see the
reason Penelope was crying had more to do with a five-year-old grasping the one
little picture window of time where she got to see both her parent’s in the
same place again. Penelope was
stretching the experience out in whatever manner she could find to prolong her
parent’s comingled presence.
The
rationale in our stage of post-parental separation evolution was completely
obvious to me. To Ashley, the evil judge
was forcing Penelope to spend time with her cold-hearted daddy. The court railroad derailed.
I
sat on the bench. Ashley remained in the
kitchen. Penelope was in the intermediate
mudroom by herself and said, “Ah a roach!”
I quietly walked over and said, “Daddy is good at getting rid of those,
can I see?” It was a pretend rubber
Halloween roach. I joked with Penelope,
“You give me a hug and I’ll get rid of the bug.” Ashley came over and offered Penelope a trick
or treat glow stick. We were ready to
go. There was no screaming or crying
just walking over to my car and on with our life. Wealthy house, a loved child; why invent
problems?
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Penelope
and I went to the Berry
Town produce stand. We bought kiwis and cucumbers. Penelope helped scoop fresh peanuts in the
shells. We picked out two little
Halloween pumpkins and painted on faces.
Penelope named hers Pirate because he ended up with only one eye after
Penelope painted over one. We named mine
Monster Glasses.
We
went to the shoe store. Penelope really
wanted some high-heels to wear on weekends.
Penelope was trapped in a Catholic school uniform all week. Ashley had purchased iCarley and Hanna
Montana-heels to go along with the karaoke machine.
I
felt like girls have it rough enough in this world with so many misguided
messages about body image and being overly sexualized. Penelope was five. I did not want Penelope bombarded with tween
images. Save the lip-gloss bullets for a
while. I wanted to give Penelope every
measure of self-confidence.
The
eight to ten version of Penelope would face twenty-five year olds playing high
school students. I wanted that tween
soldier to have the tools to assert her own desexualized level-headed
self-determination. Miley Cyrus was
clearly not the ideal starting paver for such as path. Beware of the hourglass single-parented
princesses.
I
tried to be as honest and as age appropriate with Penelope as possible. I felt like the images of shows like Hanna
Montana were more confusing between real and pretend than Looney Toons or
Scooby Doo. Distorted body images and
compromised in teenage-boy intelligences were more damaging to some girls then
rated-R movies. Lobotomized social
adaptation could manipulate kids into a homogenized thought-process.
The
shows may be fine if they can use a small-dose perspective to have fun with,
but Penelope was five with enough mess to deal with besides the Justin Beiber and
Diva birthday party invitations her school friends sent. We certainly did not watch or listen to that
gum in our house. I already had Penelope
tell me more than once her tummy was too big at bath time. I could only control so much of what was in
her environment. I had to give Penelope
tools for her box. We got low white
high-heels with no characters for now.
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For
my birthday at the end of October, Tim and my parents came over for
dinner. My mom was down because her best
friend finally succumbed to ALS. I use
to babysit her friend’s kids in high school.
Years of watching an origami body fold in on itself, now young adults
with no mother.
When
Penelope was playing, I told them about Penelope telling me that Ashley said
that I only pretended to love her. Happy
birthday to me; my mom made a blueberry cake.
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November
14, 2009, Penelope and I had a daddy-daughter date to see the movie “Where the
Wild Things Are.” We had read the book
from the library. Max acts out at home. His parents are divorced. Max’s big sister is moving to adolescence
while Max is still building snow forts.
Max feels lost and ignored. Max
runs off and takes a sailboat to a magical land of the Wild Things where the
characters parallel emotions inside Max and people in his life, his dad, his
mom, and his missing friends.
Ultimately
Max tries to teach his friend Carol how to control his emotions and express him
self. Carol hits and throws tantrums and
does not know how to talk about what he is feeling with one of the female wild
things.
I
remembered playing with Penelope in the backyard of the porch-house in the far
rear left corner where sixteen-foot tall bamboo grew. We played superhero pandas, wizards or
different characters like Supergirl and Spiderman, but pandas were our
favorite. When Penelope and I built
snowmen was the last time I felt like we were a family.
I
wanted simplicity back. I wanted
Penelope not to have to splice me off into a corner of her life where Penelope had
to push her mom out to fit me in an either or life. Help Soren.
I
saw myself exposed to Penelope in a way most kids never see their parents as
people. Parents are supposed to be
absolutes who always know. Penelope was
not supposed to see me vulnerable. I did
my best to conceal with a daddy-do-all face.
Mommy was perfect to Penelope. I
swallowed pride-sucking bitter tastes too often to do what I knew was best for
Penelope. That including trying to not
love her mother.
Shattered Snowflakes
White-bread ignorance bleeds in red like vampire tears
huddled in a sequestered corner of bamboo.
Sunlight is abandoned for a starved core. The skeletal-flesh wastes in mirror-only
sight. Explanations shiver for daylight
like medicine of afterthoughts bottled-up in a winery for soured grapes and
maple leaves.
December is coming.
Naked trees, pale-sap will drip from an aperture sticky and as open as a
nude city bustling with faces like snowflakes.
