30. Thirty
Thirty
Itwist the final section of Lyra’s blue hair, slide the bobby pin out of my mouth, and pin it into place on top of her head. I meet her smile in the reflection of the mirror.
“Prom perfect.”
Still in an oversized T-shirt and her face make-up free, she turns her head side to side to examine my work. “Prom perfect,” she agrees.
It’s a nothing moment, sitting in her bedroom. Just a Friday afternoon. Just another dance after years of them. But there’s an enormity to it. Like gravity is amplified by a thousand and pulls down on me.
Because it’s not nothing.
It’s not just another dance.
It’s her senior prom. Another reminder that our time together—her needing me—is fleeting.
She used to beg me to play with my hair and cover my face with ridiculous shades of pink make-up, and now I feel the swing of the pendulum approaching. I’ll be begging her soon. Hell, maybe it’s already happened, and I’m living in denial. Maybe she doesn’t even need me right now. My eyes burn with the thought.
“Mom,” she says, making me blink. “You have that look on your face.”
I shake my head, meeting her eyes in the mirror. “What look?”
She snorts. “Like you’re about to get weird and weepy.”
I smack her arm playfully. “I would never.”
She pulls her make-up out, sorting out various pencils and eye-shadow palettes. I could leave, let her do the rest on her own, but I can’t. I’m glued to the edge of the bed, watching her transform from little girl to a woman right before my eyes.
“So,” I finally say, “how are things with Nick?”
Her cheeks flush instantly. Since I caught them in her bedroom, his presence around our house has been almost professional. More than once, I’ve heard Lyra ask if he wanted to go study in her bedroom, and every single time he tells her he thinks our dining room table is more comfortable.
I dated a high school boy once; I know this is a bald-faced lie. But I admire the respect—and restraint.
She stills, the black eyeliner in her ring-covered fingers hovering just above her skin, and her eyes hook with mine in the mirror. “He’s . . . umm . . .” She sets the eyeliner down, turns to look at me, face filling with something like fear. “I trust him. Not to hurt me. I trust him the way you trust Dad.”
“Ah,” I say with a slow nod, hearing the unspoken, I trust him enough to have sex with him.
I look out the window, branches of a newly blooming, pink crepe myrtle blowing softly in the breeze, and wish there were adequate words to get me through this conversation. As much as I want to scream DON’T DO IT! my mouth won’t let it happen.
“It changes things,” I tell her as she turns back to the mirror. “This . . . trust . . . it’s a big deal. And it changes things. Makes saying goodbye harder.” She moves to the other eye, dragging a thick, black line across her eyelid. “Just—you should know that. Before . . . the trust. And how to be safe about it. All of it.”
She turns to face me, thick, cat-eyed lines covering both lids.
“I know, Mom.” She shrugs. “But he’s going to App State too. So we’ll be just like you and Dad, you know?” She grins, and my heart feels like it’s made of glass and being thrown on the floor. “No goodbyes required. I mean, look how happy you guys turned out. Loving to forever and back and all that mushy stuff.”
“Right.” I force a smile but can barely get a full breath. Look how happy you guys turned out. I stand, flustered. “I’ll let you finish getting ready then. Your dad should be back from dropping the boys off at Nan’s. I need to start getting ready. Just, if you need me—for anything—holler.”
She nods, opening a compact of blush, flicking me a smile before coating a brush with pink powder.
“Mom?”
I turn from the doorway, pausing to look at her.
“Thanks.”
Lyra’s dress matches her hair, and as ridiculous as that sounds, as much as we will someday look at photos and laugh about this colorful hair phase she’s in, she’s stunning. When she comes out of her bedroom, I feel the enormity of it. Her in this moment. I’ve been so consumed with my own unravelling—my own dreams that slipped through the cracks—I forgot she’s just stepping into her own.
Raising my camera to my eye, I capture her. Her smiling. Laughing. Rolling her eyes. Waving me away.
I’ve blinked, spent the years wishing for days to be easier, faster . . . and now here it is. Months shy of eighteen. Months shy of leaving me. The baby I never expected—never dreamed of ever having—as necessary to my survival as oxygen.
Blue hair, blue dress, beaming smile.
“Mom, stop crying,” she says with a laugh when I pull the camera away from my face, revealing wet eyes.
