Our New Normal

by Colleen Faulkner

  The dryer buzzes and I yank open the door. I pull on my jeans, hopping up and down because they’re hot. “I’m leaving in five minutes. I don’t want it if it’s not ready in five minutes,” I tell her, walking into the kitchen.

  Mom’s at the stove, cooking eggs. “Almost done. I’m making myself one to go, too. Could you pop the English muffins in the toaster?” She nods in the direction of the counter.

  “Sure. Where’s Dad?” He’s usually sitting at the kitchen counter this time of the morning, reading one of his history books and chugging coffee.

  “Running late. Still in the shower.” She sets down the spatula, takes a travel mug out of the kitchen cabinet, and pours coffee. It’s the big mug, so it must be for Dad.

  “Your dad said you talked to Tyler. About sharing child care responsibilities. About Cricket watching the baby?” She doesn’t look at me as she says it.

  “I talked to Cricket because Tyler isn’t speaking to me,” I say, waggling my head with the Tyler part.

  I cried for an hour last night about the fact that he doesn’t even want to talk to me now, but I’m over it. I’m over him. He’s going out with Amanda Peterson now. Who I liked until she stole my boyfriend. I kinda want to tell her to buy her own condoms. But then I’d have to speak to her and I’m not.

  “And no, Mom, Cricket says she can’t babysit. She says she has to respect her son’s decision.” I do the air quote thing. I really don’t want to talk about this this morning. Mom always does this. She wants to start huge conversations first thing in the morning when I’m barely awake. And I need to get to school.

  “Okay.” She says it singsongy, which pisses me off. “So your plan now? I thought Cricket was going to watch the baby when you went back to school in the fall.”

  “I decided I don’t want her watching Charlie anyway.” I put four organic, whole-wheat English muffin halves in the toaster and push them down. “She’d probably let the dogs eat him.”

  “I don’t think Tyler’s mother is going to let a dog eat her grandchild,” she says to me.

  I watch her filling the ginormous coffee cup. Apparently Dad’s back on his heavy caffeine doses. “I don’t need Tyler and Cricket, Mom. I’ll just do the distance-learning thing my senior year. I’ll take care of the baby and do my school stuff when he sleeps.” I shrug. “I’m going to do it to finish out the year, anyway.”

  Distance learning is this program that allows students to do their schoolwork at home online and still graduate. It’s free because the state has to give you an education through twelfth grade, even if you are so dumb you get pregnant in the eleventh. I read all about it on the Maine Department of Education Web site.

  She sets down the coffeepot. She’s still not looking at me. “You talk to your guidance counselor to get the details?” Her voice is getting tight.

  She asked me about distance learning last week. And the week before. “No.” I tighten my ponytail. First I was wearing my hair down, but then I decided to do the ponytail because that’s how I always wear my hair. That or in a messy bun. I don’t want Jack to think that I’m, like, doing my hair special for him or anything.

  Mom goes back to the stove to flip the eggs. “You need to find out what kind of application process there is. You need to make sure you can even do it three-quarters of the way through the school year.” Before I can answer, she goes on. “Because you’ve got five weeks, Hazel.”

  “I know,” I groan.

  “Maybe six until the baby is here.” She’s talking over me now. “And you can take a week off or whatever, but the more time you take off, the further—”

  “Mom!” I interrupt, loud. “I told you, I’ve got this.”

  “Yes, you have told me that.”

  She puts cheese on two of the fried eggs, hers and Dad’s, but not mine. Because she knows I won’t eat it if there’s cheese on it. I’m trying the no-dairy thing with Gran.

  “But it doesn’t look like you’ve got this because you’re having a baby in a month and you don’t know how you’re going to finish the eleventh grade.”

  I rest my hands on my hips. “Nothing is ever good enough for you, is it?”

  The English muffins pop up in the toaster.

  She turns to me, the spatula in her hand again. “What?”

