Still Life with Husband

by Lauren Fox

  My dad and Kevin are chatting amiably about the central nervous system. My dad seems to be explaining something complicated to Kevin about the myelin sheath, and is using mandarin oranges to illustrate his point, moving them around on his plate.

  The conversation remains segregated throughout the meal. I catch Kevin glancing over at me a few times, but I can’t read his expression. During dinner, my mother regales me with her ideas for redecorating the kitchen (it’s all about granite countertops), and I offer my opinions, a bit wantonly: I give myself over to it and suddenly, for the moment, I really do care, passionately, whether she ends up with light wood for the cabinets or dark. (“Blond wood, Mom, would bring so much natural light into the room!”) My father asks Kevin about his work, Kevin questions my dad about his latest intellectual interest. A few minutes later, my dad asks Kevin’s opinion on a problem they’ve been having with the leaky garage roof, although Kevin has as much experience with leaky roofs as I do (it’s flat; it leaks!). I watch as Kevin chews solemnly, nodding to my father, reflecting on this situation. I take a bite of baked potato that tastes like cotton and wash it down with a long gulp of water. There is so much good in Kevin. How did I ever find a man so unflinching in his devotion to me, whose steady commitment extends all the way to my squabbling parents and their flat, waterlogged garage roof? If Kevin and I broke up, if I left the kind man sitting next to my father, I would never have this again. I would have meals with my parents, of course, but without Kevin, I believe I would never again sit at this dinner table in the same easy comfort of our similar domesticities, the four of us accomplices in the shared, unspoken knowledge that Kevin and I are replicating my parents, that we are justifying their choices, that we are their legacy.

  It’s somewhere between the baked potatoes and the store-bought lemon chiffon cake that I realize the obvious: I don’t have a choice to make. I’ve already made it. Kevin is my choice. True, I picked him long before I knew David, but so what? When we got married, we said to each other: nobody else, no matter what. I promised. I’m not in high school. I don’t need to be so torn up about this. And if being with Kevin feels at the moment more like a life sentence than a lifetime of happiness, well, that’s just my burden. I love him, and I’m duty-bound to him. Babies and houses are my future, I suppose. Why should I be any different from everybody else? This is the way grown-ups negotiate their marriages, I finally understand. They bear up under the weight of them.

  Kevin and my dad are talking about Freud now, the logical extension, I guess, of their in-depth dinnertime analysis of the brain. My mom is watching them, not participating. She doesn’t look peeved, though, just distant, more like she’s watching a circus, a freak show she couldn’t possibly join, but one she holds tickets to and doesn’t seem to mind viewing.

  Kevin says, “Freud was the first person to recognize the effect paranoia has on our daily lives.”

  “A man walks into a psychiatrist’s office,” my dad responds, waving his fork for emphasis, “and says, ‘Doctor, people keep ignoring me.’ The doctor says, ‘Next!’”

  We laugh, because we’ve all heard him tell this joke a million times, and also because in a weird way it’s still funny. Now is the chance for somebody to change the subject, to bring everyone back together. I notice the way my mom is looking at my dad, her head tilted, one hand wrapped loosely around her lipstick-smudged water glass. At first I think that it’s just run-of-the-mill annoyance that’s causing her mouth to curve into a tiny, enigmatic smile. But I see that it’s something else. Her stubborn irritation with him is certainly real, but right now it’s background noise, just the daily murmur and thrum of the crowd. Ringing through it like a clear bell, at least for the moment, is fondness. Definite fondness. Or something like it.

  DICK IS IN MY OFFICE AGAIN WHEN I WALK THROUGH THE DOOR on Monday morning. On the way over, I prepared myself to sit down and immediately send the e-mail I’ve been writing in my head all weekend, but I see Dick and I’m grateful for the postponement.

  “Hi!” I say, taking off my coat. The fluorescent light above my head is flickering slightly, which means I’ll have a throbbing headache by the end of the day. I’ll call the maintenance people, who will tell me they’ll fix it but won’t. Dick is sitting in a rolling chair in the middle of the room next to a huge stack of manuscripts. Are those slippers he’s wearing?

