By the end of January, Roseanne wasn't so sure her plan to leave the fate of their relationship in Lisa's angry hands had been a wise one. There had been no phone calls, no messages – nothing. As a matter of fact, Roseanne rarely saw Lisa now. When they were a couple, Lisa had managed to stop in on most rehearsals and every performance, either with official business or with business that seemed more like an excuse. Now, her business at rehearsals had dried up or she was conducting it from her office on the opposite side of Millennium Park, far away from Roseanne. The few times she had seen her had been from afar, and Lisa had behaved as though Roseanne hadn't been in the room, never looking up or acknowledging her in any way.
By the end of February, Roseanne was sure she had made a mistake by not just throwing Lisa over her shoulder and claiming her for her own.
Depression was edging into a resigned gray feeling as her life began to pick up a normal pace again. Valentine's Day came and went in a stumbling drunken blunder of a night. She and John, ever the good friend, had tucked Luke into bed and then drank their weight in whiskey. Roseanne, more obsessed with it now than she ever had been, played that blue Miles Davis album on repeat, her mood growing sour until John swore he couldn't take it anymore. By the end of the night, they had landed in two comatose heaps on the living room floor.
By the end of March, Roseanne had simply given up, accepting that it was over; she had ruined it and she was out of luck now. The everyday pain of her stupidity was mellowing, and she was back in the well of loneliness she had lived in before she met Lisa, the same loneliness that had driven her to date and stay with Ash when she first arrived in Chicago. She was back to sitting alone at night, a huge bowl of ice cream in her lap, or to losing herself in vigorous workout routines.
She hurt. She hurt every day. No amount of blues trumpet, no amount of tears or frustration seemed to make her feel better. She hadn't just lost a love, she had lost friends. She had lost an entire life, an entire possible future, and she wanted it back. This was a very familiar feeling; as a teenager she called it the "new foster home blues."
Due to the fact that Roseanne had a four-year-old child and a severe lack of "people" - no friends - no family; she was very seldom alone. There was never anyone besides herself to take Luke to the movies and give her the afternoon off. There were never any birthday parties he attended on his own and no school for him to disappear to, not until next year, anyway. There were also no unexpected sleepovers or day trips to the zoo, not since Charlie disappeared.
In a solitary lifestyle, like the one Roseanne and Luke led, she could assume that her child would be with her at all times, no matter what.
That was why this felt so weird.
The only "people" she had now, Luke and John, were out in some distant suburb at a Boy Scouts of America jamboree, learning how to tie knots they would never use and select non-poisonous berries they would never need to find. It was boys' bonding time, no girls allowed. Roseanne was grateful that Luke still had John after losing Lisa and Charlie, and she was even more grateful when he recommended getting Luke involved in Boy Scouts, but she just wished that the jamboree hadn't been today.
She leaned forward and started Kind of Blue over, for no other reason than the memory ripped at her soul, but also soothed it in a way she rarely found these days.
"Blue ... It sounds like water. It's, I don't know, it's rich and smooth, like swirling, maybe the way that steam twists up from a cup of coffee or the way that the Chicago River twists through downtown. ...It's like, I don't know, cobalt, only it's darker at the edges. Sad. It's ... lonesome, but it's beautiful. It sounds... I don't know, it sounds how blue makes you feel, warm and relaxed and yet sad and alone."
She didn't feel warm. She didn't feel relaxed. She just felt blue, blue-gray like a dampening fog, weighing her down.
She turned over on the couch, feeling the vast, oppressive emptiness of the apartment all over again.
Before, when Charlie would swoop in with a new video game or a movie that she wanted to share with Luke, Roseanne would spend that time with Lisa. She wasn't alone.
Today, though...
Maybe this was better, she thought. Above all else, she was a mom. That meant no matter how blue-gray she was feeling she could never give in to it, never let it overwhelm her. If Luke had been home, she would have been far too distracted to find herself in her underwear watching trash TV for hours and drinking.
She was doing a lot of drinking.
Her head hit the back of the couch, startling her and making her realize that she had once again slipped into a comatose state as she stared blankly at the screen, not hearing it or the music that was playing. She coughed and changed the channel, unaware of what she had been watching.
Pretty Woman – she jumped to change the channel, wincing at the sting that reverberated from her heart to her eyes; the happy smiles on the screen had burned her retinas.
That used to be one of her favorite movies. She and Lisa had watched it twice.
Who knew, maybe it had burned her.
Maybe she was just allergic now.
Maybe she had just reached her maximum threshold of times she could be thrown away and now she didn't have room in herself for shit like romantic comedies.
She was mad at herself more than she was mad at Lisa or Charlie. Hadn't she learned how to avoid this?
Her head hit the couch again, and she let it stay there, staring vacantly at the wall. She had worked so hard to never let life break her, but her walls had been down. The damage had been done before Roseanne realized she was in danger.
And that was stupid.
Yes, she was allergic now.
And poor Luke, he was too.
