The Secret Ingredient for a Happy Marriage

by Shirley Jump

  Sarah just gave Nora a harsh stare and curled into one of the chairs in the corner of the shop, her nose in a book. Nora came out to the front of the shop, asking Sarah what she was reading, if she had any homework, if she was hungry. Sarah gave bare-minimum answers.

  When her kids were born, Nora had lain in the hospital bed with each one, while their tiny fingers curled around hers, and she had vowed to be a good mom. An involved mom. The kind who colored pictures and applauded like a lunatic at the school plays. She had whispered all these promises to Sarah and Jacob, her heart full and her intentions good. For a long time, she had been that mom. She’d existed on a handful of sleep, but she had been at every event, sat down with every homework assignment, exclaimed over every macaroni masterpiece.

  Nora could pinpoint the exact moment she had unplugged from her kids. She’d been sitting on a cold concrete bench on a biting winter afternoon and faced the fact that she’d been fooling herself for years. A good mom protected her children. A good mom held her family together. A good mom put that above—

  Above everything.

  So Nora immersed herself in work and tried to pretend Sarah’s iciness was normal third-grader behavior. Around three, Ma took the kids to her house, and Nora followed along after the bakery closed at six. On her lunch break, she’d picked up a copy of the paper and scanned the classifieds for affordable rentals. Apparently the words affordable and Boston area didn’t go together. The best she could come up with that fit her budget was a fifth-floor one-bedroom apartment in an iffy neighborhood in Roxbury.

  She had to find a home for her kids. The longer she put this off, the more suspicious her family would grow. Eventually, she would have to tell them the truth. That the always perfect, never failing Nora O’Bannon Daniels had failed everything. Failed her marriage. Failed her children.

  If she could get some kind of solution in place in the next week or so, the transition for the kids would be easier. She could tell her family something about downsizing and leave all their questions and buttinsky tendencies for another day.

  As soon as Nora got into her car, she let out a breath, and the stress of feigning happiness left her in a whoosh. She checked her email and saw one from Sister Esther that said just what Nora had expected—Sarah was suspended from school for the rest of the week.

  What had happened to her life? Even a year ago, Nora would have sworn on a Bible that she had a great family, good kids. But it had all been a house of cards, an illusion of fine that toppled with one big gust of wind.

  Nora tossed her phone onto the passenger’s seat. It bounced off her purse and tumbled to the floor.

  Then the tears hit. They rolled down her cheeks, blurring her vision as she drove across Dorchester to the neighborhood where she’d grown up. Everything she passed—the deli that served those amazing corned beef sandwiches that Ben loved, the newsstand they’d visit every Sunday to buy the paper, the movie theater he’d taken her to on their first date—reminded her of what used to be and what she had lost. The gambling, the fights, the money, all of it stones thrown at their marriage until it crumpled.

  She cried for all of those things and then pulled over a few blocks from Park Street, wiping away her tears and the smeared mascara on her face. She pinched her cheeks to give them some color, swiped on some lipstick, and ran a comb through her hair. If no one looked too close, they’d suspect she was tired, not that she’d spent the last twenty minutes sobbing. Yet another façade. She was practically a pro at this now.

  When Nora walked into the house, her mother and kids were at the kitchen table, eating a chicken casserole. Well, Ma and Jake were eating. Sarah picked at her food, moving it around just enough to make it look like she’d eaten a few bites.

  Nora slipped into one of the chairs, dished up a plate of food, and then bowed her head for a quick, silent grace. She wasn’t sure God was even listening to her, considering how He’d answered her prayers about saving the house from foreclosure. “Amen,” she whispered, and hoped God heard all the silent prayers in her head.

  “Did you start on the cupcakes for that open house?” her mother asked, launching into work mode before she even passed the rolls. “And that retirement party cake for the judge?”

  “Yes, Ma, I did.” Nora ate some chicken, the food barely registering on her taste buds. She had no appetite and no desire to sit here in this suffocating dining room. She’d skip dinner entirely if it wouldn’t raise a red flag with her mother.

