My heart starts to slow. I have to fix this. I have to reclaim control of the situation that is my life. The obvious place to start is the chaos in my living room. I have to kill this thing that threatens to smother me and I’m going to do it with Pine-Sol.
Fumbling in the low light, I remove my shoes and methodically begin picking up raisins, rice crackers, and bits of masticated apple. My stocking feet stick in some half-dried liquid and I raise the lights a bit and thrash and fluff at the pillows. I spray a vinegar/water combo on every wood surface and clean with an assured, angry energy. It’s all I can do to not vacuum and wake everyone up. In ninety minutes the place sparkles and in the morning I hope Bruce will never even mention the lost night.
I unpack and then repack my bag for my trip and print out the schedule for everyone for the next two days. I put out cash for Caregiver and playdate notes for Brigid. I don gloves and sanitize the hamster cage that smells like the end car of the 6 train and I let the rodents run wild in their exercise balls the entire time. I lay out clothing for all three kids in three sections for school, play, and night. I chop up apples and raw carrots and bag them in fifteen little snack bags because I do not forget I am Healthy Snack Mom for Brigid’s class tomorrow. I wake Woof Woof and shampoo him while he looks at me with questioning eyes. I do not forget anything. I just can’t get to everything the exact moment the world says I have to.
By 1 a.m. I attack the last item on my mental list: I need to amp up my husband’s happiness. He doesn’t get to be angry with me for things I can’t control. While he isn’t exactly lighting my fire and what I really want is to sleep, I force myself to want the guy. I find a bottle of Victoria’s Secret bubble bath, crusty and hard at the top but still usable. I pour the whole thing in the tub and take a bath that makes me smell like a French hooker. I shave my legs, my armpits, and put on some Italian lacy thing that still has the price tag on. Not bothering to snip it off, I jump on my angry husband’s sleeping body. He smells like body odor and alcohol.
“What?” he asks, squinting at me and not being sure he likes what he sees.
“Queek, before za wife ees back in zee haus,” I say, going with what I imagine works for Rudolph Gibbs, Eastern European.
His hair stands straight up and he has a fuzzy hangover face on. It isn’t sexy but I force myself to think it is.
“Ugh, I have a headache,” he says.
“Zas ees a line for dee ladies, not for real man,” I return.
“C’mon, Belle.”
“Eees impordant to know I also a doctor?” I say. “Specialty ees vee fix dee headache for free and also vee do, how you say, house calls. Eees your night of the luck.” I keep kissing my way down his body.
“You think everything gets repaired by screwing. It doesn’t work that way.” Bruce speaks to the ceiling and makes no eye contact.
“Screwing fixes many sings,” I chirp as I kiss him behind his knees. His body is getting ridiculously perfect from all his gym time. He appears to have no body fat left at all.
“Stop,” he says, pushing me away from his shoulder. “Stop.” He really means it.
I flop over next to him and try to tear the price tag that’s digging into my side. Instead I manage to tear a huge hole in the corset.
“Dammit,” I say, waiting and hoping for him to mimic one of our kids and say in a pretend baby voice that Mommy made a swearword, or anything that’ll make this moment funny.
He rubs at his head like he’s thinking of just the right thing to say. I don’t want some heavy discussion right now and Bruce has never, ever refused sex. It’s the one thing that hits our reset button every time and it’s not working. I have no more remedies in my doctor bag. I look at the ceiling too.
“Don’t you want to save this tenuous thing we have together?” I ask softly, surprising myself with what I just said. Mentioning a troubled relationship is a tough thought to put back in a drawer. This is the part where I expect him to say that we’re fine, that he’s just tired, that he needs a day to recover from hosting a bunch of strange ladies and their wild offspring. But he doesn’t.
“I don’t do guilt sex,” he mutters, and turns away.
CHAPTER 31
Chasing Returns
GUESS YOU’RE not working today?” I had asked Bruce gently, two days ago. He hasn’t spoken to me since. Bruce has mastered the silent treatment that’s big with the four-year-old set.