Together, she and Luke had won the thumb sucking battle over the months since they had moved to Chicago, and yet, since Lisa and Charlie disappeared, Luke's thumb had been wandering, finding itself back in his mouth after so much hard work. The sight of it, of Luke sucking his thumb again ripped at her. It was her fault. She had put her son in a situation where he was so badly upset that he needed that type of comfort again.
That was all her fault.
She was a horrible parent.
She pulled her knees up to her chest, hugging them tight.
Horrible. She was horrible.
A burst of anger flashed through her, and she grabbed the phone, turning the album off and flinging the phone across the couch.
Maybe she just needed a full night's sleep. It had been so long since something had triggered this feeling of inadequacy and abandonment, she had forgotten about the dreams that had haunted her in the past... dreams of showing up on the doorstep of a new home only to be informed that she was not expected or wanted... dreams where she was informed by a social worker that they could find nowhere else for her to go so she had been assigned to live the rest of her life in a cardboard box behind a local fast food chain.
Meekly, almost timidly, she crawled over to her phone and rested her face beside it. Turning the music back on, she settled into the couch, listening to the heartbreaking blues.
It wasn't just that she had been broken up with, that had happened a few times since her teen years. It was that her voice in the situation had been taken away. She had absolutely no say in the matter. She hadn't even been able to explain herself. She had been living life happily and then a power greater than her own had swooped in and removed her, dumping her into the blue-gray, all-consuming depression. She thought she had moved past these feelings but perhaps being an unwanted and unloved child was something you never moved past – not fully.
She sat up and reached for her whiskey on the table. Moving too quickly, she sloshed the drink across her bra. Blankly, she stared down for a long moment, not really caring that the garment was soiled, drunk, but simply watching the color spread. She took another swig and shrugged at the empty room. There was nobody here to judge her – even if she was judging herself.
All right, if she was being honest with herself, it wasn't just her abandonment issues or lack of sleep – not today. She had always hated the women who fell apart once they were kicked to the curb by a lover.
No, this, her pathetic drunken state, was because today was the worst day of the year.
She had always hated this day. There was no better holiday to remind Roseanne of just how alone she was, how alone she always had been.
No parents to call her and regale with tales of her birth.
No best friend to show up unannounced with a cupcake or a shot.
No significant other to kiss her cheeks and tell her they were thankful she was born.
She clicked the remote again and settled deeper into the couch, watching but not really seeing the show on the screen.
Should she be doing something else?
She could clean, but she had been unnaturally tidy as of late.
She could work out... yeah, she should do that. She pulled herself halfway off the couch before giving the idea up.
She could study, but she had been studying so much over the last few months that her hands felt permanently cramped into the shapes of letters and numbers. She had thought that the cello was rough on her hands, but ASL was worse.
Her glare fell across her cello – no, she didn't want that either.
So, she allowed herself to just sit and stare moodily at nothing in particular.
Why had she let Luke go to the jamboree? She knew he was still too young to call her out on her dismissal of the day - much like you-know-who would have done. At least if he was here she could bury herself in him. She could use him as her own personal sun and drive away the drab. They could have gone to the movies or maybe out to dinner, and he would have fought off the loneliness that was gripping her. She could have focused on being a good mother, being a good housekeeper, or a better homemaker. She would have spent the day with him, helping him to bake a cake and waiting nervously while he used the big boy scissors to cut an odd amount of wrap for whatever strange object a four-year-old found fitting for a gift.
She knew if she had told John, he would have insisted on something, too, but perhaps that was the problem. Each year growing up she had been in a different home when this dreaded day had arrived. There had never been any special surprises or knowing cheers because, no one ever knew. She could tell them, yes, and perhaps they would grudgingly buy a cheap sheet cake from the grocery store or something. While that was great and all, no one had ever known her, known her life well enough to know the day was coming on their own. She had simply stopped telling those around her by the age of ten to avoid the awkward vibe of obligation.
What was the point?
She groaned and buried her face into the back of the couch.
There was nothing like this day to remind her of how alone she was.
Roseanne woke a few hours later slumped over, her face pressed to the seat of the couch, unaware she had dozed. The album playing on her phone was one she hadn't listened to before, and she wasn't sure exactly what it was playing on the TV now. An M&M had melted to the side of her face, streaking her skin with blue as she swiped it away. A little more sober now, the Smurf gore on her fingers jarred her into a moment of clarity.
What the hell was wrong with her? She was wallowing like a teenager; that wasn't like her. She didn't wallow.
She checked the time and realized it had been five hours since she first sat down. That was unacceptable – and so desirable. All she wanted to do was crumble back on the soft seat and be a lump, but no, she had to get up.
She had to get out of this cold, cold house.
Roseanne stood unsteadily and headed to the bathroom, washing her face and brushing her teeth. She pulled her clothes on over the whiskey-stained bra and underwear, brushed out her hair and pulled it back into a bun.
She stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, bleary-eyed, and decided she didn't care how she looked. She just had to go before she gave into the soporific call of cooking show reruns. She had to turn that sad music off.
She had no idea where she was going when she got on the train, no real plans set. She had simply gotten on the first train to arrive, pleased when it wasn't the yellow line train that would take her to Skokie, a distant suburb.
