Читать книгу A Charmed Life - Nancy Jr. Manther - Страница 6

Each of them went about the business of living and healing, of pretending that things were getting back to normal, whatever that was. Eric never wanted to talk about Dillon, which frustrated Annie, because that’s all she could think about. So she wrote in her journal endlessly, devoured books written by other bereaved parents and started reading not only the obituaries but the birth announcements in the newspaper every day. If there was a birth announcement for a baby weighing close to what Dillon had weighed, that validated his existence. If there was an obituary for an infant close to his age, that validated his premature death. One of her books said that mothers and fathers grieve in different ways -- that fathers weren’t as close as mothers were to the unborn baby -- that they pictured themselves as the father of an older child, playing catch or shooting baskets, rather than changing diapers or nuzzling a baby’s head, luxuriating in the newborn smell. So she did her best to leave him alone and taught herself not to expect too much. If he was hurting, he didn’t want to share it with her. She was hurting, but kept it to herself, because of her love for Eric. He was doing the best he could; at least that’s what she kept telling herself. Things wouldn’t always be this way; it had to get better.

Annie had also begun to go to the cemetery every week. She needed to feel as though she was taking care of her baby, and bringing him blue daisies every Friday filled that need. It had been two weeks since the funeral when she had first decided to go. Eric had insisted that the headstone wouldn’t be there yet, and that she should wait, but she wanted to go anyway.

She’d been shopping that morning and saw some baby blue daisies in the floral department at the grocery store. The idea of bringing them to Dillon immediately popped into her head. It was a beautiful, sunny Friday. While most new mothers would be excited to take their baby on an outing to the park, she couldn’t wait to get her groceries home and put away so that she could go to visit her baby at the cemetery. She couldn’t dwell on the cruel irony of it. This was her life now and there was nothing she could do about it.

When she pulled into the driveway, she was surprised to see Eric’s car in the garage. He must have decided to take the afternoon off. Maybe he’ll want to come with me, she thought hopefully. She parked her car in the garage next to his. In a hurry, she got out, opened the hatch and grabbed a bag of groceries to carry into the house. There were five bags in all, but this one was the heaviest. The others she could carry two at a time, or she’d ask Eric to help her.

“Hello!” she called in a singsong voice. “Yoo-hoo! I’m home!” She plopped the bag of food down on the counter. She knew she should get the frozen items into the freezer, but first pulled a vase from the cupboard and plopped the daisies into it with a flourish. She felt a little woozy and weak, but ignored it. Dr. Hayes had cautioned her to take it easy for a few weeks; she was on maternity leave, not vacation; but with no baby to care for, it was hard to take his warning seriously. She could sleep whenever she wanted to uninterrupted, so she shouldn’t have been suffering from sleep deprivation as so many new mothers did, but sleep did not come easily.

What no one knew, however, was that every night at 1:30 a.m., the time that Dillon had been born, she awoke in a cold sweat and couldn’t fall back to sleep because all she could see when she closed her eyes, was his face. This gave her some comfort at first, but after a few nights, just when she was drifting back to sleep, she’d see his face and he’d open his eyes and begin to cry. It haunted her because there was nothing she could do to help him. Night after night he’d cry and night after night she’d cry herself back to sleep because she couldn’t make him stop. The first time he opened his eyes in her dream, she shook Eric awake, trembling and frightened.

“What is it?” he muttered as he forced an eye open to look at her.

“I had a bad dream,” she told him. He’d reached out his arm and pulled her closer to him. It felt good to be held, to be comforted by him.

“You’ll be fine,” he assured her sleepily as he patted her arm. “Just close your eyes and go back to sleep.” In seconds, he was sound asleep again, snoring gently.

She’d laid there for the longest time, next to him but so far away. She never told him what her dream had been about because he’d never asked her. She never told anyone, because there was no one to tell. After a while she got used to the dreams and while they disturbed her, the thought of them ending was even more disturbing because that meant that Dillon was really gone.

Shaking the thoughts from her head, she decided that she’d better ask Eric to help after all.

“Eric,” she called, “can you help me with the rest of the groceries?” There was no response, no sounds from his office or from the family room where she thought he might be watching T.V. “Eric?”

She started to look for him, but then remembered the rest of the groceries out in the car, out in the very hot car in an even hotter garage. Trying to be careful, she made two more trips to get them. When she was down to the last two bags, she did a quick look around the garage for any signs of him. She sniffed as she looked, just in case he’d been out there smoking recently. Nothing. That was strange.

