10. Star Speckled Sky

Star Speckled Sky

Hadley forgot her worries on the back of a horse. Once she became comfortable, she started riding most days after school. It had been a particularly mild winter, so there were only three snowy days that she couldn't visit. Her time on the farm was really helping her balance the dread she felt while at home. Lately, even when her father wasn't home, the air still felt tense.

Since summer break started last week, she began to head straight from her bed over to Dorothy's. She'd grab a cereal bar on the way out the door, offering a half-hearted wave to her dad if he happened to be home. They usually didn't exchange any words and it was not uncommon for her wave to go unanswered. He never stopped her to ask where she was going so she eventually realized he must not care.

On the farm, Hadley loved to take on new responsibilities. She cleaned the stables, washed and brushed the horses, fed, and rode most of them. She sometimes helped feed and care for the dairy cows, though milking them was not her favorite thing to do. Hadley found the udders totally gross and classified the whole process as awkward. Is this really how they get the milk that I add to my cereal? She especially hated whenever she needed to clean the udders off before beginning to tug on them. Every so often an udder would have mud or poop on it that needed to be wiped off with a warm, wet towel to avoid contaminating the liquid. The practice was enough to have Hadley holding her breath for an entirely different reason – the smell! Whenever Dorothy asked for her help, though, she stepped up and never complained. It was important to not disappoint Dorothy.

Whenever she could, she stuck to the horses. Her favorite horse was Snow White. Hadley loved to run her fingers through the horse's chocolate mane, which laid like satin across the top of the beauty's pale gray coat. Snow White looked as majestic as her name suggested and Hadley chose her for her rides whenever possible. When inside the stable, she spent extra time grooming her and brushing out the mare's head-of-hair, which reminded Hadley of her mother's stunning locks, at least before the cancer changed the texture. Before the life shattering diagnosis, her mother's hair was a waterfall of dark brown, hand-spun silk and the Pink Ladies often teased her over its constant perfection. "Blue eyes and silk for hair," they'd playfully scoff. A few times Hadley noticed the women appeared jovial while poking fun, but would also subconsciously finger their own dull, dry, or frizzy strands. Hadley never blamed them since she also tended to stare in the mirror, comparing herself to her mother's effortless perfection.

Hadley wondered if she loved this horse more than the others because of this connection. Regardless of deeper meaning, she grew dependent on their rides. When she could, she'd bring a peppermint candy or an apple, knowing how much Snow White loved a surprise treat. Over time Hadley slowly learned to trot and cantor without Dorothy's supervision. They would travel around for hours at a time, sometimes staying within the fenced in fields, though Hadley preferred to travel along the narrow dusty roads outside of the farm.

There were days she would talk to the horse like a friend and others as if Snow White was her therapist. She shared stories of the time spent with her parents during her early childhood and how much fun she used to have with her mom and her dad. Her memories were always filled with a light that was now missing from her life. She always felt like this special horse understood exactly what she said. With Snow White, Hadley breathed easy and smiled often, slowly starting to feel like herself again.

Once or twice a week, Hadley rode down the hill to her house. It was a less than five-minute trot and Snow White seemed to know the path by heart. Occasionally Hadley would see her dad's rusted old Buick in the driveway. I wonder why he's home again, she often thought, worried he would lose his job. On their walk back to the farm, Hadley talked openly with Snow White about her growing concerns and rambled on about all the possibilities for what could happen if her father lost his job. She wondered how easy it would be to find a new one and what it would mean for their house.

***

One unusually balmy July afternoon, Dorothy told Hadley that she was expecting company at the end of the week and asked her not to come by on Friday, but that she was fine to come back over on Monday morning. It was only one day, but after getting accustomed to cutting across the grassy field each morning, Hadley felt so disappointed. She would miss watching the rising sun break across the blushed sky as she traveled through the morning dew. It was her favorite way to start her days in the summer and she would miss it on Friday and even more so once school started back in the fall.

Hadley wanted to ask if she could instead come over on Saturday, but knew the weekends were when Dorothy and Kimberly gave riding lessons to beginner youth. She wondered if Jeremy and Kimberly were the guests that were visiting Dorothy. She never heard her mention anyone else but also didn't want to pry. She of course acted understanding of Dorothy's request and promised to be back bright and early Monday morning.

On her walk home that day, however, her mind rattled. She wondered if her dad would be working Friday or if she'd be home all alone. She wondered if she would sleep in or if her body would wake up thinking it was time to leave. She wondered if the day would go by as quickly as she hoped. Would the Pink Ladies show up that night? They used to show up every Friday, but after several awkward run-ins with her drunk father, they started to show up less and less. She wondered the whole way home.

***

Hadley woke up the next morning bright and early. She almost jumped out of bed to get changed before remembering her agreement with Dorothy. Having nowhere to go on a Friday morning, she perched in bed to relax. Her birthday was tomorrow, but she didn't expect her dad to remember or acknowledge it. She was too embarrassed to tell Dorothy about the day, not wanting her to think it was meant to be a guilt trip. Hadley planned to take Snow White on an extra fun ride on Monday in place of a Friday celebration. Since she was stuck home for a long weekend, she decided she'd pick a new book from her mom's bookcase to start reading. She pulled out The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and Speedboat by Renata Adler. After reading the descriptions, she decided to start with The Bluest Eye, opting for a full novel over the collection of vignettes. She hoped this book would take her through the weekend.