Apparently, though, it had been the purple line train into Evanston because thirty minutes later, she found herself on the beach of Lake Michigan not far from Jacqueline's house.
She blinked around as she realized this, a little surprised.
She could stop by the Manoban mansion, but that was probably a bad idea. As deadened and alone as she felt that day, Jacqueline had demanded her presence every Tuesday evening over the past months and that was enough.
Plus, if she went, then the matriarch would ask her if she practiced that day and would probably smell the booze on her breath. She was like a parole officer you got for doing something well instead of badly.
It wasn't worth it.
Instead, she nestled into a groove in the sand and watched the people around her.
It was still cold, as a matter of fact the lake hadn't thawed completely yet, so there were very few people out. Still, each set of happy parents that chased their children down the sand, each happy and loving couple taking a stroll anesthetized Roseanne a little bit more. What was their life like? Did they have the same types of problems that she had? Did their smiles cover the fact that they were broken, too?
When she couldn't take it anymore she rose, brushing the sand off and heading back toward the city.
What were Luke and John doing? Should she call and check on them? She decided against it, knowing her black mood would be apparent. They were fine without her.
She passed a lively bar and grill where a group of college students were cheering happily from just inside the doors. Without knowing exactly why, she slipped inside and sighed, feeling the vicarious warmth and merriment wash over her. It brought some feeling back into her toes, and for just a moment she felt better.
"Noel is turning twenty-two! Let's hear it for the old lady!" The perfectly groomed man in the Northwestern hoodie was calling from the center of the table.
"Table for one, miss?"
Roseanne jumped. She hadn't noticed the host to her left watching her closely. "Oh, uh, yeah. Just one, I guess."
"Right this way."
Roseanne watched him go, debating just turning around and leaving. Instead, she smiled as she was supposed to do and followed him to a small corner booth meant for intimate dates and, apparently, rejects who were eating alone. She would have been embarrassed had she not felt so tired.
She wasn't sure she was hungry, it was a little early for dinner but the cheer of the party was addicting.
She watched as the birthday girl was forced into a small, cone birthday hat, blushing as her friends took turns hugging her warmly. Envy, jealous and angry green flooded through Roseanne. It wasn't pretty and she was ashamed of herself, but it couldn't be helped. Like a stone, the envy dropped into sadness. Would she ever have that? Would she ever have people? Did she even want people? People seemed to be predictably disappointing.
Why didn't she just go out and make friends? It had been easy enough as a kid. All you had to do was walk up to someone and say you're my friend now and boom, best friends forever. Would the same rule work in adulthood? Could she walk up to a businessman with his suit and briefcase and simply inform him they were best friends forever now? Could she then tell him that the first sleepover would be at her house that Saturday at five?
She was pretty sure they would chuck her in the looney bin.
Casually, she wondered if maybe a dog was what she needed. They were faithful. They loved you no matter what. She could finally get that Lab she had always wanted. As a matter of fact, once the idea occurred to her, it seemed like the perfect thing. Joy filled her for a moment, and she almost stood to leave but... Shit, no, her hopes crashed down as quickly as they had been raised. It wasn't right to keep a dog in a tiny, urban apartment.
The server came smiling back to her table, and Roseanne realized she hadn't opened the menu. "Um, Jack and Coke and whatever your house cheeseburger is?"
"Very good, miss."
Her eyes fell back to the college students with their cheerful faces. Did they know at all what this was like? Did any of them know what it was like to be lonely in your soul?
She gasped when a large tear rolled down her cheek and quickly swatted at it. She wasn't going to do that now.
She hadn't meant to have three drinks, she really hadn't, but watching the group of college students had been like her own personal masochistic movie. The drinks had kept coming, and she had nursed them, sort of, living in their bitter burn down her throat.
She wasn't too drunk to function, but through the haze of misery she wasn't exactly sure how she had gotten from point A to point B. All she knew was that, suddenly, she had found herself on her couch again, back down to her underwear and staring at the patterns in the ceiling.
She had handled this day in the worst possible manner.
She sighed into the gathering darkness. She should have fought harder for Lisa, chased more, insisted, stalked. She should have done everything she could. She should have told Lisa about the money thing early, she could have been honest with her. She shouldn't have let it bother her; it wasn't such a big deal. She should have shown up at her loft every day trying to explain. Having people was great, wonderful even, but having people she loved, well, that was a dream not granted to many. Roseanne craved it with every fiber of her being.
She should have signed more.
What had she been afraid of? Being humiliated? Looking stupid? So what? Did that really matter in the long run? She was an idiot.
She took another sip of the whiskey she hadn't realized she was holding, slopping it over herself again. She glared at it, set it hard on the coffee table, and flopped onto her back. She could see shadows moving on the ceiling, and hear a siren somewhere in the distance, along with a group of thugs laughing outside.
The din felt sharp, threatening, and she flinched away, burying herself deeper into the couch to get away from the feral city.
She began to hum to herself, hands slowly singing in the air above her.
Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me...