The groceries needed to be put away, especially the frozen items, so she went back into the house to take care of it. Surely Eric would turn up -- maybe he’d gone over to the neighbor’s for a minute. It had been hard to shop for food when she had little or no appetite, but she’d forced herself. Now it was even harder to summon the energy to put them away. Everything was a struggle these days. The burst of excitement she’d had about going to visit Dillon was fading quickly and it made her angry; mostly angry at Eric, because she didn’t know where he was. The anger fueled her with the energy she needed to complete her task, so it wasn’t a wasted emotion. She was folding up the last of the brown paper grocery bags when she saw the yellow Post-it note stuck to the counter. It had been covered by the bags of food and wasn’t visible until now. It read:

Annie ~

Went boating with clients. Sorry for

the short notice. Don’t wait up.

Love,

Eric

Annie stood with both of her hands on the counter and took a deep breath. Her anger was still close enough to the surface so that she could feel it bubbling up inside of her. Her face felt hot and her heart pounded in her chest as she took Eric’s note and crumpled it in her hand. “Sorry for the short notice,” she mimicked in a bitter voice. “Don’t wait up.”

She picked up the white porcelain vase that she’d placed the daisies in and hurled it across the room. The vase hit the corner of the table and broke into several pieces. The daisies seemed to float to the floor in slow motion, as she stood there, shocked at what she had just done. Water from the vase sat in little pools on the kitchen floor, reflecting the midday sun that shone in the windows. Ever so slowly, she walked over to where they had fallen and knelt down to pick them up, one by one, as though she was picking them out of a garden. Once she had gathered them back into a bouquet, she stood up, leaned against the counter and held them close to her heart, as if they were Dillon himself.

She was relieved that Eric wasn’t there to witness her outburst. What would he think if he saw her acting like a madwoman? For that matter, what would anyone think?

As she walked over to the cupboard to find another vase, her gaze fell upon Eric’s wrinkled Post-it note on the counter and the rage bubbled inside of her again. Who did he think he was, that such a cryptic scribble would suffice? She knew she hadn’t been much fun lately, but couldn’t he see that she needed him? Perhaps she’d been so unpleasant to be around that he was trying to steer clear of her. She arranged the daisies in the new vase, a cut glass one that had been her grandmother’s, and made a mental list of examples from recent days to support her theory. As the light bounced off the vase and made prisms on the kitchen wall, she remembered how alone she’d felt in the days since Dillon’s death. Dillon’s death. The very thought made her realize how she’d been avoiding the painful reality of it all. She’d been thinking of how Dillon had been born, but couldn’t quite admit that he had died. She didn’t know if she was ready to do that. Maybe Eric was having the same problem, even though he’d told her that he was ready to move on. He said he was tired of the sadness and tears; he wanted his wife back the way she was before all of this happened. He wanted it to be fun again. Annie wanted to be supportive of his wishes, but she didn’t know how to be fun right now. It seemed wrong, not to mention impossible. She hoped and prayed that she’d be “normal” again, but deep inside, at the very core of her being, Annie knew she’d never be the way she was before. It scared her to think of that because of how Eric would react. Would he be able to love the new version of Annie? Would he even like her? She needed him. Had she told him that? She couldn’t remember -- all she knew was that he was awfully hard to talk to lately. Whoever he was with on the boat was probably a lot more fun.

Suddenly a disturbing thought popped into her head: Who else was on the boat? Was that blonde from the cemetery with him? A chill ran though her; a cold front clashing with the heat of anger. She felt dizzy and sick to her stomach and had to grab the counter for a second to get her bearings. She hated feeling jealous and insecure, but there was something about that woman that made her blood run cold. She felt it the first time she’d seen her, and then at the cemetery, and she felt it now. Annie took a deep breath and shook her head as if to make the bad thoughts disappear. She needed to keep her mind on the task at hand and that was to bring Dillon his blue daisies.

Seeing her baby’s headstone for the first time had been painful. It made everything more real to see Dillon’s name carved into the granite, with only one date to measure his life instead of two. She hadn’t expected it to be there and was both pleasantly surprised and stricken with sadness at the same time. The grass had been recently mowed, leaving clippings scattered across the headstone. Some of them had settled down into the grooves, filling the curves and angles of his name. Annie knelt down and ran her fingers over the cold, smooth surface and lovingly traced the letters of his name. She patted it, as though she were patting his little back, soothing him to sleep. A tear ran down her nose and landed in a tiny splash in the center of the “o”. What are the chances of that? She smiled to herself for a second and thought how if Eric were there with her, she’d point it out to him. She definitely knew that Dillon would find it funny and it occurred to her that perhaps he had something to do with it. Perhaps he was trying to make his mommy smile in spite of her tears. She wiped the tear away, patted the headstone again and whispered, “Thank you.”

