Cher: The Time Traveling Cow

“Give me something, anything,” Mason says, leaning his head down slightly to try and force himself into my eyesight. 

My gaze shifts to a bookshelf filled with all types of knick-knacks. The handy thing about having a discussion in an antique store is that there’s a slew of objects to occupy your attention. 

“How about at least a season?” he pesters. “You have to have input on that.”  

I don’t. I really don’t. “I say we flip through a calendar, you yell ‘stop,’ and wherever my finger lands, that’s the date.” I force a tight smile and make sure not to sound too sardonic.  

“What happens if it lands on December twenty-seventh?”

“Then we tell everyone to bring their Christmas leftovers like a potluck.” 

“Enya,” he groans, falling his weight onto a nearby solid antique hutch. “This isn’t supposed to be difficult. I asked you to marry me, you said yes, now we plan it. Where is the disconnect?”

The question lands like a pile of potatoes, hard and loud. Where is the disconnect? 

His proposal felt so magical and real at the same time. Like I should’ve been dreaming even though I know we earned it through our flaws and few fights. I don’t hesitate to say that Mason is the best thing to happen to me. Love in my life has not had a good reputation by any measure. From my mom’s dismal dating life to my father’s abrupt departure, I’ve witnessed every relationship in my vicinity, no matter how great, shatter and leave everyone with nothing but trauma and trust issues. My heart knew it wasn’t strong enough to endure the pain of that again, so it trained my brain to reinforce all walls for my own safety. Ultimately, they were useless against Mason Mitchell, the boy who melted my defenses, and my heart, in a matter of months. He’s younger than all of my exes, only two months older than me, and I have a hunch that’s what gave him an edge over the competition. 

I’m like a Mjölnir. You have to be worthy to hold me. I found my Thor. 

“Mason,” I sigh. “You know I love you, right?” 

He fights a smile creeping up his lips. “I had a feeling,” he teases. 

“And as someone who loves you, I’m just going to need a little more time. To think.” 

His brows wrinkle. He should have a discourteous tone, but his voice is soft and low. Like it always is. “I thought the thinking would have occurred before you said ‘yes.’” He grabs my hand and intertwines our fingers. 

I hate it when he’s rational. A mix of vowels comes out of my mouth before I pick any item to change the subject. 

“Hey, how about that little cow,” I say. 

Mason follows my gaze to the small porcelain figure on the nearby bookshelf. 

“Enya Wilson. This is serious.” 

I hate doing this. I hate being me, having the urge to run. I’m burning up my window of opportunity with the love of my life. My hand drops Mason’s and grabs the delicate cow figure. “I’m getting this.” I study the intricate blue painting highlighted with red and green detailing that suggests Polish origin. This silly little cow would look perfect on my side table. “I’m naming her Cher.” 

“Enya, we need to– I thought you liked Cher.” All stress in the sentence dissipates by the end. 

I’m already prancing to the cashier. “I do. This is a complete compliment. The resemblance is all the eyes. She would totally get it.” 

Mason makes deep eye contact with Cher before moving his eyes to mine.

He grabs my shoulder to place a soft kiss on my hairline through smiling lips. “Remind me to schedule an appointment to get your head checked when we get home.” 

I gaily push him away. “But the little voices tell me all my jokes.” 

We play the quiet game on the drive home with ABBA’s synth filling the stillness in the car. We rent the new A24 movie while eating a dinner that features Mason’s supposedly all-new method of preparing noodles. They taste the same, but I put in a modest effort to describe the new softness to every bite after he continues to ask for a more meaningful description of the nuance of his new approach. 

It’s silent during the movie. It’s silent while we brush our teeth (which is usually when we’re at our chattiest (somehow)). It’s silent in our bed.

This is torture. I’m throwing stones at the freaky little monster in my head that keeps on asking the same question that puts a lump in my throat: Are we going to make it? 

Mason is reading in the light of the lamp on his side of the bed. I’m trying to sleep, but it’s impossible with the armies at war in my mind. I sneak my eyes open to look at him without his notice. He’s nibbling on his bottom lip– he always does that when he’s focused or worried, it’s a bad habit I’ve been trying to coach him out of– and his eyes are narrowed. Must be a thrilling scene. I study every feature, even though I know his face better than my own. His borderline bushy eyebrows, the way the tip of his nose is at least two inches away from his face– Fuck. I really am in love. Then what am I doing? 

I turn over to my other side away from him just in case I cry. I need to think less. Less thinking equals less pain. I recognize how cruel that is, but eh. Eye contact with Cher on my side table is enough to divert my attention. 

