by Kyra Davis
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, unless you’ve been using company funds to woo some of the young boys at the YMCA. Tell me, Sean, did your ex-wife ever find out about that little incident in college? Does your pious Catholic family know that you’re a faggot?”
I gasped. Tad couldn’t have said those things. He wasn’t capable of it. Yet it had been his voice, and the silence that followed his statement told me that I had not misheard.
“That was one incident in college. I was nineteen. One incident, Tad. One incident I told you about in confidence. I wouldn’t have told you at all if we hadn’t been drinking.”
“If you want me to keep your dirty little secrets then I suggest you refrain from banging on my door in the middle of the night accusing me of mismanagement of company funds. Now get the fuck off my doorstep.” I heard the door slam and Tad stormed back into the living room and sat in front of the television. I had forgotten that it was on. I looked over at Adam Sandler, who was berating some woman for wearing a Van Halen T-shirt. I looked at Tad. He wasn’t laughing. His face was twisted into a menacing grimace.
“Tad?” I whispered.
“Can you believe that asshole? If he thinks he can fuck with me he has another thing coming.”
I took a step back, almost tripping over the coffee table. “I’m um…” What? What was I? Horrified? Frightened? Enraged? I looked at Tad’s hands. They were now curled into tight fists. “I’m going to bed,” I finished. I turned around and went into my room. And for the second time in our marriage I locked the door.
I couldn’t sleep that night so I did push-ups instead. And when my arms could no longer support me I started work on my abs. I found my Walkman tucked into the corner of my closet and chose to listen to Offspring while I worked my muscles to the point of exhaustion. I welcomed the emotional release that exercise offered me and I liked the idea of being strong, the idea that one day I might be able to kick Tad’s ass.
I finally went to bed at 5:00 a.m., and at 7:00 a.m. I was awakened by the smell of pancakes. For a few sleepy moments I imagined I was still dreaming. I hadn’t had pancakes since I was pregnant.
I pushed myself out of bed and put on a robe and slippers. Tad had a lot of problems but his pancakes were always perfect.
That thought gave me the courage to open the door and tiptoe into the kitchen. Tad stood in front of the stove dribbling batter onto a sizzling skillet. He looked up at me and his lips formed a rather strained smile. “Good morning, birthday girl.”
Birthday girl? I checked the wall calendar. Well, what do you know, it was my birthday!
Tad furrowed his brow. “Did you forget? That’s unlike you.”
“I’ve been distracted.” I sat down at the kitchen table and watched as he flipped a pancake over.
“I was thinking that to celebrate, we’d—”
“What’s going on at SMB?”
Tad was silent. He carefully transferred a short stack over onto a clean plate and put it in front of me, along with a small creamer full of maple syrup and a big slab of butter.
I spread the butter on with a circular motion. “Tad, did you hear my question?”
“You know, I woke up early this morning to cook a special breakfast for you and you don’t even have the courtesy—”
“No.” I put my butter knife down. “You don’t get to turn this around or avoid the question. What’s going on at SMB?”
Tad frowned and walked back to the stove to prepare some breakfast for himself. “Sean’s an asshole. He doesn’t understand business.”
“He said the funds were being mishandled.”
“That’s bullshit. There were a few extra expenses last month, that’s all. It happens when companies expand.”
“And then you called him a faggot.”
Tad’s back was to me so I couldn’t see his expression, but I could see his shoulders tense up. “You know I’m not homophobic…I was just very, very angry.”
It wasn’t Tad’s homophobia or lack thereof that concerned me, it was the violence of his reaction. “You know what I want for my birthday?”
“What?” Tad’s voice no longer sounded friendly.
“I want you to call the psychiatrist and get a prescription for the medication he recommended.”
Tad put a few pancakes on his plate and took a seat beside me. “He gave me the prescription yesterday. I just have to get it filled.”
I picked up my fork and stabbed my meal. “Then why didn’t you fill it while we were at Kaiser yesterday?”
“I wanted to talk to you about it first.”
Bullshit. I squeezed my eyes closed and silently counted to ten. “I’ll fill the prescription for you this afternoon.”
“You don’t need to do that. Today’s your birthday.”
“I want to do it. Where’s the prescription?”
“Jesus Christ, April, I’m trying to have a nice breakfast with you.”
Did he think that was possible? Was he under the misguided impression that my increasing age would trigger some short-term memory loss? “Where’s the prescription?” I repeated.
Tad looked as if he wanted to tear my head off. Instead, he pulled his wallet out of his pocket and handed me a folded-up piece of paper, which I stuck in the pocket of my robe. “I’ll fill it today.”
“Fine,” Tad said sulkily. “Can we eat now?”
I took another bite. The pancakes were great but for some reason I no longer had an appetite. I just wanted Tad to go to work so I could have some space to breathe. So when Tad kissed me before leaving and asked how I wanted to celebrate my birthday that night I told him that I had made plans with Allie. “Girls’ night out.” Tad knew it was a lie and I could see the hurt in his eyes. I felt horrible, but I couldn’t celebrate with him. I could barely stand to be in the same room with him.
