Playing House: An Excerpt from BRIGHT EYES
“Alright, let’s blow this pop stand.” Mom whispers because the sun is barely up, and all our neighbors are still asleep. After all the screaming and fighting they had to deal with this past year, I doubt they’ll be sad when they figure out we left.
She gently closes the door on our little yellow house that’s hidden under the blood-red paint Al forced me to cover it with. Mom and I had spent the summer making it ours again—patching holes we filled with friends’ laughter, scrubbing engine oil off the carpet by dancing across it, and bleaching everything to kill the smell of Al.
“Hurry now.” Mom waves me off the porch toward the headlights waiting to take us to the airport. Carrying a suitcase I rushed to pack because she just told me last night we were going to Juneau this morning, I’m still happier than I’ve ever been to move because even though Al left, he isn’t really gone. He drives by our house constantly—staring in our windows until he sees us see him. Even though Mom hides her baby belly under baggy sweatshirts and behind big bags, we’re both terrified Al will figure out our secret and force his way back into our lives. That’s why we’re leaving in secret, and why I couldn’t tell anyone—not even my best friend.
Driving away from Osborne Street, we pass Nikki’s house. Tears slip down my cheeks, knowing she’ll be confused and scared in a couple “ 82 BRIGHT EYES hours when she knocks on my door to walk to the bus stop together, and I’m not there. I wanted to call her last night, but Mom said no.
“She won’t tell her dad, I promise.”
“Baby, I’m sorry, but what if she does? Do you know what Al would do to us?”
“I know, Mom.” “No, you don’t. He’d kill us, Bridey. All three of us.”
I knew she was right—and I knew how exhausted she was from hiding her belly.
Juneau, Alaska January 16, 1983
“It’s a girl!” Auntie Lynne announces in the hospital waiting room. “You can go meet your sister now,” she says, motioning me inside the double doors.
“Congratulations, you’re a dad,” Mom says softly, pulling the blanket away for me to see the baby. “We’re naming her Bephens like we talked about.”
“Hi, sister,” I whisper because she’s sleeping. “I’m so happy to finally meet you.”
*
After living with my auntie Lynne since we moved back to Juneau in September, the three of us finally get to move into our own place.
Mom tells me, “Grandmother pulled a few strings to move us up the list.”
What she means is that Grandmother’s new boyfriend—who also happens to be the governor of Alaska—made some phone calls to get us into the new low-income housing project the city just built.
We pull into Coho Park in our rusted-red Volkswagen Bug and see brand new buildings with grassy yards. Mom gushes, “It’s beautiful!”
Sitting with Bephens in the back of the Bug because it’s missing a passenger seat, I look out the window at all the kids—some running and playing and some dragging black trash bags I’m betting are full of their clothes and toys. “And it’s brand-new? Like nobody has ever lived here before?” I ask.
“Nope, nobody!” She parks in front of the building. “Our townhouse is at the end, next to the forest. Isn’t that cool?”
“Townhouse?”
“It’s a fancy word for an apartment.” Mom winks. “We’re fancy now, like Grandmother.”
Being careful not to drop Bephens through the hole in the Bug’s floor where I can see wet pavement, I hand her car seat to Mom and grab a couple garbage bags. Carrying them down the sidewalk, I notice lots of moms but not one dad. We definitely fit in here.
Mom waves at me from the porch. “Let’s walk in together!”
She opens the door, and we both ooh and aah seeing the spotless tan carpet and bright white walls.
“We should take off our shoes,” I say, slipping off my rubber boot and tapping the spongy softness with my sock. “It feels so good!”
Mom takes in a big breath. “And it doesn’t smell like a motorcycle, which I know you love.” She hugs me then gives me a weird look, like she’s trying to remember something. “Shit! Bephens is on top of the car!”
Without stopping to put our shoes back on, we sprint down the puddled sidewalk. Mom grabs the car seat off the roof. “Oh, good. She’s asleep.”
“Guess we better start remembering there’s three of us now.”
We shake our heads and huddle with the car seat between us, laughing. It feels like the end of a TV episode when everything that had gone wrong works out perfectly, and the theme song plays while the credits roll.
“Mom, we have stairs!”
“What you’ve always dreamed of!” she yells from the kitchen.
“Yeah, because everybody on TV has ’em!” I shout back, hopping up each step and announcing the families I dream about being like. “The Brady Bunch . . . the Cunninghams . . . Alex Keaton!” Standing at the top, I dance and sing the theme song from The Jeffersons down to her.
After some unpacking, Mom lets me check out the playground. Spinning themselves dizzy on a shiny merry-go-round that hasn’t rusted in the rain yet is a crew of kids in high-water pants who have crooked-tooth, bucked-tooth smiles like mine.
