When I look up, the housekeeper is walking toward us like she’s on a mission, but she’s smiling. “You full of surprises, Mr. McIntyre.”
I decide now is a good time to attempt a truce, so I smile in return. “Hi, Rosa.” This is the first time I’ve ever called her by name. I only know it because the kids say it so often.
“What you doing here?” she asks, but her tone isn’t confrontational like the last time we did this.
“I needed to see my kids.”
“They need to see you too,” she says quietly as if the admission is a betrayal of her employer that she refuses to contain, but doesn’t want anyone to hear.
Rosa ushers all of us inside with the practiced efficiency of someone who’s served others for years.
I call Miranda’s cell. She doesn’t answer, so I leave a message.
Rosa calls Miranda’s cell. She doesn’t answer, so Rosa leaves a message.
Rosa prepares lunch and feeds us while we wait out Miranda’s ire. She tells me it’s a traditional dish her mother taught her to make when she was a young girl in Mexico: potatoes, onions, and tomatoes, inside homemade flour tortillas. I’m shocked as I watch Kira eat it.
Rosa is firm with my kids, but there’s a gentleness that suggests she enjoys being with them. I can see it in her eyes when she watches them, and they don’t know it. She’s fond of them. She’s bonded with them. She’s protective of them. I’m guessing she’s old enough to be their grandmother. I’m glad my kids have her here.
Hours later, Loren arrives home and Miranda isn’t far behind. She releases the kids to me days early, at Loren’s prompting, and we pack their bags and leave on our very own Christmas adventure. I don’t know where we’re going yet, and I don’t care as long as we’re all together.
Miserably imperfect saccharin happiness
present
“Miranda, we need to talk,” Loren calls through my closed bedroom door. It’s late. We have separate bedrooms. He won’t let me step foot in his in all the months I’ve lived here.
My heart beats double time in reaction to his voice, his words. It makes me angry that his attention can still set off a Pavlovian response, especially after the way he’s been ignoring me, but that’s all it is—an unconscious response. It’s not desire. It’s not need. It’s a physiological chain reaction that begins and ends with my loneliness.
I pull back the covers and crawl out of bed, cloaking my naked form with a silk robe. It’s tied loosely in front, but the two halves aren’t drawn closed when I meet him in the hallway.
He sighs when he looks at me. It’s not the sigh of irritation I’ve grown so used to. It’s sympathy, sadness, something I didn’t think him capable of. “Can I come in?” he nods his head at my door.
My heart has squashed the synthetic excitement and is beating rationally again. “It’s sad you had to ask that question,” I mutter as I turn and walk into my bedroom. He trails behind, both of us weighted by the uneasiness of our fucked up situation. Two adults, three children, one housekeeper: all living separate lives under one giant, dividing roof.
I walk to my bed, prop the pillows up, shed my robe, not in an attempt to seduce, but in an attempt to return to my prior comfy state, and crawl back into bed. With the covers pulled up to my chin, and everything else hidden underneath, I look at him sitting in the antique wingback chair in the corner. “What do we need to talk about, Loren?” His name is an abrasive exclamation point.
He’s sitting forward, his elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped. He’s still wearing his dress pants and shirt, but his tie is gone, and the top several buttons are undone. “This isn’t working. You know this isn’t working. I know this isn’t working.”
I nod. This isn’t working. I thought forcing my way into his life would make things perfect.
It’s not.
It’s far from perfect.
It’s miserably imperfect.
“You’re depressed,” he states.
I don’t answer. I’ve been on medication to treat it for weeks now. It’s not helping.
“You need help.” I meet his eyes across the room. They’re tired. Both from lack of sleep and…me.
I smile. It feels hollow and the corners of my mouth refuse to rise. “I swallow sixty milligrams of help every morning when I wake up. It coats my insides with pipedreams of saccharin happiness. I’ve got help covered. Thanks.” Sarcasm blends maliciously with melancholy.
“They’re not working. Talk to your doctor,” he implores.
I look away defiantly. I don’t want to talk about medication. I don’t want him to look at me like I’m a pile of ragged instability. I want to talk about us. The fact that there isn’t, and probably never was, an us. “Do you love me?” When he doesn’t answer, I look at him and prod, “Did you ever love me, Loren? Before everything went to hell?”
“Do you want me to lie and make you feel better, or do you want the truth?” he asks. I already know his answer. His words formed a question, but all I heard was no.
I want him to lie to me. “I want the truth.” Please lie to me.
He doesn’t miss a beat. “No.”