82 Days #2
The one thing Rhea had managed to do for all of her postpartum friends was set up a Meal Train, which allowed everyone in their community to sign up on an app for a time slot to send food to their growing household, thus giving the exhausted parents a break from cooking.
This was something Rhea was able to do remotely, so she did not have to change out of her stained sweatpants.
Each time Rhea set up a Meal Train, she would think about those grueling few months when she first opened the boutique: the long hours, the stress, the uncertainty.
How lovely it would have been if someone had set up a Meal Train for her during that time, but birthing a store did not count; only birthing a human deserved that kind of communal support.
“Oh, you’re so welcome. It was the least I could do.”
“I miss you so much. Never leave my side again,” Ada said with her arm around Rhea.
Ekele was yanking at the hem of his mom’s blue Wendy dress, screaming at top volume.
“Okay, okay, little man.” Ada picked him up and promptly left Rhea’s side.
They headed out into Tiny’s neighborhood to knock on the doors of the immensely wealthy. Where Rhea grew up, one house on the block went all out with tombstones, cobwebs, and mannequins wrapped in toilet paper. Where Tiny lived, every house on the block went far beyond that.
Each residence had at least twenty jack-o’-lanterns on its porch, made out of real pumpkins, lit by real wax candles.
One had a giant skeleton peering into their third-story window.
Another had turned their front yard into a cemetery so realistic they’d even installed a rusty gate around the whole thing and a metal sign engraved with Steinberg Family Cemetery: Enter if You Dare.
“Trick or treat?!” the kids screamed after they rang their first doorbell.
As much as the spirit of Halloween tried to get Rhea to enjoy herself, she could not.
The entire neighborhood had been taken over by people in family costumes, as if Rhea needed more of a reason to feel ostracized.
They were all wearing uniforms that represented their blood ties.
She, almost certainly, was the only person in a family costume who was not a member of that family.
As they moved down the block, she watched her friends be parents and spouses, watched them protect and guide their children. They were all so useful, so wanted. Rhea was a dead limb. She did not need to be there; there was no reason for her to exist.
Bitter feelings rose in her throat, and it was not just because she was dressed as a lemon.
She regretted leaving her house; it was too soon.
The more she thought about it, trick-or-treating in a family neighborhood was the absolute worst thing for her to be doing.
Glomming on to her friends’ lives, stuffing herself into their happy fruit bowl.
She had to get out of there before she rotted and spoiled the whole barrel.
In the most cheerful voice she could concoct, she said, “I think I’m gonna head home.”
They had only hit five houses. Rhea was standing on the sidewalk with Ada, Tiny, and Zoe, each of their fingers curled around the handlebars of a baby-filled stroller while their husbands knocked at the front door of a mansion with the older kids.
“What? No way, dude. As soon as Wolfie goes down, we’re getting drunk,” Tiny said.
“I’m not really drinking right now.”
“Oh, please don’t go. I’ve missed you so much—” Ada said.
“If she wants to go, let her go,” Zoe said.
“I just…think this isn’t very good for me.”
“What isn’t?” Ada asked.
“All this…family, kid stuff. I think I need a longer break from it. I just need some…space.”
“Are you…breaking up with us?” Zoe asked in a very Zoe tone.
“No…. I just need more time by myself.”
“But, Ree Kee, you can’t break up with us, we’re your family,” Ada said.
“…But you’re not, though, right? You’re not actually my family. I don’t have a family. And I have to be okay with that. And sometimes I am, it’s just hard when my lack of a family is constantly shoved in my face.”
Rhea watched the hurt flash across her friends’ eyes and wanted to stop talking, but the words had been corked for so long, they kept bubbling out.
“It’s not just about me either. It’s probably not good for you guys to be around someone who’s so…
jealous of your lives. I mean, Ada, you didn’t even tell me you started taking maternity photos.
You had to hide a new hobby to spare my feelings.
That’s not…healthy.” Rhea was holding back tears with all her might, but they pushed through.
“I just didn’t want to…hurt you,” Ada said softly.
“Exactly. And I don’t want to hurt you guys either, so…I’m gonna go.”