  “Nothing is ever good enough for you. Nothing I do is ever good enough.” I hold my hands in the air. “I’ve never been smart enough, or organized enough, or pretty enough or . . . or anything enough.” I’m almost shouting my last words. “God, I hate you!” I do shout that.

  Before she can say anything, I turn around and stomp out of the kitchen. I grab my coat, my backpack, and my car keys from the laundry room.

  “Hazel,” Mom calls after me, sounding like she’s going to cry.

  I walk out and slam the door behind me.

  23

  Liv

  “Hazel?” I call after her, trying not to cry. I walk across the kitchen, stepping over the dog, watching my daughter march out of the room.

  “Liv?” Oscar walks into the kitchen from the family room. “What’s going on?”

  I turn to him as the laundry room door slams. Hard. Hard enough to wake the dog.

  “Honey?” He glances in the direction our daughter has just fled. “What was that all about?”

  Tears slide down my cheeks and I wipe at them, feeling ridiculous. I’m the adult here. I’m supposed to be tough. Thick-skinned. A teenager’s words shouldn’t hurt me.

  I want to go after Hazel and demand an apology. No one should speak to her mother that way. But I’m so hurt by her words that I can’t move. And what would be the point? She just said she hated me. If she hates me, chasing her down and demanding an apology isn’t going to make her hate me less. She’ll hate me more.

  My gaze strays to the kitchen counter and the half-made breakfast. She forgot her sandwich. She’ll be hungry. She shouldn’t be leaving the house without eating something. Not eight months pregnant.

  I meet Oscar’s gaze. “She hates me,” I whisper.

  He stands there for a minute, looking at me looking at him. He’s dressed in scrubs for work, his hair and beard still damp from his shower. He opens his arms. I go to him.

  “She doesn’t hate you,” he says into my hair.

  “She just told me she hates me.” I gesture lamely in the direction she went and press my face into his chest, breathing deeply, trying not to start bawling. I hear her pulling out of the driveway in her car. “She acts like she hates me. Now she’s gone,” I tell him. “In my car. I own it, I put the gas in it, I pay the insurance.” I look up at him, sliding my hands upward to rest on his shoulders. “Should I be doing those things? Why should I provide her with a car if she hates me? She could ride the bus. It goes by here.” I know I’m just babbling now.

  He tightens his arms around me and I cling to him. My tears are going to leave a damp spot on his scrubs.

  “Because you’re her mother and you love her,” he says quietly.

  I take a deep breath; he smells like body wash and the man I fell in love with a very long time ago. I look up at him, my head still on his shoulder. “What are we going to do, Oscar?”

  He kisses my cheek. And his kiss is sweet and warm, and somehow being in his arms, I already feel a little better.

  “What are we going to do about what?” he asks.

  “Hazel. Since Tyler broke up with her, she hasn’t been herself. She . . . she’s not doing as well in school as she had been. Did she tell you that she failed a quiz in English the other day because she didn’t read the homework assignment?”

  “She did not.” His tone is gentle, his voice reassuring. He’s the calm to my storm. He’s always been.

  “Saturday night she came home at two in the morning. What’s a girl eight months pregnant doing out at two in the morning? And she’s done absolutely nothing about making arrangements to finish off the school year at home. Nothing. If she went into labor today, I guess she’d just flunk the y
ear.”

  He stiffens. “You don’t think she’s going into labor today, do you?”

  “Of course not.” I frown. “She’s fine. I’m just saying . . .” I don’t finish my sentence because what am I saying? My thoughts are flying in so many directions these days that it’s amazing I can produce a single coherent sentence. Mom and Dad are a mess, I’ve bitten off more than I can chew with the new business, and then there’s the issue with my pregnant daughter about to pop out a baby. A child having a child.

  Oscar strokes my back for a moment, just holding me. And it feels so good. Just standing there in the middle of our kitchen, in his arms, makes me not feel quite so desperate. Quite so crazy.

  “Liv,” Oscar says. “Do you think—now I’m just asking.” He lets go of me with one hand so he can raise it high. “Should I . . . should I call the school and see what she needs to do? What they need from us to enroll her in whatever homeschool program is available? She told me it would be online, that she didn’t even need someone to come to the house or whatever.”

