While Danny is looking for the supplies he needs, Nancy wanders through the hardware store. She passes through the paint section, imagining a new color for Benji’s room. Then she looks at some trim and imagines it lining the floor in their living room. She arrives at the appliance section and examines a row of dishwashers, looking at the prices. She wants badly to ask Danny if there’s any way to buy a new one. Layaway? A credit card? She hates washing dishes by hand. But she knows what Danny will say.
The same thing he says when she suggests she go back to work.
No.
No, no, no!
There’s no talking to him. It’s always his way or the highway.
She wanders through the store, looking at faucets. They could use a new one of those too. Theirs is always leaking all over the kitchen counter. She exhales deeply, thinking about all the things she can’t have.
Life had been so easy when Danny was dealing. He’d always had plenty of money for anything she wanted. Dinners in nice restaurants. Jewelry and flowers. It was a good life—much better than working two jobs before Danny came along—but it was a life that always made her feel guilty. She’d made mistakes in the past, and she liked a good party as well as the next gal, but she was trying to be a good mother. What kind of mother lets her drug-dealing boyfriend pay for the roof over her child’s head?
The answer: yours truly, Nancy Rish.
The guilt had eaten her up, and she’d pushed for Danny to quit dealing. She isn’t sure why he finally decided to quit, but he did. She’d initially been skeptical that he would be able to stay clean, but so far he has. It’s been seven months, and times have been tough for them. But it looks like Danny isn’t going to backslide to his old ways.
She tells herself she got what she wanted. She needs to be okay with washing dishes by hand and doing without the unnecessary purchases she used to make. She decides she’ll tell him that they don’t need to go get ice cream. She doesn’t want him to stress about money. She can do without.
She finds Danny in the plumbing section talking to an employee about plastic tubing. What the hell is he planning to build?
Danny tucks three long pieces of PVC tubing under his arm and grabs a couple elbow joints. The pieces of plastic pipe flop under his arms as he walks to the front of the store. On his way, he grabs a package of caulk and a set of door hinges.
At the counter, Danny charges the purchases to his boss’s account. Nancy isn’t sure if Danny worked this out with his boss ahead of time. It occurs to her that it’s possible that his boss purchases so many supplies at the store that he won’t even notice an extra charge. She chooses to believe Danny has turned over a new leaf. She needs to stop doubting him.
As they’re walking out the door, Nancy tells him that she has decided she doesn’t want ice cream.
“Fine,” he says, pulling the van around back to the store’s lumberyard.
She wants him to recognize the sacrifice she’s trying to make, but he seems too preoccupied. It hurts her feelings and she almost blurts out that she’s changed her mind and wants ice cream after all. But just because Danny doesn’t appreciate the sacrifice she’s trying to make doesn’t mean she shouldn’t make it. She needs to be supportive, whether he notices or not.
Danny shows an employee his receipt. The two men load two sheets of plywood and six two-by-fours into the back of the van.
“What the heck are you building?” Nancy asks when he climbs back into the driver’s seat.
“You’ll see.”