Rhea turned and walked down the street. The sidewalk was full of families with giddy children: Minions chased each other around a front lawn, a fireman and a dinosaur swapped candy brands, Winnie-the-Pooh crammed chocolate in his mouth.
Brushing past all of them was an adult woman dressed as a lemon, fragile, perishable, and utterly alone.
—
Rhea walked to Tiny’s and changed back into her dignity. She ordered a ride home, and by the time it arrived, she was no longer crying; she was officially furious. Tiny had successfully shoved her through the depression stage of grief; anger was now pumping through her veins.
As the gray minivan moved through Tiny’s neighborhood, Rhea lay low in the backseat, not wanting to be seen by the Ada-Tiny-Zoe chain.
The look they had given her right before she walked away was forever burned into her memory.
As much as she wanted them to understand her pain, she did not want their pity.
She was so tired of explaining herself to normal people.
Her friends could never understand what she was going through, because they all had moms and dads and siblings on top of their husbands and children.
You cannot make a wealthy person truly comprehend what it feels like to starve.
“Can we end the ride here?” she asked.
The driver made an annoyed noise at the sudden change of plans, but he pulled over, and Rhea got out on a bustling street.
There were as many drunk adults in costumes as there were sugar-high children.
She moved with purpose through downtown Santa Monica.
Passing under the iconic blue and white Santa Monica Yacht Harbor sign, she walked on uneven planks of wood to the soundtrack of squealing children and yelling street performers.
She stood in a line and when she got to the front, she said, “One ticket for the Ferris wheel, please.”
She purchased a ticket from the cashier and weaved through tourists, down the pier, toward the giant wheel.
She got in another long line and decided to ignore the fact that every other adult was with another adult or at least one child.
She didn’t need a child, she didn’t need a boyfriend, she didn’t need friends.
She was perfectly capable of riding this circular symbol of happy childhoods and loving families all by herself.
Eventually, she watched the group in front of her cram into their octagon-shaped pod; they were each dressed as a character from The Little Mermaid.
The wheel lifted them off into the sky; now it was Rhea’s turn.
A wave of nerves churned her intestines; her fear of heights was rearing its head, but she pushed through.
A Ferris wheel employee, dressed in a cat costume, approached.
“How many?”
“One, please.”
“One?”
“Yep,” Rhea said as she stood a little taller.
The cat called out, “We got a lone rider!” then turned back to Rhea. “Can you stand to the side? We’ll be right with you.”
Rhea stepped out of line and watched the cat help several other groups get into the alternating red and yellow pods: a family dressed as characters from The Lion King, then a woman dressed as peanut butter with a man dressed as jelly, then the Addams Family.
Rhea was confused about the delay but determined to see this through.
Every time Rhea saw an octagon lurch upward, she felt nauseated.
Her foot took one step toward home, but she refused to follow it.
“Lone rider?” a different employee asked.
“Yes,” Rhea said.
This employee was a teenage burnout with long hair pulled back in a ponytail and a mustache so sparse it could have been a food stain. He was zipped into a dog suit, and Rhea wondered if the cat and the dog were blood related and wearing a family costume like everyone else.
The dog stood by a red octagon and motioned for Rhea to sit down.
She walked toward it slowly. Her fear of heights begged her to reconsider, but this was too important.
She got in the pod and sat down. As she braced herself for it to swing upward, the dog stepped into the pod and sat across from her.
She gave him a puzzled look as they took off.
He ignored her and stared off into the distance.
When she’d imagined her triumphant solo ride over the Pacific Ocean, a teenager dressed as a dog was not supposed to be sitting across from her.
They rotated in silence. On the plus side, the confusion about the dog’s presence was distracting her from the fear of plummeting to her death.
“So, is this, like, a weight-balance issue or something?” she asked.
“What?”
“Why couldn’t I just ride by myself?”
“Um, no, not a weight issue.” The dog resumed staring at the ocean.
“Well…what is it then?”
“Um, well, it’s so you don’t…”
They were at the top now, and the dog looked down. Rhea took in the one-hundred-thirty-foot drop and realized what he was insinuating. She looked up at him in horror.
“You think…I’m gonna jump off?”
“No, not you specifically, it’s just—that happens to be the main reason someone gets on a Ferris wheel by themselves…so we always accompany…lone riders.”