Dean was petulantly silent with me for the rest of the meal, not to mention the entire drive back to Ionix after lunch.
Yet he chatted with Cary as though nothing had happened, while I sat in the backseat between the girls.
And the whole time my confidence receded, the way the tide does before a hurricane hits. Maybe Dean was right, maybe I was putting the girls in danger, and I sure as shit wasn’t making any money. In fact I had to rely on being subsidized by my mother even to attempt this job, this hobby.
“Listen,” I said, reaching forward to put my hand on Dean’s shoulder, when he’d pulled into a parking spot back at work.
He flinched my hand off and yanked up the emergency brake. Pocketing the keys without a word, he got out, slamming the door shut behind him, and stalked back into the lobby.
Cary and I took a minute, just sitting there with our seat belts still on.
“You okay?” he asked at last, turning around to give me a tentative smile.
“Sure,” I said, from my perch between the girls’ car seats. “I’ll be fine. Eventually.”
I didn’t feel fine. I felt like a small dog that had gotten its ribs kicked in by the very human it most wanted to serve and protect.
Cary was still doing sympathy-face. “That was total bullshit, everything he said in the restaurant.”
I looked away. “It’s complicated.”
“Your husband is being an utter dickhead. What’s complicated about that?”
“I mean, from a certain perspective, I can see his point. He’s got a right to be concerned…”
“ ‘Concern’ my ass, Madeline. There is no excuse for spewing vitriol at your wife in a restaurant. Or anywhere else, for that matter.”
“Granted, Dean’s mode of expression was appalling. And I’m sorry you had to be there…”
“Does he speak to you that way at home? When you guys are alone?”
I didn’t answer.
“Madeline, that was not a rhetorical question.”
“Cary… look, Dean and I, we’re both exhausted.”
“Answer me.”
“Oh, great. Now you’re going to start ordering me around?” I looked out the window.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Please. Talk to me about this. I’m your friend. I think it’s important.”
“Does Dean do this at home, when we’re alone?” I said. “Yes. Often. He’s been an asshole since we moved here. Intermittently, but still… huge gobs of assholish-ness.”
“Madeline,” he said, putting his hand on my knee.
“Look, do you think I’m endangering myself, or the girls?”
Cary thought about that. “Do you feel like you might be?”
“Well, I’m not investigating an ax murderer or anything,” I said. “This is just some guy who likes to light shit on fire. Junior-varsity crap.”
“Compared with that other stuff Dean was talking about?”
“Yeah.”
Stupid, dangerous, lethal “stuff ”… and my fault for getting caught up in it, every damn time.
“People have really tried to kill you?” asked Cary. “Not just the guy who wanted to chain you in the fireplace?”
I sighed. “Several people.”
“Seriously? Jesus…”
“You got a few minutes? I’ll flesh it out for you.”
“Sure,” he said. “Bittler can go fuck himself. I’m not in any hurry.”
So I proceeded to tell him the story of the Madeline Dare Misspent-Youth Massacre, with full orchestration and five-part harmony.
At the end of it, Cary didn’t speak for a good thirty seconds—just stared at me with this look of tremendous sadness on his face.
“You think Dean’s right,” I said.
Cary shook his head but still didn’t say a word.
I dropped my eyes, whispered, “What, then?”
“I think you’re a goddamn hero,” he said, his voice hoarse, “and I’m going to tell your husband it’s about time to get his head out of his ass and start appreciating you for it.”
I closed my eyes. “Please, don’t.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Look, you aren’t married. It’s like a dance after a while. You hit a rough patch, and there’s stuff on both sides, and it’s not about taking sides or who’s winning. It’s never about that. But anybody external joins into the fray, it just bends things more out of whack.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“I’m not kidding. Dean’s been through a ton of shit lately. And everything’s resting on his shoulders. He’s on the road at least two weeks a month, he’s worried about supporting all three of us. He’s worried about what Bittler’s doing to you, and this job, and whether or not he’s going to make it all work out—and he knows his father and brother would love to see him fail, come back to the farm with his tail between his legs. And it’s exhausting, having little kids. Just generally. He gets home from getting beaten to shit on the road and I’m exhausted and the house looks like a bomb site and all I want to do is order a fucking pizza and have him take the wheel for a while, you know?”
