Anne should have stuck to her decision and insisted Failen, her daughter, remove her purple rain boots instead of explaining how although it was drizzly now, the clouds would break by mid-morning and her feet would get hot. But she started crying, ruining the first day of school picture. So the boots stayed.
However, after Anne dropped Failen off, she had a moment of inspiration. What if she surprised her daughter by painting the front door the exact same shade of purple? That would make a wonderful picture.
But the paint store didn’t have the exact same shade. The closest was too dark and not enough blue. If you could lighten it just a bit, Anne suggested, and make it bluer, slightly. The paint man said he could try but unless he had a color to match it would really be guessing and she couldn’t return it. So Anne picked the closest match from the swatches and drove home. She painted the door three times, running two fans, to hasten the drying. Then she picked her daughter up.
Failen pointed at the door when she saw it from the street. After Anne let her out of the car Failen immediately ran to the house and stood right in front. She looked down at her boots then up at the door and smiled. “Just like my boots,” she exclaimed, although her boots needed to be darker and a bit less blue. Still, before she could run inside her mom said, wait and snapped a picture of the child sticking her boot out and pointing at the door, smiling like only five year olds smile on the first day of school.
***
When Failen was twelve a friend, Molly asked, “Why is your door purple?”
She answered, “That’s the color my mom painted it on my first day of school.”
“But no one else has a purple door,” Molly said. She pointed at each house in the neighborhood. “And it’s not just these houses,” she added, “I’ve never seen a purple door on any house except in cartoons. Have you?”
Failen was silent. She looked back at her front door and then the others.
“You should paint it white like the others,” Molly said.
After Molly left, Failen asked her mom if they could paint their door white, but Anne told her the door didn’t need to be painted.
“But when it does, you can choose the color. But pick something other than white.”
“I think I will pick white,” Failen said.
“Not very creative,” the mom frowned.
“I don’t care.”
“Well-”
“People think we’re cartoons,” Failen yelled.
***
Looking back, Anne always believed that argument was the catalyst for Failen’s rebellion. Or maybe the argument was the actual chemical reaction and the purple door the catalyst. She recalled overhearing her daughter tell her friends about her magical purple door. “Doesn’t make a sound, even in August when I really have to push to get it open.” But only when Anne discovered her past out on the porch one morning did she realize what she was referring to.
***
Then she stopped returning.
***
Sometimes Anne took the picture from her dresser and thought what if her boots had been white?
Would she have painted the door white? Of course that would be stupid. There would be no picture because there would be no reason for a child to run up to a front door painted white.
But maybe there would have been a white gown for graduation. Of course, graduation gowns are usually black, but maybe hers would have been white because when she was twelve the argument between Molly and her was deciding which private school to attend. Wonderful, adopted, Asian, Molly. Failen was such good friends with her in elementary school. They could have been friends in high school. And attended prom together. Not together, of course, but with their respective dates, in the same group, or however teenagers attend proms. Her corsage could have been a yellow rose, with a sprinkling of baby’s breath.
That might be the picture she kept on her dresser, now.
If the door had been white the officer wouldn’t have had trouble finding their house because his sergeant would have told him the exact address. Before he removed his cap he wouldn’t have had to explain that the sergeant only told him the street name and the house with the purple door. “Can’t miss it, Sarge told me. But this isn’t purple. This is really gray.” He wouldn’t have had to say this as he touched the crinkled paint.
And, perhaps he would have knocked on her door because her daughter had been involved in a silly high school prank. A prank that wouldn’t make Anne feel like she was floating, nor contort her mouth and gasp as if she had just vomited. The officer would have no reason to help her sit and ask if there was someone he could call that could stay with her.
The next day, she wouldn’t paint the door white. There would be absolutely no reason to apply coat after coat after coat.
Roger D’Agostin is a writer living in Connecticut.