Three things happened at the animal shelter that day. One was we adopted a diabetic cat so old that he could’ve died on the way home. Much to my dismay, he didn’t. He walked with a limp, was blind in one eye, grossly overweight, and if not hissing, he wheezed. Oh, and he was black. It was because I wanted the friendly kitten with white fur and orange stripes that my daughter called me a racist. That was the second thing that happened. Very casually and without indignation, she could’ve been talking about Christmas or lipstick, no inflection, utterly impassive, “Don’t be a racist, dad,” and she giggled. For a moment, I thought I’d imagined it. I said I wanted her to have a cat she could play with for a really long time—one capable of using the stairs. “I don’t care if he can’t play. I want to help him. He’s oppressed.”
Now, neither of these things has much to do with the other, much less the story. I needed a starting point, and the animal shelter seemed sufficient, especially since that was where I discovered Lilly controlled me, not the other way around as I had thought for so long. That discovery led to the third thing that happened inside the animal shelter: I realized—a bit late, I should add—that I had no idea how to raise a child alone.
While I drove us home and reflected on everything I thought I knew about myself, Oppress chewed through the cardboard carrier in the backseat and shrieked for an exorcist, a growling high pitch that seemed to turn every traffic light red. Right, he was first named Oppress, rhymed with “princess” when Lilly said she was changing it to Luisa. Then, at dinner, I asked her if Luisa would be joining us for a movie, and without taking her eyes off the Ketchup spirals she was swooping around one chicken nugget, she said, “His name’s Ron.”
Over fruit juice and toast, though I already knew the answer, I asked where she’d learned about racism and oppression. “At school, Miss Emery is teaching us about . . . well, it’s hard to explain. Middle school’s really hard.” She peeled the crust off her toast, a diagonally cut slice, and set the mangled strip of bread far away from her plate. She stared at it and appeared concerned for her safety. Unsure who to trust, she glared at me, looked back at the bread for an instant, thought about it, and said, “Do you think mom would’ve liked Oppress?”
I held a spoonful of Cheerios mid-flight, looked away from the scratches on my hand, and noticed the dust on top of the KitchenAid mixer. “Of course, what’s not to like?”
The mixer was my gift to Olivia for a Christmas she didn’t live long enough to celebrate. It stayed in its box and sat wrapped in shiny paper under my bed for six months until Lilly found it one morning when searching for her toothbrush. She ran into the kitchen, breathless, dying to know if the gift was for her. I explained.
With my permission, she brought the gift downstairs and unwrapped it. The excitement of opening a present seemed to distract her from remembering whose gift it was. Of course, she wanted to use the mixer. So I set the heavy hunk of metal on the counter, away from the coffee maker, and stuck the plug in an outlet. That was three months ago. I still hadn’t tasted Lilly’s “famous” chocolate chip cookies.
Olivia hated doctors. By the time her physician found the lumps, the cancer was regional. Lilly and I had three solid years with Olivia following the diagnosis and several excruciating months. Had I been allowed near Olivia’s breasts after she birthed Lilly, I think I would’ve found the imposters earlier and spared her life. That was the story I told myself. But she wouldn’t let me touch her. I’m not resentful or bitter, but we all have a moment we long to return to and change, a nightly wish we torture ourselves with while counting regrets instead of sheep.
Lilly cleared her plate and cup from the table but not the bread crusts. Ten minutes later, we were in the car and stuck behind a school bus. I stared at the Subaru’s fuel gauge and mentally crossed my fingers. I looked at Lilly in the rearview. “Oh,” she said, “I forgot to tell you. I want to dress as Taylor Swift for Halloween.” Worried about running out of gas and losing my job for being late, I could only muster a half-hearted “Sounds good.”