  “What is your opinion of ethics?” he asks loudly, looking up from a piece of paper in his lap. I freeze, my coat shrugged halfway off my shoulders. Ethics? Why is he asking me about ethics? What has he heard? Jesus, does he know? Did he see me with David at the lake?

  “What?” It comes out of my mouth as a squeak.

  “Ethics, ethics.” He plants his suspiciously corduroy-shod feet flatly on the carpeting and rolls his chair around to face me. “It’s the age of Dolly the sheep. Stem cell research. George W. Bush. We’re behind the curve. I think the journal needs a few essays on bioethics. Some op-ed pieces.” He emphasizes the syllables “op” and “ed” so that they sound vaguely Swedish.

  Bioethics. I exhale, peel off my gloves, stuff them into my pockets. “I think that’s a fantastic idea.”

  Dick is thumbing through a list of our referees, the scientists and doctors who review article submissions for us. “Ah, ah…” He concentrates; his eyebrows converge. “Emily,” he says, finally remembering my name. I’ve been noticing that his expressions have begun to resemble Ronald Reagan’s at the end of his presidency, and this worries me. “May I ask you to organize a rather large number of manuscripts for me today?” He sweeps his hand over the stack at his feet like he’s performing a magic trick. Poof. Dick has the tendency to foist an unwieldy administrative task on me when the mood strikes him, not minding or noticing that I have a certain system, a certain organized number of jobs to do at any given time, measured out to keep the office running smoothly. Fussy librarian is not really the kind of person I consider myself to be, but I can’t stand the break in my routine. So I guess I am. “I seem to have let things run a bit amok,” he continues. “I’d like you to divide these articles into groups. Rejected and pending. I’d also like you to fashion a folder for each of them and clear out the extraneous paperwork. Would you be so kind?”

  I see my day at Male Reproduction unfolding before me: a mountain of typed labels, scattered papers, and folders heaped under the gently strobing fluorescent light. I smile, nod, sigh. He means well. He means well. “Sure, Dick.”

  I spend the next eight hours categorizing my boss’s files, unable to get to my computer and write to David. Heather once told me that the highest level of productivity a company can expect from its employees is fifty percent. At this rate, I’m now due a full day of paid vacation (which I will probably take the next time Dick goes out of town, in the form of one of my patented work slowdowns, involving but not limited to calling Meg, sending personal e-mails, and relentlessly snacking on Junior Mints).

  Dick decides to work in my office. As I sit cross-legged on the floor surrounded by the detritus of the journal, he rolls up to my desk and proceeds to make dozens of calls to scientists, asking them to write about bioethics. “Genome mapping,” I hear him say. “Genetic counseling.” From my uncomfortable perch in the middle of the room, I make up my own topics to amuse myself. “Three gnomes napping.” “Frenetic bouncing.” I debate sharing my excellent ideas for the name of the section, “Send in the Clones,” or maybe “Sperm und Drang.” I decide to keep quiet. In between serious conversations with scientists, Dick chats genially to me about his family, his NIH grant application, his favorite kind of pie (rhubarb!), so that I can never enter the zone where I might at least be able to enjoy concentrating on a menial job and getting it done. My day inches along. I spend a full hour typing “Submission” onto folder labels. I spend another forty-five minutes typing “Reject” onto another set of labels. Under these circumstances, how can a girl not feel slightly nudged by the universe? As soon as Dick leaves, I will write the e-mail.

>   Finally, at five thirty, just when I’d normally be packing up and happily contemplating dinner, Dick calls it a day, tells me I’m swell, pulls on his green-felt beret, and leaves, first attempting to use the supply-closet door before making his way to the actual exit. I worry, sometimes, that the next time I come in to work I’ll find him still obliviously wandering the corridors of Pfein Hall.

