Wheel,” the song she’d loved lately, but nothing worked. Finally, from an almost primal place in my memory, I started to recite Goodnight Moon:
Goodnight room, goodnight moon.
Goodnight cow jumping over the moon.
Goodnight light, and the red balloon.
Goodnight chairs, goodnight bears.
Mia calmed immediately to listen and fell back to sleep. I stroked the space between her eyebrows with my finger, crying as silently as I could, in disbelief that she’d survived.
The following morning, I watched as Mia ate her oatmeal. I sat with a sort of fascination, still in awe of the miracle that she wasn’t hurt, so much that she didn’t seem real. I’d called Lonnie the day before to tell her what had happened and to request a day off to get things sorted, not knowing at the time how I’d do that. My body and mind were on autopilot. After breakfast, a man I’d been on a few dates with, Todd, was coming over to pick us up. Todd and I were supposed to go out that weekend, and somehow the night before I had remembered to cancel, unable to come up with any reason other than the truth. I didn’t want to admit that I was in trouble, that even my own family wasn’t able to help me out. Todd insisted I borrow a car he didn’t drive anymore, and I flinched at the thought. I really didn’t know what I thought of Todd, or if I liked him in a serious way or not. Some men, I’d discovered, had a bit of a hero complex when it came to dating me. They wanted to rush in and rescue the damsel in distress. I didn’t like to play that role, but in this situation, I didn’t have a choice. We absolutely had to have a car.
I described Todd to Mia as “my friend,” explaining that he would take us to a spare car he said we could use for a while.
“Then I’ll take you to your dad’s,” I explained, cleaning up the breakfast dishes. I took in a big breath and held it, the opposite of what I was supposed to do in moments like this, when my heart lurched and started to race. I would have to make the same journey as the day before, travel the same road, get back in a car with Mia. No matter how much I wanted to stay in bed, glued to Mia, I had to work. I had a house to clean the next day—one of my larger houses that took up most of my time on Thursdays. On top of that, classes started the following week, and I needed to organize my books and passwords for accessing the materials. And I supposed I had to celebrate my birthday in some way.
As Todd drove us down I-5 toward the borrowed car, Mia sat quietly in the back seat. Her car seat seemed fine, but I knew, since it had been in an accident, it needed to be thrown away once I could afford a new one. Every time I looked at it, it reminded me of how close I had come to losing my daughter.
Suddenly, Mia blurted out, “Ruby died, Mom.” Ruby was the name she had given to our Subaru, because of her maroon color and because I’d called her a Suba-Ruby once after I’d proudly packed all my cleaning supplies in the back for the first time.
I turned to look at Mia and put my hand on her leg. She felt so fragile and small. I felt tears welling up in my eyes again. I’d found Ruby used but in immaculate condition, with only one hundred thousand miles on the odometer. Mia and I sometimes spent half our day in that car. Ruby had been over twenty years old, but it was one of the nicest vehicles I’d owned in several years. Our loss was great. Unimaginable. I couldn’t think about it.
“Ruby died because of me, Mom,” Mia said, looking out the window, her voice small. “Because Ariel went out the window.”
“Oh, honey,” I said, trying to turn my body to face her from the front seat. “No. It was an accident. It’s not your fault. If anything, it was my fault.”
“You’re crying,” Mia said, her face turning red, her lower lip pouting, tears starting to swell in her eyelids. “You just wanted to save my Ariel.”
I couldn’t look at her anymore, but I kept my hand on her leg. I wanted so much to cover my