Chapter 3 #2
Twenty-five-year-old Juniper Wilder was arrested Thursday morning, charged with DUI and Child Endangerment DUI. Wilder’s young daughter was taken in by protective services but has now been placed in emergency custody of family.
At the top of the printout Cy had written: Let this be a reminder.
A flash of shame heated my face. I didn’t need a physical reminder. One lived rent-free in my head daily. I balled the paper up and tossed it.
Thinking better of it, I fished the paper from the trash can and smoothed it out.
Maybe this needed to be a part of my punishment, to see my mistake in black and white.
I grabbed a roll of tape and went upstairs, skipping the fourth step to avoid the perpetual creak.
Crossing my room, I stopped in front of the dresser and taped the piece of paper to the bottom right corner of the mirror.
I read it once again as an anxious energy coursed through me. I needed to work it out of my system. Lugging in boxes and suitcases would have to do, considering most of the day had disappeared into long shadows.
Grandma’s house stood a good bit taller than the one next door, which always made it easy to spy on the neighbors.
A middle-aged couple used to own the house, the Palmers, who hosted a radio show that gave relationship advice.
Olla used to get up early to listen, just to be supportive, even though she expressed to me more than once that their advice should be taken with a grain of salt.
They’d been married three times and divorced twice from each other, so that made them an authority on the topic, in my opinion.
I wondered if my calling might be to give advice on how not to completely ruin your life.
Leaving the disgraceful reminder on the mirror, I moved over to the window and took a peek.
With a good view of Henry’s house, I found the front porch clear.
I entered my connecting bathroom and pulled the curtain to the side, checking his back pool patio and upper deck.
Both clear as well, so I went outside to get on with it.
It only took three trips to complete the task.
I should have been grateful for the little amount of work it took, but a sadness pressed over me instead as I surveyed the paltry collection of things piled in the living room.
Two cardboard boxes, a duffel bag, a white garbage bag, and two suitcases represented my life. Paltry indeed.
I tore open one of the boxes and found exactly what I needed sitting right on top. I picked up the lavender scrapbook with delicate fern fronds painted on the front. The only piece of Fern I freely owned at the moment.
Leaving everything else for another day, I went upstairs to my room and plopped on the edge of the bed and opened the book.
The first page was the ultrasound image of my little peanut, then a picture of Olla sitting beside me at my baby shower.
I studied the image of Olla in the picture, trying to find a clue as to what was soon to shatter our entire family, but Olla looked perfectly healthy, grinning ear to ear as she held up a pink baby gown.
No sign of the deadly beast lying in wait inside her.
I moved my focus to me in the picture, wearing a floral dress, clutching my round belly.
I wasn’t hiding my despair all that well.
Sure, I looked healthy too, but there were dark circles under my swollen eyes and the smile on my lips appeared a bit forced.
It had been such a conundrum to be mourning my husband while celebrating the upcoming birth of our daughter at the same time.
I never could reconcile the two emotions.
Turning the page, I blinked back tears and looked at the hospital photo of my newborn baby.
She was blotchy and tiny, so different from what she looked like by the time we went home.
No one took any of those traditional pictures of me holding my baby in the hospital bed, but I wouldn’t have wanted that anyway.
It was also the day of Olla’s funeral, so once again I had been plunged into the wildly uncomfortable state of mourning and celebrating at the same time.
Losing Arlo had been devastating, but I sensed I could survive it with Olla as my lifeline.
Then my lifeline was snatched away before I resurfaced.
Using the collar of my shirt to dry my face, I turned the page and studied the picture of me and Fern snuggled together asleep in my bed.
I didn’t even know Lana had taken it until the next day when she gave me the print.
Fern had slept tucked under my chin every night since coming home from the hospital, as if she were my doll baby.
I wondered how she slept without me now.
Had she adjusted easily to my absence? I hoped so, for her sake.
I sure hadn’t adjusted well to sleeping without her.
My daughter and I had been robbed in so many ways.
And then, two years after her birth, I went and robbed her of her mother too.
My eyes darted up to the dresser mirror, to that piece of paper, then I flipped several pages to the last photo I had of Fern.
Sitting under an umbrella on the very beach just outside, with a red shovel in her chubby fist, and grinning at the camera.
I removed the photo from the little corner brackets and moved to the dresser. It needed to join the article about my arrest. I taped it to the center of the mirror, so every day I could see both my best achievement in life, and my worst.