Catching Rainbows

10

The air didn't work well in the minivan and Hailie told me she was hot about eight dozen times in the six minute trip home. We got stuck at the light near the bookstore, which stayed on a red arrow and wasn't triggered to change unless more than one car was waiting. 

"I'm so hot, Lulu, I just need to get home please! I just need to, I already waited!"  she said around her binky, her voice rising dangerously.

My shirt was sticking to me and my nerves were close to shot. "I know," I said again. Finally there were no oncoming cars. "Fuck this," I muttered, and turned left against the red arrow. 

My backseat driver was quick to school me. "That light was red, you can't go when the light is red unless you're turning right after coming to a complete stop, and not ever on a red arrow!" 

"There's a law that says you can if you waited four minutes and no traffic is coming and it's this street only," I came back with. I had many "laws" she'd been told about because they appeased her. I would worry about the lack of legal validity when she got older. 

"Oh, I wasn't aware of that," she mused, her finger tucked through the ring on the pacifier. We called her the little professor sometimes because her language was so advanced. She'd been speaking in full sentences at two, and now had the vocabulary of an adult. 

I parked next to the small grassy area full of dandelions. I really needed to mow. There was one customer car. Business was too slow; not many people wanted actual books anymore, which was sad. The owners of the cafe next door had mostly retired, so it was only open a few afternoons a week; it had drawn in quite a few customers for us when they had been there daily.

I unbuckled a now-drowsy Hailie and gathered up some of the stuff from the perpetually messy van. Chloe had set two double-bagged brown grocery bags inside at the last minute when I'd given her the cupcakes in their pink carrier, and I was curious to see what was in them.

"Will you carry me?" my cousin requested in an almost-whine, looking worn out. "I'm so exhausted and hot I couldn't possibly walk anywhere."

"Sure," I said, setting down everything but my purse and Maryanne, who was a Real Person, then picking Hailie up in one arm. It was better to look in the bags in private, anyway, or Hailie would want whatever she saw. Usually she made good choices about food and understood why she had limited sugar and no dyes, but sometimes it was hard.

She rested her head on my shoulder as we entered the bookstore, thereby avoiding the need to mess with my key and the tricky lock to the living quarters. An older man browsed the Western section, and I turned enough so Hailie didn't see her mother at the counter. It would just lead to a retelling of the fiasco at the park, and I was hoping she would nap. I'd given her the gummy melatonin at the park that she took to help her body sleep when it was time. 

If she wasn't tired, they didn't work, so it wasn't like a sleeping pill or anything. Her pediatrician and therapists all recommended it. 

We went into our home and she used the bathroom, then got into bed with her pacifiers and I lay down next to her. 

"Well, I actually don't think I can sleep," she said, sending a thrill of fear through me because I needed the break as much as she did. Her eyes were only partly open because she was on the verge of sleep. But it was not unknown for her to jump up and start bouncing around in order to fight the sleep, and if that happened I could kiss nap goodbye because she couldn't settle back down after that. 

"Just rest for now," I said. The fan serenaded us with white noise and her lullaby player churned out the same four tunes it had since she was born. God forbid it ever break. 

There was a full minute of silence, and I dared to hope she had dropped off. I heard my aunt come in and winced as she let the screen slam. Why.

"Guess how many rings Saturn has," Hailie piped up, and I could have cried.

"Eight," I said. "Shh, now. Let's talk about it later."

"Actually there are thousands of veeeery faint ones that make up the eight," she corrected me.

"Are there," I said, yawning in the dark. "Close your eyes please." My own eyes were having no trouble closing.

"If I close my eyes I just can't see," she said matter-of -factly.

I sighed. "Hailie, I'm all done. Go to sleep, please." 

She yawned again. "Okay, I'm all done talking."

I was losing my patience. "That's still talking! No more noises, no more sounds, no more talking. Please." If she didn't sleep the rest of the afternoon would be a nightmare.

Another full minute went by and I began to relax the tiniest bit. Another bang from the kitchen made my eye twitch. What the hell was my aunt doing?

"The rings are made from ice," the little voice said, but the words were slow and ran together, so I didn't answer or dare to breathe. 

Finally five minutes had passed without a sound and I eased off the bed in super stealth mode and let myself out without making any noise. 

My aunt was washing dishes in the kitchen, and I sighed again. We didn't have a dishwasher, but I was the only one who washed dishes correctly. She had a "good enough" attitude about cleanliness. I wasn't a freak about it but when the dishes were washed in lukewarm water and partially dirty when put away, it was an issue for me. 

So I either washed them before she could, or I had to wash them over after she did, but only when she wasn't there because she got offended if she caught me. "Sorry I didn't do a good enough job," she told me stiffly in embarrassment the one time she'd found me rewashing them. "I didn't realize the queen was coming."

I knew she was doing a half-ass job right then because the water heater was turned to low and the water was nowhere near hot enough to be cleaning any of it properly.

I took a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly. I thought of seeing Monica earlier and fought the burning in my nose and eyes at all the crap I had to deal with. I wasn't a poor-me kind of girl but sometimes it just added up.

I remembered the surprise bags in the car and crept past my aunt, where she was stacking dishes atop one another to dry instead of using the rack. My eye twitched and I took myself out to the car.

The bags were full of food, all gluten free. I sat in the van in the middle seat and took everything out, spreading it around like a kid with Halloween loot. It was better than that, in my mind. I had cast a nervous eye at the price tags on gluten free food before, and it was one reason I hadn't jumped on board. That stuff was really expensive. 

But here I had a ton of it, and stuff Hailie would like; chips and crackers and noodles and pasta sauce and taco mix and cereal and soups; all kinds of things. There was a little yellow envelope at the bottom of the second bag, and it had a card inside with a little cartoon mouse on a pink mushroom on the front. She had written inside "Hey girl, Joey won't eat most of this stuff or if he does we have tons of extra, so try it and see what your little cousin might eat. I know how those picky eaters are! :) "

Under that was a heart and her name. 

The message of the card itself said simply You Are Not Alone.

I did cry then.