“No, no.” I stood up. “We’ll sit at the table with you.” When the boys didn’t move, I said, “Now,” and they got up and shuffled to the table with hanging heads, and crawled into the chairs on either side of their father. I microwaved Chuck’s plate for a minute and brought it to him, and sat down with what was left of my meal.
Jed took out his phone, and Chuck said, “Please, no phones at dinner.” Then he winked at me—go, Team Parents!—and took a bite of Popper. He had trouble chewing. The Popper was tough from the microwave. But he didn’t complain. He did the work and chewed and asked the boys about practice, and right as Cam began a story about the goalie—“He’s really good, but he got suspended, so we don’t—” my phone rang.
I got up. Jed, mocking his father’s order, said in an ogre voice, “No phones at dinner.”
“I’m just going to see who it is.” On the screen: ANA. “I’ll just be a sec,” I said, and made my way out to the lanai.
I barely had time to finish my “Hello?” before Ana said, “Nan. You are not going to believe this.”
“What.”
“Eunice didn’t post the ad. She postponed it!”
“Really?” I was so happy for her. A wave of relief washed through my body, as if I were the one who’d been granted more time in the house. “That’s wonderful.”
“It means our plan is working.” I could hear her clapping. “What are you doing right now? Want to come over?”
“Oh, I wish I could, but I can’t.”
She chuckled. “The chains of domestic life.”
I complied with a little “ha,” though I didn’t find it very funny. “I’ll call you soon,” I said.
“Bye, soul sister.”
“Bye.”
“Bye. I always like to be the last one to say good-bye. So bye.” She hung up.
When I walked back into the house, my family was silent and staring at me. “What’s going on?” I asked in a way that suggested my answering one phone call during dinner was not a big deal.
“We paused the conversation and waited for you,” Chuck said sincerely.
“Oh, thanks, hon,” I said. I only ever called him “hon” when he irritated me.
“Anyway,” Cam said quickly, “the goalie got suspended, so he probably won’t be able to play in the next two games.”
“Shame,” Chuck said, drinking more water to get the Poppers down.
Then we went around the table and said what we had done that day. This was a Murphy family tradition. Everyone but Chuck kept it brief. Cam: “I went to school.” Jed: “I went to school and practice and watched a bomb snowboarder rip it up until the TV got turned off.” (Chuck and I exchanged a look of parental frustration.) I said, “I went to a lei-making class with Marcy, and then I walked on a trail.” Chuck thought that was “marvelous” and then explained the parts of his day like it was a slideshow: this is where I parked, this is where I ate my lunch, this is how we plan to stock product more efficiently, and this is why that’s important. He maintained his upbeat attitude the whole time, speaking with such energy about the ins and outs of his job, happily unaware that he had lost his audience back at “I found a great new parking spot around the side, much closer to the employee entrance.” Jed and Cam kept yawning—were they stoned or just tired?—while I diligently encouraged Chuck with, “Wow,” and “That’s great,” and his just used “Marvelous.”
The boys didn’t want dessert—did this mean they were not stoned?—and so yes, they could be excused after they cleared the dishes. While Chuck showered, I cleaned up everything else and thought about how the night before—Thai takeout, yoga poses on Ana’s floor, touching a snake for the first time, writing on sidewalks—had been so very different from tonight’s domestic chains. But, this—me hovered over the sink, my hands plastered inside my yellow dishwashing gloves—was only part of me now. I had another life. A secret life. A life just for Nancy. And knowing this made scrubbing the Popper barnacles off the plate much more bearable.
?
We made love with Chuck on top because my back hurt. Chuck thrust energetically. I closed my eyes and concentrated on matching his energy. I could do that. I could meet him halfway. And I did, and it got better. When we were done, we whispered “I love you”s. Then Chuck had to use the bathroom. So I got up and brushed my teeth. I straightened the sheets. I grabbed from the floor the one pillow that had fallen. We put on our pajamas. At 3:00 a.m. I woke up in a puddle of Chuck’s drool and moved to the far side of the bed.
16
By the eleventh week in Hawaii, I had lost thirteen pounds. I’d taken to wearing my active gear all the time—I just knew that had something to do with it. Ana had given me some of her old yoga clothes—really nice stuff—and Chuck had bought me a three-pack of Costco camisoles. (“Look”—he pointed to the words written across the model’s stomach—“Ideal for stretching.”) It was a very nice gesture, although size small was still too small for me, and probably always would be.
I had switched my hair products to Aveda—Ana’s suggestion; that was the brand she used to use when she had hair—and now my brittle hair was supple, just as she had promised. I hadn’t become a vegetarian, but I was eating a lot less meat. Mostly I ate vegetables. Not from the garden, because the garden was still just a rectangle of soil (my lone sprig had gone missing), but from the farmers’ market in town. The very nice vendors didn’t know my name quite yet, but the way they said “You!” or “Lady!” or “Mango green bean lady!” meant that they knew who I was.
Chuck and I agreed the boys were still adjusting normally, although they had ditched school one day to go surfing, and I was now positive they were smoking pot because I’d found a baggie in Cam’s underwear drawer. But we agreed that ditching a little school—only three periods—and smoking a little pot—the baggie had been tiny—were normal things for teenage boys to do. It could have been a lot worse.
After their ditch day, we had a sit-down family meeting. Gently, so as not to push them away, we reminded them that school was important and marijuana was illegal. Yes, we did understand the pressures of high school, but these were just the facts. I lost some Cool Parent points when I blurted out, “I bet Liko smokes pot.” Cam glanced at Jed—he’s your friend—and Jed rolled his eyes at me. Then Chuck, in an effort to win back the points I had lost us, added in his buddy-buddy way, “The thing is, boys, pot lowers your sperm count,” to which Jed confidently said, “Well, so does Mountain Dew,” and Cam echoed, “It’s true,” and then Chuck, despite himself, asked, “Really?”