It was almost dinner time when she returned home to a still empty house. That was when she decided to open the bottle of Chablis. She’d been perfect throughout the pregnancy, never allowing a drop of alcohol touch her lips. A lot of good that did, she thought as she struggled to remove the cork from the neck of the bottle. The wine rolled over her tongue as she took a sip, tasting tart and sweet at the same time.

She ambled over to the refrigerator to see what there was to eat for dinner. There were fresh vegetables for a salad and two thick steaks, as well as juicy green grapes and succulent peaches. Nothing looked appealing even though it had earlier in the day when she bought it. Then she had been picking out food to make a special dinner for Eric that night, and now she would be eating alone. Again. She closed the appliance door, telling herself she’d eat later. Nothing appealed to her now anyway.

Annie took her wine glass and went outside on the deck. The late afternoon shadows stretched across the yard, making abstract shapes on the lawn below. She placed her forearms on the redwood railing and leaned forward, staring aimlessly past the trees. The distance that was growing between she and Eric worried her. She never thought she’d lose her husband, but now she wasn’t so sure. She’d also never thought she’d lose her baby, but she did. She felt she was no longer immune to danger. Bad things could happen to her.

Eric didn’t get home until well after midnight. He tried to be quiet, easing the bedroom door open slowly, but cursed under his breath when its hinges creaked, piercing the silent darkness. He undressed by the light of the small black and white T.V. that was perched on the chest of drawers in the corner. Annie had been falling asleep with it on lately, explaining that it kept her mind off her dreams. What she hadn’t said was that it also helped her feel less alone since he was gone so many evenings. The low hum of the voices of Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon kept her company as she drifted off into the fitful slumber that had become her normal routine. Eric switched off the television and climbed into bed. The waterbed sloshed violently as he tried to rearrange the top sheet that Annie had clasped under her chin. He tugged at it gently at first and then more firmly when he couldn’t loosen it from her grip. The noise and movement flickered in and out of the dream she was having about holding Dillon close to her chest as he sucked his thumb and slept contently. The commotion irritated her because it was finally a good dream, one that brought some peace to her heart and a smile to her lips. Because she didn’t want to have the dream disappear, she pretended she was still asleep and let the sheet fall from her hands. She heard Eric let out a sigh of relieved exasperation as he pulled it over his shoulder and rolled onto his side with his back to her. With the sheet gone, Annie clasped her hands around each other, placed them under her chin again and hoped that Dillon had waited for her to come back to him.

Sunshine filtered in through the blinds early the next morning and fell across Annie’s face. She opened her eyes and just laid there, waking as slowly as she could, taking in the day. Birds were chirping in the lilac bush outside the bedroom window. Hearing them as well as seeing the sunshine made her realize that she’d slept later than usual. She turned onto her side, and saw that Eric’s place next to her was empty. Feeling it with her hand, she was relieved to discover that the sheets were still warm, that he really had been there next to her last night. Her mouth felt as though it was lined with cotton, a reminder of the wine she’d had the evening before. She swallowed and licked her lips a couple of times, happy to realize that she felt fine except for this. No headache, no nausea. Good. The last thing she needed was a hangover.

The aroma of fresh brewed coffee wafted from the kitchen and Annie followed it like radar. A cup of coffee would taste wonderful. Eric was in the kitchen with what appeared to be half the contents of the refrigerator on the counter. Bowls and frying pans and egg shells were strewn about haphazardly. He was humming a little tune as he used the wire whisk to beat pancake batter briskly. Sensing he was no longer alone, he looked up at her.

“Good morning,” he said, smiling sheepishly. “Want some coffee?”

“Sure,” she replied, still surveying the mess.

“Don’t worry,” he said as he handed her a mug of steaming coffee. “I’ll clean up. Here -- why don’t you sit down?” He rushed over to the table and pulled out a chair for her.

“Thanks,” she said as she sat down slowly. He hurried back to his cooking project, barely making eye contact with her. She watched him add fresh blueberries to the pancake batter as she blew on her coffee to cool it off before taking a sip.

“What’s all this for?” It hadn’t been her intent to sound annoyed, but it sort of came out that way.

“I just wanted to make a big breakfast for us,” he said as he poured a ladle of batter onto the hot griddle. He scooped the remaining batter from the ladle onto the newly formed pancake with his forefinger, and then licked it, smacking his lips. “Mmm -- now that’s good!” Eric loved to brag about his own cooking and she almost smiled in spite of her anger.

