Rosie Coloured Glasses. Brianna Wolfson

waited, her eyes big and her heart rumbling. And without another moment of quiet, Rosie returned the signal and popped her head out the base of the tree house floor.

      Willow always wanted to zip up that ladder so badly at the sight of her mother, but she knew her loose knees were no match for the rickety wooden rungs. She was barely able to keep herself upright on the smooth ground of the fifth-grade hallway, let alone an old ladder. So she took her time wrapping her fingers around each wooden rung and then gripping her tightest grip as she carefully let her feet climb up slowly, one step at a time.

      And when Willow finally got to the top, her mother would lift her by her arms and kiss her so hard, so decidedly, on the cheek. And together Willow and her mother would sing and dance and talk and draw by flashlight. They would paint and have thumb wars and play Twister and spin quarters. They would take turns performing tongue twisters. They would love each other so much.

      And when the tree house walls were coated with new drawings, and when their mouths were coated with Pixy Stix sugar crystals and their bellies were filled with cream soda, and when the tree house air was saturated with the sounds of Elton John through her mother’s tiny speakers, Willow would lay her small head in Rosie’s lap and exhale.

      Willow’s soft and raspy voice moved through the stillness. “Mom, why did you and Dad get a divorce?”

      “Well, do you like waking up to the sun or an alarm?” Rosie replied.

      “The sun,” Willow answered. And she was quick to it.

      “Me too, baby,” Rosie said calmly as she kissed Willow on the middle of her smooth forehead. And then Willow exhaled again in her mother’s lap.

      When Rosie’s watch beeped at 1:00 a.m., Willow and Rosie packed up their wrappers and toys, clicked off the flashlight and shimmied back down the ladder. Rosie with ease and Willow with full concentration.

      And when Willow got to the back door of her father’s house, she waited and watched as her mother walked down the driveway away from her. She watched Rosie’s hair bounce weightlessly as her thin arms scrambled to maintain the pile of soda and candy and colored pencils stacked precariously against her chest. Willow watched her mother in all of her coolness, all of her effervescence, until she was gradually absorbed by the darkness.

      Inevitably, before she disappeared, Rosie would drop a pencil or crayon or marker from her grip and let it roll along the ground without the slightest motion to pick it up. Her mother didn’t even pause to make sense of the faint clicking sound of the thing as it slipped from her arms and hit the blacktop. Rosie just got into the front seat of the car, where the dim car lights revealed her silhouette once again. And then she rolled her windows down, pressed both hands into her lips and extended her arms out toward Willow. She was sending a kiss all the way through the velvet darkness into Willow’s soul.

      Then her mother drove away.

      Willow returned to the driveway with her flashlight on dim to retrieve the lost crayon and bring it upstairs with her. She rolled the dark pinkish waxy cylinder in her hands and scanned the crayon label—Jazzberry Jam—then tucked it into her pajama pocket.

      On Wednesday nights, as Willow drifted into sleep for the second time, she would replay the image of her mother’s red lips turning into a smile and the feeling of her mother’s long manicured fingers playing with her curls. And just like that, she could fall asleep happy.

      It never mattered how tired Willow’s time in the tree house made her feel for school on Thursdays. Wednesday nights with her mom were definitely Willow’s favorite night of all the nights of the week.

      * * *

      Willow woke up the next morning in her room at her father’s house to the sound of her alarm. She slowly opened her eyes to the blue walls and the white wicker dresser. To the lacy throw pillows on the floor. To the taste of quiet. And then back to the beeping alarm.

      Rex had told Willow that the trick to not snoozing through your alarm was to place the clock across the room. “Then, the only way you can stop the buzzing is to get up!” he told Willow one morning when she overslept. He told her this as he moved her alarm clock from her bedside table to the edge of the dresser by the far wall.

      Willow slapped down on the clock and started the tasks of the morning checklist her dad had made for her. She also made sure that her little brother was on top of his morning checklist too. But as usual, he wasn’t.

      At six years old, Asher Thorpe was always forgetting things. Spilling things. Breaking things. Knocking into things. But he was almost always forgiven for all of it. Because of his full cheeks and round chin, his clear blue eyes and his silky blond bowl cut. And, most importantly, his missing front two teeth and his trouble with the letter R.

      It surprised everyone that two brunettes like Rosie and Rex could produce a blond-haired, blue-eyed little boy. But it made sense to Rex, Rosie and even Willow that Asher would have the kindest, most gentle, most nonthreatening features. There was a lightness to Asher that none of the other Thorpes possessed. A lightness that Willow was reminded of every time she reached Asher’s room across the house and found him pleasantly asleep beneath a pile of stuffed animals. Every time she nudged her brother awake and he smiled at the sight of his big sister.

      “Morning checklist, Ash,” Willow said, and kissed her brother on the forehead.

      “Alwight, alwight!” Asher said through a sleepy smile and sloppy cheeks.

      Willow left her brother’s room and completed her checklist.

      Brush Teeth—30 seconds top, 30 seconds bottom

      Wash Face—Face soap only

      Make Bed

      Brush Hair

      Fold Pajamas

      Get Dressed—Clean clothes!

      Pack for School—Do you have all your homework with you?

      Take Vitamins

      Family Breakfast

      Willow had her morning checklist memorized, but Dad insisted that it remained taped to her door next to her afternoon checklist, which was taped next to the nighttime checklist. And Willow was very diligent about completing all but two items on this list up to her father’s standards.

      The first thing Willow had trouble with was “Brush hair.” Because Willow’s hair was too curly and wild, and brushing it only made it worse. Mom told Willow that this was the kind of thing that boys didn’t understand and to just ignore that item on the list. But Willow didn’t like disobeying so instead of skipping the step, she guided the smooth back of the brush over the top of her tight curls every morning.

      And then there was “Get dressed.” And while Willow didn’t have a problem doing so, her father never liked the clothes she chose to get dressed in. And the things she got dressed in were the same every day—shiny purple leggings, a black T-shirt with a silver horseshoe on it and black high-top Converse sneakers. The same thing every day for the last five years. She had several pairs of purple leggings and several of the same T-shirt. And today, a few weeks into fifth grade, she was still wearing that same outfit.

      Her father never said a word about the outfit to Willow. At least not with his mouth. But he didn’t have to because Willow could always tell how he hated seeing her in that outfit. Every morning when Willow said good-morning to her father, she could tell she had disappointed him all over again. He said it with his eyes and a subtle drop of his chin and a faint shake of his head. Maybe it was her outfit or maybe it was her collapsing knees. Maybe it was something else entirely. But no matter what, her father never looked at his daughter in the same way her mother did.

      Rex was posed in the big wooden chair at the head of the breakfast table exactly as he always was. Right leg crossed over left. Reading glasses perched at the tip of his nose. A steaming cup of coffee in his right hand. A pile of furiously scribbled notes scattered across the table. Dressed in a suit that looked like it was brand-new.

      Looking serious. Looking powerful. Looking the same