Lockdown Love

The papers in my hand shook and the words blurred before my eyes – or maybe the words were blurry because of the liquid in my eyes. I couldn’t take my eyes off of one word typed in bold black ink. Divorce.

“Mommy?” The voice was small and hesitant. I snatched the papers up and hid them behind my back, my heart thumping in my chest. I turned to look at my daughter. White hair, white skin, translucent eyes. I searched her features for any resemblance to mine or my . . . my husband’s.

“Yes, Gwinny?” I managed a smile, blinking my eyes to hide the wetness there. Still, she lowered her fine white brows over her eyes as she stared up at me. Albinism, the doctor had told me when she’d been placed in my arms as a still-wet newborn six years ago.

“Is everything okay, Mommy?”

“Yes, Gwinny,” I said with a forced laugh, reaching out to tug on one of her braids. “Go back to your room, Love. We’ve had this talk. Online school is still school. You can’t just get up and walk away.” Still, she looked at me in that way she had. If Empaths were real, my Gwinny was one. I smiled wider.

I took her hand, my ebony skin a stark contrast to her colorless fingers, and led her to the adjacent room where she worked at a computer with her first-grade teacher. I shut the door behind her as she put her headphones on.

The divorce papers in my other hand burned, and I shoved them behind a nearby couch. The sound of them hitting the floor was louder than I’d imagined. I looked around before running up the stairs to the room which I shared with myself.

I shut the door, leaning against it and into the blessed peace of silence. I let the tears fall as I slid down the door. I looked around the room, my mind empty. My eyes scanned the stack of journals under my bed. I had kept them over the ten years that I’d been married to Jordy. My eyes snagged on an unfamiliar one. I leaned forwards, reaching for it. It was slender and black. My eyes scanned the words. When had I written these words?

It was a list of sorts. They were things that I had not thought twice about once – before my marriage to Jordy. I dropped the small black notebook, walking to the large mirror that covered the wall to the attached bathroom. I pulled off my sweatpants, realizing they were sizes too big. I’d lost weight in the year that we’d been on lockdown, but I hadn’t realized how much. I yanked the gray t-shirt over my head and turned on the shower, but not before noticing my lackluster granny panties and loose sports bra.

When was the last time I had worn something that I felt beautiful in? I yanked off the offensive undergarments, balling them up and tossing them in the nearby trash. Stepping into the shower, I let the water run, scalding hot over my skin and hair, feeling my thick curls loosen down my back. When had I last done my hair? Gwinny kept me busy.

I turned off the water and glanced at the clock, thinking of the words in the book. I’d done the first thing on the list, and it had felt so nice. Gwinny would be in school for another two hours. Perhaps the laundry could wait, and I could do the other things on the list.

I stood in front of the mirror naked. When was the last time I had focused on myself? I leaned into the mirror and looked at my face. Did I even own makeup anymore? My mind flittered to the divorce papers. What was I going to do? I thought of the $500 in my bank account. How was I going to afford a divorce attorney? How was I going to afford a new life? How would I find a job in the middle of a pandemic when so many others were out of work? I sucked in a sob, glancing towards the bedroom door. I didn’t want Gwinny to hear me crying.

Grabbing a pair of scissors, I glared at my big thick 3c curls in the mirror. They were already dry. I’d have to wet my hair again to add the leave-in conditioner that made it more manageable. Staring at myself with the scissors, I thought of how cliché I appeared. A woman in crisis about to cut her hair, but this was different. I had been a hairdresser by profession, though I hadn’t worked much since Gwinny had joined us, and now with the salons closed, there was no work.

Instead of cutting my hair off, I took it, curl by curl, and cut it to shape my face. I looked at my features when I was done. Reaching for a pair of nearby tweezers, I attacked my brows next, forming them into the arched frames I’d been so proud of in my young adult years. I then plucked at the five or six gray hairs that surrounded my face.

I looked at myself in the mirror and saw Gwinny looking back at me. It was like twenty years had fallen off. I turned to my nearby drawer and dug through piles of granny panties and sports bras, looking for the lace pushup bras and panties that my girlfriends had given me at my bachelorette party ten years ago. I’d barely worn them those first months before I’d gotten pregnant because Jordy had preferred me as I now stood, naked.