“I don’t want to pressure you, Enya.” Mason’s soft voice cuts right in my head, shifting the noise from my brain to my stomach. “I don’t even know if I’m going about this right, but-” 

“Then don’t.” It comes out much more curt than intended. “Please.” Like tacking that on will make anything less severe. 

I don’t need to turn around to confirm that he knows that I don’t mean it. Mason always understands. That’s one of the reasons I love him. It’s no excuse to walk all over him, he’s had plenty of that already in his life. My words shoot to kill when it comes to this kind of stuff. 

Thank God I turned around. My tears and snot are making pools on my pillow. 

“Does this have to do with your dad?” he nearly whispers. “I know you don’t like talking about him, but I think it’s time.” He places his hand on my shoulder and rubs it with his thumb. 

No matter how much I run, or try not to think, nearly every single one of my problems comes back to my dad. I weave my fingers with Mason’s before pushing his hand away. 

“I said I need more time,” I hear a shaky voice say. Mine. But almost unrecognizable. 

Mason doesn’t reply. I hear the click of his lamp and the room goes dark. 

--

I wake up to white, blue, red, and green beams of light swirling around my room like someone turned on a projector. A scream escapes my mouth as I spring out of bed. 

The beams of light circle the room, briefly coloring every object. The bookshelf, our posters on the wall, Mason’s face. What is happening?

I trace them to their origin, a floating ball of light by the footboard of our bed. I hesitate, but I slowly step closer. I squint to reduce the strain on my eyes. A meter away, I can make out the figure producing this mess. 

Cher. Her legs are now straight (unlike before) and she’s floating ominously in place. The porcelain figure’s luminous eyes shoot pale light into mine. 

“Cher! What the hell is going on?” 

No response. Somehow, I feel stupid for thinking the floating, glowing cow would be able to talk. My mistake. 

This must be lucid dreaming. I’ve never felt so conscious in a dream. 

My shaky hand reaches out to grab her, slightly afraid she’ll explode or something. 

Her neck snaps towards me and she takes a solid crunch into my finger. 

The pain feels like a hammer. That heifer has the jaws of a pitbull. I can’t-

I’m not in our room anymore. I don’t remember how. (Between blinks, maybe?) I’m in the warm light of a small kitchen. It looks like a tornado flew through here. The dishes are stacked up by the sink and it could use a good sweeping. If I Could Turn Back Time by Cher is faintly playing on the radio. 

When I reach to turn the volume down, pain pushes back on my fingers from Cher’s bite. I wince at the mere sight of the tiny bite marks. 

“One, two, three…” I hear a distant deep voice count in the other room, instantly reminding me where I am. My childhood house. The one we could afford before my dad left and my mom and I were forced to cram into a one-bedroom apartment. I tip-toe out of the kitchen and peer around the corner to the living room. 

There he is. My father. Standing with a buzzcut, plaid shirt, and faking his hand over his eyes. “…four, five, six…” My dad, this house, our life– I can’t look my misty eyes away. 

He paces forward while counting until I’m out of his eyesight. I creep a little further until I have a whole view of the living room. A quick scan is all it takes to spot the giggling four year-old little girl under the living room table. She’s peeking from underneath, watching her father move around the room who’s clearly looking through his hands. 

“…seven, eight, nine…” he continues. 

“Daddy! You're cheating!” she yells between giggles. “Cheater!” Oh, sweet child. If only she knew this would be the least heinous of his crimes. 

He’s still counting when he bends down and reaches for her under the table. All the squirming and fighting in the world isn’t enough to overpower him. He scoops her up into his arms and twirls her in a circle. 

“Gotcha,” he says, tickling her with a free hand. 

There’s a brick in my stomach. I want to see anything in the world, but this. I want to sprint from behind this corner and steal that little girl from his hands. So I can protect her. Let her know that her best friend would be taken from her. 

All my love, my trust, my faith– I gave it to my dad. He was supposed to protect me, to love me. And he did. So well. 

Until he left.

That simple thought, that anyone could leave me, no matter how permanent I thought their position in my life was, no matter how much sense it made– 

It broke me. It broke my world. My mom became more distant and I felt like I lived on Mars for the rest of my childhood. I moved out on my eighteenth birthday for more distance. 

I’m thinking too much. And crying too much. My head hurts with a sharp pain towards my forehead. I dash back to the kitchen trying to count my breaths to slow them down, the only method my single month in therapy taught me.