  “I’m worried about us making that deadline,” Ma said. “We have so much going on, and the judge is an important client.”

  “It’ll be fine, Ma. Don’t worry.” Nora had learned long ago to couch the words she used with her mother. After Dad had died, Ma had been so overwhelmed and so quick to irritation that Nora had begun glossing over the truth. She’d hidden the occasional bad grade, the missed homework assignment. She’d covered for her sisters when they’d scraped a knee or skipped a class, small lies that kept the peace and eased the tension. Maybe that was where the “everything’s fine” line had begun, some kind of well-meaning conspiracy to keep the shadows of the truth from sneaking in.

  She’d done the same thing when she got married. With her family, her friends, her husband. Little white lies that smoothed over the rough edges and kept up the illusion of the American dream.

  “Mommy, can we call Daddy after dinner?” Jake asked. “I want to tell him about how Sister Mary hung my picture on the wall. She said it was the bestest one ever.”

  “Best,” Nora corrected. “That’s great, Jake.”

  “I drew a picture of a puppy,” Jake said. “Can we get a puppy? I’ll walk it, Mommy, I promise.”

  Jake’s little face, imploring, yearning. Nora had been a little older than him when she’d sat at this very table and asked her mother the same question.

  And received the same answer. Because a puppy needed a yard. A place to sleep. She couldn’t even offer that to her own children right now. “Not right now, Jake. Maybe someday.”

  Sarah snorted. “What she means is no, Jake. Because Mom never lets us have what we want.”

  Ma shot Nora a sharp glance. Nora took another bite of chicken casserole. She didn’t have the energy to deal with Sarah or the disappointment on Jake’s face. Ignoring them all seemed the best course right now.

  “Nora, are you going to say something?” Ma asked.

  “Do we have any bread?” There. She’d said something.

  Ma handed Nora a basket of rolls with a side of judgment and turned to her granddaughter. “At my table, Sarah, daughters do not talk to their mothers like that. You need to apologize.”

  Sarah kept her gaze on her plate and mumbled, “Sorry.”

  Ma pursed her lips but let it go. Thank God.

  For a while, Nora ate and considered her options. She didn’t have a home to go back to. She didn’t have enough money to rent an apartment. Which left her mother’s house. The kitchen remodel lie was going to work for only so long and Nora had to come clean if she wanted to stay here.

  Besides, how bad would it be to rely on Ma for a while? Even if Nora was a thirty-year-old with two kids who had to run home to mommy to bail her out of her own bad decisions.

  Then she noticed the lines in her mother’s face, the shadows under her eyes. Normally vibrant, strong, and opinionated, Colleen O’Bannon was a washed-out version of her usual self. The stress of running the bakery, worrying about her own mother’s failing health, and the four grown daughters that would forever be little girls in Colleen’s mind, was clearly taking its toll. Guilt rolled through Nora. She’d dropped the ball at work more and more as her own life unraveled, and left those responsibilities on the shoulders of her mother and her sisters. She needed to step up, to be more present, not ask for more.

  “How’s Aunt Mary, Ma?” Even though Ma’s sister Mary had revealed last year that she was actually Colleen’s mother—a lie perpetuated almost seventy years ago as a way to protect young Mary’s reputat
ion and the scandal of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy—everyone still called her Aunt Mary.

  “Getting there. You know her. She refuses to admit she’s hurting at all, but thank goodness that doctor has been firm with her,” Ma said. “She’ll probably be in the hospital another few days, and then she’ll come home and stay with me.”

  Nora ate a bite of casserole. Sarah was still pushing her food around, but Jake was winning the clean plate award. “What about her house in Revere?”

  “She should sell that thing, given how often it sits empty. Mary is a lot of things, but frugal isn’t one of them. She’ll have all these medical bills now, and Mary has never squirreled anything away. All I can say is that it makes me thankful that you and your sisters have been smart about your money. Well, Bridget had a little incident”—which was how their mother referred to the fact that Bridget’s late husband had blown almost all their money on a child he had with another woman—“but she’s got things back on the right track now.”