Camp walks in, already dressed in his suit. With his freshly shaven face, I fight the urge to reach my fingers up and trace the lines of his skin and slopes of his lips. He’s more handsome than the day we fell in love, two teenagers with bad skin and not a clue what love was. More handsome than the day he stepped on the pitcher’s mound with a Copperheads jersey on his back, too cocky for his own good, me screaming from the sidelines. More handsome than the day we married, a random Tuesday between away games, me eight months pregnant, him holding my hands so tightly I thought my bones would break.
He gives me a lopsided grin before turning to Lyra, his expression morphing. He’s just as awestruck and proud as I am.
I wipe my eyes, blink back the tears that I’ll let fall the second she’s gone, and busy myself straightening Camp’s already straight tie. “Tell me the plan again,” I say, just to have something to listen to. Just to make the moment last a little longer.
“I’m going to Kimber’s and we’re all riding together. We rented a limo. Well, her boyfriend’s dad rented a limo—Dyllan.” Kimber has a boyfriend; apparently the divorce didn’t flip her sexuality as easily as she thought. “Then we’re going to that place on the lake for dinner before all getting to prom. Yes—Nick too.” She pauses, grins, then continues. “Anyway, then we’ll be there. Which, I mean, it’s kind of annoying prom and graduation have to be in the old gym when the brand-new, shiny one is sitting untouched, but I get it, nostalgia and all for you old farts.” She laughs, sorting through her sequin-covered clutch.
Camp laughs. “We aren’t that old. And it’s the last big event there. Next year’s kids get shiny new.”
“Your claim to fame, Dad.” She swats him playfully on the arm.
“And after?” I ask. “What’s the plan after? No drinking, I hope. Or driving. Or drugs.”
“Way to ruin my night,” she deadpans.
“Jerk.” I stick my tongue out at her, wrapping her in a hug. “I’m serious. I was seventeen once . . .”
“Stop talking,” she says, slipping her shoes on—gold heels with an ankle strap. “I don’t need to hear what you and Dad did when you were seventeen—I saw you on the porch the other night. That was enough damage. We are staying at Syd’s family lake house for the weekend—with parents.” She pauses, grins. “And I’m not a cliché.”
While most proms happen on Saturdays, like everything else in Ledger, we have to do it differently. School is out for Friday and Monday, giving everyone a long weekend. Prom happens Friday, and she’ll be at the lake until Monday. My mind reels with all the scenarios that could happen in those days apart.
“Ignore your mom. We trust you.” Camp drapes an arm over my shoulder, smelling like him.
She laughs, stands tall at the door with arms out. “How do I look?”
My tears fall early, straight down my face in two steady rivers. A bigness forms in my chest that makes it so hard to breathe I wonder if I might die. All I can say: “Perfect.”
Lyra used to do ballet, dancing in little tutus, sometimes falling before scrambling back up to twirl, tiny-toothed grin on her face the whole time. Now here she is. A woman in a gown. Stunning. My little girl gone, never coming back, replaced by this version of her. Shedding one skin just to reveal another.
Camp squeezes my shoulder. He’s thinking what I’m thinking: Look at the masterpiece we made.
“Stop crying, Mom,” Lyra says as she hugs me, not understanding how it feels to watch a piece of herself go off on their own. To house parties where there will be boys and beer and bad ideas, praying they don’t fuck it all up. Praying they make the right choice. Hear the right voice in their ear guiding them. Praying they know what they need to know to make it in a world that’s so big and loud.
Praying. Praying. Praying.
“I’ll drop you off at Kimber’s on my way to the school,” Camp says, pointing to his truck.
Too soon, she’s out of my arms, and I’m wiping my eyes as she awkwardly teeters down the sidewalk in her heels.
“Love you!” I shout.
She laughs. “I’ll see you in two hours, Mom.”
Camp looks at me, grinning, pointing a thumb over his shoulder. “We did a lot wrong, J, but we got that one right.”
I nod, wiping the last of my tears as I lean on the edge of the open door, watching her lift her dress as she gets into his truck. “We did.”
My eyes meet Camp’s, our history pulling like the tight stitches of a baseball, tying us together.
“See ya tonight, J.”
“See ya tonight,” I echo as my head drops to the edge of the door.
He strolls down the sidewalk, climbs into his old truck, and Lyra instantly laughs in the passenger seat at something he says—her hero—before they disappear down the street.
