My neighbor, Rooster, is sling-shotting baby doll heads into our backyard the morning my husband says, “we need to talk,” while hunched over the divorce papers scattered across the table.
I didn’t believe it at first. I mean, I believe my husband because all he wants to do is talk. Only when the third head rolls along the grass do I linger by the kitchen window, my coffee warming my palms.
“Are you listening?” My husband, Jackson, asks from the kitchen table.
No, I’m not. How could I with the baby doll heads flying in streaks over the wall that separates our two yards? Rooster knows the plastic ones are my favorite, their eyes wide with determination as they soar towards the pool.
The same pool Jackson wants to turn into a Koi pond.
“Maxine.”
Rooster moved in 5 months ago. Back when I could’ve sworn I was still in love with Jackson. When I could pretend that Samantha was just a slip and wrote in the journal I kept under my bed that this is something worth saving repeatedly until the thought lulled me to sleep or my pencil broke. I only stopped when I ran out of pages.
“I think he has a point system in play.” I take a sip of my coffee only to be disappointed that it’s lukewarm with not enough creamer.
“This is what I’m talking about.” The chair whines under Jackson’s weight and I assume he’s leaning back, tempted to put his feet up on my kitchen table. “I say we need to talk –”
“We are talking.”
“I’m talking. You’re…”
I used to love the sound of his voice. Now he sounds like a weatherman shouting into a hurricane.
The heads sound like multiple acorns skipping across the roof. Jackson sits up and I turn to look at him. He’s allowing his stubble to grow back in and I want to believe he’s doing it for me. In memory of the nights we spent lying in bed, my palm feeling every prick of new grown hair on his cheek and chin. I fall in love every time with that memory, so I look at his feet.
They are ashy and bare. Uncut toenails drum against the kitchen tile when he curls his toes in. After six years of marriage, he still has the same tell when he’s annoyed.
“Rooster again?”
I dump the rest of my coffee in the sink. “He must have—”
“Don’t.” Jackson gives the chair one good push and knocks it over, making the chair look like a stunned goat on the floor. I cover my mouth to hide my smile. The first triggered in years due to Jackson and, for the moment, he has my attention.
Until something shatters in the backyard.
“Maxie,” he says but I’m already looking.
“I know about the Koi pond.” I say.
He laughs at first, and I let him, but I know. Every phone call taken in the bathroom. Every time he wants to try that soul food place like it’s the first time. Always insisting on getting takeout. Insisting that I stay home.
“I know about Rooster.” He bites back.
Five more baby doll heads enter the yard.
“I know, that you know.” How could he not? “That’s why you built the wall.” This must be something worth saving.
Rooster told me that when he was 5 years old he asked his mother if Santa could change his name to Rooster. I told him that I loved to slingshot the heads of my baby dolls to see if there truly was someone in the sky to catch them.
“Someone could’ve seen you.” I can see Jackson’s reflection in the window. His head, the upper half of his body, a specter moving towards me.
“You didn’t.” I can’t remember the last conversation Jackson and I had in which we truly enjoyed each other.
“Seriously?”
“As serious as Samantha is about the Koi pond.” He stops. I keep my eyes on the heads.
“That doesn’t mean you get…”
Jackson likes to talk so I’m sure I’m not missing much when I run into the backyard. The plastic baby doll’s eyes are closed as she careens towards the pool. My palms are open and warm. My legs tangle around each other as I reach for her.
For a moment, I think someone has caught me. When I open my eyes, there’s a baby doll staring back. We are sinking into the pool as more heads fly overhead. This baby doll feels like she wishes to stay in my palms and float away at the same time.
I release her, catch her before she can join the others on the pool’s surface. Release her again and watch her float as a body stands at the pool’s edge.
Papers. They blanket the floating heads or soak within the water until they sink. I see the familiar text I spent hours reading while Jackson went to get takeout. On the surface, there is Jackson and there is Rooster. I reach up for the one I released, her hair serpentine around her baby doll features. In my palms, I feel every repeated sentence in my journal slip from me just as my signature dissipates from the papers around me.
