Divorce

I turned to watch the Ohio sign fade, merging with the endless road carrying me away from home. What am I doing? The thought swirled around my head, ricocheting off the few other ideas that popped up, shoving them away Restless, I picked up a book and then threw it aside. I loved to read but was too miserable to do any such thing at the moment. I shifted my favorite toy, Kelly, a dolphin, and spread out. My eyes scanned the car for anything of interest to do, skimming over the notebooks, books, Kelly, and the car upholstery till my eyes settled on the back of my dad’s head. “Remind me why I’m moving?” I asked my father, longing to ask a different question: You left when I was two, why are you taking me away from Mom NOW? But the question remained in my head, jumping around. My father half-turned, lowering the volume on the radio but remaining silent. I flipped through memories in my head, trying to recall something of Dad from when I was two. But I’ve got no memories from before the divorce, before my mom swore she would never see my father again, before my father left in the first place. I knew some things, like the way my parents got into a huge argument and weren’t talking for weeks before the divorce. As far as I was concerned, I never heard of my father except when my aunt told stories, which my mother discouraged. Mom had refused to speak of Dad, hear of him, everything he did was wrong, and I agreed. No nice man would forget his two-year-old; no nice father leaves his daughter behind. “Do you still love dolphins?” he asked, shoving a ten across the counter I tried to block Mom and Aunt Suzy out of my mind. I didn’t want to think about them or the house or Suzy’s garden. I didn’t want to think about walking home from school with my friends, or alone with a book in hand. I didn’t want to think about our cat, Tiggy. But I was thinking about all this quite a lot. The vision of Suzy in the flower garden behind the house, Mom with Tiggy on the porch reading yet another book, pushed away even the question What am I doing here? That was home. So why was I on the way to Pennsylvania with the father who once left me behind? “Danielle, you’re moving to Pennsylvania.” It was my mom who had said it, her tone short and blunt like I’d never heard it before. “You’re going to live with your father. I’ll see you at Christmas.” Suzy had come in then, holding an empty packing box. She’d set it down, frowning, and left, silent. My mother pushed graying hairs from her face, shifting her weight, and then sat on my bed, not looking at me. She didn’t say anything as she looked around my room. Then she stood and left. “Did you tell her?” my aunt had asked, and I had heard Mom brush past. I lay my cheek against the cool car window, watching the autumn leaves swirl downward. Cars sped past, trying to avoid the cloudburst that was just beginning, causing the drops to fall like tears on the window. Rain had always been comfortable back home. My Aunt Suzy, my mom, and I used to curl up and watch one of my mom’s favorite movies, call a friend, and play games. Stop it! I ordered. Suddenly words rang in my head: Did you tell her? Why would Suzy ask that? Of course Mom had told me I was leaving. “I guess I just thought it was time you and I got to know each other. It’s been eleven years since I last saw you.” I snapped back to reality, turning to look at my dad’s back, wide and sturdy. “You could have done something before,” I told him, doing nothing to keep my voice low. I willed him not to reply, to let me go back to my misery No, actually, I wanted him to turn around and take me home. “Danielle, you’ve got to understand!” I tried to shut him out. I tried to think, I tried hard, but he kept talking, saying a bunch of nonsense. I was so happy in Ohio—why did Dad take me away? In my head I skimmed back to the beginning of the school year, Mom’s smiling face as I came home. “Danny,” she had said, never Danielle, always Danny, unless things got hard. She had hugged me then, and I’d groaned, pulling back so I could toss away my backpack and book. “How was school?” she asked simply, but then began to chatter like an excited schoolgirl; sometimes I’d thought she was one. I saw Aunt Suzy coming down the stairs then, looking at me strewn across her favorite red chair. “Your dad called.” Those words rang in my head. I’d never remembered this part before, the few times I’d shuffled through my memories. My head had always skipped this part, but now that I thought about it, Aunt Suzy always said it, every year. I frowned the same way she had, sweeping up my own brown hair and pulling it back into a meager ponytail. Dad was pulling into a gas station, having fallen silent. My mind decided on something. Aunt Suzy must have been trying to make me think better of my dad— that was probably all. I skipped the fact that Aunt Suzy didn’t try to make anything of anyone. “I’m in the mood for a Three Musketeers and Vanilla Coke. You up for it?” I looked at him. He’d named my favorite drink and candy. Ironic, I thought as I nodded, trying to cut off the conversation. It didn’t work. “Do you still love dolphins?” he asked, shoving a ten across the counter where a cashier took it, talking into a cell phone

