The Breakthrough

One would think that the most incredible thing about Farrah Turner, was that she was a princess born from a star. But, the far more extraordinary thing was that she had found love in a loveless, fallen world. In those peaceful days, she remembered looking into his grayish eyes. Everything was him. Wake up with him, eat with him, cook with him, and go to sleep with him. Wrapped in his arms, she would fall asleep, his greatest comfort in a world that cared little for his struggles. When she woke up before him, she would watch him for a time, peacefully slumbering. His breathing soft, his curly hair messy from flipping sides throughout the night. It had taken them thirty years to find each other, and neither of them was ever letting go.

There were small things that annoyed her about him, of course, like how he needed everything to be done in a certain way, or how she had to repeat herself several times before he actually heard what she was saying, or how his clothes never quite made it into the laundry basket.

And there were things about her that annoyed him. Like the fact that she forgot to move the laundry, used the wrong setting on the oven to heat her pans, and slammed the car door shut a little too violently.

But these were pet peeves more than and only made them love each other more.

***

In these hectic days, things were different. She had a three-year-old at home, worked seven days a week as a waitress, and had no free time to enjoy herself. She didn’t know where he had gone or why, and pretended not to care. He had run away, and therefore, he was dead to her. She lived in a one-room apartment with her daughter, and her sister would drop by to look after her while she worked.

At work, she was quiet, but efficient. She was able to force a smile and be charming to the patrons. Her coworkers didn’t notice a difference in her, because they never knew her very well to begin with. She had one good friend at work who did notice, though, named Alice.

Through the hustle and bustle of the day and constant noise in the restaurant, everything felt numbed out, indifferent, and tolerable. The white noise was what she craved, and she was on autopilot as she served and picked up orders from the chef.

At the end of the day, she sat down for a moment in the kitchen and took a deep breath. Her friend, Alice, placed a hand on her shoulder. “How are you holding up, Farrah?”

Farrah nearly jumped at her friend’s touch. She looked up at her and shrugged. “As well as a single mother working three shifts a day can be doing.”

Alice looked at her compassionately. She murmured, “Hang in there. If you need anything just give me a call. Do you have a ride tonight?”

Farrah shook her head. “No. If you’re offering, I’ll take you up on that.”

After the drive and upon entering her tiny apartment, she greeted her sister—the ice queen, Milly—mechanically. Milly gave her an odd look, but then gave her a rundown of her daughter’s day. Nothing eventful had happened.

Farrah looked at her daughter while she slept peacefully. She couldn’t help the raw feeling of something ugly taking root within her.

Farrah avoided her sister’s gaze. “Milly, you can go home now. Sorry I’ve required so much of you.”

Milly pursed her lips. She began heading to the door, but then her footsteps ground to a halt. She turned back to her sister, meeting her eyes.

When their eyes locked, it seemed as if Farrah’s heart stopped beating. Her clean, plain apartment fell away, and she was standing in a black room with her sister as her cold blue eyes pierced through her. Milly’s eyes were almost haunted as they gazed upon her; wide, unblinking, almost accusing. She said, “It’s been three years, Farrah. I know it hurts that he’s gone, but there are plenty of other men who are interested.”

Farrah’s blood went cold, her cheeks felt like they had no moisture. She grumbled, “Name one man.”

“I know one. I can give you his number. Just try it. It’s time to move on.” Milly said.

She was watching herself look at her sister, and floating away at her words. No longer grounded by gravity, she was lightheaded, and found it hard to concentrate.

Last time her sister had mentioned something like this, their relationship was nearly ruined for good. The screaming, cursing, and name calling they had done tore through her mind. A single tear ran down her cheek, and she wiped it away. She cleared her throat and said, “I’ll take the number.”

Milly brightened, and then walked over her and handed the paper to her with a number on it. She touched her sister’s shoulder with a soft smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll look after your daughter for as long as you need in the meantime. Are you still seeing your therapist?”

“Twice a week.” Farrah said, clearing her throat.

“Good. You’ll get there. His name is Jackie, and he loves art, too. You’ll remember him.” Milly gave her a half hug, and then went on her way. Once she had gone, Farrah looked at the scrap of paper with the number on it, and resisted the urge to throw it away. She put it on her nightstand and set her alarm to wake up early to call this ‘Jackie’.

She looked at her wall, filled with her paintings. She hadn’t told her sister she had given up on being a commercial artist, and was now making art for the sake of it.

The art on the wall she had painted during what was almost a trance state, late at night when her daughter was asleep. She would be drawn out of cold reality, and into the bright worlds she painted. She stared at one of her paintings; of a woman and a man dancing on a planet’s rings amidst a sea of stars.

