Adult Conversation

by Brandy Ferner

  Aaron’s jaw dropped just like mine had about two hours earlier, except his was full of Straw.

  “If she can catch him in the act and on video, it could be her escape plan.”

  “This is your therapist, right?”

  Why can’t anyone give this poor woman a break? I felt protective over her again.

  Our night together happened like it used to, with our new favorite housewife reality show spin-off, Vanderpump Rules, lots of pausing and chit-chatting, and zero tension. When we found ourselves yawning for the tenth time, we looked at each other and simultaneously said, “Bed.”

  Something about the playful and strain-free night we’d had, plus feeling grateful that Aaron wasn’t Chet, made me feel like I could possibly entertain the idea of putting a small deposit in Aaron’s account. I wouldn’t go so far as to peel off my warm clothes and engage in actual sex, but I was willing to give and knew that I had to strike soon before he reached for his phone and killed my generous state of mind.

  “If you were looking for a hand job, I might be offering one.” I smiled cheekily. His eyes lit up like a torch.

  “I’m always looking for a hand job. Amazing.” He spared no time and took his tight boxer briefs down. He was already hard, as most desperate-for-sex husbands are at the sound of their wives’ voices saying the word “hand job.”

  I grabbed the lube out of his bedside drawer, making a mental note to put it up higher, somewhere where children couldn’t find it. I squeezed it on my hand and it made the usual, unfortunate fart sound as it splattered. I began. Aaron laid back in ecstasy as my forearm went to work.

  We’re almost out of fish food again. I should get some tomorrow while I’m out. I need to return that too-small swimsuit I got for Violet. Maybe tomorrow night I’ll find a good recipe for cheese enchiladas and make those for dinner. I wonder if there is a brand of enchilada sauce that is less spicy for the kids. I should ask about that on the Facebook mom’s group when I’m done.

  My forearm slowly began to burn.

  I should really strengthen my forearms so this doesn’t hurt in the future. But wouldn’t that be kind of weird to just focus on the forearm muscles? Everyone at the gym would know it’s for giving hand jobs. They would call me the “hand jobber” behind my back. I would be a legend there.

  The burning intensified. I switched hands, which in hindsight was always a bad idea and elongated the entire process. I took an intermission to quickly lube up my other hand, and then went back to work. Oh shit, this arm is even weaker than the other one. But I kept on, using my pain-coping strategies from birth class to help with the searing forearm pain. I wanted to tell Aaron to focus and to hurry up, but I knew that the quickest way to finalize this was to cup his balls with my free hand.

  When all was said and done, I washed my hands thoroughly and hopped into bed next to a tranquilized Aaron who hadn’t moved a muscle since the event. He smiled at me lovingly. His demeanor had completely softened, much like the Beast’s after being in Belle’s care. Maybe the easiest way for Belle to have gotten her father back was to have given the Beast a hand job. It wasn’t right, but it was just a thought.

  Knowing that Aaron had been sexually pleasured by me meant that I could actually lay down and fall asleep without the normal nightly guilt. Some nights I felt more guilt than others—and some nights I was asleep before I even remembered to feel guilty—but tonight I got to be free, and feel like I had been enough for everyone that day, namely the person lying next to me.

  He got under the covers, limply rolled over my way and kissed me. “Thank you for that.”

  “You’re welcome,” I replied, trying not to sound like Maui from Moana, but damn it if every utterance of those two words didn’t sound just like him.

  I laid there, feeling grateful for Aaron. It didn’t mean our marriage was ideal, nor that either of our needs were always being met, but he didn’t wear his phone in a holster and that felt like a really important detail.

  I floated toward sleep. Before it overtook me in the dark room, I turned to Aaron. “Goodnight, I love you.”

  “Love you too, A.B.” And then he whispered, “We know Snoop Dogg.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Choose Your Own Adventure

  The week had been a blur with more bodily fluids than usual. Violet caught the stomach flu and I waited in fear for the next victim to fall, while nearly turning to voodoo to get the vomit smell out of her car seat. I found myself texting regularly with June as our friendship continued to level up. I asked for Snoop Dogg’s address in at least half of those texts, as it had become a joke between us—but she still wasn’t giving up the goods. Each time I worried about the ethical nag June might be feeling about our relationship outside of Mother Roots, I remembered the loneliness in her voice that night on her driveway, and the thought vanished. She deserved friends.