  “You should not call the school.” I look up at him, surprised he’s made the offer. Not resentful, for once, just pleasantly surprised.

  I’ve been the parent who always handled anything that had to do with the children’s education. Oscar has never been involved. He never went to PTA meetings, never volunteered in a classroom, never did playground duty or made twenty-eight cupcakes for a bake sale. In fact, I’m in charge of Oscar’s education, as well. Any continuing education credits he needs to retain or renew his physician’s assistant license, I arrange for, whether it’s an online course or a weekend trip to Boston.

  “I don’t think you should call,” I say, wording it so I’m not giving a command. Hazel tells me I never make suggestions, I just order everyone in the family around. “Hazel said she would make the arrangements and I agreed she should do it.”

  For once, it seems like he’s listening to me. Hearing me.

  “She got herself into this mess,” I reason aloud. “She’s about to have a baby. She needs to become more mature, more responsible, not less. And honestly, I don’t want to do it.” I look into his eyes. “This was supposed to be my time. This was supposed to be an easy year, with Sean away at school, and Hazel being as independent as she is, always was, she was supposed to be taking care of herself more.”

  He thinks for a minute. “You’re right. I agree a hundred percent.”

  “You do?” I’m surprised he’s actually agreeing with me about something. Particularly when it means disagreeing with Hazel.

  “I do.” He gives me a gentle kiss on the lips, still holding me. “What did you argue about?”

  I exhale loudly. “About her making the arrangements for homeschooling. And now it’s even more important that she get everything worked out, now that Cricket says she won’t keep the baby at all—”

  “Wait, Cricket isn’t going to babysit? I thought that was the plan so Hazel could go back to school and Tyler could work.”

  “And go to a community college. They were talking about him getting some kind of mechanics certification. Right.” I’m looking up at him again. “That’s all a no-go now that they’ve broken up. And Amanda What’s-her-name is in the picture.”

  “Peterson,” he offers. “I got an earful driving home with Hazel from your parents’ last night.”

  I’m drawing a blank. “Why were the two of you at my parents’?”

  I close my eyes for a second. “That’s right. Honey, I completely forgot.” I immediately feel terrible. I got stuck in Rockland with an interior designer who had some fabrics for me to look at and my mom called me four times in five minutes. I texted Hazel and she said she would take care of their latest catastrophe. “Thank you for picking up the prescription, and fixing the toilet. I know that’s not usually your forte.”

  “Being Plunger Man?” He raises his arm high, an imaginary scepter in his hand.

  I laugh. “It’s working okay? I didn’t want to call the plumber again if I didn’t have to.”

  “Working great once I removed the bedroom slipper. Didn’t even have to plunge. It was right there.”

  “Dad tried to flush a slipper?” I start to ask why he put his slipper in the toilet and flushed, but then I know there’s no reason to ask. Either there is no explanation, or worse, the explanation will be so bizarre, I’ll have one more thing to worry about today.

  Oscar’s looking down at me. Chuckling. And I realize how much I miss these little exchanges with him. And it makes me sad because I’ve allowed these moments to go unrealized. Because I’ve been too preoccupied in the morning to say more than a perfunctory “Have a good day” as I go out the door. Because I’ve been making this household a war zone of me against them and I’ve shut him out. My Oscar, my husband, my lover, the man who was once my best friend.

  I shake my head, carrying my thoughts back to the conversation at hand. “So the babysitting. Hazel spoke with Cricket about watching the baby and Cricket told her she had to support her son and her son didn’t want them to have anything to do with the baby.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. This is the same woman we visited a few months ago?” He makes a face as if what she’s saying sounds crazy. “She was the one all excited about his baby, buying clothes when Hazel was only three months pregnant. Talking about buying him a four-wheeler when he was old enough and crap like that.”

