Lizette is thinking about her niece
Content note for mention of self-harm and suicide.
Lizette is at Disneyland with her nine-year-old niece. They are waiting in line to board a ride and sitting on the railing because their feet are tired.
A park employee yells at them not to sit on the railing, so they both utter a begrudging apology and hop down to the ground. Their feet hurt. Lizette takes a moment to adjust her shorts.
“Did you scratch yourself?” Lizette’s niece peers up at her, eyes bright and concerned.
Lizette feels her face flush and pulls her shorts down farther, obscuring the fresh red marks across the top of her left thigh. She frantically tries to assemble an explanation. “I don’t want to lie to her,” she thinks, “I can’t lie to her.” Her face feels so hot. “But I can’t tell her the truth.”
Lizette’s niece twirls a lock of hair around a finger, swaying from one foot to another. She says, “I hate it when I accidentally scratch myself. My cat accidentally scratched me. I know he didn’t mean it. He’s just a kitten. His claws are really sharp. But that’s okay, he’s just a kitten.” She tosses her hair over her shoulder.
The ends of her niece’s hair are dyed blue for the summer. She had begged her mom and her mom had finally relented since the girl’s split ends would need to be trimmed soon anyway.
Lizette is relieved and resolves to be more mindful of the hem of her shorts. More importantly, she did not lie to her niece.
It is very hot in Southern California and the theme park’s concrete walkways aggressively reflect the heat. Lizette had flown in late last night from San Francisco to sleep in an overpriced but convenient hotel room to wake up early to meet her niece and her niece’s mom for breakfast with Mickey Mouse and a day at the parks. Tomorrow Lizette has to wake up at four in the morning to catch a 6 a.m. flight back home. It is worth it because Lizette knows this may be the last summer she gets to spend with her niece before her niece enters the stormy waters of preadolescence.
It is finally their turn to go on the ride. Lizette and her niece climb into a rocketship. Lizette grew up in Southern California and spent most summers at Disneyland so she has been on the ride many, many times. Her niece has not.
Earlier, her niece had pointed at the retro-futuristic rocketships sailing high in the sky as they spun around a central tower and said, “I want to go on that one!” So they stood in line where they were yelled at to not sit on the railing and finally, it is their turn.
It is one of the oldest rides at Disneyland and that is something Lizette, as an adult, appreciates about it. It is a glimpse into the past when Disneyland was the uncertain scheme of a very problematic man. When — she is told — women attended the park in skirts and their heels stuck to the pavement that was melting in the heat because they had not accounted for just how hot it would get.
The rocketship seats two, one in front of the other, and the person in front gets to pilot the rocketship up or down with a lever: push forward to lower the arm attaching the rocketship to its tower and pull back to raise the arm, sending the ship up into the sky and around and around.
Lizette’s niece excitedly looks back at Lizette, gripping the lever with a grin. “The ship is yours, captain,” Lizette says as the rocketships blast off.
Her niece pulls the lever and the rocketship rises up into the air as the ride picks up speed. The centrifugal force pulls their bodies against the outer wall of the rocketship with a jolt that still surprises Lizette even after all these years.
But for Lizette’s nine-year-old niece, this particular law of physics is not only surprising, it is terrifying, and the shift in her demeanor is immediate and palpable.
Down below, her niece’s mom waves at them.
“I want to get off,” Lizette’s niece says, her voice high and tight. She pushes the lever forward to lower the rocketship, but that only increases the forces tugging at their bodies, so she pulls the lever back, sending the rocketship up into the sky, which is also scary.
Lizette knows her niece’s fear. It is just a ride. Lizette knows they will be safe. She herself has been on this ride more times than she can remember. She knows they will be safe. “But things do go wrong,” she thinks, “People have died at Disneyland.” Lizette’s heart begins to race.
Lizette’s niece hunches down in the rocketship. There is nothing they can do. “I don’t like this,” she says, her voice trembling.
Her fear is real and Lizette knows she has to say something. Lizette thinks of her own childhood — of being told to stop crying because she was being too sensitive, to lower her voice because she was being too enthusiastic. To stop dancing in the supermarket aisles because she was too happy, to stop moping around because she was too sad, to stop shining so brightly because she was too smart.
Lizette thinks of the bright, fresh red cuts on her left thigh, self-inflicted with a crafting knife blade while crying and hiding under the covers because it was too much pain to hold and she needed it to stop or else she would finally succumb to it. Succumb to the voice that has always been with her and has never stopped telling her, “You would be better off dead.”
Lizette wants her niece to suffer only the scratches of a clumsy new kitten.
“What can I say to her?” she thinks, “I can’t tell her everything will be okay because I don’t know that. Things are rarely all okay.” Her niece’s blue hair flutters in the wind.
Lizette puts her arms around her niece’s shoulders and holds her close. “It is okay to be scared,” Lizette tells her, “And I will do everything I can to protect you.”
When the ride is over 90 seconds later, Lizette’s niece almost falls scrambling out of the rocketship.
Lizette catches her and gives her a squeeze. “I’m so proud of you,” Lizette tells her niece.
Lizette’s niece leans into the embrace for a moment before she remembers she is nine years old on the precipice of teenagerhood and pulls away.
“What are we going to do next?” she asks.
“Whatever you want,” says Lizette.
“Okay. But no more rides like that.”
In the process of climbing into and out of the rocketship, Lizette’s shorts have crawled up her thighs, exposing the cuts again. Lizette tugs the hem back down.
“No more rides like that,” she reassures her niece.
Later that day, overcome with spontaneous childhood joy and with the futuristic rocketship ride far away in the short past, Lizette’s niece begins dancing through the park crowds, bumping into people and eliciting dirty looks. Lizette takes her niece’s hand and they dance together and they do not care when people stare.
