Roseanne
The woods behind Lisa and BamBam's house are finally free of snow. There are buds on the trees, tiny green shoots poking out of the dirt. Once we fix the steps, we'll finally be able to get back into the treehouse.
"I can't believe your parents let you do that," I say, watching Lisa hammer a nail into the wood.
"My dad had a treehouse when he was a kid," she replies. "And he built the whole thing himself."
"Does he still go in it?" I ask.
"Adults don't like treehouses."
"I will," I insist. "I'm going to keep coming up here, no matter how old I am."
She thinks for a moment and then shrugs, as if she's announcing a decision she was already pretty certain of. "I think I'll marry you when I grow up," she says.
I bite my lip to hide the sudden burst of delight in my chest. "Okay," I tell her. "Sure."
I go home to my mother and report what Lisa has said as I'm falling asleep. "Maybe I'll go to the future and see if it happens," she says. She's teasing me. The room is so dark I can't see her face, but I hear the smile in her voice.
"You're not supposed to go to the future," I remind her. The stories she tells me each night about time-traveling are always about the past, because she says jumping to the future is dangerous, and you may learn things you wish you didn't know. She promises when I'm old enough she'll take me with her, but until then, I can only live through her adventures. "Tell me about visiting the soldier. That's my favorite."
"That's my favorite too," she says, her voice a little sad. "But you'll have stories of your own someday. Better ones."
My fears creep in. She's so certain I can do what she does, but if she won't jump to the future, how does she know for sure? "What if I can't jump like you?"
Her laughter fills the quiet room. "Oh, sweet girl. Your abilities will make mine look childlike by contrast."
"But when?" I plead.
She pulls the covers up to my chin and plants a kiss on my forehead. "You'll jump," she whispers, "on the day when you need it most."
My eyes open. I see moonlight washing over new Ikea furniture, a Monet poster in a plastic frame...my mother's guest room, no more real to me than the room in that dream. If I close my eyes it's almost as if I'm still there: the smell of my sheets and my mother's perfume, the sound of tree limbs sweeping the roof overhead, the soft brush of a cat walking past the bed—they all still linger. Your abilities will make mine look childlike, she'd said.
Yet it had to be a dream. The house was unfamiliar. We never owned a cat. And most of all, my mother can't time travel. Even if she could time travel, she would not. She'd be terrified of the ability, the way she's terrified of pretty much everything that is outside the realm of the normal. I'm willing to suspend disbelief about a lot of things, but it's a struggle to believe the woman in the darkness was my mother.
* * *
Tapping.
My mother's voice outside the door wakes me. "Roseanne?" she asks tentatively. "It's 10:00 a.m." I hear the worry that underlies her words. Roseanne never sleeps this late, she is thinking. The brain tumor, unfortunately, has become the filter through which every unusual behavior must be viewed.