The image came closer and closer. Her eyes became wider and wider. The image enveloped her completely. She dove into a sea of stars, being caught by the man in the image. He spun her and twirled her. The bright orange ring rotated beneath her in an explosion of color; she and the man became blurs of dozens of rushing colors. Music blared in her ears, a familiar song that sent warmth tumbling through her frozen veins.

***

She woke up when her daughter shook her shoulder. She sat up with a gasp.

“Mommy. You’re covered in paint and your alarm went off three times.”

Farrah, as she had done since her husband abandoned her, found that she could not look her daughter in the eye. She found her little squeaky voice annoying, and her constant requests exhausting. She stood up and looked in the mirror, her pulse racing. She was covered head to toe in paint, and had no idea how she would be on time for work. She hustled, dropped her daughter off at daycare after showering, and called Jackie while riding the city bus, deciding to skip breakfast.

She looked out the window at the city streets as she rang Jackie. She counted the rings, hoping he wouldn’t pick up, but on the third ring, she heard a voice.

“Hello?”

Farrah bit back a sigh. She was overwhelmed by not knowing what to say. She managed to push the words out, “Hi. This is Farrah.”

There was a laugh, and he said cheerfully, “I was hoping you would call. Do you remember me?”

She was baffled and didn’t answer.

“You, me and Anthony used to take the same art classes together.”

At her husband’s name she became paralyzed.

“…Farrah?”

“Sorry. I remember you. We should catch up. I get off a little early tonight. Can you pick me up?”

***

Farrah went right from work to the date dressed in her uniform. She did a cursory look in the mirror in the bathroom before Jackie picked her up. She looked haggard as always, her hair tousled and frayed from a long day. She took her hair down from the tight bun it was tied in, and brushed it. Her hazel eyes blinked back at her. They were still bright and youthful, but the dark circles and crow’s feet clawing at them made her look old.

After that, Jackie pulled up in a PT cruiser in the parking lot and took her to a quiet restaurant as she had requested. She felt overwhelmed upon entering, despite there only being a few patrons.

Jackie got a table, and she sat quietly at the other end of it, her mind turning to the orange planet, and the star she was born from.

“Tell me about yourself. It’s been awhile.” Jackie said amiably.

Words spilled out of her mouth as if she had no control over them. “I am not of this earth, I am an alien creature, born from a star. That’s why I don’t understand human customs.”

Jackie blinked rapidly, then laughed. “I forgot you also like to dabble in writing. And me? If I were fictional, where would I be from?”

She was embarrassed and avoided his gaze, leaving out the fact that she was being serious. Recovering from her embarrassment, she appraised him. He was a handsome man, the type any girl would be happy to have attention from. His features were symmetrical, she even thought he looked like an actor.

“You are from earth. Good stock and upbringing, happy and healthy. Perfectly respectable.” Farrah smiled.

Jackie gasped, “I’m so boring that I don’t get a cool origin myth? Not fair. I was in the same classes you were, you know.”

Suddenly she remembered him. He was more her husband’s friend, completely grounded and enchanted with everyday experiences. He didn’t need to seek out the extraordinary, because to him, the ordinary was extraordinary. It was to be admired.

She looked down at her hands. She cleared her throat. “But you are no longer interested in art, are you?”

“No. It was a passing fancy. For now, I’m just a manager at a coffee shop, but working on a law degree at night.” He clarified.

***

Three years later, he was no longer in her life. They lasted a year. She had done well with him at first. She enjoyed frequenting restaurants and public places with him, meeting his friends… but she found that doing ordinary things bored her, and he deserved a woman who could be enchanted by such things.

Her daughter was now six, she still worked as a waitress, and her sister was less concerned about her, since it appeared on the surface that she was making progress with therapy. In reality, she knew how to fool her sister when she was with her by acting ‘normal’. Acting normal was an interesting experience. She had to make sure she smiled, laughed, and engaged in meaningless conversation. Most of all, she had to make up tales of activities she did with her daughter over the weekend. Her daughter would affirm her story, even if she knew it was a lie.

As Farrah was getting ready one Sunday morning, her daughter asked, “Can we go to the park today, mommy?”

Without having to think about it, Farrah replied, “No. I need to go shopping.”

“You told auntie we would go to the park…”

“The neighbor is going to look after you until I come back, unless you want to be bored to tears at the store.” She kissed her daughter’s forehead, avoiding her gaze.

“Mommy, you said you would watch a movie with me last night. You ended up dancing with your paint again instead.”