Hadley was soon invested in the main character, Pecola, who was only a few years younger than she was. As the book unfolded, Hadley learned Pecola's father was an abusive alcoholic. Curiously, the words on the pages started to feel familiar. She started drawing parallels to her own life when suddenly she heard the distinct sound of an engine shutting off. With the slamming of the front door, she knew her father was home. Wait, why was he home? She glanced at her alarm clock to see it was only 1:15.

Soon Hadley heard music echoing off the living room walls. A half hour after that, she heard a shattering noise and a loud thud. Hadley quickly marked her page in the book and stood up, once again forced to make sure her dad was okay. She started moving, thinking it would be nice if for once he was checking on her. She walked downstairs and noticed one of the living room lights was broken on the floor. That explained the noise. Her dad was lying on the couch with a bottle of Jim Beam in one hand and his other hand draped across his face. At first, she wasn't sure if he was asleep or dead, but a loud groan reassured her that he was alive. Hadley walked over and turned down the stereo before shifting her eyes back to her father.

"Dad? What are you doing?" she asked hesitantly. "Why aren't you at work… it's like 2 o'clock." Hadley was as confused as she was concerned. She started to think about all the days that she had ridden past her house during the school year and saw his car in the driveway. Is this what he leaves work early to do?

"Leave me alone, Had. I was asleepin' before your loudmouth woke me. Wh-why do you care, Had-ley? Why are you here, shouldn't you be out, God knows where?" His voice was harsh but his words slurred sloppily together. Hadley didn't understand what was going on. She grew up around drinking, but not like this. When the Pink Ladies drank, they had blushed cheeks and contagious laughter. They would joke and sing and were always happy. They didn't act like this. She even remembered when her dad would come home from grabbing drinks with his friends. He sometimes had a short fuse, but not often. He was still his normal self – a self she barely remembered now. Now he was distant or mean, sometimes, somehow, he'd be both. It was normal to find him in a drunken stupor by sunset, but not by midday. He was getting worse as the days went on and she no longer thought it was from grief.

Hadley reluctantly went into the kitchen and got her father a cold glass of water. By all definitions, she was a young girl, but in moments like these she felt like she was the parent, not him. It was hard for her to process, especially since all she really needed was to feel a parent's love again. She brought the water out to her father and placed it on the floor next to the couch. She grabbed the broom next to clean up the shards of glass from the broken lamp. "What happened, dad?"

"I was swatting a damn fly." Michael said, sounding annoyed that she couldn't figure that out herself. Once the mess was cleaned up, Hadley retreated to her room. She rested her head against her window with a blanket draped around her. Every so often she heard her father yelling indiscriminately but she never got up to hear what he had to say. Instead she sat there and stared at the night sky. She never picked back up The Bluest Eye, knowing it would be too difficult of a story for her to read immediately following her father's outburst. Tomorrow she would pick it back up only to learn of Pecola's dreadful rape. She'd shed a tear for the girl and a tear for herself, relieved for not having read this scene the night before.

For tonight, she eventually grabbed a tattered soft cover version of Romeo and Juliet from her mother's three-shelf bookcase. She used to beg her mom to read it over and over at bedtime, entranced by the way her mom used different voices to bring the story to life. She walked back to the bay window in her tiny bedroom and settled in to read what was one of her favorites. She read it so many times that she could probably recite it from memory. This was what she needed tonight – a book with familiar phrases and definitely no unexpected traumas or heartbreak to spin her already enervated mind.

Shifting her eyes from the book to the view outside her large window, Hadley tried her best to mimic the feelings of a young Juliet. Despite her efforts she knew it was impossible. Still, she tried.

"Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night, and pay no worship to the garish sun."

Would she look out her window to the star freckled sky and see her love scattered in the brightest of lights? Would the sun the next morning seem dull just as it did to Juliet? She feared never finding the type of Romeo she often read about. She sometimes wondered if this is how her mom had felt about her dad. She didn't think so. From Hadley's perspective her parents were happy together, but happier apart. Her mom seemed happiest with the Pink Ladies and her dad with his coworkers at the local hangout. At such a young age, Hadley assumed this was normal. Marriages were functional and friends were loving and fun. Every day when her dad got home from work, instead of her mom rushing to the door to greet him in the excited way she did when her group of friends arrived each week, she would smile, pat her hand on his chest, and take his thermos to the kitchen. It was functional. Was Shakespeare exaggerating?

Hadley was content with the thought that maybe her greatest love was already scattered across the sky. While her parents may not have shown Shakespeare level love with one another, Hadley experienced a love so deep with her mom that she knew it would never be matched. Her mom was her idol, her sun and her stars. She liked to think that the bright lights outside her window were her mom twinkling down on her. Maybe it was her mom who made up the stars. I could live with that. She curled up against the window and closed her eyes.