The light is attached to a little girl’s burned-up matchsticks
incinerated in stories strewn about the sidewalk in pick-up sticks.
Shedding leaves rumble with tumbleweed speed, bowling
balls of clogged-up emotional drainpipes, determined like Rochambeau finding
logic in the inane. Icicles grow like
whiskers on a porch-home trickling drip-of-water questions to try on new
outfits for skinny-dipping in thirty below.
Frost breaks heated-step traps snaring spring in
ice-cold roots in stolen bamboo forests.
Pandas prowl like super heroes on patrol in magic unfurled in
flags.
Painted bears fall from the sky with frayed thread
capes. The satellite of what might have
been disappears with the rotation.
Meteors can not mention the turning planet like a magnet of attrition.
436
In
late November, I started to get blood pumping pains lurking in my skull. The first came like a cobra strike after
working out lifting free-weights.
Another slither swashed my bloodstream again the next day. The blood swelled and my heart rate elevated as
I got dizzy and faint. I scheduled an
MRI on my brain.
Maybe
it was stress. My cerebellum felt like a
porcupine in a Ziploc bag with quills rocketing off like New Years Eve. During the MRI I sat completely still in a
tube on a flat stretcher for fifteen minutes.
The technician told me the neurologist saw something. The tech put a die in my blood stream to show
contrast in the brain for a second scan.
Thoughts
subway-trained through my cranium. It
could be brain cancer. Was this some
aneurism elevating up the system’s core with the pipes wheezing and joints
whistling? Was there some random bolt
popped like a singed kernel evacuating the plant for the five o’clock buzzer
needing down time, out of control and patience melting?
I
could just need some medicine, brain surgery.
I might die to the butcher knife in my utensil drawer. I might not get to be there for
Penelope. Whatever it was I would face
the pulse. I would manage what I can
control and not try to be in fear of what I can not.
Two
weeks later I got the results of the MRI.
I was deemed normal. There was
nothing organic causing the headaches.
Involuntary Vegovagal still lurked.
I also got a prostate exam for extra precaution. Fingers up an ass, pike in a skull; both ends
were no answer.
When
I was younger, my father perpetually reminded me how the size of my head was
problematic to the hedonistic carnal geometry of his marital dynamic. I could only extrapolate these mathematics to
society at large. If I did that when
entering the world, what would I do with the contents of my skull once set
loose?
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Email to Ashley November 10,
2009
I am trying to move on with my life. I have diminishing hopes that I will be able
to set up a new home for Penelope and I by Christmas, because of your lack of
response regarding the settlement of our property issues. The prolonged timeframe has postponed the
sense of potential closure such a transition would provide. From the limited discussions we have had
regarding the dissolution of our marriage and the evolving environment we have
created for our daughter since the enactment of that cessation, I thought we
could at minimum agree that once the custody agreement was made whether by our
mutual agreement or by judicial decree that we would allow each other the
liberation to move on with our lives.
I know we do not talk.
We do not converse on a level other than the imaginary, mandatory,
superficial, or regarding our genuine mutual love and concern for our
daughter. You know I never wanted to get
divorced. All my pleas intended as
cotton-swabs came across as arrow-points.
My words even now feel as futile as the fingers of a wave across Gibraltar. There
are pieces that I have resigned in my heart that I may never understand or be
able to mend completely. I know that
this is what you want. So I have let you
go to live as you wish. Please let me do
the same. Sincerely, Ethan
Ashley
only responded with an email, “I assure you my attorney is working on this,”
and “We have a trip planned to Breckenridge Colorado.”
A
few weeks turned around. My attorney
Martha received a message from Trunchbull,
Ms. Baker believes at some point Mr. Baker will move,
since he is renting the house in which he now resides. She does not want to be traveling lots of
miles to exchange Penelope should he chose to move to New Orleans, or elsewhere.
I
just kept waiting for that letter or message from my attorney when Ashley was
going to move out of the porch-house and back in with her parents and foot me
with half the mortgage while we attempted to sell the porch-house on top of my
rental. The money just was not there to
try to sell that albatross-Tara. I was
married to the only Scrooge McDuck with a gold-coin swimming pool vagina in Nottoway.
438
The
next email I got from Ashley came from Ashley Hingle at Gmail instead of Ashley
Baker. Nonchalant and business-like, my
surname lost its application to correlate with its long-time
inapplicability. I imagined Hilton
ecstatic to have his claim re-intact, printing up placards and business cards
to hand out at funerals and birthdays.
My iconoclastic taint and crust was finally removed like burnt pastry
flecks on an otherwise scrumptious éclair.
So Ashley left my name like her wedding ring.
The
months before Ashley left I use to frequently find her ring by the kitchen
garbage-disposal maw. Ashley would go to
work without the circle. Ashley would
take the band off when she gave Penelope a bath. I did all the dishes.
In
September of 2008, Ashley tore up the house looking for her ring like a coin in
a Bible story. Ashley even called my
mother contemplating the finger-halo’s placement in my parent’s home from a
recent visit. Ashley found the diamond
in the side pocket of her purse. After
the separation, I found the trinket in the little plaster dish Penelope made at
Montessori school next to the kitchen sink where the bauble had bedded-down so
many innocuous nights before.
