Trapped in Forever

52 ~ Someone Named Reese Moore

Mikayla moved out on Thursday morning, after halfheartedly sipping from the rim of a steaming, olive green ceramic coffee mug as she leaned against the sink, the morning rays of sunlight illuminating her face, bare and pure, her eyelashes blinking and her pupils small, surrounded by the mass of her chocolate hued irises as she stared into the sun through the window above the sink, the transparent curtains pushed to either side, a small potted plant at the corner of the sink soaking in as much sun as she was, both just a small bud poking through the earth, becoming something else that felt like it could’ve been anything—a flower, a wilted collection of petals, or maybe they would both end simply as buds,  a promise that never grew into anything more. That’s what I thought would happen that morning as I sliced strawberries and bananas and poured the milk into the blender, the blades rushing filling the silence that lingered in the kitchen. Mikayla was silent and turned to the sun, Mom was running her palms across carpet swatches laid out over the table cloth, and Dad sat at the head of the table, pretending to read his paper as he stirred his now soggy cereal with his spoon, and every now and them, his fingers around grasp around the handle of his own mug, but he never lifted it off of its coaster. His pale forehead beneath his flaming red hair was furrowed as he looked down to supposedly read his paper, but his reading glasses were upstairs on his nightstand, folded and untouched, and his eyes lingered over the grainy, black and white image of a politician.

When she finally loaded all of her boxes into the backseat of her car, mostly filled with T-shirts and pairs of jeans I never remembered seeing, replacing the tank tops and denim mini-skirts that now laid, folded, in the boxes laying in the foyer inside the house, DONATE marked across the cardboard surface, and slammed the doors of her car, she just stood there, her hands slowly sneaking into the backs of her pockets. As her gaze alternated between us, as if she wasn’t sure what to do here, what to say, if it was supposed to be goodbye or see you around, wisps of her hair fluttered behind the backs of her ears and she exhaled, her jaw clenching and unclenching, and for a moment, I wondered if she was chewing away at her Nicorette. Dad walked up to her, their heights identical and the tops of their heads meeting, and wrapped her in his arms, kissed the top of her forehead and a lock of her dark hair blew beneath his nose but he didn’t try to push it away. He told her he loved her, that he was proud, and that if she ever wanted to come home, she could, and he wanted her to call them to make sure she was alright, and she murmured something back to him but I couldn’t hear what it was and I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to. Then he pulled away from her, almost reluctantly, and she looked back at us, me and Mom, standing there, awkwardly in our pajamas in the driveway.

For a moment, as Mikayla and Mom’s eyes lingered on each other, somewhat softly but also somewhat toughly, as if they were analyzing each other at the same time they were saying goodbye, and when Mom leaned forward, I thought she was going to do what Dad did, pull her close to her, kiss her hair, let it brush against their noses without caring, and murmur words to each other—I love you, I’m proud, I’m worried too—but instead, she nodded at her, her features faltering for a moment, as if she forgot who she was and then suddenly realized, realized that she didn’t say things like proud and love, and regretted it, even as she did it. She told Mikayla, instead of mirroring Dad’s words, that she would be okay, that she was old enough for this, that she shouldn’t let bills go unpaid, that she and Dad would lend her money if she needed it, and then she nodded again, as if this was all she would, or could, say, but Mikayla just looked away from her. Her expression matched Mom’s for a moment, a little lost, a little regretful, a little unbelievable, but none of this stopped her from saying that she would be fine, thanks, and that she’d call tomorrow. Maybe love and proud were words she couldn’t use either.

When she finally looked at me, standing there, in a tank top with a twisted strap lying over top of my white bra strap, and a pair of green flannel pajama pants and bare feet planted on the paved driveway, pedicured toes peeking through the hem of the pajama pants, and leaned her head to the side, a wisp of hair flying away from behind her ear and dangling in the breeze beside her cheekbone, I glanced away, averting my gaze from her illuminated strands of hair and chocolate eyes to the dirtied tire attached to the car, mud clinging to the rubber. I didn’t want to be like my mother, biting back words she wanted to say because she was too afraid of breaking, breaking who she was supposed to be, the strict one, the practical one, the Bad Cop, but I didn’t want to expose the raw parts of myself to her—how I envied her, how I resented her, how I wanted to understand her, how I always wished before I met Roxanne that one day she would think that I was cool enough to hang out with, just once, even if it was just through The Bean’s drive-thru. I wanted to tell her that one of my first memories was of her, and me, and of our dolls sharing the same house we both got for Christmas, the one we were told to share my mother told me, and one half of the house was hers and the other mine. I remembered her little fingers placing a Kelly doll on a plastic toilet and giggling, and I remember laughing too, just because I thought her giggle was the funniest thing ever and I wanted to see if mine sounded the same too a little. We used to share that dollhouse and played it every day until she started first grade and then she dumped a box of Barbies and clothes and accessories into my room and promptly announced, “I’m too old for Barbies,” and left.