  If there was one lesson their mother had drilled into them over and over, it was the value of frugality. Colleen O’Bannon could make a dollar stretch until it begged for mercy, while also diligently giving one-tenth of everything she made to the church. Part of that had undoubtedly been due to being a widowed mother of four girls under ten, where almost everything was a hand-me-down or a share-me.

  Nora had lived by those principles until Ben bankrupted them in the space of a few weeks, and everything she had so carefully squirreled away went to keep them afloat. Ben kept promising that the next contracting job, or the one after that, would be the one that would finally put them on top. Money in the bank—she had none of that. But empty promises—those she had aplenty.

  “Mommy, are you gonna watch Moana with us tonight?” Jake danced in his seat. “Gramma says we can make popcorn and eat it on the couch!”

  “You’re letting them eat in the living room, Ma?” Nora said. Never in her life had she or her sisters been allowed to take so much as a cracker and eat it outside of the kitchen or dining room. “Isn’t that the first sign of the Apocalypse?”

  “We do not joke about the end of the world, Eleanor.” Her mother’s lips pressed into a thin line. “And Jake and Sarah know to be careful.”

  In the year and a half since Bridget’s husband had died and their fractured family had come back together, Ma had changed, mostly in good ways. She’d welcomed Abby and her new wife, Jessie, into the family fold and started to relax, by degrees, some of her rules and strict guidelines. They played music in the bakery while they baked, there was a weekly family potluck dinner, and now, apparently, she was allowing food on the couch.

  “Mommy, are you gonna watch with us?” Jake asked again.

  “Sure,” Nora said, if only because sitting on the sofa watching a cartoon would delay the hours she’d spend alone in her old bed and the thoughts that would crowd her mind. The guilt that seemed like a shroud.

  “When you go into work tomorrow, you should start on the cake for that wedding on Saturday.” Ma gathered up her plate and got to her feet. “Lord only knows why someone would have a zombie-themed wedding—”

  “It’s Halloween, Ma.”

  “Still not a reason to combine the living dead with a sacred institution.” Another pursing of the lips and apologetic glance heavenward. “Regardless, they’re expecting three hundred guests, so make sure you—”

  “Get an early start and leave enough time for the decorating. Yes, Ma, I know.” Nora sighed. For the first time in a long time, she didn’t want to go to work. Didn’t give a shit about decorating a cake for somebody’s Walking Dead wedding or how many scones she was going to need for the people at Prudential tomorrow. She wanted to crawl into a corner, far away from the mail and the calls and the yellow notices waiting for her and just hibernate until she found her strength again.

  Except Nora O’Bannon didn’t do that. Nora was the one they all depended upon, the one who kept her shit together and kept the bakery and her family functioning as smooth as a Rolex.

  Ma disappeared into the kitchen with her plate. The kids followed soon after, while Nora tried to make it look like she’d made a dent in her meal. After two bites, she gave up and brought her plate into the kitchen. Ma was filling the sink, while Jake and Sarah were putting the leftovers in the refrigerator. “Go sit down, Ma,” she said. “I’ll do the dishes.”

  Her mother hesitated. Even giving up control of the dish sponge came with reluctance. “That’s a very sweet thing to do. Just make sure you use the good dish detergent and wring out the sponge when you’re done. Also—”

  “Wipe down the counters and dry off the sink. This isn’t my first time in your kitchen, Ma.” So her mother had changed only a little. Considering she was sixty-three, any change at all was probably a miracle.

  “Sarah and Jake, will you finish clearing the table, please?” Ma said.

  “Okay, Gramma!” Jake bounded off to the dining room, at that age where helping still seemed like fun, not a chore. Sarah dragged her feet behind her brother.

  Nora turned off the faucet. In the warm water and bubbles, she found a moment of peace. She could concentrate on the task of washing, rinsing, and drying and not have to think about her life, her bills, or the state of her marriage and her family. Washing was simplicity, dipping the sponge into the warm soapy water, circling it around the ivy-bordered plate, then over the back. Running warm water over the porcelain until the bubbles swirled down the drain and the plate gleamed. She nestled it among its partners, then picked up the next one. Lather, rinse, repeat.

