28

Mark

January 1995

 

Mark walked the five blocks from the bakery to their apartment with his hands deep in the pockets of his secondhand coat and a ski cap pulled down as low on his head as he could. He was still freezing, his toes tingling in his boots and his neck numb—he’d forgotten his scarf. He’d thought Wyoming winters were harsh, but they were nothing compared to January in Canada. It was three-thirty, and daylight was already fading, bringing on even colder temperatures, though that was difficult to imagine.

When he got home today they were going to bundle up Sienna and take a bus to the library here in Hamilton for family story hour—something the library did every Monday night. Mark had learned which bus to catch so they could get there by five, and he’d been looking forward to it all day—a normal, and free, family activity. More books and less TV would be a good step for all of them. Mae could spend hours watching all the TV talk shows—Geraldo, The Ricki Lake Show, Jenny Jones. Mark didn’t think it was healthy.

Having a family was a lot harder than he’d thought it would be, but from talking to the guys at work, he didn’t think he had it any worse than they did. All the guys argued with their wives and worried about money and felt at least as much frustration as they did joy in the hand-to-mouth lives they lived. It was good to know he wasn’t alone, but he felt wary fear as he got closer to the apartment where they had lived for ten months, since Mae had been approved for housing assistance. He’d sworn to himself that he would take care of his family as soon as he could, but he didn’t have a lot of job options even with his permanent residency, and a second job would mean never seeing his family. So they continued on the assistance and hadn’t married because it would affect what Mae could get from the government.

Mark hurried up the concrete steps to the second-level apartment he would be embarrassed for anyone from his life in Lusk to see. It was such a dump. The paint was peeling around the doorways, and rust stains ran the length of the yellow painted cinderblock from the rain gutters on both ends of the building.

It will get better, he told himself. He only needed three classes to finish his degree. Then he could find better work. He used his key in the door—he’d never locked doors at the ranch. He wasn’t even sure where the key to the front door would be should he need one. Here, people locked everything—one reason why the thrill the big city had once held for him had faded into acceptance combined with hope that he would not live this way forever. He’d told Mae about the ranch—miles of prairie, endless sky, and security he didn’t think she’d ever known. She’d listened and then said it sounded boring. When he’d first learned she was five years younger than he—eighteen instead of twenty-one like she’d told him—he’d thought that wasn’t too much of a gap. More and more, though, he felt like an old man trying to manage a teenager. Mom had always said that work was good for what ails ya, and Mark was seeing that more and more clearly. Mae didn’t . . . do much, and that led to boredom, which led to dissatisfaction. He worried about what dissatisfaction would lead to.

“Hello, hello,” he called cheerfully as he entered the apartment. Sienna squealed from where she sat on the floor playing with some Tupperware—poor man’s play toys, Mae had called them—in front of the TV blasting out an afternoon cartoon. He-Man, he realized as Sienna flipped herself onto her hands and knees to crawl to him. She’d been crawling two whole weeks now and was getting fast. He scooped her up and blew a raspberry on her neck. She giggled with pure delight that lifted his mood. “How’s my girl?” he said, pulling her back so he could take in every bit of her—feathery brown hair, blue eyes, grin that showed the tops of two tiny white teeth along her bottom gum. She threw her arms around his neck, and he hugged her all over again, filled to the brim with love and purpose and peace. A warm apartment and his daughter’s arms around his neck made him reconsider going back out into the cold for the story hour, but they needed to do things outside of the apartment sometimes.

“Mae?” he called as he settled Sienna on his hip and crossed to turn off the TV. Sienna was still in her nightgown, but her diaper seemed fresh—that was good. Mae had never lived such a traditional life, and things like taking care of a house and child just didn’t come to her automatically the way they did to Mark, who grew up with chores and rules and cousins and families. It was a tricky balance to be both supportive of the things Mae did while encouraging her to do a little bit more. Mae was always irritated at first when he gave her suggestions, but by the end of their conversation she usually said she would try to do better. Then she’d kiss him and he’d roll her beneath him and believe that everything would be all right. How he wished the feeling that lingered after their lovemaking would last longer than it did.

“Mae?” he called again when she didn’t answer.