Some of the big kids are giving the little ones underdogs on the swings—whooping and hollering, “Hold on!”
I hop on a plastic dinosaur and rock back and forth—not caring that I’m too tall and probably look silly with my knees sticking out—because it feels too good being a normal eleven-year-old for a few minutes. Looking at the kids around me who are my age, I’m betting they feel the same way. They probably know we all had to be broke to move into Coho Park, but being the first on all these new toys feels like we’re the rich kids—the ones who get to play with the Barbies before we buy them from the Salvation Army when they’re all chewed up and missing legs.
“Let’s go to the grocery store.” Mom grabs her purse.
“Do I have to go?”
“It’ll be fine. Let’s go. I’ll even let you pick out the cereal.” She laughs because we never get fun cereal. It’s always the boring kind that tastes like paper because that’s what we can afford.
Busy making faces to Bephens, I’m not paying attention as Mom gets to the front of the line—until I hear the grocery clerk practically yelling at her.
“You see? It’s right here!” the lady says, much louder and slower than she needs to, then points at the coupon. “You can have KIX because it’s on the list, but you can’t have Rice Krispies because it’s not.”
“Thank you. I can read.” Mom hands me the box of Rice Krispies. “Go get the shitty cereal the lady says you’re allowed to eat.”
I sprint away, pretending not to see the people in line glaring at us because we’re making them wait. Going to the grocery store has always sucked because we used food stamps, which means buying the cheapest food, but the WIC coupons Mom gets now that we have a baby are even worse because we can only get certain brands—and they’re all gross. “Here, Mom.” I hand her the box of KIX.
The clerk hands her the receipt. “Maybe try knowing the list before you go grocery shopping next time?”
“Maybe try not being a bitch next time.” Mom smiles and waves at everyone in line.
*
Coho Park feels like the first few months Mom and I lived in our yellow house—chatting in the kitchen while we make dinner, dancing around the living room, and falling asleep on our fold-out couch with the TV on and Bephens between us.
But the same way she did in the yellow house when she started dating again, Mom breaks the magic spell of happiness and decides eight weeks is enough time to spend at home with her newborn. She teaches me how to mix Similac. “Don’t get the water too hot and spray a little to check it.” Squirting baby formula on the back of my hand, she asks, “Feel that? That’s the temperature you want.” She points to the closet under the stairs and laughs. “And I know you know where the diapers are!”
“How long are you staying out?” I ask, jostling Bephens in my arms as she sleeps.
Lying on the floor and pulling up the zipper on her pre-pregnancy jeans the way Jeff used to get on his tight pants, she asks, “Why does it matter? You should be sleeping anyway, so you’re not tired when Bephens wakes up and needs to be changed.” Back on her feet, Mom douses herself in Emeraude—her new perfume because Tabu reminds us both of Al—and fluffs her blonde perm upside down a couple times. “How do I look?” She poses, popping her hip out.
Annoyed she’s not really answering my question, I ignore hers. “Maybe you should tell me where you’re going in case of emergency?”
“The Landing Strip with the girls—”
I cut her off. “The Landing Strip? Where you met Al?”
“He doesn’t live here and won’t ever come back, so you don’t have to worry.” She picks up her purse. “Didn’t I tell you what Grandmother did?”
“No.”
“Oh, you’re not gonna believe this.” Her eyes get big. “She put a bounty on Al.”
“What’s that?”
“Grandmother put out a hundred-thousand-dollar reward to anyone who kills Al if he shows up in Juneau.”
“No way! Really? Does he know?”
Mom pulls the car keys out of her purse. “Well, I didn’t tell him, but news like that travels fast. Anyway, I’m only telling you because I want you to stop worrying. You’re gonna give yourself an ulcer before you start seventh grade.”
I roll my eyes. “Not funny.” Bephens wiggles in my arms, waking up. “Are you sure I’m ready to be alone with her? She’s only two months old.”
Halfway out the door, Mom says over her shoulder, “Duh. Of course I’m sure. You’re her dad, remember?”
The click, click, click of Mom’s heeled boots on the sidewalk sounds like she’s running away from home. I smile at my baby sister. “Guess it’s just me and you, kid.”
Excerpted with permission from Bright Eyes by Bridey Thelen-Heidel (She Writes Press, September 24, 2024). Cover photo by Gio on Unsplash.
About the Author
Bridey Thelen-Heidel is an educator and TEDx speaker who’s performed in Listen to Your Mother NYC and has published in MUTHA Magazine. She’s a fierce LGBT+ youth advocate who’s been voted Best of Tahoe Teacher several times by her community.
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