“Gabey!” She took the thing from his hand and studied it. “You did it! You finished it!” She turned the wooden crane one way, then the other, and she couldn’t believe it, it was perfect. A little wobbly while the glue set, but darn near perfect. She handed it back to him. “Show Daddy.”
He handed it to Nate, who took it reluctantly. “This is cool!” He exclaimed with forced enthusiasm. Alecia resisted the urge to snatch it away from him.
“Gabe, tell Daddy. We found model kits for construction equipment. I don’t know the names of everything. Tell him.” That was a lie, she could rattle off construction equipment in her sleep, but this way, Gabe was forced to talk.
“A crane, a front-end loader, a lorry, a road roller, and an excavator.” He rattled them off quickly, the words mushing into each other. The first kit she bought him had been manufactured in the UK, so he now he defaulted to the British terms for construction equipment.
“Slower, Gabe, say it again. We don’t know as much as you do.”
He beamed. “A crane. A front-end loader. A lorry. A road roller and an excavator. That one is last.” His tongue found each syllable, proud of himself.
“How come?” Alecia prompted.
“My favorite.” His eyes slid sideways but he gave her a smile.
“Gabe, we’ve been trying to figure out that crane for a week. Does it move?” She went to tap the bucket on the end but he snatched it away.
“When it dries.” He maneuvered a slipped wooden dowel back into place with surprising light grace. “Don’t touch.” He wandered away, back upstairs to put the crane in its rightful place, wherever that might be.
Alecia shook her head at Nate in wonder. “Seriously, that thing was so hard. I barely understood it. I’ve been thinking all week it might have been a mistake. He was getting frustrated with me hovering over him, directing him.”
“I’m not in your club, Alecia.” Nate said it simply, but his voice was quiet. Lost. “You and Gabe, you have a little club. I show up once in a while, do a little song and dance, but mostly, I don’t fit in here. I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Maybe that’s not my fault,” Alecia said.
“Maybe not. Do you think it’s enough that I want to be in your club? I want to know more about what goes on here.” He spread his hands wide, as though “here” were someplace grand: a castle, a vast garden, somewhere other than their small, cramped, barely together kitchen.
“Then you need to stay checked in.” Alecia held up her hand as he started to protest. “Don’t deny it. When things get hard, you find a way to check out: a pile of tests to grade, a parent to call, a baseball meeting, the bathroom for God’s sake.” She took a deep breath, calmer. “I’ll tell you more if you stay here. In the muck, with us.”
“Maybe I’m jealous. You should have seen your face when he walked in here holding that model. He couldn’t have cared less about showing me. He wanted your pride, not mine.” Nate looked into the living room and shoved his fists into his jeans pockets.
“Are you jealous of me? Or Gabe?”
Nate took a step back and shook his head. “I really have no idea.”
?????
She went shopping, leaving Nate with Gabe-related checklists. Shopping! It seemed as unfathomable as a Caribbean cruise and just as exotic. Not food shopping, but clothes shopping. For herself!
She wanted new yoga pants, maybe a T-shirt. She wandered the department store, the heady scent of perfume sample sprays hanging on her clothes, her hair, as she aimlessly picked through racks of blouses. She remembered blouses; she used to own zillions of them. All dry-clean only, soft and silky, in rich colors that pinked her cheeks or sparkled her eyes or brightened her highlights. She remembered pencil skirts and skinny belts, three-inch heels and tights with boots. She ran her hand along a sheer, blowy sleeve. The blouse was coral, with silver, sparkling buttons. Would look perfect with the gray tweed skirt. On a whim, she pulled both off the rack, size eight. In the dressing room, she dressed quickly. Everything fit, her body had bounced back, seemingly with no effort after Gabe, although it had taken awhile. Sometimes she blamed the anxiety, the way she’d stand over a stove, stirring and simmering, scrambling to fix the perfect dinner for Nate. For Gabe. Then she’d sit down, stare at the food that somehow turned to slime on her plate. If anything, she was thinner now than she’d been before she had Gabe. She was lucky; everyone said so.
She pulled the tags off and tucked them into her palm.
She wandered into the lingerie department, lace and padding, or sheer with silk ribbons. Garters and thongs, push-up bras and fishnets. She remembered this, too. She had a drawer filled with satin at home. She never touched it; most nights she was asleep before Nate even came home. But she remembered. She remembered lighting candles, Nate’s first baseball season, when she was pregnant but barely, only the tiny swell of belly over red lace where it used to be flat. The feeling when she splayed out, waiting, of her back against silky sheets, a lethally high red heel on each foot. His footsteps in the hall, the look in his eyes as he stood at the foot of the bed, the weight of him between her thighs, his hands hot on her hard belly, a pulse of life beneath his palm. How fast it was over.
She stood in the middle of Macy’s, wearing a two-hundred-dollar outfit she had no use for, holding a black-and-red lace teddy she’d never stay awake long enough to wear. Even if her eyes would cooperate, her body wouldn’t. Alecia couldn’t remember her last orgasm.
She felt an unwelcome stab of pity for Nate. He was stuck with them, her and Gabe, a lousy lot in life. Guilt filled her throat and her face flushed with shame. He was lucky to have Gabe. But Nate still had her as a wife, and lately she’d been falling apart, which admittedly made no sense. Gabe was getting better, inasmuch as someone with autism can “get better.” They’d figured out therapy most days. His medicine cocktail (mostly) kept all the tics at bay. His meltdowns had gone from three or four a day to only one every other day, if that. And those were minor. She should have been sailing into the prime of her life, Gabe in elementary school, days free, maybe going back to work. But instead she’d felt precariously balanced on the edge of a cliff, one foot off.