I sniff, pull out my phone and text Mave to make sure the boys haven’t driven her crazy or sacrificed one of her pets, to which she responds, These angels would never! Followed by a photo of them baking cookies. Then another one: Don’t forget to take advantage of a kid-free house, if you know what I mean.
I snort but slip my phone into my pocket without responding.
Heading to the bathroom to make myself look less cry puffed, I stop at a photo. A snapshot of us. The boys were babies, just shy of one, and Lyra is holding them both, smiling proud, as Camp’s tongue hangs out of his mustached mouth as I cheese a smile.
I study him, tracing his lines with my finger.
Since Hank’s accident, there’s been a shift with us. Not intimate—no sex or kissing or touching or . . . showering . But an ease in our interactions. He’s been home when he can be, and I’ve accepted he won’t always be. Expect it.
But here’s the belief I can’t shake, the shadow that clings to everything that he does: It won’t last. He chased his dream of being a baseball player until he couldn’t. Then it was state championships. Now it’s the sports complex. In just a week, it will be finished. The dedication gala will be here then gone. This year’s baseball season will end in the following weeks, depending on how the state tournament goes.
In twenty-six days, Lyra will graduate, then it will be nothing. Just us. Just me. And I know, deep in my marrow, I won’t be enough. Not for Camp Cannon. Not for the man that is both a dreamer and chaser.
And, even more, I can’t shake the voice in my head that tells me if I let this be good enough, I’m holding myself back.
Not following through.
Not showing the kids I can be something bigger than they see.
I’ll go down in history as a woman that picked up shoes and shuttled kids around in a minivan. I won’t be the woman who worked to be appreciated. The woman who reinvented herself. The woman who demanded more.
In the bathroom, staring at the mirror, I splash water on my face.
Every podcast I’ve ever listened to seems to be blasting in my ears at full volume.
Is it fair that men get to chase their dreams while women don’t? For every person sacrificing, there is someone that isn’t. That never will. Reinvent yourself. Be someone different. We aren’t making lasting changes if we cave the moment the skies start to clear. By caving, you are saying a little bit today is better than a lot forever. It’s big picture vs. little details in these situations. Allow ourselves to reconsider. To move the lines in the sand. To change our minds. To pivot. There’s an art to it.
I press my palms against my ears, trying to quiet all the noise. I can’t think.
With another splash of water, I meet my own eyes.
A different voice comes into play—Irma’s. “It seems you have a fan,” she had said when I returned to the gallery the day after the show.
“Who?” I asked in disbelief, staring at the sold stickers that were tacked onto the placards of every single canvas.
She shrugged her slender shoulders, knowing smile tugging at her thin lips. “They want to remain anonymous.”
Anonymous? I had thought. The word filled out, flattened, and stretched like bubbles in a lava lamp. Why would anyone pay thousands of dollars for photos I created? Not of perfect landscapes but of . . . life. Loud and colorful and messy snippets of life. Love and little details.
I’ve wracked my brain, but all I can think: Someone out there sees me. Whether they know it or not, them buying something I made, they know me. They see me in a way my kids don’t, Camp doesn’t . . . and now that I know that piece of me exists, I can’t let it go. I refuse.
Scotty said I can be two things, but what I can’t get past is how to be two things when Camp’s things come first. Always. His dreams. His goals. His life I try to fit into.
And the kids . . . I know I’m to blame for that. For pouring myself into them and leaving no room for anything else. It was my survival mechanism, in a way. A way to heal—however misguided—from the hard parts in between. Whether I meant to or not, Scotty was right—damn her—between loss and heartache and sleepless nights, I became a martyr.
“Shut up,” I shout to the voices in my head, making me feel even crazier.
I start the shower and let out a long breath as I reach my hand into the hot stream of water. These are tomorrow’s worries. Tonight is for Lyra and for fun and for music too loud and punch served from bowls.
Peeling off my clothes, I step in, letting the water scald my skin, drown the noise.
Eyes closed, I open them, chuckling to myself as I look at the showerhead, knowing damn well I’ll never look at that thing the same way. And I think of Camp, him in the shower with me, knowing exactly what my body needed even when I didn’t.
Could I do it on my own? Does it make me some kind of sex-crazed maniac if I do it again?
It does, I decide.
But, as I slide the showerhead out of the holder, I also decide . . . I don’t care.
Minutes later, I find out I don’t need Camp for everything .
Though it’s his hands and mouth I imagine the entire time.