I brush my hair behind my ear and focus harder to stop myself from bawling on the kitchen floor of my childhood home in my pajamas. If my father, someone who was supposed to raise me, could leave in an instant, so could any man who grows bored with me one day. It’s happened with all my exes. It could happen with Mason… 

I scarcely hold myself up with one hand on the counter and the other on my knee. Laughs from the other room leak as it becomes harder to hold myself up. Planting both hands on the counter doesn’t help and now the pools in my eyes have made it impossible to see clearly. I unintentionally knock the pile of dishes and a plate falls onto the floor. CRASH. It breaks into near-perfect pizza slices. 

An incalculable amount of swears exit my mouth as I scoop the scene up posthaste.  

“Is someone in there?” my father’s deep voice booms. The same voice that only came out when I was in trouble. Nerves shoot from my heart through my arms. 

Trying to repair this damn plate is a fruitless task so I drop the pieces, earning another unintended CRASH. 

“Get out of my house!” Heavy footsteps grow closer to the kitchen.  

Flee. Immediately. I run for the door, stepping on the shards of glass. Yet another spark of pain, this time as glass shards dig into the bottom of my foot. It takes me down. 

I hit the ground with a thud. When I look back I’m-

I’m not on the kitchen floor. I’m on the floor of our room, desperately huffing and puffing like I just ran a marathon. I teleported again in between blinks. Cher is by my feet and I straightway kick her far enough to hit the wall. She doesn’t crack. (Luckily?)

Fine. I’m fine. My eyes are dry and so is my nose. 

Late morning light is leaking through the window onto our empty bed. The house is quiet.

I rise to my feet. “Mason?” I call out. 

He comes running to the room with pajama pants, pushed together eyebrows, and his phone to his ear. “I found her, Jolene,” he whispers in a small voice to his phone. His brown eyes are misty. “I’ll call you back.” 

‘Jolene?’ He called my mom? 

I turn into a mess in the flip of a switch at the sight of Mason– the man of my dreams, the love of my life– with slumped shoulders and pain in his eyes. 

Now I’m bawling. Unapologetically. I fall to the ground like a toddler. Like a four-year-old with her dad. 

He drops his phone and runs into a hug, practically tackling me. His solid arms squeeze harder than they ever have. “I was worried sick. Sicker than a dog,” he says in a shaky voice. All his warm breath goes into my neck. “I’ve been looking for you all morning. Did you run away? Is it because of the wedding stuff? I know you said you need time and I’ll give it to you. All the time in the world. Here it is. Take it.” He’s talking faster than I can think and rocking me like a baby.

All I can speak is vowels and a few miscellaneous syllables. He stops the movement to meet my eyes. “I love you, Enya. And I love you way too much to lose you.” 

The intensity from this eye contact could be the next big renewable resource. It could power whole cities. Much more efficient than solar energy. 

What a pathetic mindset I have. To be a grown woman and still four-years-old waiting for her dad to come find her. Right where he left me. Letting a careless man dictate my decisions. Did I know that my father funded the brick walls I put up in my life? Yes. Duh. But now that Mason is in the equation… It's not all jokes and giggles. My carefulness to love is causing my fiance to slip away. 

But looking into Mason’s eyes, feeling every ounce of love he wants to express– I can’t help, but ignore the freaky little monster in my head. I give him my heart– how could I not?

“September,” I whisper, not sparing as much as a blink to subtract from this moment. 

He blinks a few times and stumbles on a few sounds. “What?” 

“September eighth. That’s our wedding day”  

Mason’s face lights up. He’s seventy percent smile. “Why September eighth?” A tear escapes his right eye. (A happy one, I hope.)

I use my thumb to wipe it away. “The weather has to be just right. Not too hot and not too cold. Early September is that perfect time when the temperature is slowly dropping, but not to December level. There’s no way in hell that I’m getting married in the heat of the summer. How elegant can I be in ninety degrees and a dress? That’s asking for bridezilla to come-” 

“You’ve given this a lot of thought,” he says, smiling and switching between which eye he looks at. 

All my blood blasts to my face. Unbelievable. I’ve known this man for two years and he still finds ways to make me blush. “Well of course I have. It’s our wedding.” 

Mason’s face goes serious. Straight lips with the same burning eyes. He plants a soft kiss on my lips. “I want you to know that we’ll never make your parents' mistakes. And I’ll never do what your dad did to you.” He pushes my hand behind my ear. “And I’m not going anywhere.” 

Straight up dagger to my heart. He could be lying. That’s what the freaky little monster is telling me. But I’m willing to take the risk. Especially for Mason Mitchell.  

“I know. I know. And, let me think about it…” a smile creeps up on the corner of his lips, “… I know.”