Thirty-Two

  

All men are animals, some just make better pets.

~ Cross-stitch pillow in Taffy Polk’s bedroom

  

The first thing Elizabeth saw when she opened the front door to her house was Maybelline’s snout buried deep in a Domino’s pizza box.

“What are you doing, girl?” she asked. The dog had the box pinned down with her paw as if it were prey. When Elizabeth knelt down to pick it up, Maybelline emitted a low growl.

“You’ll make yourself sick, Missy,” Elizabeth said, snatching the box away. “Timothy?” she called out as she walked into the living room.

The house had a sour, dirty-sock smell about it. Elizabeth threaded through an obstacle course of Glenda’s toys to find her husband, garbed in a bathrobe and sprawled out on the couch. His mouth was wide open, and he was snoring over the sounds of a Clifford the Big Red Dog video playing on the TV. A copy of Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care lay open on his chest.

Elizabeth shook his shoulder. “Timothy, are you okay?”

“What’s that?” he said with a start, blinking through bleary, bloodshot eyes. His face flooded with grateful relief as he recognized her. “Elizabeth, you’re home.”

He immediately sprung from the couch and buried his face in her sweater. “Thank God you’re back.” His hair was matted with dried baby cereal.

“Where’s Glenda?” she said, gently extracting herself from Timothy’s embrace.

“In her room,” Timothy said. “She was up all night, so she’s probably exhausted. Please don’t wake her up.”

Elizabeth hurried down the hall to the nursery, and Timothy followed close at her heels, as if he feared letting her out of his sight. As she passed the kitchen she noticed several empty pizza boxes on the counter.

“Timothy, why was Maybelline eating pizza from the box?”

Timothy shrugged. “We ran out of dog food. I kept meaning to get to the grocery store, but...”

“Nevermind.” Elizabeth entered the nursery and stood over Glenda’s crib. Her daughter was dozing on her back, her long, dark lashes fluttering in slumber.

“I missed my baby so much,” Elizabeth tucked the blanket around Glenda and discreetly checked her diaper. “What a little angel!”

“Ha!” Timothy snorted. “She may look angelic now, but you should have seen her last night. Red-faced and screaming. Kept spitting out her strained peaches. On purpose.”

Elizabeth tossed her husband a surprised look. Until today, Glenda could do no wrong in his eyes. He often bragged she was the perfect child.

“And yesterday morning, she refused to let me change her diaper,” he continued, scratching his bare chest. “Wriggled like a worm on the changing table. Took me twenty minutes to put on one Huggie, and then guess what she did?”

“Went tee-tee in it?” Elizabeth planted a light kiss on her daughter’s smooth forehead.

“How did you know?” Timothy asked.

“Been there, done that,” Elizabeth said lightly. She put a finger to her lips and tiptoed out of the nursery.

‘Td planned to take her out yesterday for a short stroll in the park,” Timothy said. “But a simple diaper-changing took an hour, and then she needed a nap and so did I. Time kept slipping away from me. The next thing I knew it was six o’clock, and I hadn’t even gotten dressed.”

“You’re preaching to the choir, honey.”

Elizabeth knelt down to pick up a collection of plush toys from the carpet.

“And just try to fit in a shower. It’s impossible, because—”

“Because you can’t hear the baby monitor over the shower, and if you put Glenda in the bathroom in her walker, she cries when you pull back the shower curtain,” Elizabeth said.

“Yeah.” Timothy snapped his fingers. “Exactly.”

Elizabeth went into the kitchen and peeked into the refrigerator. “I guess I’ll need to go to the market soon, and... Ugh!” She held her nose as she slammed the door shut. “Something’s hurting in there, but I’ll figure out what it is later.”

Timothy hung his head in shame and stared at his bare feet.

“I’m sorry, honey, I didn’t mean to pick on you,” Elizabeth said, touching his wrist. “Besides a few pizza boxes and some clutter, this place is in pretty good shape. And I know Glenda loves spending time with her daddy.”

Timothy still didn’t look up, so she wrapped an arm around his shoulder.

“Why not take a long, hot shower? You’ll feel much better.”

“No I won’t. I don’t deserve to feel better.” He glanced up at her with eyes ringed by dark circles. “Not after the way I treated you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I acted so high and mighty, insisting you stay home with Glenda, when I had no idea what it was like,” he said, sagging against the kitchen counter. “While you were gone, I thought I was going crazy. Every day was the same as the next. The tedium, the exhaustion. My brain was turning to mush.”

“You never let on,” Elizabeth said. “When I spoke with you on the phone you seemed fine.”

“Most of the time I was lucky to find the phone.” Timothy rubbed his hand over the stubble on his chin. “I had to stop myself from begging you to come home. I kept thinking it would get better.”

“I’m sorry you had such a rough time.”

“It wasn’t all terrible.” A faint smile played at Timothy’s lips. “Glenda tried to pull herself up on the coffee table yesterday.”

“No!”

“And when the Big Blue House was over on TV, she waved bye-bye to the bear.”

“Wow,” Elizabeth said. “I wished I’d been here.”

Timothy slapped the kitchen counter with the flat of his hand. “I can’t believe I screwed up that arrangement with Mrs. Pirkle. She was a terrific sitter. Even I could see that.”

“That’s water under the bridge, honey,” Elizabeth said. “And the marketing job was probably going to take more hours a week than I expected. It would have been too much for me to handle.”

Timothy reached out to brush a strand of her hair out of her eyes. “I just want you to know, Elizabeth, that whatever you decide to do with your life, I’m behind you one hundred percent.” He swallowed. “And I’m sorry for the bullheaded way I behaved. I had no idea what you’ve been going through.”

“It’s getting better. Really it is. Some days I’m even dressed before noon,” she said with a laugh. “But going back to my high-powered career isn’t the solution. I want to be the kind of mother Glenda deserves, and that, unfortunately, limits my options.”

“But being a good mother doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice everything you love about your life,” Timothy said.

“You’re right,” Elizabeth said as she sat at the kitchen table. “And I’m not going to. I did a lot of thinking while I was gone, and I think I’ve discovered the perfect solution to everything. I believe I’ve finally found my place in the world.”

“Your place? What do you mean?”

“Come here,” Elizabeth said patting the chair next to her. “I’ll tell you all about it.”