  Ma and Jake left to take the trash to the curb. Sarah slunk into the kitchen and put her dish on the counter. “Wait, don’t leave yet, honey.” Nora dried her hands on the towel and then turned to her daughter. Sarah’s chipmunk cheeks and wide eyes made her seem so much younger. The protective side of Nora wanted to avoid the conversation, to protect her child from the tough subjects, but doing that had brought them to the principal’s office. “We need to talk about today.”

  “I didn’t do anything.” Sarah threw up an immediate defense with a sullen attitude.

  “Sister Esther said you were beating up Anna. I thought she was your friend.”

  Sarah scowled. “She’s not my friend. I don’t like her anymore.”

  Didn’t like Anna anymore? Since when? As far back as Nora could remember, Sarah hadn’t mentioned anything negative about Anna. Was it just some squabble over a favorite book or a boy or another friend? “Did something happen?”

  Sarah shook her head and stared at the floor. Her hair swung in front of her face like a curtain.

  Maybe it was something small, a fight that would blow over as quickly as a summer storm. Mortal enemies one day, BFFs the next. Nora tried to think back, but the last year and a half was a blur, all those months blending into one another while Nora tried to forget and move forward at the same time.

  “Well, either way, it’s wrong to fight. You know that, and you also know there are consequences to bad behavior.” Nora lowered herself to Sarah’s level. “Sister Esther emailed me and said you are suspended for the rest of the week. You also have to go to an antibullying class after you get back on Monday and spend your next couple weeks of recess in the library.”

  “That’s not fair!” Sarah crossed her arms over her chest and pouted. “Why do I have to go to that stupid school anyway?”

  “It’s a good school, and you’re lucky to go there.” Though Nora wasn’t sure she could afford the private school tuition anymore. Her pay from the bakery would be enough to cover renting a small apartment and most of the bills if she was careful, but tuition—that was out of her budget. Ben’s income had been an inconsistent roller coaster, especially when he’d been gambling, so she knew better than to count on that. If she filed for divorce, there’d be a separation agreement and—

  Nora shoved those thoughts to the back of her mind. It was too much, too many things. Besides, she could see Ma was a second away fr
om being back inside the house. The last thing Nora wanted was her mother offering her two cents on finances, parenting, or marriage. Hell, if Nora wore pink instead of coral, her mother had an opinion about it. She’d argue the color of a rainbow with God Himself and then tell Him that He had made it too thin or too short, to boot. The last thing Nora wanted right now was advice—aka criticism—from her mother.

  “Go get your pajamas on, Sarah,” Nora said. “We will talk about this later.”

  “But—” Sarah glanced back at her mother, scowled, and then cut off her protests. “Fine.”

  Sarah trudged off, and Nora went back to the dishes. To the peace and quiet of running water and soft bubbles and the satisfying order found in taking something dirty and making it clean again. If only she could do the same with the rest of her life.

  Ma had always done the same thing. Whenever Ma was stressed or worried, she ironed, she vacuumed, she dusted. Setting her world to rights again, she called it. When Nora was three, someone had given her a toy vacuum for her birthday, and she’d slipped into place beside her mother, running straight lines up and down the carpets, straightening the fringe on the hall rugs, removing and dusting every one of the Hummels in the corner cabinet. With each cherub-faced figurine, this weird peace would fill Nora. As she got older, washing, ironing, and dusting became her escape. Sometimes she stayed late at the bakery just to clean—and to breathe in the quiet and order.

  As Nora was putting the last dish away, her mother came into the kitchen, and the easy peace Nora had recaptured disappeared again. Ma had that look on her face, the one Nora and her sisters had come to dread. It was the look that said I have something to tell you and you’re not going to like hearing it.

  Sort of the same look Ma got on her face when she dispensed cod liver oil to anyone with a bellyache. Now Ma leaned against the counter, watching Nora dry the casserole dish and stow it in one of the lower cabinets. “It doesn’t go there,” Ma said.