The great digital revolution meant everything he did added little to his wallet. Newspapers paid shit, the theatre paid shit, the music paid shit and his savings were tied up in the house. He was shackled to her and had no escape route. It was time to cash in the house. Annie was also broke and earning less every year and he saw the committed feminist was now depending on him to save her. Travel books were getting nailed by the Internet like every other medium. Interest rates were bound to go up but housing prices were still climbing. Selling at their age and taking a breath seemed the logical thing to do, but to suggest that to Annie was akin to suggesting she stop drinking or running or chugging her twice-a-day fibre blend.
He sent her newspaper pieces about cashing in, he mentioned friends their age who were cashing in, he pointed out predictions that the housing bubble of high prices was going to burst.
“I’m not selling the house,” she said. “I’m not selling it.”
To Evan this was a small, old house in a noisy, crowded overpriced part of town. But to Annie, this was her nest, her fortress, her kingdom, the one thing she could count on. It was cluttered and small for two, but perfect for one and he imagined the resentment was building again that he was taking up space in her castle but not making enough money to assuage her fears over losing it.
How did the feminist become the traditional woman depending on a man for survival? Or demanding a man make sure they survive? Where was this in the feminist handbook? Was there a chapter that said when a woman can no longer afford the icon of her independence, she insist the man pay for half of it, whether he likes the place or not and whether he can or not and then browbeat him if he won’t comply. It must’ve been under the same chapter as folding the underwear of the man you love.
He had been poor before. His ex-wife and he had gone through a bout of unemployment and lived on $5 a day. They turned it into a game. How to survive on stews and cheap pork and rice and beans with noodle soups in Chinatown as their treat.
She was now living in France. Evan Skyped her at 3 a.m. She was just getting up.
“I never told you properly, but you were always there for me, for my son, for us,” he said. “I should’ve told you more often how great you were and no matter the problem you stood by me. I could always count on you. You should know that. You were young but tough as nails and I never appreciated that until now. I’ll always love you, you know that?”
She started to cry. “You were always there for me. You put up with a kid who knew nothing and you looked after me and saved my life by taking me to the hospital when I had pneumonia and was too stupid to know how sick I was. I don’t know how you put up with me.”
There were tears in his eyes now, Annie asleep upstairs, this woman thousands of miles away just starting her day. No, he never appreciated what he had had until now. If it was her in the bed upstairs and not Annie she would have told him every day not to worry; that things would happen, that they would pull through. It would never have occurred to her to stick pins in him.
“Do you remember the oil stain on the wall of the bedroom from your rear end?”
She started to giggle. “And I remember everything you were doing to me as I left that stain there. Don’t go there. I don’t have a man in my life and my electric toothbrush has no batteries.”
Not long after, he found their wedding ring, a small band of white gold and slipped it on his pinkie.
“She wants me to get a job at McDonald’s,” he told the therapist.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I can’t pay you for these sessions.”
“I’d rather you come and not pay then not come ‘cause you can’t pay,” she said.
“I can’t do that. You’re a professional.”
“It’s not a big deal. Not the first time I’ve done it for people. If you need to talk, I’m here.”
“We need to sell the house. It’s worth a fortune and we can’t afford it anymore. But she won’t do it.”
“Change for her is extremely difficult. The house is her security blanket even though it’s a constant source of worry and resentment toward you that you can’t ensure that she can keep it.”
“She’s a feminist. It’s what she trumpets. Why would she depend on me to save her house?”
“Because she has no one else to turn to and the fact you can’t save the house, makes it your fault. If she can’t control things, then she has to blame someone. And her neurosis makes you the culprit.”
“I’m always the culprit.”
“You know that. I know you love each other, but you have to decide how much you’re willing to put up with or even why you’ve put up with her this far. We’ve established that she’s not well and will not change. Now you have to figure out why you tolerate her poisonous anxiety. She can’t help herself. She could modify a bit but, in the end, she’s not well. What’s your excuse?”
“I guess that’s why I’m here.”
“You want me to stop playing music?”
“No.”
“You want me to stop working in the theatre?”
“No.”
“You want me to stop writing for the papers?”
“No.”
“You want me to stop working on the book projects we do together?”
“No.”
“So how can I do all that and work at a job, if I could get a job, which I can’t.”
She thought he could get a job as a bureaucrat working for the government. He rubbed his face. If he did it hard enough maybe it would all go away. He pictured himself in a cheap suit and tie going to work nine to five, something he had never done, give up everything he loved, all to pacify Annie’s fears. He loved her, he thought, but not that much.
“Get a job with a newspaper,” she said.
“Have you noticed, Annie, they’re buying people out of newspaper jobs, laying people off, closing papers? What world are you living in?” He tossed the rest of his dinner in the garbage, left her at the table. He went into the office and picked up the guitar.
There was no logic during these times. She could say “I love you,” ten times a day. But rationality and love disappeared as soon as she imagined her security threatened. The house was her icon of feminist success and independence. She told no one that the house was bought thanks to the largesse of an inheritance from her beleaguered mother. Evan wondered if these were delusions or just white lies? The delusions were like the white noise of the radio or the fan, it kept the truth at bay. The house became the new obsession and compulsion. It had to be saved. And the fact he owned part of it was a swelling irritation, like an infected cyst smouldering beneath her flesh. The house renovations and the accompanying increase in her debt load were suddenly his fault, too. He had paid cash for the reno, she had borrowed and rolled the debt into the mortgage which he was paying.
“It was your idea to move in, your idea to renovate the house and get an architect and a contractor,” she screamed. “I never would’ve done it.”
He started to point out that it was her architect and contractor and he wasn’t even allowed to hang a picture, how the hell could he be responsible for the renovations? But then he realized he was wasting his … everything.
“I envy you, you know that? I envy your delusions,” he told her. “You can convince yourself of anything. The delusions became reality and you never have to deal with the gruesome truth of who you are. You’re not mentally ill, it’s the therapist. The taxes you don’t really owe, it’s the accountant’s fault, the book is falling apart not because you’re not working on it but because it was my idea and I’m not working enough or whatever you convince yourself of today. And somehow the debt you’re overloaded with, that’s my fault, too. Every fuck up is the failure of someone else. I wish I could be like you, not be responsible for anything, always someone to blame.”
“I’m not like that,” she yelled back at him. “I’m not sick.”
“Of course not, Annie. You remind me of Rihanna’s mother. Demented but happy ‘cause she doesn’t realize she’s living on Pluto. And thinks every weed is beautiful, and every day is summer. It’s a fantasy but she’s happy in it. Your fantasy is that if you could control everything and everybody, life would be perfect. So when it turns out fucked up, it must be someone else’s fault. You’re way over your head in debt, so it must be my fault …”
“I never would’ve …” She was screaming but Evan left. There was no point. He knew that she was sealed away in the sanctuary of her delusions. The walls were up, her fists were cocked, there was no way for reality to invade.