“I guess I am a little hungry,” she replied, sipping her coffee again. “Since I didn’t have dinner last night.” Because you didn’t come home, she thought angrily.

“Why didn’t you eat? It looks like you went shopping yesterday. The fridge is packed.” He flipped the pancakes over as he spoke, appearing to have no idea what she was getting at. She watched him lay the spatula on the top of each pancake and press down, flattening them out firmly.

“I was all set to make a special dinner for you and after I read your note I didn’t feel like it anymore.” There. She said it. Then she added. “I thought you were going to be home yesterday afternoon.” She was trying as hard as she could to control her emotions. Every time they had a disagreement, she’d lose her ability to sound reasonable because her mind would cloud up with emotion. She was determined not to let that happen now. Annie thought she saw Eric tense up a little as he transferred the pancakes onto a plate.

“Well, I was, but then the boating thing came up. Do you want bacon?”

“I want to know more about the ‘boating thing.’ Your note didn’t say too much.”

“One or two pieces?” he said impatiently, holding the tongs in mid-air.

“Whose boat was it?” Annie ignored his attempt to divert her attention.

“Do you want some bacon or not?” he was losing his patience now.

“Who all went?”

“Jesus, Annie. Just answer my question! Do you want bacon?”

“No. I don’t want any damn bacon. I want to know about yesterday.”

“Good God -- what’s with you?” He loudly set a plate with two large pancakes and two pieces of bacon down in front of her. She stared at the fried pieces of greasy meat through cold, steely eyes. Remaining unusually calm, she surprised herself.

“I said I didn’t want any bacon.”

He strode over to the table and dramatically picked up both pieces of meat and shoved them into his mouth. “There, are you happy now?” His fingers were coated with bacon grease and he proceeded to lick them off as he had with the pancake batter.

Annie didn’t know what to say. His question, ‘Are you happy now?’ was spoken with such sarcasm and disdain. Why was he acting this way? What had she done to deserve this?

“No, Eric, I’m not happy,” she said in a firm voice. “I want to know more about yesterday.”

“Fine. Yesterday.” He paced back and forth in front of her. “Some new clients were in town and Kelly thought it would be a good idea to take them out on Lake Minnetonka. We bought them dinner at Lord Fletcher’s, had some drinks, and came home. That was it. Now are you happy?” He folded his arms across his chest and glared at her.

“Kelly is the blonde?” Her stomach twisted into a knot.

“Yes, she’s the district manager.”

“So, she can have you work later just because some clients come into town?”

“Yes, she can. I report to her, you know. You weren’t home anyway, which is why I left the note.” He started to pace again. “Am I supposed to ask permission before I go anywhere now?”

She was trying so hard to remain calm. If she started crying he would completely tune her out.

“I need to spend some time with you,” she added quietly, “but I feel like you don’t want to spend time with me. You’ve been gone so much lately.”

Eric ran his hand through his hair, and appeared to be searching for what to say to next. He walked over to the window and turned his back to her as he looked out into the backyard, silent.

Annie decided to give him all the time he needed to respond. The blueberry pancakes on her plate were getting cold, the butter and syrup congealed near the edge of the plate, a thin skin forming over the surface. Her appetite disappeared again, a dull ache taking up residence where the hunger had been. The clock on the kitchen wall ticked by the minutes in slow motion. Tick, tick, tick.

Eric took in a deep breath and exhaled loudly before he spoke. “I don’t know what to do for you, Annie. You’re always so sad.” His voice was calmer than it had been just minutes earlier. She was thankful and frightened at the same time.

“Our baby died,” she said softly, fidgeting with her fork. “Of course I’m sad. Aren’t you?”

“Of course I am. I felt sad the night he died, but now I’m ready to move on. I can’t think about it all the time like you do. I need to have some fun.” He turned towards her a little bit, but was still near the window on the other side of the room. She so wished he’d come over to her and wrap his arms around her, but his arms remained folded tightly against his chest.

“But talking about it helps me, Eric. You’re the only person I can talk to.”

“What about that support group?” he interrupted. “Can’t you talk to those people?”

“I’ve gone to that once -- and yes, I could talk to them, but I need you, Eric. I want to talk to you.” Tears were starting to form and Annie did all she could to keep them at bay.

Here she was, reaching out to her husband, and he was pushing her away -- passing her off to a group of strangers in a hospital meeting room on the second and fourth Thursday of each month.

“I want the old Annie back,” he said. “Maybe you’ll feel better if you just try to go out and do something fun. Talking about it just makes you sad.”

