Beside me lay my tackle box of jewelry making supplies, strewn across the tiny sun table and not helping to keep me steady one bit. The intricate work of my pieces keeps me focused on a narrow task, taking all my creativity and concentration so I can’t worry about things like introducing my daughter to her dad for the first time. Because what could possibly go wrong?
The sun stretches across the lawn and peeks over the mountain range casting a long shadow of my mother’s greenhouse on the trees that surround our yard. I used to sit out on this porch every Saturday morning and do my homework while she worked in that greenhouse. It was actually a nursery. My mother loved trees. More than anything else, sometimes even me, especially after Xan. She could never walk through a forest without her arms outstretched, caressing each tree as we passed and stopping to tell me what kind it was and the extent of its root systems weaving together beneath our feet. She was a tree scientist, studying the boreal forests of Canada and the Northern USA.
All day she’d be outside talking to the trees, all night inside talking to herself as she wrote her articles and poured over her data.
Tears gather at the edge of my eyes and sting right down the back of my throat. All of the reasons I’ve been missing my mother in the last few moments begin to transform in my chest. Her nurturing care and passionate love twist and morph into what I now see as manipulation and control. Her plans, and data, and elaborate experiments shift from the little fragile trees in her nursery to me, her own daughter.
She saw me like she saw her trees. An organism with a predetermined set of chemical compounds that caused me to behave in certain ways. If she wanted to change the behavior, she had to change the environment. If my environment was infested with a noxious weed, she would protect me by removing the weed at the roots.
Xan was the weed.
Before I truly connect with my body I’m already moving—slipping on my rubber boots and cinching my sweater tighter around my body. The sound of my feet slamming on each wooden step echo into the morning sky as I descend on the yard with no real clear understanding of what I’m doing.
A surge of superhuman energy powers through my limbs as I bend to pick up a heavy stone that lined the overgrown path. I hurl it through the glass door with a guttural yell. It feels so fucking good to hear that smash and watch those shards fall. Yesterday I threatened Jet over this last bit of my mother I had left. Today I want it gone. I want her gone. I want to set a match to the place and watch her lies and manipulation burn to ash.
Over and over I scoop up stones and launched them at fresh panes of glass, letting out harrowing cries each time the smooth cool stone leaves my palm. By the time I release the hold on my anger I can feel eyes on me. I spin around, my chest heaving with exertion, and see my daughter standing wide-eyed and still in her pajamas on the porch. Next to her my dad leans on his crutches. I can’t read his expression, but I sense his discomfort.
“Mom?” Millie asks and I let the stone in my palm roll off my fingers and hit the grass with a thud.
“Morning, sweetheart,” I say, ignoring my actions like some psychopath.
“What are you doing?” Millie’s dark brows pinch together, and her young eyes hold no understanding. I jog up the stairs and wrap her up in my arms.
“I was angry. I needed to vent it all out. Pops is having the greenhouse tore down anyway.” As I tuck her under my arm, I realize that all the glass had scattered around the lawn. Back in my right state I know that what I did was a terrible idea. But goddamn did it feel good.
“Maybe don’t play on that side of the yard until the glass is cleaned up.”
Dad takes a long sip of coffee as I pass. “Feel better?” His tone is accusing.
“Much better.” I lift my chin and move right past him.
#
Millietugs her fingers through her ponytail and takes her baseball cap off for the fifth time. “What if he doesn’t like me?” she asks.
“Then I’ll kill him,” I joke, and she rolls her eyes at me.
“Mom, I’m serious.”
I yank the cap from her hands and put it back on her head, threading her ponytail through the strap at the back. Her cheeks are warm and as I cup them in my hands, I know she’s embarrassed. Or nervous. Or both.
Hell. So am I.
“Sweetheart. You are strong and smart and funny and the most beautiful human I’ve ever known. He is going to fall at your feet and adore you.”
“Mooooom,” Millie groans trying to turn away, but I hold her steady and she’s forced to look at me.
“I love you. You are my world. No matter what happens today it’s you and me okay.”
She nods, her eyes glazing over.
“This isn’t going to be easy, but I think it will be worth it. You deserve to know him.”
“Okay,” she affirms and takes a deep breath like she did before she swings a baseball bat. Taking her to the batting cages all over the country is how I keep her happy when I know I can’t offer her a team to play on. We move around constantly. Never in the same town more than a few weeks, maybe a couple months but never during baseball season. Summer is my busiest time other than Christmas.
“Be yourself, Sweetie. That’s who he wants to meet.”
After I’m done pep talking my kid, I turn on myself in the mirror and the narrative changes immediately. Because my reflection doesn’t feel strong or smart or any of the things I told Millie. The woman in the mirror is terrified, like a little girl herself. People are always shocked to find out Millie’s my daughter. I don’t seem old enough to be a mom, but what does appearace really have to do with it is always my question. I copy Millie’s deep breathing exercise closing my eyes and trying to will this whole thing to go smoothly.
“You coming Mom?” Millie asks and I nod straightening my flowing pale green tank and placing my charcoal pendant in the center of my chest. The black chunk of burnt wood had been one of my first and favorite pieces I’ve done. I sourced about fifty from a forest fire in Northern BC, dipped them in resin and fashioned them into simple pendants. It reminds me of what I’ve made of myself out of the ashes of my past. That burnt, and broken, and charred, that wood could still be something important. Something beautiful. Something new.
I wipe my palms on the front of my snug jeans, the fraying knee tickling my flesh as I turned to the door.
She deserves this, I say to myself, the phrase quickly becoming my mantra.
Even if it causes pain, she needs to know her father.