In the morning there was some trouble. Probably not for the reasons Carl said.
He said it was because I didn't wake him up when I got home, and tell him to go to bed. When I got home that night, Carl was asleep sitting up on the couch, with C.J. sleeping with his head on his pop's chest. And they just looked so sweet. I hated to even disturb them.
Plus, I never really know with Carl. Usually once he winds down from work it's okay, but I never like to press my luck.
Then in the morning when I was making coffee, and making bacon and poached eggs on toast, which is his favorite breakfast, he came into the kitchen, and he was in a bad mood. He was mad, I could tell. I can feel it on him. He doesn't have to say a word. It's pretty unusual for him. Actually. To wake up in a bad mood. Usually if he's rested things go okay.
“Why didn't you wake me up?” he asked right off. “Now I got a backache.”
“I'm sorry,” I said. “Just that you looked so comfortable.”
“Well, I wasn't comfortable. Obviously. Because now I have a backache. Now I got to go to work tonight with my back hurting. How can anyone be comfortable sleeping sitting up on the couch all night? Why would you even think that?”
“I'm sorry. I don't know. I'm sorry.”
He came over and stood really close to me, which is not normally a good sign.
Something weird happened. I thought about that kid from the subway. I have no idea why. I had no intention of ever letting him into my mind at a time like that. I don't know why I did.
It was something that happened without my permission. Like my brain tried to slip back into that moment when the charge was flickering between us on the train. When we were looking at each other, or smiling. Like that would be a safer place to be than this. And just for a second my body remembered. How that felt.
“What's with you this morning?” Carl said.
I said, “I don't know what you mean.”
But I did. And I think he knew it.
“Something different about you.”
“No there isn't,” I said.
And then I made a very bad mistake. I cut my eyes away from him. I looked away like I wanted to be sure he didn't look in and see the wrong thing. Because I was afraid of exactly that.
There's no right thing to do at a moment like that. If I let him see in, that's bad. If I make sure he doesn't see, that's maybe even worse. Maybe what he's imagining is even worse.
I should never have talked to that kid. That was over the line. I don't know what I was thinking. What was I thinking, telling him I would see him again? Or even that maybe I would. I don't know why I do shit like that. Not that I ever did that before. But stuff like that. Starting something I know I can't afford to start.
Like I can just buy something and the bill will never come due.
And I can never keep anything secret from Carl. He knows everything.
Now, one thing I will say about Carl. He has never hit me. He has never, in the seven years I've been with him, just hauled off and smacked me.
He gets mad, but all he really does is grab me by my arms. Usually my upper arms. And he digs in too hard, but probably he doesn't know it's too hard, because he's busy being mad and not thinking about how tight he's holding on. My arms bruise really easy, but I guess I can't blame that on him. And it hurts, so I'll tell him to let me go, and then he will, but with a push.
He doesn't hit me, like I say. Just pushes. It's just his way of letting go. Only one time I hurt my back landing on my tailbone, so after that I always try to turn around, like to catch myself. And that's how I got that little bruise on my cheek, bumping into the cabinet. But I guess that's as much my fault as his. I just wasn't looking where I was headed.
Anyway, when I cut my eyes away, he grabbed hold of my arms.
“What happened at work last night?”
“Nothing. Same as always. I just did my shift and then came home.”
“You didn't see anybody? Or meet anybody?”
“No. I never do. I would never do that. You know me better than that.”
It was hurting the way he was holding my arms but I didn't say he should let me go. I didn't say a word about it.
“Look at me,” he said.
But I didn't.
That was when he did something really surprising. He hit me. For the first time in seven years. And I knew why, too. I knew what had changed. For the first time in seven years I was hiding something from him. And he knew it.
It was just a slap. Not like he punched me or anything. Just a backhand slap. It might not have even hurt that much, except for that big class ring he wears on his right hand. I guess at a time like that you don't stop to think that you're wearing a ring. But it caught me on the lower lip and made it bleed.
When he saw I was bleeding he let me go. Without pushing.
I sat down at the kitchen table and there was a dish towel. Sitting there on the table. So I used that, but it was too late, because I got some blood on the collar of my very favorite shirt ever.
He brought me some ice and said he was sorry.
“I know,” I said. “I know you didn't mean to. Never mind.”
“No, really,” he said. “Really. I'm sorry. I don't know why I did that.”