“And I feel as though talking about it will help me feel better and then maybe I’ll feel like doing some things.” She got up from the table and started to approach him. If he wouldn’t come to her, she’d go to him. She was willing to meet him halfway and she wanted to demonstrate that.

He turned to face her and put his hands up as if to stop her. “I can’t talk about this right now,” he said. “I need to have a smoke.” He disappeared into the sanctuary of the garage.

As the door slammed behind Eric, Annie turned and surveyed the mess that had been made in the kitchen; the mess that had been left for her to clean up. The white plastic mixing bowl full of pancake batter stood next to the electric griddle, globs of spilled, lumpy batter dripping down the sides of the bowl and dotting their way to the griddle. Dollops of batter were also covering the edges and handles of the griddle, the heat of the appliance cooking it just enough to make it as hard as concrete. A short distance away, there was a clean circle of countertop surrounded by a thin layer of flour, where the bowl sat when the ingredients had initially been combined. From the looks of the counter, it was difficult to believe that anything had made it into the bowl. Jagged halves of eggshells were piled in a jumbled heap, the slimy excess egg whites oozing out from underneath them.

The plastic from the bacon package was lying on the counter, greasy side down, in a puddle of flour and milk. It pushed Annie right over the edge she had been so precariously clinging to for the past few minutes. Angry tears sprung from where she’d been hiding them, as if in an ambush. The enemy, however, was not present amongst the aftershock of cooking supplies and ingredients. With nothing to attack, the tears trailed down her cheeks silently and fell onto the counter, adding a taste of salt to the recipe.

She decided right then and there that she was not going to clean it up. As thoughtful as it might have been of Eric to make breakfast, she just couldn’t do it. This was going to come as a surprise to him she knew, because the unspoken arrangement was that when he cooked she cleaned up, and when she cooked, she also cleaned up. She tried repeatedly to convince Eric of the inequity of it all, but he refused to see it her way.

In spite of her anger, it was difficult for Annie to walk away from the mess. She was so used to doing things to avoid upsetting Eric, this new behavior did not come easily. So what if he got mad, she told herself, what was he going to do? Leave me for not doing the dishes?

Annie forced herself to leave the pancake disaster in the kitchen and walked down the hall to the bedroom. Her eyes fell upon another mess -- the bed. It had been a restless night. The sheets were pulled out from the mattress on every side, and were swirled into a tangled mess, much like the eggshells on the kitchen counter. She sighed and closed her eyes. She’d take care of this -- it would alleviate the guilt plaguing her for not doing the dishes.

As she pulled the sheets off the bed, she was struck by grief of a different kind. It used to be that when the sheets were this disheveled, it was because the night had been filled with passionate lovemaking. Annie had to stop and really think to remember the last time that had happened in their bed. It had been a very long time. The pregnancy had wreaked havoc with their love life. She had read that it often had the opposite effect, since the fear of pregnancy was eliminated, but that was not the case for them. The larger she became, the further away Eric became. It was as though her growing belly was pushing him away. Maybe it was my growing thighs, she thought as they jiggled when she put one of her knees on the bed as she reached for the corner of the bottom sheet. She grabbed the flowered percale fabric firmly and pulled it toward her, nearly falling off the bed in the process.

On her way to place the sheets in the laundry hamper, she passed the full length mirror and stopped in front of it. She glanced at herself quickly, almost afraid of what she’d see looking back at her. When the initial peek didn’t prove to be too upsetting, she looked again, taking more time. Her shoulder-length brown hair was still unbrushed from the night before, framing her face with a halo of unruly curls. She tucked some loose strands behind her ears as she examined herself more closely.

Sad, weary eyes looked back at her. It reminded her of when she saw herself in the Polaroid picture of she and Dillon for the first time. It looked like someone else at first and then she realized it was her own blue eyes that were so painfully absent of joy. That was to be expected, but she was alarmed at how sad she looked. No wonder Eric was avoiding her. Who would want to look at that all the time? She made herself smile, just to see if she could. It felt foreign to force the corners of her mouth into an upward curve -- it seemed like an eternity since she had made that motion. Her face looked more pleasant, but her eyes remained haunted and lonely. Maybe it will just take practice, she thought. Maybe it will get easier if I smile a little bit every day. She was suddenly struck with guilt. How could she be thinking about smiling when her baby had just died? What kind of unfeeling monster was she? She put all thoughts of smiling or not smiling in the back of her mind. She couldn’t think about that right now -- she’d wait until later.

