New Mexico. This place is not the parched and barren desert region that most people think. Angel Peak has a rich and verdant quality that engages the senses. The rock formation is forty million years old and the variegated ribands of rock in acorn browns, and fir greens combined with the mysterious scent of history make it a magical, living place. The Navajo considered this place sacred; one rock formation in particular strongly resembles a kneeling angel with a broken wing. I had found this place not only sacred myself, but oddly appropriate. I stood and stared at that angel with her broken wing. Fighting back tears, I spoke one word aloud: please.
And yet here we are, not even a year from that day, and already something about our life seems spoiled. Rob stays out drinking nearly every night. Robyn appears to be on a path towards self-destruction and it seems the only thing I can do is sit and watch as each catastrophe unfolds.
I want so badly to excise this necrotic wound that is poisoning our lives, but I have no idea how to find it, much less remove it.
I trudge to my bedroom and strip off my work clothes, dumping them into the hamper, donning my favorite pair of old sweats and a T-shirt, wondering on the whereabouts of Robyn. I tug vaguely at the various food stains on my T-shirt idly wondering about the last time it was laundered. It smells of my body lotion, Jean Nate, combined with the odor of deep fried hash browns, though I haven’t actually made hash browns in years.
Rob said he didn’t expect to get home until after nine or later. And then there’s always the chance that he made a pit stop. I can’t remember the name of the bar he likes, though he has told me several times.
When we first moved to California, he told me he knew he needed to stop drinking. And, in fact, the first couple of months we were here, I began to allow myself to believe that he’d turned over a new leaf. But it didn’t last. One night he called about eleven thirty and said he and some of the guys from work had decided to get together. That was before I knew about his friend Dusty’s penchant for, as he calls them, “tittie bars”.
The microwave pings. Time to turn the potatoes. I sigh and plod to the kitchen.
The can opener resentfully grumbles to life as I open a can of cheese soup. It falls, in arsenic yellow colored globs, into the small pot. I realize, belatedly, that I forgot to spray the pot with Pam.
I tell myself not to mind the clock, but even before I’ve finished that thought my wrist has appeared magically in front of my face and my eyes fasten onto the tiny hands of my watch. Eight-thirty. I pour a can full of water on top of the cheese blobs, giving the whole mess a half-hearted stir before turning to my address book to look up Jenny’s phone number.
“Your daughter isn’t here,” Mrs. Kammish says.
Her curtness catches me off guard. I feel, by the tenor of her voice, that she does not approve of my daughter or me.
“Thank you anyway,” I say.
“I hope you find her,” Mrs. Kammish says.
I listen to the click as Mrs. Kammish hangs up the phone.
The microwave pings again. The potatoes are done. Not much of a birthday dinner, baked potatoes covered by cheddar cheese soup, but it’s the best I can do tonight. The kitchen reeks of hot, processed cheese that reminds me of a dirty factory.
I sit in front of my potato, soaking in the greasy, orange concoction but can’t make myself pick up my spoon. I wipe the sheen of sweat from my forehead and my eyes drift to the left. On the table are the magazines I bought at lunch. These women’s magazines seem the only thing that keeps me grounded in reality at times. The only things that tell me what’s real and what’s not.
I scan the headlines: “Look Twenty Years Younger Without Plastic Surgery”, “Stress Could Be Killing Your Teen”, “The Frightening Truth About Ketchup”.
I flip to the article about teen stress. Your child is stressed out, the article says, because she is involved in too many activities. Swim team, ballet, student body offices, cheerleading practice, and the copious hours involved in doing homework to keep up that straight A grade average will all take its toll on