Rachel sat at her kitchen table, leafing through the Sunday newspaper. Comics, sports, politics… nothing caught her eye. She briefly skimmed the weather page, which had predicted sunshine; however, it was pouring outside. Looking up from the black-and-white pages, Rachel saw a world of gray. The smooth gray tile of her kitchen floor, the gray of the walls, the windowpanes, the bland chairs. Gray curtains bordered the windows. Through the dirty glass smudged with water droplets Rachel saw more gray—the sky, thick with rain and smog, the skeletal trees, the snow from that morning that had turned into unpleasant slush. Gray. Rachel sighed, lost in her thoughts. She was alone in the house, and her breath seemed to echo off the walls. She was alone more and more these days, since the divorce had taken over both her parents’ lives. In fact, she probably wouldn’t be in this house much longer—her mother was moving to New York City and buying an apartment, while her father was selling their current home and buying a smaller, more boring one in downtown Durham. Rachel and her younger brother, Grayson, were going to live with their father and then every month visit New York, where their mother would be living. It would be a lot of money, and Gary, Rachel’s father, would have to work another job to pay for it. “It won’t be far, Rach,” Rachel’s mother had said. “A two-hour plane flight, sweetie, and three seconds to dial the phone, I’ll pick up, and we can talk, dear, anytime. Right, Rachel?” The truth was, it seemed like Clair, Rachel’s mother, was trying to reassure herself, not Rachel. Looking up from the black-and-white pages, Rachel saw a world of gray “Yeah, Mom.” Rachel glanced into the hallway There stood boxes, brown cardboard boxes, stacked as high as the ceiling. The boxes were neatly labeled in Gary’s neat cursive, and each stack was categorized by name. To the right, a stack was labeled “Clair.” Another yet taller stack was labeled “Grayson.” Gary’s own stack was the highest. Next to it, there were three boxes with “Rachel” written on them. Rachel, unlike her mother or father, didn’t like to keep things. Gary kept every letter he received, every doodle from Rachel and Grayson, every newspaper article about a friend. One box, Rachel knew, contained some thirty diaries, kept over the course of Gary’s life. Clair was a little less extreme, yet more eccentric. Clair’s belongings were more unusual: a smooth stone with the word “believe” carved into its surface, a broken pocket watch, a Tootsie-Roll wrapper from when she was a child. Sculptures she had bought, and paintings she had created. While Gary’s things were neatly stacked inside the boxes, Clair’s were thrown pell-mell into the containers. However, Rachel’s possessions were minimal. A scrapbook. A photo album. Five of her most beloved novels. A spiral-bound notebook. A ragged old teddy bear. Because Rachel didn’t like things. She liked memories, not little trinkets symbolizing lost moments. Her room, empty now in preparation for the move, had been arranged simplistically, painted the palest of purples and decorated with wispy green leaves. Her bed had been a simple cherry wood frame with a sage-colored bedspread. She had had a desk. That was it. Rachel savored the memory, clinging to it, holding it, letting it comfort her. Rachel shivered as the warmth of the memory left her. Sighing, she stood up from the table, hoping her parents would be home soon. She was bored. Rachel had no hobbies, no likings, no special talents. She had nothing that could provide solace in her life, the life that was so scrambled from the divorce. No religious group, no tradition, no cultural beliefs. She had nothing. When the phone rang, Rachel screamed, as her ears had become accustomed to the utter silence. It felt good to scream, to let out some of the awful emotion that had entered her soul since the divorce. She screamed again, and then realized she should probably answer the phone. No, she thought, she didn’t have to. The answering machine would do it for her. She kept screaming, not caring who was calling. She didn’t have the heart to worry about anyone else right now. Rachel climbed the stairs to her dreary, empty bedroom. The quiet was haunting. It had been so long since this room had seen laughter, so long since there had been hordes of gossiping girls sitting on the floor and talking. So long. So long since Rachel had had a friend. *          *          * The last time Rachel had had a real friend was in the fourth grade. Now she was in eighth. The friend had been an Indian girl named Rubaina Tej. Rubaina was, in Rachel’s opinion, perfect. She was smart, kind, pretty, and creative. Rachel had passing grades, but nothing compared to Rubaina’s outstanding ones. The friendship had met a harsh end, with a large fight at the beginning of fifth grade. It began with the teacher mispronouncing Rubaina’s name. At recess, Rachel and Rubaina went to the swings. “Hey, Rub-in-ia,” Rachel had said, mockingly imitating the teacher’s mispronunciation. “Why don’t you get up and give me the good swing?” Rubaina looked disgusted. “Um… I… guess so… ” Rachel quickly jumped on the swing. “So, maybe you should call yourself Ruby, y’know, it sounds way more American, and it’d be way easier to spell.” Rubaina gritted her teeth. “I don’t think so.” “Well, I think it’s way better. Much more… nice and normal. I like more normal things. So, Ruby! What’s going on, Ruby? How are you, Ruby?” Rubaina jumped off the swing, cold flames rising in her unusual blue eyes. “You know what, Rachel Lewis? You know why you like average things? Because you are average. You have nothing special. You’re not smart, not artistic, you aren’t athletic, and you don’t win anything You know what, Rachel? I don’t have patience or time to waste my life with people