Her eyes made their way down the rest of her body. She was wearing black knit shorts and a light pink tank top. The fabric of the tank top stretched over what used to be her wonderfully pregnant breasts and abdomen. Even if Eric had been turned off by her growing girth, she had loved every minute of being pregnant. She put her hands on her stomach now and her heart ached when she felt its flabby softness rather than the firmness of Dillon’s little bottom or the protruding point of a tiny elbow that had been there before. Again, she forced away the sad thoughts -- she’d take them out later. She had no doubt that they’d be there waiting for her. She practiced her smile again.

Even though she was a little out of shape, she didn’t think she looked unattractive -- or did she? Her thoughts drifted to Eric’s whereabouts the day before and a frown immediately pulled the corners of her mouth down even further. Compared to Kelly, she looked like Two Ton Tillie. She turned and viewed her profile. No matter how much she sucked her tummy in, she still looked about four months pregnant. Her breasts were no longer swollen and engorged with milk as they had been -- they were almost back to their normal state. Eric had made favorable comments about how sexy she looked when they had been larger -- now she feared he wouldn’t even look at her. She knew that if she had a baby to nurse and take care of, the way her body looked wouldn’t matter so much. Both she and Eric would have been preoccupied with falling in love with Dillon instead her being preoccupied with the fear of Eric falling out of love with her.

She put fresh sheets on the bed. It felt good to smooth the cool fabric over the mattress and to make square corners with the top sheet. It was neat and orderly and perfect -- just the opposite of her life at the moment. It was good to have control over something.

Annie showered and put on a brightly colored sundress. It was light and airy and camouflaged the parts of her body that she disliked just enough so that she looked less disgusting to herself. She blow-dried and styled her hair and applied make-up for the first time in several days. She’d tried wearing make-up when she came home from the hospital, but she just cried it off almost as soon as she put it on. While she was at the store yesterday, she bought some waterproof mascara and eyeliner in the hopes of at least looking good through her tears. She felt prettier taking the time to look nice even though thinking of Kelly’s perfectly applied make-up and her long, blonde hair made her cringe and feel queasy. What was it with the intense reactions to this woman? And why was Eric so irrational about her? Back in the old days, he would’ve scoffed about a woman who was that “high maintenance” but now he was enthralled. She was the exact opposite of what Eric found attractive -- or was she?

Annie emerged from the bedroom with new resolve to make more of an effort with Eric. She would save her tears for those times when she was alone. If being down in the dumps all the time was driving her husband toward another woman, she had better pay attention. She had to make some changes.

It had been an hour since she’d made the decision to leave the kitchen mess the way it was and nothing had changed in her absence, except that all the spills would now be even harder to clean. It would take a crow bar and brute strength to clean up this disaster now. Where was Eric? She was relieved that he hadn’t come back into the house and blown a gasket seeing the mess still there, but at the same time it bothered her that he hadn’t. Where was he?

Annie went out to the garage to see what he was up to. Probably another cigarette, she mused grimly. He had been smoking more than ever since Dillon had been born. He had promised her he’d quit when they first found out that she was pregnant, but as of yet no attempts had been made. It was understandable now, with the stress and grief, that it was not a good time for him to quit, and she vowed not to bring it up. A thick, heavy blanket of blue smoke assaulted her the moment she stepped into the garage. She wrinkled her nose in disgust.

“Eric?” She expected to see him there, sitting on the front step with a cigarette in hand, but he was not in his usual spot. “Eric, where are you?” She tried her best to keep her voice light and happy, but inside she was starting to panic. His car was there, so he hadn’t gone anywhere, as far as she could tell. Her nose followed the trail of smoke outside and around the corner of the house to the backyard. He was sitting in one of the Adirondack chairs with his back to the house, cigarette in one hand, a beer in the other.

She approached him slowly, wanting to choose her words carefully. “Here you are,” she said softly. “I wondered where you were.” She came around the side of him and stood next to his chair tentatively.

He took a long, slow drag on his cigarette and held the smoke in his lungs for what seemed like forever. He looked up at her and slowly let it out through pursed lips, aiming it away from her. The wind was blowing toward her, so most of the smoke settled on her anyway. She tried to remain pleasant.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean for it to get on you.”

“Oh well,” she started, “that’s okay.”

“You want some?” he pointed to the bottle of beer with his smoke.

“No thanks -- it’s a little early.” She glanced at her watch and saw that it was barely 11:00 a.m. This was new -- drinking before noon.

“You think? Well, I should have known that you wouldn’t approve.” He took a swallow and looked out into the yard at nothing.

“I didn’t say that,” Annie said, “I just know that if I have any, I won’t get a thing done today.” She decided not to point out that she had just gotten up not that long ago and that her stomach was still empty because of their argument. She had dodged the hangover bullet from the night before and didn’t want to tempt fate.

