Working Title - The Waterpark Mom - Vanessa's August 26 Diary Entry Part II

From The Avocado Grove Vanessa 

Vanessa's August 26  Diary Entry Part II

Aug 26, 2015

8 am

Meds - Y.  Beast Sightings - Y.  Conversations with Waterpark Mom - Y.

Waterpark Mom is in my head.

“You’re five again,” she says.  “Everything about the world is right.”

We are at the park where she got her name – every expectation of good times on our faces.  I wear glow in the dark goggles; they are pushed up on top of my head.  I play for the whole afternoon in the make believe ocean. 

“If you wait too long, the pool will drain out,” Marianne says.  And she laughs.  She sounds like a fountain of happy.  Show me what you know about this beach.  A bad word comes out.  Dad flips me over and gives me a piggy back ride to lunch.  And Coke happens on some ladies’ pants.
    
The moms at Marianne’s party say it.  "Damn.”  They ask her if she sold any of her shoes.  Wine happens.  And Marianne is back with cleaning rags and foamy carpet spray.  She gets quiet when she’s drunk and this time she feels my forehead and promises chicken soup (even after what I said and what I did – the disasters, both upstairs and down, a sea of shoes everywhere from her party and from my closet.  Steam rises from the bowl, I reach for the tray -  crackers, soup, and spoon, disappear. 
 
I tell her I saw the tunnel, the pools of water and the swimming fish like she said I would.

"Can we go back to the water park?"

“Go back upstairs,” she says.

I still believe in her about the chicken soup, even if she sometimes is drunk.  I want that mom back.
  
“Maybe she can’t ever,” Jeremy says.

“Ever?”

I get my truth in fantasy fiction.

I don’t care if he and Beast are imaginary friends.  They tell me everything. 
   
Waterpark Mom is in my head again.