asked.
“This,” I said, and I gestured us, and the house, and by implication everything we had collected and made together. Our family, the shelves of books, the rows of pills on the bathroom shelf, the boxes of old tax returns in the garage, the photo albums showing us on vacation in Central and South America, the Shona sculpture of a mother with child, the eccentrically beautiful pink-and-cream rug made from homegrown Zambian wool woven for us by Vanessa as a wedding present. “It’s the beach,” she had explained unhelpfully when I stared at the wavy design in puzzlement. “With rocks.”
“Not now,” Charlie said. “If you want to discuss this some other time, we can schedule a meeting.”
“Schedule a meeting?” I said. “I’m not your business partner.”
“Don’t yell.”
“I’m not yelling,” I said.
“You are.”
Then I was.
Cecily came down from the kitchen and stood between us, tiny and fragile-looking in her ready-for-preschool braids, her backpack seeming to double her size. For too long our children had done this, inserting themselves between us and the words that might finally blow us apart. “So right now?” Charlie asked. “You really want to do this right now?”
I didn’t, but I couldn’t help myself. Cecily was a burgeoning part of my hysteria. I wanted her world to be predictable, safe, and, above all, normal. I wanted all my children to be able to say of their childhoods that they were if not idyllic, then at least uneventful. I didn’t want our children losing their house, or their sense of family. I wanted them swaddled in continuity and predictability. In other words, I wanted for my children what I’d never had and what I seemed unable and unwilling and far too unbelieving to create for myself: a solid, obvious, and unassailable sense of self attached to an immovable home, the same address for decades, routines and traditions. “Yes,” I said. Then, “No. No, of course not.”
I had broken the sacred six-word vow of silence:
Not in front of the children.
But I was keeping the sacred six-word vow of parenthood:
For the sake of the children.
For the sake of the children we wouldn’t talk about this now, or maybe ever. For the sake of the children, there would be days made normal by after-school sports and by PTO meetings and by cupcakes on their birthdays. For the sake of the children we would pretend everything was okay until our marriage went from cold war to nuclear winter, and maybe even then.
Charlie scooped up Cecily. “I’m leaving,” he said. “E-mail me with some times we can meet. When you’re calmer.”
They left, Cecily yelling, “Hearts and kisses! Hearts and kisses!” and waving as she always did until the corner in the driveway rendered her invisible to me. I went up to my office, a small room—more of a landing than anything else, a stage stop from which I could easily monitor the comings and goings of the home. It would have been, if the house had had a heart, exactly there, suspended over the belly of the kitchen, and the incubating warmth of the children’s bedroom. I turned on my computer and started the day’s writing. There had been a time, ten or fifteen years ago, that I had believed I could write my way out of anything. For years I had even kept a sticky note on my computer that said exactly that: “You can write your way out of this.”
But I had written and written and here we still were. For the first time, I admitted this might be something I would not be able to write my way out of. I couldn’t make words take the shape of an escape for either of us. This couldn’t go on. On the other hand, what options did we have? Charlie and I were in this together, house lifting off its foundation or not, sweat equity and tears, thick and thin. We had children together, we had history together, we had dwindling bank accounts and accumulated debt together.
I looked around at the couples we knew and none of them seemed to be
“This,” I said, and I gestured us, and the house, and by implication everything we had collected and made together. Our family, the shelves of books, the rows of pills on the bathroom shelf, the boxes of old tax returns in the garage, the photo albums showing us on vacation in Central and South America, the Shona sculpture of a mother with child, the eccentrically beautiful pink-and-cream rug made from homegrown Zambian wool woven for us by Vanessa as a wedding present. “It’s the beach,” she had explained unhelpfully when I stared at the wavy design in puzzlement. “With rocks.”
“Not now,” Charlie said. “If you want to discuss this some other time, we can schedule a meeting.”
“Schedule a meeting?” I said. “I’m not your business partner.”
“Don’t yell.”
“I’m not yelling,” I said.
“You are.”
Then I was.
Cecily came down from the kitchen and stood between us, tiny and fragile-looking in her ready-for-preschool braids, her backpack seeming to double her size. For too long our children had done this, inserting themselves between us and the words that might finally blow us apart. “So right now?” Charlie asked. “You really want to do this right now?”
I didn’t, but I couldn’t help myself. Cecily was a burgeoning part of my hysteria. I wanted her world to be predictable, safe, and, above all, normal. I wanted all my children to be able to say of their childhoods that they were if not idyllic, then at least uneventful. I didn’t want our children losing their house, or their sense of family. I wanted them swaddled in continuity and predictability. In other words, I wanted for my children what I’d never had and what I seemed unable and unwilling and far too unbelieving to create for myself: a solid, obvious, and unassailable sense of self attached to an immovable home, the same address for decades, routines and traditions. “Yes,” I said. Then, “No. No, of course not.”
I had broken the sacred six-word vow of silence:
Not in front of the children.
But I was keeping the sacred six-word vow of parenthood:
For the sake of the children.
For the sake of the children we wouldn’t talk about this now, or maybe ever. For the sake of the children, there would be days made normal by after-school sports and by PTO meetings and by cupcakes on their birthdays. For the sake of the children we would pretend everything was okay until our marriage went from cold war to nuclear winter, and maybe even then.
Charlie scooped up Cecily. “I’m leaving,” he said. “E-mail me with some times we can meet. When you’re calmer.”
They left, Cecily yelling, “Hearts and kisses! Hearts and kisses!” and waving as she always did until the corner in the driveway rendered her invisible to me. I went up to my office, a small room—more of a landing than anything else, a stage stop from which I could easily monitor the comings and goings of the home. It would have been, if the house had had a heart, exactly there, suspended over the belly of the kitchen, and the incubating warmth of the children’s bedroom. I turned on my computer and started the day’s writing. There had been a time, ten or fifteen years ago, that I had believed I could write my way out of anything. For years I had even kept a sticky note on my computer that said exactly that: “You can write your way out of this.”
But I had written and written and here we still were. For the first time, I admitted this might be something I would not be able to write my way out of. I couldn’t make words take the shape of an escape for either of us. This couldn’t go on. On the other hand, what options did we have? Charlie and I were in this together, house lifting off its foundation or not, sweat equity and tears, thick and thin. We had children together, we had history together, we had dwindling bank accounts and accumulated debt together.
I looked around at the couples we knew and none of them seemed to be
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