Growing

Sasha had never seen the door there before. It had to have always been there. Doors didn't just appear. She was tired. That's what it was. Still… it struck a chord of dread within her. As if she was the forgotten piano of her childhood that had sat un-played collecting dust, until father sold it to justify the Ducati of his midlife crisis. 

Kevin paid no attention to the door or the apparent dread that it caused. He shrugged before offering an accidentally helpful suggestion. 

"Check the move-in pictures.” They had started the tradition of taking before and after photos of their rentals because of the Wedgewood Manor. After they'd moved out of what had been promised to be a quaint British town house and was instead, a bleak apartment with mustard yellow walls and a perpetual smell of mildew, they had faced a lawsuit with the money-grubbing landlord intent on taking their life savings as retribution for damage they hadn't caused. In the end they'd settled, retiring any chance of vacationing in Europe that summer, quitting her terrible job, or owning their own place in their next 5-year plan.

They could have overlooked it; this small gold door that couldn't be more than a foot tall, complete with a tiny brass door knob, situated just beside the heating grate in their room. If she'd been 20 years younger, maybe her wild imagination would have decided she had fairies as squatting guests. Fairies wouldn't fill her with dread. It was all that TV she watched late at night. She should really take up reading, she told herself, and not watch television shows about actual murderers until the early hours of the morning, always late and bleary-eyed when showing up to work. 

It took a week to search through the storage unit only to affirm the photos of their move-in were not located in the piles and stacks of memories, and magazines meant to be read that were now no longer topical and relevant, boasting intense political discussions and complex viewpoints on issues that no longer mattered. If she read them now, she could not bring them into conversation to appear smarter and well rounded. Perhaps the door had always been there, and she hadn’t seen it- like those images that were two things at the same time. A gestalt switch - the 2006 edition of a magazine she didn’t recall the name of - had called it. She didn’t recycle the magazines, the phrase pulling at the edges of her mind; what if I will read them one day? Yes, she would keep them. Maybe one day she would rip apart the magazines with kids that she didn’t have yet and make incredible art collages. The magazines would be precious commodities; artifacts that boasted a glimpse into their mother’s life, her future children would say. 

She hadn’t found the photo album in the dusty storage unit because it had been on the shelf in their bedroom their whole time. It was nestled between self-help books girlfriends had raved about that she hadn’t gotten around to reading, and books meant to amuse one when on the toilet, that Sascha had deemed crass when Kevin had brought them home. Instead, she suffered staring at those words every morning when she woke up in the bed across from the bookshelf; The Old Man and the Pee, Pooers Companion, No- Shit Sherlock? Puzzles to con-sitter while on the Sh*ter . 

It took three looks through their photos to affirm two daunting notions; the first was that the door had not existed three years ago when they started renting the small two-bedroom apartment on the corner of pine and hemlock, above the Bubble Tea place. The second was that Kevin could not see the door.

"Are you drinking again?" He asked staring blankly at the grate she pointed to it in exasperation. He shook his head. It hadn’t materialized in the 6 seconds since she had repeatedly asked. 

"No.”

"Well then,” He scratched his head, running a calloused hand through his sandy blonde hair, still dotted with sawdust from whatever it was he was currently building in the garage. He shrugged as if his next statement would be nonchalant, non-threatening, and not goddamn offensive.

 "Maybe you should see a doctor. Seeing things isn't you know..." He forced a laugh to lighten the accusation of her apparent insanity "well... It's never a good thing." He ended the statement with a broad grin. 

"Perhaps,” she countered, "you should see an optometrist.”

He threw up his hands in mock surrender as he so often did when he conceded to her pick of the movie of the week or restaurant to go to each date night. He did little else but work, while away his hours in the garage and love her with the fierce devotion of someone who had never had a family. She was his entire family, and that was something he couldn't throw away for decisions about movies, take out, the number of kids they would have and when, or where they would live. 

"OK. That was harsh,” he admitted. "I'm sure there's a door there, I'm sorry sweetie,” he leaned over and kissed her softly, she had learned it was a kiss of appeasement, not born of love or passion but something he thought she needed. "You're not right but I'll drop it.” That's what the kiss meant. 