  “I know.” I let go of him. “I know.” I walk to the stove. Luckily I’d turned the flame off under the eggs. They might be a little cool by now but at least I didn’t burn them. Cold eggs we can eat. “You need to get to the hospital, hon. I have a sandwich almost made for you. I’ll wrap it so you can eat it on the way.” I grab the muffins out of the toaster. “You may as well have Hazel’s, too. She’s not coming back for it.”

  He checks his watch. “I don’t have to go yet. I’ve still got a few minutes.”

  I begin to assemble his sandwich. The sausage patties I made first are still warm on a back burner. “You like to be there before morning meeting.”

  “They can wait on me a few minutes.” He sounds annoyed but not with me, for once.

  “Really?” I pick up his travel mug and take it to him, feeling an unfamiliar sense of unity with him. “I already poured your coffee. Creamer went in first.”

  He takes the cup from my hand. Smiles at me. “Thanks.”

  I return the smile, suddenly feeling almost shy with him. It’s been that long since we’ve had a conversation like this. Touched each other except while having sex. I watch him take a sip of his coffee, glad I had made it for him. We used to do little things like that for each other. I’d make his morning coffee. He’d take my car to run an errand and fill it up with gas for me. I wonder how we got out of the habit. And I wonder how much it has to do with our distance now. Are those niceties in life—pouring a cup of coffee, moving clothes from the washer to the dryer without being asked, starting dinner when you get home early even though it’s not your night to make dinner—are they what make the difference between a happy marriage and a sad one? A marriage of emotional intimacy instead of distance?

  I go back to making the breakfast sandwiches: English muffins, fried eggs with cheese, and a sausage patty. “No cheese on Hazel’s. Sorry. So you get one with cheese and one without. Or you can have mine,” I offer.

  “That’s okay. I don’t need the calories in the cheese anyway.” He pats his belly. “I’ve been thinking about counting calories again. Downloaded an app that looks decent. Might pull the treadmill out of the downstairs bedroom. Put it in the family room so I could walk while I watch something in the evenings.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” I dare a hint of a smile, sniff, and start wrapping the sandwiches. Without Hazel here, I don’t bother with the beeswax wrap. I go with the foil because I like foil. It wraps better. And I’m tired of being dictated to by my teenage daughter.

  Oscar leans against the kitchen counter and sips his coffee. “If Tyle
r’s mother’s not watching the baby . . .” He lets his sentence go unfinished.

  “What’s the plan?” I pop a third muffin into the toaster, and wrap the sandwich made without cheese in foil and wait for the “lids” for the other two to come out of the toaster.

  “Hazel says she’s just going to stay home next year, too.”

  “Sounds like a terrible idea.” He smooths his beard. “I cannot believe that little pissant bailed on her. Bailed on his kid.”

  “Believe.” My tone is dry.

  We’re both quiet for a minute as I wait on the toaster to pop. But it’s not the uncomfortable silence we’ve been sharing as of late. It’s a solicitous silence.

  “Hazel told you she hated you?”

  “She sure did.”

  “She shouldn’t speak to you that way,” Oscar says. “No matter how angry she is with you.”

  “I agree.” I sip my coffee from my fancy stainless-steel thermal mug Sean gave me for Christmas. A brand all the house contractors use, he told me. “But . . .” I sigh. “We probably need to cut her a break. She’s pretty hormonal. You remember how batty I would get in my last trimester?”

  “Still not an excuse. She’s old enough to be thankful for everything you do for her, Liv. And if not that, she needs to at least be respectful. You want me to talk to her?” He meets my gaze. “Or we could sit down together and talk with her. Things are only going to get crazier when the baby is born.”

  I stand there wondering who stole my husband and where they took him. Where has this man been for the last five months? Was he here all along and I just didn’t see him? Is this all about having our seventeen-year-old responsible daughter pregnant and about to be a mother? Or is this all on me? I’d like to blame everything on Hazel, or at least on the circumstances, but in my heart of hearts, I’m afraid it started before the day she passed me the pregnancy test through the crack in the bathroom door.