The therapist I recently quit seeing said I was too passive and that Lilly would walk all over me if I weren’t more strict and inquisitive. “Queries,” he said, “are the bedrock of parenting.” “When did parent become a verb?” “Well before you learned to deflect discussions that unsettle you.” Bastard. Though his insight was not a revelation—nothing he ever said was—I agreed that I habitually evaded difficult conversations and left without plans to change my behavior.
I had enough to worry about. I hadn’t sold a car in over two months. The mortgage would default if I missed another payment. Coming home from the dealership each day, I feared the lights in the house wouldn’t turn on. The Subaru was missing a windshield wiper and needed new tires, brakes, and an oil change. For a while, I’d worked Saturday nights behind the bar at Moody’s, but then somebody told the babysitter what New Hampshire’s minimum wage was, and she quit. Not that it mattered. Between the bar’s business declining, paying the babysitter, and the price of gasoline, I was losing money working there.
A week before Halloween, Lilly shrugged off her backpack, dropped it in the middle of the entryway, and followed me into the kitchen. She bounced on her toes, her arms limp and jiggling. She said she had the perfect costume idea and assured me nobody could change her mind. And then: “Do you think I’m too old to be Jasmine? Doesn’t matter. That’s who I want to be for Halloween.” She twirled her body for a few spins, stopped, and tossed her hands up like a gymnast. “Jasmine.”
“I think it’s a great costume. Plus, you might still fit in the costume from third grade. Remember how mommy had to roll the pant legs up and pin them, and you were upset because they didn’t balloon out like Jasmine’s do?”
“Yeah, I remember, but . . .” her voice had softened. She dropped her chin. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m too old to be Jasmine. Besides, everybody already makes fun of me for being short. They say I should still be in fourth grade.”
An hour later, though I knew it would make her angry if she caught me, I stood outside her bedroom door, hidden, and listened to her speak in different tones for various dolls. I’d intended to sit on her bed and talk with her. She’d been doing well lately, emotionally speaking, and it seemed her depression had subsided. Nevertheless, Dr. Malckott would continue seeing her twice a month because “assumptions could be costly,” as was his hourly rate, but how could I say no to him? For months, I couldn’t get her to smile without injuring myself. But now she smiled often and naturally, was typically in a good mood, and didn’t hide in her room the second she got home from school.
In the morning, she inspected a blueberry, puckered her face, and set it in the discard pile she’d made between two grapefruit wedges on my plate. “Mirabel,” she said, holding a blueberry above her head for better lighting.
“Huh?”
“That’s who I want to be for Halloween, Mirabel. You know, from Encanto.”
“Right. I knew that.”
I almost sold a car that day, a used Equinox with under 50,000 miles on it. The guy looked under its hood and poked at components I couldn’t name. He pulled the dipstick out for a peek, grunted, pushed it back in, ran his fingertips over an engine belt, and sighed. He unclipped a tape measure from his waist and measured the trunk space. I kept a straight face. He removed a tire gauge from the leather fanny pack choking his gut and checked the air in all five tires. I followed him and heard his knees crack whenever he crouched and stood. His groans seemed to help him move about.
We went for a test drive. When he pulled the car back onto the lot, he complained about the alignment and asked if I could throw in some seat covers. After Tammy acquired his Beacon score and arranged the paperwork, he test-drove the car again and repeated his concerns about the alignment and his desire for seat covers and asked if we could knock off five grand because of the small tear in the rear seat and maybe toss in some floor mats.
He had to think about it and went across the street for burgers and fries. He returned and again drove the Equinox. We had to stop for gas. He ran a red light. Back at the dealership, he walked a few laps around the Equinox, put one hand on his chin, stared at the car for a while, and said, “It don’t have an ashtray,” and backed away.
“Where’s the cat? I know he’s alive because the couch is torn up, and he eats three cans a day. Also, his box needs changing.” I knelt before Lilly’s bed and tossed the comforter out of the way. “Hey, you still like sandboxes, right? Ooh, I found your missing socks and . . . what is . . . is that a rotten apple back there? That explains the smell.”