Silence surrounds the table, but it only lasts a moment before Madison decides on something else she wants to talk about. The kid can ease even the most awkward situations, I’m realizing, as she chatters away, telling some story about something somebody at school did for Show & Tell today.
“Go wash up,” Kennedy tells her when she’s done eating, pizza sauce all over her hands and face. “Finish your homework and then you can play.”
Madison jumps down from the table to run off. I hear water running in the distance as Kennedy puts the leftovers away.
“Homework in kindergarten,” I say.
“It’s just drawing stuff,” she says, sitting back down across from me. “Draw three things that start with the letter ‘S’. Not hard, but she loves art, so she never stops at three. It always ends up like an entire picture book.”
Sounds like someone else I know—her mother, who drums her fingers along the table, looking anxious. She always was fidgety, but she used to channel that energy into creating.
“Do you still write?” I ask.
“No.”
“Why not?”
She shrugs.
I want her to look at me. I know that’s hypocritical. It's selfish. I want a lot. I’m asking for a lot, more than I deserve after everything that happened. I hurt her, and I wish I could take it back, be the man she thought I was.
I reach across the table, my fingertips barely grazing hers before she pulls her hands away. They disappear beneath the table—clenched into fists, probably. Wouldn’t doubt it. It does the trick, though, her gaze meeting mine.
“What can I do?” I ask. “I’ll do it.”
I’m sounding fucking desperate, I know, but I am. My therapist would tell me it’s unhealthy, that I’m being co-dependent. Jack would probably tell me to stop being a pathetic son of a bitch. Cliff, he’d likely remind me that I have the whole world at my fingertips, but that doesn’t seem to matter, not when the first person to ever truly believe in me looks at me like I’m the worst of the worst.
She hesitates a moment, but before she can say anything, Madison waltzes in, slapping her paper down on the table between us.
“I need more that’s an S,” she says, her paper filled with a dozen of them. Overachiever.
“Snowflake,” Kennedy says, scanning the paper, her hands back on the table as she points to something. “You spelled ‘scissors’ wrong. There’s a C after the first S.”
Madison scowls, grabbing the paper to run out.
As soon as she’s gone, I try again, reaching across the table for Kennedy’s hands. She doesn’t pull away this time when I touch her, my hands covering hers.
“Why are you doing this?” she asks, her voice quiet. “It’s been six years, Jonathan. Six years.”
“I know, but I just…”
“You just what? Assume I still love you?”
“Do you?”
She shakes her head, but it’s not a denial. It’s more exasperation that I have the nerve to ask her that question.
Madison runs back in, and I pull my hands away, dropping it.
“How did you spell scissors?” she asks, erasing the word on her paper. Kennedy spells it out, and she writes it before tossing her pencil down. “Done!”
“Good job,” Kennedy says. “You can play now.”
Madison turns to me. “Do you wanna play?”
“Of course,” I say, following her to her bedroom, figuring it best to give her mother some space, lest I push her too far and she punch me in the face.
I’m secure in my manhood. I have no qualms playing with dolls. So when Madison shoves a Barbie at me, I don’t even balk. I’ll give her the best goddamn Barbie performance she ever saw, if that’s what she wants.
I stare at the Barbie, though, as Madison digs through a toy box. It looks different than the ones my sister played with growing up. This Barbie looks more like a scientist than a stripper, fully clothed, her hair still intact.
“Found it!” Madison says, holding up another doll. I freeze when I look at it, seeing the familiar white and blue suit and the head of blond hair. You’ve gotta be kidding me.
They made me into a doll. Or him, rather. Breezeo. Not an action figure, no—a straight up collector’s edition Barbie doll.
“I’ll be Breezeo and Barbie can be Maryanne for you,” she says, sitting down on the floor and patting the wood beside her.
“Wait, shouldn’t I be Breezeo?”
“You’re him all the time, so it’s my turn now.”
Well, can’t argue with that logic.
“Barbie’s got the wrong color hair,” I say. “Don’t you have a Maryanne doll?”
“No, ‘cuz it costs too many dollars, but you can pretend, right?”
“Right,” I say, although she suddenly looks skeptical, like she doubts my abilities. “Don’t worry, I’ve got this.”
She starts things off. I don’t know what’s happening, and she doesn’t give me any direction, so I’m improvising. She switches things up on me, throwing in plot twists. We’re on the run from some bad guys before suddenly we’re in school. I graduate, we both become veterinarians to her stuffed animals, and next thing I know, I’m running for president of the world.
It’s funny. She’s funny. The girl is quick on her feet. She gets distracted eventually, though, and puts down the doll to draw again. She’s intense about it, in a trance, and I excuse myself, but I don’t know if she notices. Picking up the Breezeo doll, I stroll down the hallway, seeing movement in another room.
Kennedy’s bedroom.
She’s sitting on the edge of her bed, changed out of her work uniform, wearing sweats and a tank top, busy pulling her hair up. I stall when I reach the doorway, still lurking in the hall, not wanting to invade her space. She eyes me warily, her attention shifting to the doll I’m holding.
She laughs.
Yeah, she fucking laughs.
“Did she make you perform for her?” she asks, nodding to the doll.
“No, she actually made me be Barbie,” I say. “I don’t think she was that impressed with my skills, because she gave up and went back to drawing.”
Another laugh.
I could listen to that sound forever.
“Don’t take it personal,” she says, brushing past me out of the bedroom. “I’m sure you did a better job than I do. I usually get demoted to an audience member.”
Kennedy heads to the living room. I follow her, curious, as she settles in on the couch, turning on the television. She curls up, flipping through channels in silence, the room dim. The sun is setting outside, which means they’ll soon be going to bed.
“Do you work every day?” I ask.
“Weekdays.”
“So you have weekends off?”
“Usually,” she says. “I work while Maddie’s in school.”
“And when you’re not working? What do you do?”
She cuts her eyes at me like I’m stupid.
I’m guessing this is it.
“I should probably get going,” I say, strolling back to Madison’s bedroom, finding her still drawing. “Hey, Maddie.”
“Huh?”
“I’m gonna go now.”
She stops what she’s doing. “Why?”
“Because it’s getting late.”
“But why can’t you stay?”
Because I fucked up years ago and I don’t know if I can ever make things right again.
“I just can’t,” I say. “But I’ll come back.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Uh, not tomorrow, but soon.”
“When soon?”
“First chance I get, I’ll be here.”
“Okay,” she says, turning back to her drawing. "Bye!"
“Bye, Maddie.”
Kennedy eyes me warily when I walk back into the living room.
“I have to head back to the city in the morning,” I say, hesitating near the front door.
“You’re leaving already,” she says, a sharpness to her words. It’s almost accusatory. “Should’ve known.”