Farrah groaned and said sharply, “Fine, when I come back we’ll go to the park.”

She dropped her daughter off at her neighbor’s and drove to the store. An annoyance seeped deep into her very bones at having to take her to the park.

***

“She ran away.” Her neighbor’s voice was panicked, weeping.

Farrah felt drained of blood. Her extremities were frozen, her mind could barely comprehend what she was being told. She hung up and immediately checked the park, and when she couldn’t find her daughter, she realized she had no idea what other places her daughter liked. Sweat poured down her forehead as she reluctantly called her sister. Milly dropped everything and found her niece within thirty minutes.

Farrah’s mind went blank when they all reunited at the pet store. Her sister screamed at her for lying to her, called her names, an unfit mother, and said she would sue for custody. Her mind, already falling apart, was torn to pieces. Milly said, “Anthony is dead Farrah. Your daughter is alive. Stop dancing with his phantom and come back to reality. I know it’s all terrible. I know you refuse to remember the beer bottles scattering our childhood home, the yelling, or the screaming, or the black eyes. You let me remember all that—take it on myself—while I took care of you and let you pretend you were born from a star. I know you don’t remember the mental institution, or any of that, but it’s time to stop faking and engage! You’re missing life itself while you dance your daughter’s childhood away.”

Farrah’s reality was shattered; she fell to her knees. Nothing entered her broken mind. The bright stars of her childhood broke into shards of rancid beer bottles, the prestigious university she thought she attended faded into the mental institution. Her husband went from breathing and living somewhere in the world, to being a cold, lifeless body.

There was nothing left in her mind but blazing hatred. “You make all my decisions for me! You always have! You hated my husband, had me committed, and now you’re taking my daughter away! Get out of my life!”

At remembering the truth, Farrah crawled into bed for days, skipped work, and all she could do was continue to dive into her paintings. But suddenly, they held no enchantment for her. Reality bared down, making it impossible to breach the waves of misery.

One night, she sat on the planet’s rings with Anthony, and he whispered to her, “Our daughter… is she well?”

She watched a star shoot past and whispered, “I’m an evil person—selfish with my time. I have no interest in her. I belong in the stars with you.”

“Why not bring her to the stars?”

At his words, her eyes turned teary.

“I'm sorry I left you so soon. But she’s the important thing now.”

It all rushed back to her. Her prince, also born from the stars, ravaged by earthly diseases. Becoming thinner and thinner, sicker and sicker, until he lost his starry glow, and was taken by the cruel world while she held his hand.

“She is so ordinary…” Farrah grumbled.

“But don’t you remember? It was the ordinary things we did together where we found the extraordinary. We didn’t just make coffee together, we danced it into existence. We didn’t just do the laundry, we bounced it into the washing machine. We didn’t just have a daughter, we had a princess. Show her she’s a princess, and you are still a queen worthy of her.”

***

She stopped painting her husband, and repeatedly painted her daughter instead. She couldn’t remember her eyes, and it was soul shattering. So, she looked in her eyes after begging her sister to see her, and saw the grayish eyes of her husband, with just a tinge of green from her own eyes. At the otherworldly beauty of them, she embraced her daughter and wept profusely.

She begged her sister to let her see her daughter occasionally. Suddenly, she realized just how extraordinary her daughter truly was. She was enchanted with the world, pointing out clouds shaped like hearts, trees shaped like hands, and the good traits everyone she met possessed. She could find the beauty in the mundane, where her mother couldn’t.

She couldn’t live another day without her, so she went to her sister’s three story house and sat out on the balcony. She grabbed her sister’s hand, took a deep breath and said, “I’m sorry. Sorry I let you take care of me. I’ve been an absolute monster to you, and you’ve been nothing but kind to me. I won’t ask for custody, I just want a chance to be in her life. Let me try. I’m miserable without her.”

Milly looked down. Then, she smiled. “I’m sorry, too. I’ve been trying to control you and look after you your whole life since you tuned out of it. I’ll give you more space to be independent. You’ll… never remarry, will you?”

Farrah shook her head. “Please. Let me love my husband. I will move on from him and engage with life, but don’t make me try to love someone else when I just can’t.”

Reluctantly, Milly nodded.

She never remarried no matter how much everyone told her to ‘move on’. She kept her husband in her heart always but no longer made him the center of her world. She had a breakthrough in her art, making mundane, everyday moments of life beautiful.

But the biggest breakthrough was in her shattered heart. The three of them were always together: the queen, Farrah, the king, Anthony, and the princess, Esther. And even the queen of ice, Milly, whose heart turned out to be warmer than the tropics, joined them often.