  I wonder if there’s a reason that most of the men in my life are such emotionally incomprehensible beings who live so much more distinctly in their heads than in the material world. Dick, who may, in fact, be deteriorating, painting the brushstrokes of his life, long lost to its subtle details, its fine lines and specific shadings. My sweet father, his interior life a mystery, his off-kilter conversations mostly obscure factual references and strange jokes so confusing that they manage to round the bend and arrive on the other side of funny. And Kevin, stiff and controlled and certain that if he just pretends for long enough that I don’t have feelings, eventually I won’t.

  My head is pounding now, since my eyes have, as predicted, failed to keep the pace of the flickering fluorescent light. The sky is dark and it suddenly feels much later than it is. My fingers, finally poised on the keyboard, look cinematic and slightly fake, just a shade wrong, too white, too thin, too large, like when you know that the hands playing the piano in the movie don’t actually belong to the actor.

  Dear David,

  I’m sorry you haven’t heard from me in a while. I owe you an explanation for running off the way I did. I had an amazing time with you the other day. I’ve been having an amazing time getting to know you, which is why this is so hard to write. I don’t know how I managed to screw up so badly, but I need to tell you that I’m married.

  This is probably not what you were expecting. I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am for not mentioning it sooner. I should never have let our friendship progress the way it did without telling you.

  I don’t know; I might have imagined that something was developing between us. I’m second-guessing everything right now. Either way, I should have said something. I think I let things go too far. I’m so sorry if I gave you the wrong idea. I just enjoyed our time together—too much.

  I hope you can forgive me.

  —Emily

  P.S. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, please just delete this e-mail and pretend I never sent it.

  I hit “send.” With my hand—mine again—I turn off my computer and head home.

  Two weeks tick by. I feel dull and dense, like my body mass has changed. I feel as if I’ve moved to an outlying suburb of my life. Soddenville. Over to the left is a new golf course, Listless Vista. On the right is a housing development, Low-Level Despair Estates.

  I’m awake for hours in the middle of the night, and then I sleep till ten in the morning. I spend one entire day inventing time-consuming chores for myself that require no actual expenditure of energy: I call the toll-free number listed on a can of sparkling water to report that every can in the case we just bought is flat. This water does not sparkle! I dig around and find the phone number of the organization that removes your name from credit card company solicitation lists. I call the accounting department at my dentist’s office to question a bill that I suspect is probably right but might not be. I walk ten blocks to the grocery store to buy macadamia nuts. I consider making up a complaint about the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s shameful coverage of something or other and writing an irate letter to the editor.

  I had wheels. And now they’re gone. And although I can still walk, although my wheels were not required for basic maneuvers, I was just getting to know them, starting to enjoy them. I was just beginning to feel wild and free and speedy.

  I wonder what David is thinking. He must hate me. I guess I’ll never hear from him again. It shouldn’t bother me; after all, I wrote the e-mail. I put a stop to the whole dodgy mess. Still, at the oddest moments, while I’m driving somewhere, or in the middle of dinner, or during a stupefying telephone conversation with a scientist, I’ll start imagining him, thinking about his face as he read my message, imagining his reaction. I picture him pushing his chair back from his computer, raking his hand through his hair. I see him slumping onto his sofa in, what? confusion? anger? sadness? complete apathy? As long as it’s my fantasy, I usually imagine that he’s devastated, that he longs for me, that he forgives me and wants me. Sometimes, while I’m at it, I continue imagining him. He’s combing his hair. He’s eating a sandwich. I can’t help it. I tried to purge him from my mind. I did the best I could. It hasn’t worked yet. But I’m sure it will eventually.

  Kevin doesn’t seem to notice any of it—not my lethargy, not my distractedness, not my sudden propensity for strange and useless household tasks. Or if he does, he’s too wrapped up in the daily muddle of his own life to ask me about it. Worst of all, I don’t even feel less guilty. I still feel as if I cheated on Kevin. One emotional entanglement has reconfigured us. The tectonic plates of our relationship have shifted. Will this get better, too, eventually?