  I hadn’t forgotten about CeCe’s email, still dangling in my inbox. With all the laundry, homemade chicken soup, and extra snuggles, there had been no time to email her back a “suck it.” Or probably a suck it. The traumatic memories of the pop-up shop were fading, yet the cash remained—cash to pay for a real adult date at a real adult restaurant with Aaron, where I would wear eyeliner. I’d been dreaming about it all week, especially when elbow-deep in puke.

  Since it was Saturday, the kids woke up before the sun. I believed it to be part of some pact all babies made on the

  “other side,” before they came down the ol’ birth chute. “Resist everything when you get down there, especially on weekends!” their leader must’ve ingrained in them. I’m pretty sure #resist was invented by kids.

  I parked Elliot and Violet in front of the TV downstairs, granola bars in hand, and returned to my bed for as long as they would allow. I looked over at Aaron, who was sleeping like a husband. On our lunch agenda today was telling him that sleeping in was my sex.

  His body began to outstretch on the bed like a spring flower blossoming, one of his arm stems instinctively unplugging his phone from the charger on his nightstand. He scrolled. We hadn’t even made eye contact yet. I touched his arm to bring him back to me.

  “Aw shit. I have to go into work today.”

  “But you can’t.”

  “CEO’s in town last minute and is stopping by the office. Everyone has to be there so he feels like we’re all committed or whatever.” He got out of bed, walked over to the closet and began rummaging. “Shit. I don’t even have any clean work clothes.”

  “Wait, what about our date?” I shot upright in bed.

  “What date?” he said, picking up wrinkled pants off the closet floor.

  “Are you serious? The date I had planned for us today. I have Tanya coming and everything.”

  “I didn’t know we had a date today.” He sniffed the pits of shirts from the floor.

  “Yes, yes you did. I messaged you about it. You responded. It’s on the calendar downstairs.” It was unfortunate he was getting hammered from work and from me, but there were facts here.

  “Well then I’m sorry, but I have to go,” he said, almost falling over while attempting pants.

  I felt like I was in a Choose Your Own Adventure book and there were a variety of paths I could take here. One choice would’ve been for me to say: “Bummer, but we’ll have our date again sometime soon. I’m really sorry that you have to go into work today, but don’t stress, I’ve got the kids and dinner covered. See you whenever you get home.” But that was a choice I was incapable of making. Instead, I went the other direction and ran toward the burning building.

  “Does the CEO really expect you to be in the office on a Saturday, last minute? None of you have lives, or families?” I was standing next to him in the bathroom while he trimmed his beard hairs that fell to the wet sink, sticking.

  “Apparently, or I wouldn’t have gotten the email.”

  I clenched my jaw and hands, knowing that there was no way around it. The fear of being fired motivated his every move, even though h
e was too valuable, productive, and likable to ever be let go. Even though I had no fear of being fired from my job as “mom,” I tried to be sympathetic since he was the breadwinner. It had to be unsettling that his employer held the power to pull the rug out from under him—and us—at a moment’s notice. I understood that his fatherly duty to provide for us fueled his primal need to stay in his boss’s good graces, but surely there were ways to avoid being a perpetual doormat.

  I swallowed my anger and imitated June, choosing my words carefully. “What would you do if I wasn’t here today, and you couldn’t find someone to watch the kids?”

  “I’d have to stay home, obviously.”

  “Right. You would have to choose your family.”

  “Oh come on, April, I’m not not choosing you today. This is for my work, our family, this house.” He motioned toward our newly remodeled, outhouse-sized bathroom that cost as much as a year of private school.

  “You are for fucking sure not choosing me today,” I said, adamantly. “Spending time with your wife is less important than going above and beyond for your job, yet again. What if you simply said no to them?”

  It was like he had blacked out. Full go-mode.

