And Then We Are Leaving

My wife behind the wheel even though she hates to drive, me in the passenger seat buying airline tickets on my iPhone, my beautiful, angry sixteen-year-old daughter crying softly in the back seat of the rental car, the Front Range mountains blurring past the window as we wind our way across I-25 from Colorado Springs to Denver.

“We need to buy her some luggage,” my wife, Erin, says to me, her eyes never leaving the road. “We won’t be able to get those garbage bags through security.”

I look up from my phone, see the sun dipping closer to the mountain peaks, a bright yellow orb slowly fading to a syrupy orange. Up ahead, the road curves gently around Table Mountain, its granite peak eroded in such a way it’s now trapezoidal. To the east, the landscape pools into the dull greens and browns of winter; nature’s stuck in that in-between stage where the snow has melted just enough for the under-growth to sneak through the ice and gasp.

Earlier, we’d been rushed, grabbing whatever we thought made sense from the floor of Haley’s bedroom, stuffing it all into two draw-string garbage bags—shoes, shirts, pants, shorts, bras, socks, underwear. I’d been jamming spaghetti-strapped tops and skinny jeans into a crinkling black garbage bag when I realized it was the most time I’d ever spent in my daughter’s bedroom.

I turn my head and look into the backseat, wishing Haley would acknowledge me, hoping that if she does there will be something in her eyes—maybe forgiveness or gratitude, maybe acceptance. But she just stares out the window and makes herself smaller by folding even further into the car door.

I look at Erin, see confusion or fear or maybe exhaustion on her face.

“We’ll grab her a suitcase or something at the airport and switch everything into it,” I say.

Erin nods, glances in the rearview mirror. I look at the time on my phone, calculate how long it will take us to get to Denver International Airport. Just under an hour. The flight to Chicago will be two and half. I close my eyes and open them. The Colorado landscape passes. Behind me, my daughter rests her head against the window and cries.

For years, the dream I had was simple: one day Haley would decide that she wanted to live with me. I’d pick her up from her home in Colorado Springs, bags packed, her face smiling, and we’d fly to Chicago together, talking and laughing while we snacked on airline peanuts from little foil bags. Her bedroom would be ready for her arrival—painted teal, her favorite color. It would have a bed fit for a princess, with four wooden spindles that reached almost to the ceiling. It would be draped with sheer fabric, the bedding white and plush and new, and we’d settle into our routines quickly, as if we’d both been waiting our whole lives for this. She’d fall in love with Chicago in the same way I did when I was a child. I’d show her the Magnificent Mile and how the streetlights glimmered off the store windows at night, the feeling of enchantment undeniable. I’d take the requisite picture of her standing by the stone lions guarding the front entrance to the Art Institute, green and regal and iconic. We’d walk by the lake together, in step on the concrete path, her hand in mine while the endless blue water stretched out in the distance until it blended with the sky. Before bed, we’d read together, the pile of books next to her nightstand towering, the time we spent lost in stories becoming a cornerstone memory we’d both return to again and again when we were older.

When Haley was born in January of 1998, I was a 140-pound, angry, substance-abusing nineteen-year-old who had moved to Colorado thirteen months earlier. I told myself I moved because I wanted...