How long ago those days now seemed. Divorce. The word hammered through my mind, and I blocked it, grabbing a pair of undies with a tag still on them and stepping into them. I tugged off the tag and turned towards the mirror. I looked at my smooth brown curves, fluffy curls, and full lips. I was – I was beautiful . . . still. The list in the book had been the perfect home makeover. I pulled out my phone and snapped a few smiling photos of myself – my own boudoir photoshoot.

I put the phone down and reached into my closet, looking for something that would fit, but the sound of the door opening had me freezing.

“Meena?” It was Jordy’s voice. I covered my chest before I realized how silly that was.

“I’m in the closet,” I said. “Give me a second to get dressed,” but it was too late. He’d walked in on me as I scrambled for something to throw on. I felt the confusion first. He hadn’t come to this room in years, why now? Then I saw his face. His eyes were wide and glazed over as he glanced at me from head to toe. When was the last time he’d slept? His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat before he turned away, his broad shoulders squaring under his blue t-shirt.

“Sorry,” he said, his words sounding as though they were being squeezed through his teeth. “Gwin knocked on my door and said she was worried something was wrong with you. I thought – I thought maybe you were ill.”

The virus. I let out a breath of air, grabbing for the first article of clothing my hands touched and throwing it on. It was a cotton sheath dress I hadn’t worn in years. I was surprised again that it fit.

“I’m fine,” I said. But was I? He hadn’t mentioned the papers. When had he filed them? Why hadn’t he told me? When was the last time we’d even spoken? I saw his shoulders tremble a little, and I took a step forward, lifting my hand, then letting it fall to my side. “I’m dressed now.” So formal we were – those first few years of marriage forgotten.

He turned around then. “You look – wow.”

I felt a small shiver as he looked at me, but I pushed it down, not meeting his eyes. Was he going to stand there and pretend he hadn’t just filed for divorce? “I got the papers,” I said.

There was silence. I looked up. Now he wouldn’t meet my eyes. I knew this game. He wouldn’t say anything else. I shook my head. “I’d better check on Gwinny.” I rushed past him.

Later that night, I stared at the ceiling. Gwinny was in bed, and I was again in the silence of my room. I picked up my phone and opened up my social media profile. Ads, ads, ads. As if I could afford any of those things. Lockdown Makeover, $20,000 prize!

I shrugged, submitting a few before and after photos – the ones I’d taken earlier in the day. I put the phone down and rolled over to face the door. Just then, the doorknob turned, and the door swung open. I expected Gwinny, coming to sleep with me as she did some nights, but it wasn’t her. I sat up.

“I’m sorry,” Jordy said, his voice almost too low to hear, his eyes on the ground. I sucked in a breath of air. Never had I heard those words from him. “Meena,” his voice rose at the end as though in a question.

He took a step forward then looked at me. I moved the pillows that piled on the side of the bed that had once been his, and he sat down next to me.

“Mom died,” he said. I sucked in another breath of air but said nothing. His lips tilted downward. “Life was supposed to be different.” The words poured out of him, and I listened. When he was finished, I pulled his head to my breasts. The wetness of his tears slid down between them, and he reached his arms around me and held on as though I were his life vest in a sinking boat. And we were in a sinking boat, but I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time—my strength. I had lost myself in him -- in my family, but I had a sense that I was going to find myself again. Jordy looked up, his lips seeking mine, but I turned my face away and rubbed his back instead.

“Rest,” I said, looking into his eyes. His eyes flickered shut, and his breathing slowed. One of his muscled arms still held my waist. That night we slept in the same bed for the first time in years. Somewhere in the middle of the night, our bodies remembered each other and moved together as one again, the joy of it bubbling up and bursting into muffled cries of mutual completion.

In the morning, Gwinny ran into the room. “Mommy, Daddy,” her voice bubbled with joy as she jumped on the bed between us.

I felt a smile forming on my face. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d been all together in one place. I looked at Jordy, and he smiled at me.

Two months later, my phone rang. I held the divorce papers in my hand again. They were as yet unsigned, and Jordy and I hadn’t breached the topic again. Looking out the window as I answered the phone, I saw Jordy playing catch in the shade with Gwinny. He looked up at me, gesturing for me to join them.

“Meena Simmonds?” the voice on the phone said.

“Yes?”

“We’re calling from the Lockdown Makeover contest to let you know that you are the first place winner of our $20,000 prize.”

I dropped the phone, then picked it up again, the caller’s words jumbling into nothing. With $20,000, I could jumpstart my new life. I looked out the window at Jordy and Gwinny as they chased each other in the shade of the large oak tree. Or perhaps I already had.