About an hour after he left, Bobe called. “Happy birthday, mummala. So how does it feel to be such an old lady?”
“Tiring,” I answered. Bobe laughed. She thought I was joking. Over the last few months I had managed to keep my conversations with Bobe brief and infrequent. If she knew about everything that I was going through she’d be devastated, but lying to her was beyond awful.
“So what plans do you have for the day? Perhaps Tad is taking you out for a proper meal for a change?”
“For a change?” I plopped myself on the chair by the phone. The one thing I had been able to consistently count on Tad for was a good meal.
“Last time I saw you, you were too skinny. You need to eat more.”
I looked down at my ever-thinning figure. The last time Bobe had seen me I was getting married, at which time I was probably seven to ten pounds heavier than I was now. How had that happened? “I’ll have a large meal tonight,” I said.
“Good. Tad will be wanting children soon and it’s not good to become pregnant when you are malnourished. Very bad for the baby.”
My neck muscles tensed. Bobe had no idea that I had already lost one child. She didn’t know how understanding and caring Tad had been, and she didn’t know how much I wanted out of my marriage.
I put my hand over my heart and stifled a gasp. I wanted out of my marriage. When I had thrown the word divorce around at the Bubble Lounge I had told myself that I was joking…just being dramatic in the face of controversy. But I had meant it. I had sworn that I would stand by him in sickness and in health, and now he was sick and I wanted out. I hated myself.
“Mummala? Mummala, are you still there?”
“Yes, Bobe, I’m still here but I have to get going. Tad took the day off work for my birthday and I’m supposed to meet him at our favorite breakfast spot.” It was frightening how the lies rolled off my tongue.
“Oh good, you go and eat,” she said. Then more tentatively, “When will I see you again, mummala? It’s been so long.”
It had been quite a while. A lifetime. “I’ll come down next weekend. Tad won’t be able to come due to a new business deal he’s
putting together, but I will.” I looked up at the painting Tad had purchased with my credit card. “I actually have a gift for you.”
“It’s your birthday and you’re giving me gifts?”
“I bought it awhile ago, and have been meaning to give it to you.”
“Nothing too extravagant. Don’t waste your money on me.”
“Don’t worry, it’s just something to hang on your wall. Look, Bobe, I really have to go. I’ll call you in a few days?”
“Of course, mummala. You go meet that husband of yours. Such a handsome man and a real mensche, too.”
I winced and muttered a last goodbye before hanging up. A real mensche. A real sick mensche married to a real selfish bitch.
The phone rang again. It was unlike Bobe to call back…“Hello?”
“April, it’s Mom.”
I bit my lip. I had been waiting for things to settle down before trying to reconcile with her, but I now realized that by the time that happened we’d both be dead. “Mom,” I said in my best professional voice, “I’ve been meaning to call you.”
There was a long pause before she spoke again. “You’re not going to hang up on me?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Really.” Another silence. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
“I’m sorry, did I throw you off? If it would help I could hang up on you now.”
I heard my mother sigh into the receiver. “I called to wish you a happy birthday.”
“Thank you.”
“I got you something. I had my astrologer do your chart.”
“Of course you did.” The words slipped out before I was able to check them. I really didn’t want to be sarcastic. I cleared my throat and decided to throw her a bone. “What did my chart say this year?”
“It says that this will be a year of self-discovery and…well, it just says lots of stuff.”
Now, this was different. Usually she couldn’t wait to give me the details of my horoscope. “What did my chart say, Mom?” I asked again, this time with genuine interest.
“It said that the year would be filled with self-discovery and that a relationship will end while others will become stronger. And in September, Saturn will be entering your seventh house and, well, that’s bound to stir up lots of trouble.”
I slumped back in my chair. “That’s just fucking great.”
“These things aren’t always right, you know.”
My eyes flew open. My mother had broken up with men based on their sign and now she was telling me that “these things aren’t always right”? Was she saying that to spare my feelings? That would be a first. “Is everything okay, Mom?”
“I want you to have a nice birthday. We used to have so much fun on your birthdays when you were little. Do you remember how we tried to make a vegan ice-cream cake for your ninth birthday? We even tried to make the ice cream ourselves.”
“But the cake never rose and the ice cream never hardened so we made giant milk shakes and ate the cake with a spoon.”
My mother laughed. “I never could bake anything.”
“You did okay with the hash brownies.”
There was another long pause and again I regretted my words.
“I want you to have a nice birthday. I know I owe you that.”
I furrowed my brow. She was acting as if she had a lot more control over my day than she really did. “Okay,” I said carefully. “I’ll have a nice birthday.”
“Good. Look, I need…or…Can we talk tomorrow?”
“Sure.” I could tell that there was something going on, but it was also obvious to me that neither of us wanted to get into it right now.
“I’ll call you tomorrow then. Happy birthday, April.”
“Thanks.” I put the receiver into its cradle. That had been weird. Granted, I hadn’t spoken to her for over four months now, but there was more to it than that.
I shook my head. I had other things to deal with. I pulled out Tad’s prescription and looked at the chicken scrawl that was written across the white paper. This was the answer to my problems. Tad would take his medicine and everything would be back to normal.