439
November
29, 2009, the anniversary of the separation was approaching. I felt lonely, but I wanted to say goodbye to
my marriage. I wrote a letter and left the
allocution in the mailbox of the porch-house with the Christmas garland draping
the railings.
Ashley, it has been months tip-toeing to a year. This feeling still throbs like a dull welt,
like a chest thud reverberating until clarity can steady the vibrations. Clarity’s only chance may be
forgetfulness. I do not have any
misconceptions of our resigned inevitability, but hope is like the frayed
fibers of a rope I wish you were still on the other end of despite how long ago
I know you have let go.
You broke my heart.
I have a pain in me like shrapnel ghosts. Gray hairs part. I feel like Quasimodo. All these knee-scars no longer stretch in
symmetry. I do not know what to believe
about the syllables like raindrops from your lips over our decade. They mattered to me. Despite how much my brain wants to point out
the mirage like a field guide, my heart wants to touch them like a doubting
Thomas to see that the rain-words were real during their descent.
Where is the girl who shared her heart with me on that
green sofa; that knelt on those gray stones to pick up a roll of film and held
me for the world to see?
My pride sits as love’s discard. My wash of letters and emails are words
spoken to your empty pillow. Our rings
bed in a nightstand. Bastille Day has no
pause.
How could I have mattered so little to be discarded
like a gum wrapper? You jettisoned hope
like paper money on a crashing plane over open waters? I know I am not the man of your dreams, but I
loved you. I was kind. I never wanted you to hurt. I still do not now, but it is like I was just
supposed to shut it off one day.
You told me I should have known or seen the iceberg in
the water. I did not. I was supposed to be angry. I felt like a lost Labrador
begging for a chance to mend.
I could once call you wifee. I want you to move on to live a happy life,
but it is like I never got to tell wifee goodbye, to me that is who you
were. I do not know what to make of
myself, of my future, of the thought that you and I are so fundamentally
disconnected.
Part of me wants to scream out the Counting Crows song
we woke up to so many mornings on our CD player alarm clock,
“I can’t see nothing round here. Would you catch me if I was falling? Would you kiss me if I was leaving? Would you hold me, because I am lonely
without you? I am under the gun around
here.”
I feel infinitely separated. Maybe you could just tell me you do not hate
me. Give me a token of closure, like in
some alternate universe we could be friends.
Tell your family I am not some monster, they seem to think I am. So when I walk the steps of our porch to
greet our daughter, I do not feel like a stranger in Paris struggling to simply purchase bread.
I have been living an eleven-month December. You married me out of pity for me and
yourself. So as Duritz sang,
“Good night Elizabeth,
Good night, Good night Elizabeth. We couldn’t all be cowboys. Some of us are clowns. Some of us are dancers on the midway. We roam from town to town. I hope that everybody finds a little
flame. Maybe I should just say my
prayers and light myself on fire and walk out on the wire once again.”
Good bye, Ethan
440
Penelope
and I were learning how to grow from the separation and be a family in two
realms. I would prepare dinner with
Penelope playing in the background of Sam Cooke and Bob Marley. We would dance in the kitchen with Penelope’s
head on my shoulder to “Another Saturday Night” and “Three Little Birds.” Christmas was coming. Cooke’s “Chain Gang” was her favorite.
One
Saturday I planned part of a day for myself and had my parents pick Penelope up
from Ashley’s. A half-hour later I got a
phone call.
“How many hours will Penelope not be in your
care? You have to give me the
opportunity to be with her if you are away for more than six hours? There is a legal standard.”
I
said, “It’s over, quit playing legal games.
What I do is no longer any of your business. I trust you to do what you feel is in the
best interest of Penelope and I would appreciate the same courtesy.”
“How long? You
have to tell me.”
After
about six or seven minutes I hung up.
441
Penelope
and I set up our own six-foot fresh Christmas tree in our rented home. We made craft and felt ornaments. We hung the accoutrements to the sounds of Otis
Redding, the Avett Brothers, and Sam Cooke.
Penelope loved the “Chain Gang” and the Avett’s Emotionalism album. I baked Christmas tree cookies.
December
17, 2009, I went to Penelope’s winter solstice celebration at her Montessori
school, but it rained. Everyone was
crammed shoulder to shoulder into one pickle-packed room. I was out on the porch and could not hear or
see Penelope. So I left. I did not tell Penelope I was coming, but was
hoping to surprise her.
Penelope
and I made a pinky promise that I would not close the door if when it is time
for time-out that Penelope would stay in the room to calm down. We were growing. Penelope’s fits were less often, maybe once a
month.
After
dance class on a Wednesday night I helped Penelope into her car seat. Penelope looked up and made a wish on a star
that mommy and daddy would be together again.
This was the third time I had heard such a verbalized yearning. After a minute of driving Penelope said,
“When mommy gets remarried, I’ll get a new daddy.” I told Penelope, “I will always be your dad
and your mom will always be your mom even if mommy or daddy married somebody
different.” I changed the subject.
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