“It’s Saturday - what’s there to do?” He took another drag.

“Well, for one thing, the kitchen needs to be cleaned up.” Oops. She said it. It slipped out in spite of her intentions to be a good wife. Her stomach started to tie itself in a knot and she found a hangnail on her left hand thumb to pick at while she nervously waited for his response.

“That’s no big deal,” he said as he took another sip from his bottle.

“Well, it’s a mess,” said Annie.

“You better get going on it then,” he said, chuckling. “What are you waiting for?”

“I’m waiting for you to do it,” she said, injecting a small chuckle in her voice as she said it. Maybe if she kept the conversation “fun” he’d comply. She gave him a weak smile.

“You’re kidding me,” he said, still laughing a little bit.

“Actually I’m not. You said you’d clean it up.” Annie’s heart was pounding now, pumping adrenaline through her body. To keep her hands from shaking, she stopped picking at the hangnail and folded her arms in front of her.

“I did? As I recall, I was doing something for you.” He said the words as though he deserved a medal and took another swig of beer.

“It was great of you to make breakfast, but having to clean it up kind of cancels it out. All I asked for was some help.” It felt good to stand her ground for the second time that morning. She was surprised to see that it was easier this time. Practice must make perfect, she thought triumphantly. As good as it felt to stand up to him, she hated conflict and loathed every minute of this.

“Well, la-dee-da,” the words rode out on a blast of smoke as he slowly shook his head. She hated it when he did that. It made her feel like an idiot. “This isn’t about the dishes, is it?”

Annie thought for a second before she spoke. Of course this wasn’t about the dishes -- it was about his going with Kelly on the boat trip yesterday, it was about his not wanting to talk to her about Dillon, it was about everything else in the world but the dishes.

Annie kept telling herself that she shouldn’t hold any resentments against Eric. He had insisted that he’d take care of it, but when the mess sat untouched for hours, she found herself getting frustrated and angry all over again. She found him in front of the T.V. watching a baseball game.

“Who’s winning?” she asked calmly, pushing down her anger until it cooperated and sat still.

“No one – it’s tied,” he replied as he reached for a handful of potato chips.

“Oh.” She hesitated as she stood next to his recliner and then sat down on the couch adjacent to it. She scratched a small scab on her knee where there had been a mosquito bite. They sat in silence for a minute or two until she spoke again.

“I know you said you’d clean up the kitchen, but I just wondered when you were going to do it. It’s almost time to start making dinner.” She said it as pleasantly as she could although she wanted to chastise him for being so lazy. Her heart pounded; her anger had become a fist and was beating from the inside to be let out.

Eric sighed and rolled his eyes, shaking his head. “I said I’d do it ---” He let his voice drift off as his attention was drawn back to the television.

Annie seethed. Obviously he hadn’t heard her when she said that it was nearly time for dinner. Or he had heard her, but didn’t care. Either way, she was finding it difficult to breathe normally and she didn’t know what would happen if she opened her mouth and tried to speak. For all she knew, fire would come shooting out of her mouth and burn him along with his ugly gold velour recliner, to a charbroiled crisp. Even though she couldn’t think of one reason why that would have been a bad thing, she kept her mouth safely shut, hoping the fire within would extinguish itself quickly, without doing too much damage.

She stood up and started to leave the room and was already halfway down the hall when she heard him shout, “Besides, I won’t be home for dinner, so don’t worry about making anything for me.” The words stopped her dead in her tracks. She could hardly believe it. She stood in the hallway, paralyzed by indecision, disbelief and exhaustion.

The attempts she made in the two weeks since Dillon had died, to convey to Eric how his behavior was hurting her, had apparently been made in vain. It had caused her an unbelievable amount of stress to challenge him, to veer off her path of compliance that had become the norm in their marriage, and for what? What good had it done? It had done nothing but add more pain to a heart that was already carrying much more than it was prepared for. What was she supposed to do?

Without making a conscious decision, she found herself in the kitchen, amidst the dried on lumps of pancake batter and the thick, white bacon grease that coated the bottom half of the electric frying pan. Annie released some of her pent up anger by banging the pots and pans as loudly as she could, even though she knew it would irritate her husband. She scrubbed the dishes and the counter with more energy than she’d had in weeks, and found great satisfaction in making everything in the kitchen sparkle and shine. She felt cleansed as she eliminated any trace of Eric ever having made breakfast or of there having been any mess at all. For the moment it gave her peace; for the moment she could breathe a little easier, but deep inside an old familiar feeling began to gnaw at her soul. Annie was oblivious to it because for the time being she was engulfed in grief. She was doing anything and everything she could to maintain her sanity and so the feeling went unnoticed -- or at least ignored.