  On Tuesday, Meg calls and asks me if I’m free “all day Thursday.” As it happens, I am. I get excited because I think she’s going to suggest a day trip to Chicago, or a long hike in the state park. Then she tells me that we’re scheduled to head a classroom full of writhing five-year-olds. Thirty of them. For the entire day.

  “Do you know the apples and bananas song?” she asks. “‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ in Spanish?” She’s serious.

  “Uh, no, Meg,” I answer, in a subtle tone that I hope will indicate: Meg, why on earth would I know those songs?

  “I’ll try to print out the lyrics to a few of the kindergarten standards before Thursday,” she says, all business. “Can you be at the school by seven forty-five?”

  The playground in front of Day Avenue Primary School is a surprisingly calm place at a quarter to eight. Eerily calm. It rained last night, and this morning everything shines. The sidewalks sparkle, the bright playground equipment gleams, and even the few fat, bobbing pigeons on the wet grass are shimmery and iridescent.

  Well, this won’t be so bad. I see myself crouched next to a sweet five-year-old who is sitting at her miniature desk, feet swinging, intently trying to write her name. I’m gently guiding her, encouraging her as she forms adorably large, crooked letters: E-M-M-A. (Meg says all the girls are Emma and Olivia and all the boys are Max, like characters from a novel cowritten by Jane Austen and Isaac Bashevis Singer.) Good job, honey! Oh, heavens, you needn’t thank me. That’s what I’m here for. I will be Miss Emily, the kind, beautiful teacher’s assistant, and when they go home, they’ll rave about me to their ragged, overworked mommies. Miss Emily taught me to count to ten in French! Miss Emily told me she liked my dress! Maybe they’ll remember me forever. Between scrubbing the bathroom floor and driving the kids to soccer practice, their mommies will resent me.

  Gingerly, I ease my too-wide self down onto a canvas swing and wait for Meg.

  Just then, the four horsemen of the apocalypse descend: four yellow buses pull up. What emerges from their gaping maws can only be the end of the world. Masses, hordes of screeching, yelping demons pour out of the buses, pushing and shoving each other and running maniacally. They just whirl around, careening off each other, pointy little teeth bared, expressions of pure hedonistic joy on their faces. Wild animals! Hell monsters! It looks like some of them are headed for the playground equipment. I feel myself cower, shrink a little on my swing.

  Meg comes up beside me, puts her hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she says cheerfully. “They’re not all ours.”

  I stand. I hadn’t seen her approaching. “When did you get here?”

  “I’ve been here since seven. I wanted to prepare the room and get my head together. Let’s go inside now. We have fifteen minutes before the playground monitor will corral the kids and send them in.” I notice a harassed-looking middle-aged lady off to the side. She has a beehive hairdo and is wearing a dress the color of toast.
There’s a whistle around her neck. She scans the crowd, making sure the prematurely huge ten-year-olds don’t crush the few minuscule four-year-olds before eight in the morning.

  I follow Meg in the main door, and she guides me down the echoey hallway to the kindergarten wing. Our sneakers make loud slapping sounds on the industrial tiled floors. I’ve been here before, visiting Meg, but the identical-looking corridors are always a maze to me. Bright, splotchy paintings on construction paper decorate the walls above the little blue and red lockers. Posters exhorting kids to READ and to SAY NO TO DRUGS cover the remaining wall space. The image of a five-year-old politely refusing a tiny joint pops into my head, and I promptly chase it away. This is not the kind of thing that occurs to Miss Emily!

  Meg greets a few of her fellow teachers as we pass. They’re a chalk-dusted, sensibly dressed bunch of women. They look harried, but several of them stop to hug her, welcome her back, whisper that they hope she’s doing okay, that they’ve been thinking about her. It’s obvious that these women form a close group and that they adore Meg. Who wouldn’t? For a second, I’m jealous. Meg introduces me quickly to her colleagues. “My best friend and teacher’s aide for the day!” she says. I squash my jealousy like a bug.