She summons a rainstorm to symbolize my sadness.
The clouds that have glowered all day finally open
in a sullen drench. She locks my keys and phone
in the car and sends me into the rain with a half-broken
umbrella to carry home the groceries. The bent struts are
my resolve, the worn canopy my sanity. When I get home
she has given the spare key to a neighbor for emergencies
such as this. The neighbor is in Montana, my key safely
linked on her keychain. My sadness and my groceries and I sit
on the porch waiting for my husband to come home.
In the first draft he is halfway to California with his secretary.
In the final draft he kisses the mingled drops from my cheeks.
To show I am suppressing past trauma she breaks
the pipe connecting my bungalow to the city sewers.
She stirs memories of misery as a complement
to the thick, clotted shit bubbling up in the basement sink
after every flush and shower, every rinse of dishes.
She gives my landlords an address on the East Coast,
no time for Pacific property problems. Each night I bale out
the sink with a bucket, choking on fumes. I carry pail
after pail to the backyard to spread on the roots
of the lemon tree, on the squash and tomato beds.
In the first draft I repress. The whole garden rots and dies.
In the final draft I heal. Lemons grow fat and fragrant on the branches.
She thinks parenthood is a barrier to creative ambition, so she
drops a rejection in my email, the notification chime drowned
out by my son whirling around the room in a tantrum
the Tasmanian Devil would envy. While I calm him (or not)
the literary eye lovingly details the half-filled notebook abandoned
on the end table, pen patiently waiting on top. On the night
of the Big Reading she gives him the flu. He rains vomit
on the carseat, on the seatback, on my hairstyle painstakingly
constructed to look effortless, on the dress I chose only after texting
options to six friends and my mother. The reading goes on.
In the first draft I weep while I hose down the carseat.
There is no final draft. She keeps saying she will write it during naptime.