I wait for my daughter to reemerge.
Half an hour later the master bedroom door unlocks. Rose Gold walks to the kitchen, places a bottle of milk in the freezer, and pulls two others out of the fridge. She washes her pumping supplies in the sink, then puts them in a backpack.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, joining me in the living room. She wears khakis and a royal blue shirt with a small Gadget World logo embroidered on the chest, plus her pump bag. She sets down a baby carrier with Adam bundled inside. “I overreacted.”
“Being a new mom is hard,” I say, forcing sincerity into my voice.
Rose Gold doesn’t say anything.
“I’m here for you, darling.”
I scan her up and down, searching for clues. Even in long sleeves and pants, I can tell she’s lost weight. When we were in the yard, she looked gaunt in that bath towel. I think back to her weekly visits during my last year in prison. She’d seemed a normal size until her bump started to show, and she only got bigger from there. Of course some mothers lose pregnancy weight fast while nursing, but I didn’t expect Rose Gold’s new body to resemble the old one. She hasn’t been this thin since she was sixteen.
The teenager I raised was all elbows and knees, a hunched skeleton. She stopped growing at five feet and was excruciatingly self-conscious about her body. Back then I tried to reassure her that thinness was in vogue. I told her that millions of girls would die for her shape, but her body always embarrassed her. It didn’t help her chest was roadkill flat. She was stuck in a kid’s frame.
That was before her food allergies went away. Before her feeding tube was removed. She had a reason to be skeletal back then: she was sick. Now she is healthy. At least that’s what she’s told me.
The doorbell chimes. I stand at once, but Rose Gold rushes past me. She opens the door a tiny bit. Mary Stone’s warm voice floods the house.
“How are you doing, sweetie? Are you getting any sleep?” I miss this concern, the genuine care I know is etched on Mary’s face. She used to reserve that kindness for me. When she knew I was having a tough day with Rose Gold, she’d bring over a plate of brownies or a pitcher of iced tea. We’d sit and talk for hours.
“I’m okay,” Rose Gold murmurs.
I pick up the baby carrier and walk to the door. “Little Adam is a spirited one,” I say, forcing the door open wider.
Mary Stone hasn’t changed a bit in five years: sensible-mom haircut, dull but trustworthy face, wearing too much pink. God bless her.
Mary’s eyes bug out, and her jaw drops at the sight of me. She’s such a cliché sometimes.
“Hello, Mary,” I say warmly. “It’s been far too long.”
I lean forward to give her a hug, but she shrinks away from me.
She stares at Rose Gold, fingering the rhinestone butterfly brooch pinned to her blouse. “Whose idea was this?”
Rose Gold doesn’t meet Mary’s eyes. “Mine. Mom had nowhere else to go.”
Mary’s eyes narrow. “I know somewhere she can go.”
This is, without question, the most aggressive statement the lamb-hearted Mary Stone has ever made. Apparently distance does not always make the heart grow fonder.
“I’ve missed you so much, Mary,” I gush. “I thought about you all the time while I was away.”
Mary grips the doorframe, face purple and knuckles white. How hard would you have to slam a door to cleave a finger from a hand? She snatches the carrier from me and peers inside, as though I might have gobbled Adam whole for breakfast. I need a pointy black hat.
Mary turns to Rose Gold. “Why don’t you come by my house after work? We can catch up.”
Rose Gold shrugs her shoulders to her ears, eyes cast toward the floor. This submissive version of my daughter almost makes me miss the maniac screaming at me in the backyard half an hour ago.
“I’d love to join you,” I butt in. “You and I have a lot of catching up to do as well.”
“You are not welcome in my home,” Mary says. “Ever again.”
She grips the baby carrier and rushes down the driveway to her car. I guess it’s safe to assume I’m no longer the Mister Rogers of the neighborhood.
I step outside the house into a morning cloudy and full of fog. Mary buckles Adam into the backseat of her car. A movement across the street catches my eye. Standing at the darkened window of the abandoned house, watching me, are three shadowy figures. They don’t move when they realize I see them. One of them crosses their arms. I cross mine back, though the hair on my forearms is on end. I glance at the driveway. Mary is gone. When I squint at the abandoned house, the shadows are too. I shake my head and go inside, locking the door behind me.
My daughter studies me, waiting.
“Reporters did a number on this town.” I shrug.
“People might forgive you if you were a little less chipper,” Rose Gold points out.
“Honey, when you spend five years in prison for a crime you didn’t commit, you’ve got to make up for lost time when you get out,” I say. “I’m not going to pretend to be something I’m not.”
Rose Gold’s jaw stiffens for a second. Then she conjures up a smile. Maybe she fools Mary Stone with this act, but she can’t hide her anger from her own mother.
“I have to get to work,” she says. “I’ll be home around six.”
Rose Gold slams the door behind her and walks toward the detached garage. From the living room window, I watch the garage door open. She begins to back the van down the driveway, but then sits there for a moment, staring at me as I stare at her. Her lip curls in contempt, an expression I’d seen on her once before.
August 22, 2012: the day she took the witness stand.
* * *
• • •
The courtroom sweltered on that Wednesday. The gallery was crowded. Most of Deadwick’s residents had shown up to stick their noses in our business. Plenty of reporters had come as well; they couldn’t resist weaving a few more scandalous lies into their stories. My lawyer—an incompetent public defender who would have been more at home behind the counter of a medical marijuana dispensary—fanned himself and fidgeted in his baggy suit. The day I met him, I knew I was doomed.
The prosecutor had just finished questioning one of Rose Gold’s former pediatricians. This imbecile of a doctor claimed I’d acted “fishy” during office visits. Funny, he’d never said a word about my behavior ten years ago. He never reported this supposed fishiness to any superiors or state CPS agencies. If you asked me, all the prosecutor had established was that this key witness was a key moron, another seeker of the limelight armed with tall tales. The doctor returned to his seat.