She had a husband. He existed. He had opened a pharmacy with the help of much of her inheritance, an impressive stash of Israeli bonds her father had purchased over the years, his fervid support of the country traded for another dream. (That the money was never to return to her was barely mentioned, then ignored, and finally actively forgotten to the point where the truth disappeared entirely.) He toiled at the pharmacy from before she woke up in the morning till long after she had picked up the children from day care. Often his appearances at dinner felt like something from an up-and-coming comedian on The Tonight Show. He would walk in at the end of the meal, grinning, his children dousing him with noisy attention, and then tell the best story from his day. Edie would stare at him, glazed, uncertain if what he was saying was truly entertaining or not. Sometimes she laughed. Sometimes it was just easier to laugh.
Richard had no problem playing with the children. He had to engage in real conversations with people all day long, and Edie suspected he was secretly a little misanthropic. He had, after all, chosen a profession where there was an entire counter between him and the people he served, a line that could never be crossed. But the kids, these miniature versions of themselves, especially Benny, his boy, for him, were exactly what he needed at the end of the day. They didn’t talk back or question him; they weren’t deliverymen, again with the wrong order, or batty old neighborhood women demanding a discount; they didn’t shoplift, nor did they ask for credit. They crawled all over him, whispering sweet nonsense in his ear. Neither Edie nor Robin knew yet that when the kids grew older and began having ideas and opinions at odds with Richard’s he would shut them out of his affections with such carelessness. (But this is when things get interesting, Edie would think as he stormed out of the room again, after an argument with fourteen-year-old Robin. Never mind him. Robin would just have to love her mother best.)
“Fine, take the fries,” she said to her daughter.
She cracked open the McRib box and eyed the dark red, sticky sandwich. Suddenly she felt like an animal; she wanted to drag the sandwich somewhere, not anywhere in this McDonald’s, not a booth, not Playland, but to a park, a shrouded corner of woods underneath shimmering tree branches, green, dark, and serene, and then, when she was certain she was completely alone, she wanted to tear that sandwich apart with her teeth. But she couldn’t just leave her children there, could she? You didn’t need to be a graduate of Northwestern Law to know that that was illegal.
And then, finally, there was her husband coming through the door, wrinkling his nose at the assault of that particular McDonald’s smell (which Edie loved, so much hope in that grilled, salty, sweet, meaty air), striding over to the table with his last burst of energy for the day, which he had reserved solely for his children and only a little bit for his wife. He scanned quickly the detritus of the table, the damage that had been done by Edie, and then slid in next to Benny, who threw his arms around his waist. Richard picked up the McRib box—the sandwich still untouched—and peered into it.
“Can I have this?” he said.
“I was going to eat it,” she said.
He leaned over Robin in her high chair and kissed her curly-haired head, then took one of her fries. Robin said, “Mine,” and Richard said, “What’s mine is yours, kid.”
“You’re twenty minutes late,” said Edie.
“Traffic,” said Richard.
“Give me a break with the traffic,” said Edie. “You work less than a mile away.”
“Do you want to go look outside and see?” he said. “Bumper to bumper.”
“I hate you,” Edie said in a peaceful-sounding voice. Did Benny know what that word meant yet? What it meant to hate?
“Well then, it must be a Thursday,” said Richard cheerfully. “Benny, look at what you did here.” He fished through the detached plane parts. “I need to eat something, wife. I really can’t have that?”
“No, you can’t have that,” said Edie, no longer peaceful, now spitting. “Twenty minutes ago is when we ordered our meal. An hour ago is when I picked them up from day care. Ninety minutes ago is when I got off work. Ten hours ago is when I dropped them off—”
“Hey, I have an idea,” said Richard.
“You have so many wonderful ideas,” said Edie.
“Why don’t I take these kids over to the Playland and you sit here by yourself for five minutes and eat your sandwich?”
“I don’t even want to sit here,” she said. She suddenly didn’t want to be reminded of what she had eaten, the wrappers, the garbage, the junk.
“So sit somewhere else,” he said. “I don’t care where you sit. Anyone care where your mother sits?”
No one cared where their mother sat.