But I knew. I knew exactly what I had done to deserve it. And I knew if I was smart I would not complain much. Because for seven years he never smacked me, until I went out and felt something for somebody else, and did a little too much about it. So I knew who was at fault here.
By the time I smelled the bacon burning it was way too late to save it.
C.J. was watching some kind of violent cartoon show about the military or superheroes or something. Natalie was sucking her thumb in front of the TV. Holding that fur collar she loves so much. That snap-off fur collar from Carl's leather jacket. They didn't say a word or act like they knew anything was wrong.
Maybe they really don't hear when stuff happens like that. Or maybe they hear but they keep it to themselves. I never know which one.
MOST OF THE REST OF THAT DAY I just sat in front of the TV and watched my DVD of West Side Story. I watched it three times.
Normally I wouldn't do that when Carl was home. Because he will complain. He doesn't like repetition. It bugs him. I'm just the opposite. The more I'm upset, the more I like to go with things I know like the back of my hand. Things that are familiar to me.
Anyway, when Carl has gotten mad recently I can do just about anything. Because he's feeling guilty. I get lots of extra slack on days like this.
I had to keep tissues handy. And not because I was crying. I would never cry in front of Carl. Never in a million years. Or the kids, either. It was just the opposite. It was laughing. Some things in that movie are funny. Like a couple of the songs. You would think I would remember not to laugh, because of my lip. But then I would forget, and it would start to bleed again.
Something about that movie. I get lost in it. I forget I'm just sitting on the couch watching it. It gets to be more real than I am.
That's why I like it, I think.
The more bloody tissues I stacked up on the coffee table, the more Carl would probably cut me some slack.
He did say a couple of things.
He said, “I never could understand how you could sit there and just watch the same thing over and over and over like that. Over and over. What gives with that? I don't see how you can stand it.”
I didn't answer because I didn't need to. And there was nothing to say, anyway. He has told me that same thing probably fifty times. That he doesn't understand why I like to keep watching the same movie. It's funny how he says he hates repetition, but he will say that over and over. Sometimes I want to say, “God, Carl, do you think I'm deaf, or what? How many times are you going to repeat the same thing?” But of course I never do.
It's a bad habit with him. He likes to share his opinion. A lot.
“And it's so old-fashioned,” he said.
“I don't mind that.”
“We have movies from this century, you know.”
So, that was another one. Another thing he has told me probably fifty times. Maybe more.
Just for a minute I stood outside the whole thing, and I was stunned by how much he says and how much I don't say. It's like everything he thinks comes straight out of his mouth. Just like that. I think things, but they don't go any farther. I just think them, and there they stay. Just for a minute I stood outside both of us and watched it go around and around like that. Like an endless loop. Him talking and me not talking and him talking some more and me not talking some more. Until the end of time, which I guess is how it will be.
I wonder how two people can be so different like that.
I like that movie. That's all there is to it. My mother named me after Maria in West Side Story. It has history. And I like it.
And this was the first time I've watched it since that thing with the kid on the subway, so this was the first time I noticed that he reminds me a little bit of Tony. Just a little bit. Not even his face so much, but something about the way his face lights up. Something from the inside.
I don't even know that kid's name. Wouldn't it be funny if it was Tony?
But I guess that's asking too much.
All of a sudden I got this thought that if Carl was feeling guilty enough, maybe I could go out tomorrow night, too. Even though it's not a shift night of mine, tomorrow. I mean, it didn't used to be one. When I had a job.
Then a minute later I realized what a stupid thought it was. I couldn't do that. It would make him totally suspicious.
Why did I even think that?
Why did it suddenly matter whether I got to ride the subway with some tall young guy with a lot of hair? I didn't even know him. I didn't even know his name.
One thing I knew for sure: I had better be careful what I let get started here.
My mother had this thing she used to say. Before she died. “Nearly everything is easier to get into than it is to get out of.”
That's a very true thing. And I've always known it. You would think that, since I know it so well, I'd be more careful. More careful of what I let get started. But good advice has always been more or less wasted on me. I can't even say why that is. Just that I can tell you a hundred times which direction is the right way to go, but then damned if I don't go the other way, and half the time I can't even tell you why.
My father said I was always trouble. Born for it, he said. He wasn't right about anything else, but maybe he was right about that.