It had been normal once. Hadn’t it?
TWENTY-SEVEN
My mother did call the next day but only to set up a face-to-face meeting, but she had just started a job with some medical marijuana advocacy group and her work schedule wouldn’t allow her to get into the city until the end of the week. So now, five days later, I sat at a little two-person table at Herbivores and waited for her to arrive. She hadn’t wanted to meet at my place, which had been fine with me. Even though Tad wasn’t home very often I still didn’t feel comfortable being there. Caleb and Allie had ended up taking me to a movie on the evening of my birthday and afterward Caleb had handed me the enrollment papers for Berkeley’s summer language program. The forms had a box to check if you needed housing. I had been soooo tempted. How sad was it that living in a dorm at the age of twenty-seven seemed preferable to living in a house with my husband?
When I saw my mother’s figure appear in the front entrance, I took a moment to study her before waving her over. She was wearing a long A-line tie-dyed skirt and an orange tank top with an open oversize denim shirt hanging over it. Her burgundy highlights had gone red but it looked as if she hadn’t touched them up for a while. She was tugging at the end of her shirt and looking around as if she expected to see a gunman pop out from under a table and take her hostage. I had seen her behave like this before and I knew what it meant; she was in trouble. Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit. I did not need this. She had probably gotten involved with another idiot who didn’t take kindly to being dumped, or maybe she had been busted for possession and had skipped bail. Whatever it was, I didn’t want to deal with it, and I resented the hell out of her for having the nerve to drop it in my lap after she had skipped my wedding. I considered ducking under the table but it was too late. Her eyes caught mine and she managed a shaky smile. She crossed over to me and I stood up to give her the hug I knew she expected.
“April, you’re so thin!”
I pulled back. My mother never noticed my weight. I smoothed my shirt and realized that my rib cage did seem a little more pronounced.
I motioned for her to take a seat and pushed a menu in her direction. “The vegan dishes are marked with a star, so you don’t need to quiz the waiter about the ingredient list.”
My mother didn’t even look at the choices printed in front of her. “Does Tad know you’re meeting me?”
Deep in the recesses of my mind a little warning bell went off. “No, I didn’t get around to mentioning it to him.” I had barely gotten around to speaking to Tad.
My mother nodded and finally looked at the menu. “I’ll have mixed green salad,” she announced.
Now I knew something was wrong. The mixed green salad was the most conventional thing on the menu. It didn’t even have tofu in it.
The waiter came over to our table and I ordered, despite my complete lack of appetite. The minute he left, my mother leaned forward and took my hand. “April, I know you’re angry with me and maybe you have a right to be—”
“Maybe? Are you kidding?”
She shook her head and continued as if she hadn’t heard me. “I just need you to know that I really liked Tad. I wouldn’t ever say anything bad about him if it wasn’t…if it wasn’t true.”
The warning bell had turned into a siren.
“Mom, what do you know about Tad?”
She looked like she was going to cry. “The whole calendar and bumper-sticker thing…it’s just a mess, April. He promised he would give everyone a refund for the calendars or at least redo them, and the bumper stickers, well, those still haven’t arrived, and now the other congregants think that Tad and I conspired to take their money or something. I mean, the Children of the Earth are the most forgiving and patient people in the world but everyone has their limits and now I’m afraid…”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I held up my free hand t
o stop her. “What are you talking about? What calendars? What bumper stickers?”
“The ones that he was supposed to make for the Temple of the Earth Goddess. You knew he was going to make them.”
“No, he promised me that he wouldn’t.”
My mother’s eyes narrowed. “Then it’s you? Are you the reason that he didn’t fix the calendars?”
“There weren’t supposed to be any calendars to fix.” My voice went up a few decibels. “He was never supposed to start the project. He promised me before we were even married.”
“Oh…” My mother looked puzzled. “But he did do some work on them since then. I got the first shipment a month after you got back from Spain. April, they’re horrible. He got all the holidays wrong, and some of the pictures show these horrid man-made structures…”
“Tad sent you the calendars a month after our honeymoon?”
“Yes. I suppose everyone could have lived with the pictures, but the holidays…instead of putting the Day of the Bear on May fourth like it’s supposed to be, he put it in December. December! Bears hibernate in December! And he completely forgot about the Day of the Amphibian, and that’s one of the biggest holidays of the year!”
Was this seriously happening? I withdrew my hand from hers and nibbled on what was left of my fingernails. I had bitten them to the quick weeks ago. “So you’re saying that Tad made these calendars for you and then when they weren’t up to snuff he refused to fix them?”
“No…not refused exactly. He said he’d fix them. He just didn’t. Oh, and the order was short by twelve calendars, and the bumper stickers never came in at all. We paid him up-front for all of it, April. He said that it was necessary to cover his production costs. Now whenever I try to call him his secretary puts me through to his voice mail and he never returns my calls….”
“You could have called me!” My voice carried through the restaurant and a few heads turned in our direction.
“Sweetie, I did call you but you never returned my calls. I left you lots of messages explaining everything. Didn’t you listen to any of them?”
