Chapter 20
In her lowest moments, Danika’s mind turned against her. It doubled down. Whenever she needed to pull herself up and think
positively—to save herself—her subconscious did the opposite. It was like that game when someone said, “Don’t think about
a horse! Don’t think about a basketball!” and images of horses and basketballs flooded in. She was her own worst enemy.
This was a pattern Danika recognized, but one she could not stop. Once she reached a certain point of despair or lack of control,
the devil on her shoulder took over, conjuring bad thought after bad thought, bad memory after bad memory, each served one
at a time as if from a conveyer belt. It was harder to stop when she was drunk.
So that night, after tearing off her dress and changing into pajamas, as she stumbled back into the brightly lit hall—makeup
still a mess, head still spinning—and went to tuck Cooper in, her mind was already working against her. Memories began to
flash on overdrive.
There was her mother, painting her fingernails at the kitchen table only to piss off her dad, who hated the smell—the fight that ensued.
There was her father, building a bonfire one night for her at eight years old, joking the whole time, until she realized he was drunk, and then he passed out on the grass.
There was the halter top she’d worn to a middle school dance, the one a girl had called cheap, Because your dad’s only an E-7.
Always, there was the smell of bacon, BLTs, the last thing she saw him eat—bringing her back to the day the military police
showed up on their porch, explaining he’d shot himself out on the running trail.
The next set of memories came from St. Cloud. Dark at first, then illuminated with love. She remembered the day she first
saw him mowing the lawn across the street, the way he’d pushed up his sunglasses, pulled off his orange work gloves, and yelled,
“Hey, are you the new girl? I’m Trey.”
More flashbacks cut in and out from there. Searing snapshots of sounds, sights, smells, and tastes: the freezer-burn cold
of hockey rinks, the harsh vowels of the Latvian language, the fresh, piney sting of Riga Black Balsam. The cold lights of
a taxi in the night.
“Mom?” she heard Cooper say as she stepped inside his room, steadying herself. She went to his bed, where he sat upright.
His night-light glowed with swimming images of fish, reflected across the walls of his room in swirling, neon circles. Cooper’s
face was heavy with sleep. She sobered, softened.
“It’s late, hun.” She pulled his covers higher. Moved his elephant closer.
“I heard you come home.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” She touched his forehead.
He yawned. “Love you a lilac.”
Danika swallowed. Cooper used to have a habit of saying “I love you like a lot” before bed, and sometimes he’d say it so fast,
it sounded like “I love you a lilac.” It had become their inside joke. It was the first thing to comfort her all night. Here,
despite everything, Danika was reminded that she had what she’d always wanted: unconditional love.
“Love you a lilac,” she whispered. She kissed her hand and pressed it to his cheek, worried her mouth still reeked of booze.
Cooper nestled into his pillow, and Danika sat in the dark, the carousel of night-light fish still dancing around her. She
watched them for a moment, their colorful striped bodies, until she grew dizzy and stood up, going to the window. Cooper always
insisted on sleeping with the curtains open, but she tugged them shut now, hoping he’d sleep in. It had been a long night.
As she soaked in the steady pour of rain, she froze. Because spinning down the driveway below was a pinwheel of color—a hideous
mash-up of maroon and yellow. The U of M.
It was shocking how bright the umbrella looked in the dark. Danika could not peel her eyes away, even as she felt everything
drain from her body—as she became a shell of herself. She seemed to fill with a whole new feeling, a new substance pouring
inside of her, all the way up to her skull: a thick, growing lava of rage.
How could he.
The stinging, sour hurt came after.
She knew that from then on, whenever she saw those colors—umbrellas in general—they would bring her back to this night, to
this moment, this pain. This thought, of everything, broke her. All she could do was watch and hope the girl would see her,
too. That she would turn, look up, and catch sight of her silhouette in the glow of the window. But, of course, she didn’t.
It was a memory missed, a haunting averted. Danika hated her for it.