  “I have to go,” was all he said as he rushed by.

  I heard him hit the last step, onto the hardwood floor downstairs.

  “You going somewhere, Dad?” Elliot asked him, confused. I could hear their conversation as I stood in our bedroom doorway.

  “I have to go into work, El. Huge bummer.”

  “On a Saturday?” Elliot asked with the appropriate amount of bewilderment. Yes, my son, ask the hard-hitting questions.

  “Yeah, I know. But I’ll be back later, and tomorrow we can do something together.”

  “But what if you have to go into work tomorrow too?”

  “I won’t. It’s just for today.”

  I could hear Aaron gathering his things in his work bag. “But Dad, how do you know that? What if your work tells you that you have to come in again?” Elliot’s chiseling was finally benefiting me. Aaron was getting annoyed, his voice impatient.

  “Elliot, it’s just for today. I’m sure you, Mom, and Violet have something fun planned.”

  With the sound of the garage door closing, I slid to the floor of my closet, amongst the dirty clothes, and kicked the empty laundry bin. This felt like the last straw in a rapid succession of short straws. Maybe something vital was broken in our marriage, something that I hadn’t seen before today, something that small deposits couldn’t fix. It was impossible for us to get on track for more than a few days. Hours? It was never like this before kids.

  Crushed and feeling sorry for myself, I tried to muster up the energy to go downstairs and change Violet’s ten-pound morning diaper. Maybe I could salvage something from this wreck since Tanya was already coming. I clicked on the chalk-painting class’s webpage from my phone. “SOLD OUT,” it read. I groaned and sorted the clothes into the appropriate hampers while I was down on the floor. When I stood up, I was startled to see a concerned Elliot standing in the doorway.

  “What are you doing, Mom?”

  Contemplating divorce on the floor, and you?

  He shuffled over in his giant shark slippers and hugged me. I put my arms around him and rested my chin on his scruffy head. “Are you sad?” he asked, which broke me. I wiped my eyes with my wrists.

  “Yeah. I’m sad that Dad had to go to work today. We were planning a special lunch date together.”

  “But we can still have lots of fun that is funny,” he said, quoting The Cat in the Hat. “Dad said you had something fun planned for Violet and me. What is it?” He was jumping up and down. “Is it the toy store?”

  Not only had Aaron flaked on me, but he’d gotten the kids’ hopes up, telling them that I had something of substance planned. I sent Elliot downstairs, assuring him that I would figure it out, while I canceled with Tanya.

  I stood in front of the mirror looking at my disappointed face. A couple of gray hairs poked out at my hairline, front and center. Short ones, like antennas. I plucked them with tweezers, but as I tilted my head into the light, I saw about ten more. I set the tweezers down and wondered how little I could do with my hair today to be presentable. It was somewhere between straight and wavy, right around scarecrow. Something serious needed to be done and it needed to include water.

  I disrobed, catching a glance of my small pancake breasts in the mirror. It stopped me. I nostalgically cupped the empty ghosts of my beautiful, full nursing rack.

  The steamy warmth of the shower beckoned me and I complied, cracking the door in case of a kid emergency. The hot water hit my forehead and then trickled down the back of my body, causing pleasurable goosebumps all over until I sensed a child in the vicinity. “Which one of you is here, and what do you need?” I said, turning around to see Elliot standing behind the clear curtain like an axe murderer.

  “Violet is trying to eat my granola bar.”

  “Do we have any more?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then can you just give her one?”

  “Yeah.” He ran back downstairs.

  I shook my head.

  By getting my hair wet, I had committed to a full blow-dry and flat-ironing—an ancient ritual only done on the solstices. It was the least I could do to tend to myself on this already craptastic day, even if I had to start and stop the blow dryer one thousand times to referee fighting.

