I didn’t know what to do. This, like so many things, was Vivian’s area of expertise, and I drove like a wild man for the five minutes it took me to reach home. I carried London into the house and Vivian took over immediately, her tone sharp with me but soft with London. She brought London into the bathroom and applied rubbing alcohol to the already swelling stings, gave her an antihistamine, and started applying cold washcloths to the affected area.
Perhaps it was the efficiency and confidence she showed that finally ended London’s hysterics. Meanwhile, I felt like a passerby on a city street, in the aftermath of a horrible accident, amazed that Vivian had known exactly what to do.
In the end, there was no long-term damage. I went back to the park and disposed of London’s clothes in a trash bin, since the ants were still swarming over them. The swelling lingered for a day or two but London was soon back to her normal self. She doesn’t remember the event—I’ve asked her—and while that makes me feel better, I still experience guilt when I think back on that awful day. And guilt serves to teach me a lesson. I’m now cautious about where London sits whenever we’re in the woods or in the park, and that’s a good thing. She’s never been swarmed by fire ants again.
Guilt, in other words, isn’t always wasted. It can keep us from making the same mistake twice.
After lunch at Chick-fil-A with Emily, I spent the afternoon working. Wanting to get a sense of how much Taglieri was spending, I spoke to a friend in sales at the cable company. It turned out that Taglieri was paying premium rates and had too many poor slots, a bummer for him but a godsend to me. After that, I touched base with the head of the film crew I intended to use. We’d worked together in the past, and we went over the kinds of shots I wanted, as well as the projected cost. All that information was jotted on a pad of paper for easy retrieval when I needed to add it to the presentation. After that, I continued to perfect the scripts and tweaked a few more of the generic images I’d pulled together; by that point, my outline for two of the commercials was nearly complete.
I was in a good mood as date night approached, despite having to bring London to dance with the evil Ms. Hamshaw. Vivian made it home at a reasonable hour, and after we got London to bed, we ate dinner by candlelight and ended up in the bedroom. And yet, there was less magic than I hoped for; it wasn’t until Vivian started on her third glass of wine that she began to relax and while I know that the honeymoon period of any marriage eventually comes to an end, I suppose that I’d always believed that it would be replaced by something deeper, a two-of-us-against-the-universe bond or even genuine mutual appreciation. For whatever reason—maybe because I sensed a continuing distance between us—the night ended with me feeling vaguely disappointed.
On Saturday morning, Vivian took advantage of her Me Time before spending time with London the rest of the day. It gave me the quiet time I needed to focus on other areas of the presentation: an updated website, Internet advertising, billboards and sporadic periods of radio advertising. I added in projected costs for everything over the course of a year, including vendors’ fees and my own, along with a slide showing Taglieri’s projected savings.
I worked on Sunday as well, finishing up on Sunday afternoon, and wanted to go through it with Vivian. But for whatever reason, she seemed to be in no mood to listen or even talk to me, and the rest of the evening unfolded in the same stilted way that seemed to be becoming our norm. While I understood that our lives had recently veered in directions neither of us could have anticipated, I found myself wondering not whether Vivian still loved me, but whether she even liked me at all.
On Monday morning before London woke, I wandered into the master bathroom while Vivian was applying mascara.
“Do you have a minute?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
“Are you upset with me? You seemed irritated last night.”
“Really? You want to do this now?”
“I know it’s probably not a good time…”
“No, it’s not a good time. I have to leave for work in fifteen minutes. Why do you always do this?”
“Do what?”
“Try to make me the bad guy.”
“I’m not trying to make you the bad guy. After I finished the presentation, you barely spoke to me.”
Her eyes flashed. “You mean because you pretty much ignored me and London all weekend?”
“I wasn’t ignoring you. I was working.”
“Don’t make excuses. You could have taken a break here and there, but instead, you did what you wanted to do. Just like always.”
“I’m just trying to say that it seems like you’ve been angry with me for a while now. You barely spoke to me on Thursday night either.”
“Oh, for God’s sake. I was tired! Don’t try to make me feel bad for it. Have you completely forgotten about date night? Even though I was tired on Friday night, too, I got all dressed up and we had sex because I knew you wanted it. I’m tired of feeling like I never do enough.”
“Vivian—”
“Why do you always have to take things so personally?” she demanded, cutting me off. “Why can’t you just be happy with me? It’s not like you’re perfect either, but you don’t see me coming in and complaining about the fact you can’t even support your family anymore.”
Her words made me flinch. What did she think I’d been trying to do all weekend? But she didn’t want an answer. Instead, she walked past me without a word, grabbed her workout bag and stormed from the house, the front door slamming behind her.
The sound must have awakened London, because she came down the stairs a couple of minutes later and found me sitting at the kitchen table. She was still in her pajamas, her hair puffing out on the side.
“Were you and Mommy fighting?”
“We were just talking,” I said. I hadn’t yet recovered from Vivian’s outburst and felt sick to my stomach. “I’m sorry if the door was too loud.”
She rubbed her nose and looked around. Even groggy, I thought she was the most beautiful little girl in the world. “Where is she?” she finally asked.
“She had to go to work, sweetie.”
“Oh,” she said. “Do I have tennis this morning?”
“Yes,” I said. “And art class with Bodhi. We have to remember to bring your hamsters.”
“Okay,” she said.
“How about a hug, baby girl?”
She came over and wrapped her arms around me, giving me a squeeze.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Can I have Lucky Charms?”
I held my daughter close, thinking how much I’d needed a hug. “Of course you can.”
Taglieri wasn’t in the bleachers that morning; in his place, I saw a woman I presumed was ex number three because she walked past me with Taglieri’s daughter. I’m not sure what I expected—bleached blond hair, maybe—but she seemed to blend in well with the other mothers.
I brought my computer with the intention of rehearsing my presentation but I found it hard to concentrate. My mind kept circling back to the cutting words Vivian had spoken and while I may have worked all weekend, her reaction to it struck me as out of proportion and completely unfair. I wished again that I could make her happy, but I wasn’t, and her expression as I’d stood before her made that clear.
It wasn’t simply her anger at me that I’d witnessed, after all.
I’d also seen, and heard, her contempt.
“Are you okay?” Emily asked.
I’d walked into the art studio and London made a beeline toward Bodhi, holding Mr. and Mrs. Sprinkles in their carry-cage. As I watched her, Emily must have seen something in my expression, but I didn’t want to tell her about Vivian and me. It seemed wrong somehow.
“I’m okay. It was kind of a rough morning.”
“I can tell,” she said. “How can we turn that frown upside down?”
“I have no idea,” I answered. “A million dollars might help.”
“Can’t do that,” she said, “but how about a Tic Tac? I think I have some in my purse.”
Despite my mood, I cracked a grin. “I’ll pass. But thanks.”
“We’re still on for today, right? Bodhi’s been talking about it since he woke up.”
“Yeah, we’re on.”