As she spent the day sketching and fiddling around with design programs of her computer, the thought lingered in the back of her mind. Mother had a history of it. That was why father had encouraged music, encouraged something other than spending all day drawing. That's what mother did, and look where she had ended up, he had always said. As if it was connected, as if drawing invited illness. The door had to be a product of her psyche. A metaphor for escape. Then, just as she was starting to believe Kevin, and the images captured with that disposable camera three years ago when they'd moved in - the tiny door opened. 

///

It was open now. That was it. It had opened a week ago and each day as she came home from work- shutting the night out when she stepped into their stylized foyer, she waited for another sign of insanity. She was getting home later and later, Kevin already asleep with soft snores and dirt under his fingertips. One sock on and another hiding somewhere under the covers where he'd kicked it off. She brought home the smell of the kitchen with her; a variety of dishes that had spilled on her as she brought them from line cooks to customers. 

She had gotten into the habit of checking the door each night; as she ripped off the tight black dress that passed as uniform and kicked off the 5-inch heels that caused her feet to callous and suffer. As soon as the loans that they had taken out to cover the cost of that lawyer Trisha has sworn was worth the money (he hadn’t been) all those years before, were finally paid off she would quit in a blaze of glory and settle for an office job with no demeaning dress code and grabby customers. She'd sit and answer the phone every day and spend her lunch breaks bitching about the printer, the coffee, parking spots, or whichever coworker had stolen another's food. She longed for the monotony.

 The door was open and nothing had changed; no fairies that she could see. Until one day, as if it was nothing out of the ordinary she watched a small creature walk out of the door into her bedroom, no taller than a foot and a perfect replica of herself except with long black tumbling hair. Sasha stared at the creature that took no notice of her surroundings, whistling a tune as she put on a bright red coat and matching beret as if she was leaving home to take a long journey. The creature closed the door behind her. Sasha recognized that hat, the long eyelashes, the olive sun-kissed skin. That red coat had smelled of the bergamot essential oil mother practically bathed in daily. Then the creature that could not be her mother cast her blue eyes towards Sasha’s and spoke in a very small voice. 

"Hello, darling.” There was no logical explanation, nothing scientific that could be applied in this circumstance. Sasha raced out of the room, leaving the Barbie of her mother behind with the notion that, of course, it would be on an idle Wednesday that she discovered mother's illness had not left her alone. Maybe it had been all the drawing. 

Two days later she received a call from the Medical Asylum of Delaware, or MAD as it was referred to by everyone. Their marketing department was intent on rebranding despite their eccentric CEO’s refusal to change the name. They insisted on being called The Institution (as if there was only one) and hoped that everyone would catch on. 

They told Sasha that her mother had escaped after months of garnering strength by avoiding the daily ritual of blue and yellow pills. They offered no explanation and still didn't know how she had done it. No lock had been broken, no glass smashed, no bedsheets tied Rapunzel style outside of the 14th story window. She had simply vanished, taking with her only a red coat and matching hat. Her mother, still just a foot tall, watched her calmly as Sasha took the call. 

“Naturally, we’ll need you to uh… come and sign the paperwork freeing the Institution from any liability. It’s all standard stuff, of course, but you have the right to show the paperwork to a lawyer if you feel that’s necessary,” the young woman’s voice informed her. 

“Right,” Sasha nearly laughed the word, “standard.”

"It's so tiresome" was all Maria said in that familiar accent that managed to display both the Spanish of her lineage and the Russian world she was connected to through marriage. Sasha brought common kitchen spices as requested and drew circles around her mother with sage, oregano, and nutmeg. The house smelled for days. Maria was growing each day until three weeks later it could not be denied that she was their houseguest, embodying the size of a ten-year-old.  

"Of course he can't see me, " Maria explained as Kevin walked into the room and bustled around, half-naked seeing and sensing only Sasha's presence. 

"Not yet" Maria warned. When the door had disappeared Sasha couldn't pinpoint. She was more preoccupied not with her own impending insanity but doubting her mother's. Months later Maria reached her full 5’9 and suddenly became visible to Kevin, but far more exciting to Sasha was that her mother had started to teach her how to use the door.