She wasn’t in the kitchen, which had a sink full of dirty dishes he’d be washing before he went to bed. Again. The bathroom door was open, which meant he could expect to find her in the bedroom—the last of the four rooms. The bed was unmade, clothes in piles on the floor and spilling out of the plastic tubs they used in place of a dresser. Mae wasn’t there, and he felt fire in his chest. This was the third time he’d come home to find Sienna alone in the apartment. On both of the other times, Mae had shown up within a couple of minutes and assured him that she’d only been gone for a quick errand. Sienna had been napping both of those other times, and Mae claimed that was why she’d run out “real fast.” He’d still gotten mad and told her she couldn’t do that again. Both times she’d promised she wouldn’t. Sienna had been awake and propped in front of the TV this time. There was no justification for that.

Mark changed Sienna’s clothes and used a little pink clip to hold the hair off her face even though he suspected they weren’t going to make it to the library. They’d have to catch the bus at 4:21 and it was already 4:02. Mae was supposed to have had Sienna ready by the time he got home. He was disappointed that they wouldn’t be sitting in a room filled with other parents and young children listening to The Very Hungry Caterpillar. He ached for that life, a life he’d never thought to doubt before all this. He didn’t want it because it was how he’d grown up—Mom ran the ranch and didn’t cook much, and he had barely any memories of his dad—but he’d seen the life he wanted in Uncle Rich and Aunt Lottie’s family and the families of his friends. He’d longed for that kind of security and comfort. There is still time, he told himself, but he worried he was kidding himself. He’d been raised to know that choices determine outcome—he’d chosen to fall for a free-spirited woman with a difficult past and limited view of the future. He’d chosen to sleep with her. He’d chosen to stay with her and their child no matter what. He also believed that they could build their life into something better than this, but he couldn’t do that alone, and that’s what scared him most. If he couldn’t convince Mae that a traditional, secure, and family-oriented life was worth pursuing, he was in trouble.

Mark put Sienna in the high chair and found her some Cheerios to eat and drop and play with while he started the dishes. He tried to sing “The Wheels on the Bus” but struggled to make the tune sound like a happy one as ten minutes passed. Then twenty. What if he’d been held up at work and hadn’t come home? How long had Sienna been alone before he’d arrived? At least the door had been locked, he told himself. She’d been safe in that respect, but there were still electrical cords she could mess with and corners she could bump her head on. She was nine months old, for heaven’s sake. No one in their right mind leaves an infant alone for two minutes, let alone half an hour.

When Mark finally heard the front door, he was as near to rage as he’d ever been. Even amid other arguments they’d had, he’d never yelled at Mae or felt this kind of anger. He wiped his hands off on a dishtowel and told Sienna he would be right back before taking long strides into the living room, arriving just as Mae closed the door behind her, her back to him.

“Where have you been?”

She startled and turned quickly to see him, her green eyes wide as she sucked in a breath of surprise. She immediately smiled at him. “Mark,” she said, walking toward him while raising her arms to circle his neck. He caught both of her hands at the wrists and held her away from him. Her eyebrows came together on her freckled face that always gave her an air of innocence.

“Where have you been?” he asked again. “I’ve been home for half an hour, and Sienna was alone. Again. We talked about this.”

“It was not ’alf an ’our,” Mae said, smiling sweetly again. “I just ran down to Jill’s to . . . borrow a cup of sugar.” She laughed at this and then pulled her hands out of his, putting one in front of her mouth as though to hide the giggle. She swayed a little bit on her feet.

Mark narrowed his eyes and looked her over. She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt with house slippers. It was freezing outside. “Are you . . . drunk?”

“No,” she said, and laughed again. Sienna garbled something from the kitchen, and Mae’s eyes went past him. “Where is my bébé?” she cooed. She tried to walk around him, but he stepped to the side to block her; she looked up at him in surprise.

“You cannot leave her in the apartment by herself,” Mark said through gritted teeth. There was something languid about the way Mae pushed her hair behind her ears, as though she were moving through water. She’d gotten drunk at a friend’s New Year’s party a few weeks ago and had been like this, unsteady and silly. He didn’t smell alcohol, though. A cup of sugar? He took a breath and swallowed. “Are you high, Mae?”

She laughed again and pushed past him. “I want to see my bébé.” Moments later she was singing in French to Sienna, who babbled and laughed back at her.

Mark stood where he was in the middle of the living room, staring at the front door while thinking about story time at the library; and Mom saying Mae was trouble; and Jill, the downstairs neighbor, who always smelled like weed and acted like a fourteen-year-old even though she had three kids. Mae had told him that Jill was a recovered addict, like Mae. She’d said they understood each other.

Mark had been worried about dirty dishes and Sienna wearing her pajamas at three o’clock in the afternoon. He didn’t even know how to worry about this.