There was a part in the middle where she reached one arm up and held it, held it, held it. Her little face would go so serious and so open that I had to turn around and pretend to fix the curtains.
Her teacher, Miss April, had told me Madison had asked to dedicate her solo. I did not know what that meant exactly.
I figured it was a program thing, a line in the folded paper they handed out. I did not think much on it. I was thinking about the lobby, and the curb, and keeping my chin where it needed to be.
I washed Rusty that afternoon in the yard with a bucket and the hose. That is a foolish thing to do to a truck that is mostly rust, but I did it anyway.
I wiped the dash and I swept the cab out and I hung a little air freshener shaped like a pine tree from the mirror. If I was going to park it out front, it was going to be a clean ugly truck.
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Then I put on the one good dress I own, the dark blue one from my cousin’s wedding. I did my own hair in the bathroom mirror with Madison supervising from the edge of the tub.
She told me I looked like a lady in a catalog. It is the finest thing anyone has said to me in a long time.
Walking Her In
The studio sits in a strip off the square, between an insurance office and a shut-down video store. It has a wide glass front and a little sidewalk and a curb that holds maybe six cars.
I timed it on purpose. I did not come early and slink in. I did not come late and sneak.
I came right at the front of the crowd, when the lobby was full and the folding chairs were filling. The mothers in their leggings were clustered by the good cars at the curb drinking from their travel mugs.
I pulled Rusty right up to the front. The engine ticked and the tailgate bungee swung.
The rusted wheel wells were about eye level with a clean white Tahoe. I shut it off and sat for one breath with both hands on the wheel.
Then I got out, and I walked around, and I opened Madison’s door. I lifted my daughter down onto the sidewalk in her sparkly blue costume and her concrete bun, in front of all of them.
I felt the lobby go quiet behind the glass. I felt the mothers at the curb stop their mugs halfway to their mouths.
I felt every single thing Travis had said about me hanging in that cold spring air. All of it waiting to see if I would duck my head and hurry.