Page 2 of The Do-Over

“I got mad is what happened. There was some screaming, and the baby woke up and started wailing. That woman jumped up, grabbed her clothes and ran out of the trailer buck naked. But I only had eyes for that ass I called a husband.” She tapped the end of her cigarette on the little misshapen clay ashtray I’d made for her in the third grade.

“He started whinin’ about how lonely he was because I worked so much. I went a little crazy, I guess you could say.” Her head tipped toward the pan our breakfast sizzled in. “I picked up that pan and swung.” A corner of her mouth tipped in a smirk. “Guess his head got in the way.”

“He fell like a tree right there in the kitchen. I picked up the baby, went next door and called for an ambulance. He told everyone it was an accident ’cause he didn’t want to admit his wife flat knocked him out.”

“Wow,” I breathed, more than a little in awe of her.

“I changed the locks while he was in the hospital and saved enough money to divorce his good-for-nothing ass.” She pressed her cigarette out and stood, strutting to the stove. Mimi strutted everywhere—the grocery store, the doctor’s office, funerals—like life was one long catwalk.

The hash finished, she pulled it from the burner and flipped off the heat. She turned to face me and leaned a hip against the counter. “That was one of my moments, honey.”

“One of your moments?”

She nodded, her helmet of dark hair wobbling. “See, there are moments in life—sometimes they’re big, sometimes small. Some are happy, like meeting the man you’ll marry or having a baby. But sometimes they’re ugly. It’s the moments that make us who we are. The day I opened the door to the trailer? That was one of them moments. It changed me.”

I mulled this over as Mimi pulled out two of her blue and white dishes and set them on the counter before piling them with hash.

“How’d it change you?” I asked when she brought the food to the table.

“I finally took charge of my life, peeled that man off me, and never looked back. You’ll see. No one escapes those moments. One day, when you least expect it, it will hit you. You might not realize it at first, but it’ll change you. Now, eat up. The Price is Right is almost on.”

In the fourteen years since that conversation, I’ve waited for The Moment That Would Change Me—I held my breath on each birthday, the first time I met a handsome man who made my heart skip, when I graduated from college—but it never arrived. I made it all the way to twenty-seven years old, disappointed my life seemed to be following the same predictable path it had been set on.

Then, one day, in the least likely place, it happened.

And it was not pretty.

TWO

“When life gives you lemons,

give them back and ask for grapes.

You can make wine with grapes.”

—MIMI

On my list of Places I Hated, the dentist’s office was firmly at number two. Slightly worse than shopping with my mother, but not as bad as a visit to my gynecologist, who was also a family friend. My parents had him over for barbecues and I couldn’t quite look Dr. Sullivan in the eye without remembering where his eyes had been. I was, of course, a fully-grown woman who could easily change doctors, but then my mother would find out, I’d have to explain, and the battle would be lost before it began.

All that to say, it was late morning on New Year’s Eve, and I was perched in a pink reclining dental chair waiting to get the filling I’d procrastinated over until the last possible hour.

“How’s your mouth feeling? Numb?” Dr. Kelly peered down at me, a blue mask covering half her face. I couldn’t remember ever seeing more of her than two fiercely tamed dark eyebrows balanced over blue eyes.

I nodded and slid my phone under my thigh.

The corners of her eyes crinkled. “We’ll wait five more minutes and get started. How’s your mom?”

Yes, Dr. Kelly was Mom’s dentist too.

“You know Mom, she keeps busy.” She also kept herself firmly planted in the lives of her daughters. Not quite like a tree with widespread roots that nourished; more like vines that were suffocating and impossible to kill.

“And that sister of yours? I saw her on the morning show last week.” Her eyes took on a dreamy, wistful look. “Such beautiful teeth. I bet she flosses every day. Her dentist must be so proud.”

“They’re very nice teeth.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Flossing prevents cavities. You wouldn’t be here today if you did it a little more.”

My cheeks flamed. “You’re right. Sometimes I fall asleep or forget. One time I dropped the whole package of floss in the toilet and—”