  Underneath the whir of the dryer, I mentally went through the short list of fun, cheap things I could do with the kids. Most “fun” child-based events were, in fact, not fun for anyone but the child, and even their happiness wasn’t a given. Pumpkin patches, fairs, carnivals, bounce houses, and theme parks were all hellmouths for parents. No sleep-deprived mom or dad actually wanted to stand around and pay for overpriced things their kids are whining for, while listening to other kids do the same. It didn’t take me long as a mother to figure out that the only reason parents went to shit like that was to pass the time—to get to the promised land of bedtime faster, while taking pictures they could post on social media to show how fun parenting was, while secretly wanting to gouge their eyeballs out with a corn-dog stick.

  There was always the beach, but it had too much sand. And sunscreen. And sunscreen mixed with sand. There was really only one option left. Go to the dreaded park.

  When Elliot was a toddler, I walked to the neighborhood park every single day. It was my lifeblood. I would eyeball the other moms and wonder which one of you bitches is about to be my new BFF? I was desperate for adult contact, even in the form of listing our baby’s sleep (lack of sleep) schedules back and forth in mind-numbing detail. But by the time Violet arrived and my mommy friends were set, going to the park had lost its charm.

  “Do you guys want to go to that new castle park today?” I asked.

  Elliot was measured. He looked at Violet to see what her reaction was and if he should agree or disagree. Sadly, she didn’t really know what a park was because of the curse of the second child, but she had heard the word “castle” and was in.

  “I wanna see pin-cess!”

  The only thing left to do before leaving was to get both kids dressed and their teeth brushed, have Elliot use the bathroom, pack snacks and waters, find the sunscreen, gather the playground toys, argue over appropriate socks and shoes, and oh yeah, I still needed to eat breakfast.

  By the time we actually made it out the door, it was lunchtime and both kids were hungry again. I may have screamed.

  The newly redesigned park sat on a fat sunny hill, the industrial-grade plastic castle glimmering next to two massive wooden play structures. For the first five minutes, I wondered why I hadn’t given the park a fair shake, as I soaked in the sunshine, fresh air, and colorful spongy turf beneath my feet. But at that six-minute mark, I remembered why I had avoided it like the plague as I ran around the sides of an elaborate jungle gym, trying to keep an eye on Violet, making sure she didn’t stage-dive off the tall open
landings that seemed to be every three feet. Violet was squealing like a kid who had grown up inside a basement for two years and today had finally broken free. But I couldn’t relax for a second, with all the big kids careening past her as she toddled along the wobbly bridge. Meanwhile, I hoped Elliot wasn’t lying dead in the castle since I couldn’t look away.

  Elliot was alive, and suddenly right next to me. “There’s a kid that won’t let me go into the dungeon. He’s blocking it and says I can’t go in.” Ah yes, the requisite shit bag kid blocking something at the park.

  “Tell him it’s public property and you can go in if you want.”

  “I said he wasn’t the boss of me. He said that he was.”

  I non-consensually scooped up Violet from the bottom of the slide and walked with Elliot over to the castle.

  “There he is,” Elliot pointed.

  “Try to go in and see what happens.”

  Elliot walked toward the castle entryway and there was the kid, standing in the doorway, holding a large stick, like motherfucking Lord of the Flies. The kid shook his head “no.” And of course he had a faux hawk.

  I walked over, saying nothing, but moving closer to him, a cold dead look in my eyes and a thrashing toddler in my arms, like a deranged human chainsaw. I squinted, but the kid didn’t crack. I would have to utilize more intense, yet legal, tactics if I was going to regulate. While constraining Violet, I leaned into Faux Hawk and put on my best breathy ghoul voice. I got right in front of his face. “Hey, friend. How about you let the other kids in the castle or I will unleash this wild animal on you.”

  Violet was a weapon, vigorously flapping her arms and legs, screaming to get down. I moved in closer to the kid who was flinching at the flailing toddler body parts coming for him. He immediately dropped his stick and ran.

  “You are awesome, Mom,” Elliot said running through the castle door, flashing a thumbs up my way. An escaped Violet galloped behind him. But seconds later, the fun came to an abrupt stop. “I have to poop,” Elliot panic-whispered. I glanced around for a bathroom, but didn’t see any. Surely they wouldn’t rebuild a park without bathrooms. But they did. And so, the three of us cut and run.