A couple of poster-size collages trace her romance with Tyler through homecoming, prom, winter formal, and formals that I never even learned the names of. In the next-to-last photo, they’re holding their maroon polyester graduation robes open to reveal that they’re wearing nothing except bathing suits underneath. The last photo was taken at a graduation party given by their friends. Well, his friends, really; I didn’t recognize any of the sports-capped chuckleheads or spaghetti-strapped hoochies holding up cups of beer caught in mid-slosh and grinning drunken grins at the camera. Tyler—wayward curls of dark hair flipping out beneath the weathered cap hugging his head, the torn-away sleeves of his snap-button Western shirt showing off arms still pumped up with football muscles—has Aubrey slung over his shoulder and is carrying her away, off toward the dark beyond the flash.
I shift to alternate-universe mode and imagine how our lives would have turned out if we’d never left Sycamore Heights, the vibrant, diverse neighborhood in the city we abandoned so that we could send our child to the best schools within driving distance of Martin’s job. Would Martin and I still be together? What if I’d never gotten pregnant? Life without Aubrey is the one parallel universe I am incapable of imagining. All I know is that had we not left Sycamore Heights, Tyler Moldenhauer would never have entered the picture.
I check under the bed. Her clarinet case is shoved far off in a back corner. I pull it out and hold the instrument, stroke the keys worn smooth by her fingers. There is another box hidden so far under the bed that I have to get the broom to drag it out. I promise myself that I will take a quick peek, then slam it shut if I don’t see what I’m looking for. I blur my eyes a bit so that if it is love letters, naked photos, I won’t absorb any details.
I don’t know why I am surprised to find the Book of Palms, a scrapbook with all the photos of her father I could gather. I run my hand over the big album. I’d pasted the title on myself using peel-off gold letters in a swirly font, hoping to underline the joke aspect of the name I’d given this volume. I wanted Aubrey to know about her father. But not to take any of it too seriously. She was such a quiet, solemn child, I didn’t want her absent father to become a dark, intense issue.
I open the book and there is the first photo of his palm, frozen by the flash from a paparazzo’s camera, shielding the face of a celebrity. I first saw it on a dreary, cold Monday in February fourteen years ago. I was in the checkout line at the grocery. It was sleeting outside and almost dark at six in the evening. Aubrey was four and cranky from getting her MMR vaccine and from a too-long day at day care. All the days were too long back then when I was scrambling to get my business started. Aubrey wouldn’t stop fussing and whining even with black drool running down her face from the bag of Oreos I’d opened and stuck in her hands to keep her quiet. I felt achy and chilled, knew I had a cold coming on, and couldn’t afford to cancel any visits with the few patients I had. All I wanted was to pay for the milk, juice, eggs, apples, and bread in my cart, go home, throw something together for dinner, unload and reload the dishwasher, pack lunches, and try to be in bed before I dropped in my tracks.
And then Aubrey threw the open package of Oreos on the floor and lunged for the box of Twix bars next to us in the checkout aisle, knocking those to the floor as well. I was on my hands and knees picking up candy bars and Oreos when I first came face-to-palm with Martin, now going by his bizarre new name, Stokely Blizzard, on the cover of the National Enquirer, sticking his hand out to shield the celebrity he was shepherding. The caption read, “Next! Honcho Stokely Blizzard wards off photographers as former sitcom star Lissa Doone exits a three-month stay at Ramparts, Next’s! exclusive rehab clinic.”
I bought the tabloid and started a photo album. Every few months I’d add another clipping. It was from them that I learned that Next sued any publication that didn’t