When the game was over, Eric showered and put on a pair of khaki Dockers and a long-sleeved white shirt. He brought his empty beer bottles and chip bowl to the kitchen and placed them on the counter. The clean, shiny freshness of the room grabbed his attention and he made a little whistle through his front teeth in approval.

“Hey Annie,” he called, “the kitchen looks awesome!” He listened for her to respond and when he didn’t hear anything, he called out again. “Annie – where are you?” He busied himself putting his change, nail clipper and keys into the pockets of his clean pants. In his shirt pocket he placed a fresh pack of cigarettes and a new Bic lighter. He whistled as he waited for Annie to come from wherever she was. Even though he figured she was in the laundry room or something, he decided to leave her a note, just to be on the safe side. Already running late because the game went into extra innings, he reached for the stack of yellow Post-it notes and a pen. There, right on top, still on the stack, was a note with Annie’s handwriting on it. He shook his head in amused frustration as he tore it off and slapped it on the spotless counter. How many times had he told her not to leave the grocery list or other reminder notes on the Post-it note tablet? He tore off another note and began to write on it, when his eyes fell upon the words that Annie had written:

Eric ~

Be back soon.

Annie

Annie had gone to the place where she found the most relief and comfort -- the cemetery. She’d stopped at the grocery store on the way and bought the usual bouquet of blue daisies. At least she could talk to Dillon and tell him what a jerk his dad was being without doing any permanent damage to anything or anyone. She had to tell someone or she’d go crazy. It seemed wrong to complain about Eric to any of her friends, because they were all his friends too. They’d probably think she was a monster for being so demanding of him at such a difficult time.

So, she’d tell Dillon. Her secrets would be safe with him. As she recounted the incidents of the boat trip and the dishes, she felt a little guilty, because everyone always said it was wrong to bad-mouth the other parent to your child. Maybe I am a monster after all, she thought as she sat by Dillon’s grave, arranging the daisies in the cone-shaped cemetery vase. Her eyes traced the outline of the new piece of sod which had been recently placed over the hole that had been there. It wasn’t very big, maybe only 2’x 3’ – the size of the throw rug by her front door. She found herself smiling at the comparison. Good. Now whenever I look at that rug, I’ll think of Dillon. It suddenly occurred to her how absurd that thought was – not because a rug in her front hall would remind her of her baby’s grave, but because of the idea that she’d need to be reminded of him at all. He was on her mind every minute of every day and she couldn’t imagine it being any other way.

Annie moved from the outside edge of the sod rectangle into the middle of it, and gently smoothed the lush, fresh greenness of the new grass. It hadn’t rained much lately, and the shorter lawn surrounding it was becoming peppered with light brown and yellow sprouts. She hoped that the cemetery crew would take special care of Dillon’s new sod and not let it die. Certainly they must have special guidelines for watering new sod. She didn’t think she could bear to come and find a blanket of dead brown grass beneath her baby’s name carved in blue-gray granite. I’ll just have to water it myself, she vowed silently. I’ll be taking care of him. Immediately she began to devise a plan for watering Dillon’s sod. It felt good to use her brain to problem-solve. She’d been in such a heavy fog of grief for so many days, her thoughts revolved mostly around how much she missed her baby. This was still about him, but at least she was planning to do something, rather than just be. It felt like progress.

As close as Annie felt to Dillon, she had an urge to feel even closer to him. Looking around to see if anyone was watching her, she laid down on the new sod, letting the tall, green blades envelope her body in a gentle hug. She put her hand on the granite marker and felt its cool firmness against her palm. It soothed her in a way that nothing else had been able to and she closed her eyes and let out a long, deep sigh. Exhausted from the tension and events of the past couple of days, Annie’s breathing soon became relaxed and rhythmic and before long, she was sound asleep.

While darkness fell over the rolling hills and curving roads of the cemetery, the air cooled and dew formed on the ground, covering the grass and granite with a thin sheet of glistening moisture. Overcome with fatigue, Annie hadn’t been aware of the setting sun or the dropping temperature. Just as she did every night, like clockwork, she woke with a start. It was 1:30 in the morning. She opened her eyes and laid there, motionless. At first she thought she was dreaming that she’d fallen asleep on Dillon’s grave and told herself to go back to sleep. As the dampness of the night dew soaked into the back of her shirt, her mind kept racing and she realized that she wasn’t dreaming after all.