“I’m serious, Cary.”
“If you can’t treat the person you’re married to as your friend, what’s the goddamn point?”
I shrugged. “Hell if I know. My mom’s on her fifth husband. I figure the best bet is you just suck it up, play it as it lays.”
“You deserve better. And Dean can goddamn well treat you better, starting today.”
“Cary, we’re okay. We’re going to be okay. We’ve got a good solid base and we’ll get through this bit. It’s just toughing it out a little longer, just getting a little more sleep. And he’s right, I haven’t been pulling my weight, not as well as I could be. I’m just so fucking tired. But this too shall pass. The only thing I want to explain to him is that for me, having something going on outside, in real life—that’s only going to help me be better at the homemaking shit. We all need perspective. You have to leave the fucking house every once in a while so you notice it needs vacuuming or whatever when you get back. That’s all.”
“I still don’t see where he gets off—”
“Cary,” I said, “don’t fuck with this, okay? Promise me.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah. I really am.”
“Okay. Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye: I will not berate your husband for giving you crap for wanting to balance a career with being a mother. Much as I want to, and much as he deserves it.”
“Thank you,” I said. “And look, I’m not, like, the abused wife in a movie of the week here. I’m just married to a guy who gets cranky-pants with the occasional bit of stress overload. In real life, he’s got my back. And I have his.”
“I still—” But then he stopped.
“What?” I asked.
He looked away. “Nothing.”
“Cary,” I said, leaning forward to touch his arm. “You’re an incredible friend. To both of us. And that’s totally huge.”
He blushed a little, then helped me get the girls out of their car seats and carry them inside.
Setsuko must have taken off on her own lunch break, but the little red wagon was still safely stowed behind the reception counter.
I wrote a thank-you note on one of her pink Post-its, fixing it firmly to the desk’s prairie of speckled Formica.
I bumped a hip against her wheelie chair as I stood up, making it roll about ten inches to the right. Stowed neatly in front of its former position was a tote bag filled with ball after ball of pink and pale blue angora wool, edged by a stripy fringed triangle she was apparently constructing out of the yarn.
Good God, she’s crocheting a poncho. Or knitting it. Or something.
Now, here was a woman who’d make the perfect home, down to the last insipid hand-loomed fuzzy toilet seat cover.
I shivered, the chill of claustrophobia trickling down the nape of my neck, drawing my shoulders tight.
Poor oppressed bitch.
I thought about what Cary had told me concerning Setsuko’s predicament for the entire walk home, wondering if there might be some way Dean could help her stay in the country.
Probably because I didn’t want to think about my marriage. Or what an asshole Dean was being. Or what the hell I should do about it if he didn’t get the fuck over himself in a big fat hurry.
Well, to be honest I was thinking about that at the same time. It was just all mashed up together in my head.
Because Cary’s response was identical to what I’d felt when I’d had to watch Seamus tear Ellis a new asshole over the bottle of Elmer’s Glue. And I wondered at myself for being able to be more pissed off on my friend’s behalf than my own.
Not to mention angrier on Setsuko’s behalf, during that complete turd-fest of a business dinner. And I didn’t even really like her.
Yeah, solidarity. Even though I had to admit I’d spent that evening distracting myself from Dean’s having been a jerk with the idea that some other chick had it worse than I did.
Same shit, different hill.
I mean, not like Setsuko was facing suttee or genital mutilation or whatever back in Tokyo—I wasn’t that naive and ignorant a cultural chauvinist—and God knows I would’ve given my eyeteeth for the kind of subsidized health insurance and day care available in Japan. It was just… okay, yes… solidarity on the gender front mattered.
Sisters in arms.
Glass houses.
And like Arlo used to say, “You want to end the war and stuff, you gotta sing loud.”
I should ask Dean if there was any way he could help her out.
That would be the right thing to do.
Fuck me, though, what the hell was I supposed to do? Start giving my husband ultimatums? Dump his ass if he didn’t shape up?
Follow in Mom’s footsteps?
I’d already lost my father, did I really have to lose my best friend, too? Not just temporarily, but forever.
I wished I could shine a flashlight into Dean’s eye sockets and send up a couple of flares to see if my real husband was still inside there somewhere.