“Why aren’t you asleep, Laze?” he whispered.
“I was having a dream,” she said. But she didn’t seem frightened.
He sat on the edge of the bed, and stroked her hair. “What kind of a dream?”
“About the beast.”
“Uh-huh . . .”
“The beast was really a prince, but he was placed under a powerful spell by a ‘chantress.”
“That’s right . . .” He stroked her hair.
“Who turned him into a hideous beast.”
She was quoting the movie almost verbatim.
“That’s right,” he said.
“Why?”
“I don’t know, Lize. That’s the story.”
“Because he didn’t give her shelter from the bitter cold?” She was quoting again. “Why didn’t he, Dad?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Because he had no love in his heart,” she said.
“Live, it’s time for sleep.”
“Give me a dream first, Dad.”
“Okay. There’s a beautiful silver cloud hanging over your bed, and-”
“That dream’s no good, Dad.” She was frowning at him.
“Okay. What kind of dream do you want?”
“With Kermit.”
“Okay. Kermit is sitting right here by your head, and he is going to watch over you all night.”
“And you, too.”
“Yes. And me, too.” He kissed her forehead, and she rolled away to face the wall. As he left the room he could hear her sucking her thumb loudly.
He went back to the bedroom and pushed aside his wife’s legal briefs to get into bed.
“Was she still awake?” Susan asked.
“I think she’ll go to sleep. She wanted a dream. About Kermit.”
His wife nodded. “Kermit is a very big deal now.”
She didn’t comment on his T-shirt. He slipped under the covers and felt suddenly exhausted. He lay back against the pillow and closed his eyes. He felt Susan picking up the briefs on the bed, and a moment later she turned off the light.
“Mum,” she said. “You smell good.”
She snuggled up against him, pressing her face against his neck, and threw her leg over his side. This was her invariable overture, and it always annoyed him. He felt pinned down by her heavy leg.
She stroked his cheek. “Is that after-shave for me?”
“Oh, Susan . . .” He sighed, exaggerating his fatigue.
“Because it works,” she said, giggling. Beneath the covers, she put her hand on his chest. He felt it slide down, and slip under the T-shirt.
He had a burst of sudden anger. What was the matter with her? She never had any sense about these things. She was always coming on to him at inappropriate times and places. He reached down and grabbed her hand.
“Something wrong?”
“I’m really tired, Sue.”
She stopped. “Bad day, huh?” she said sympathetically.
“Yeah. Pretty bad.”
She got up on one elbow, and leaned over him. She stroked his lower lip with one finger. “You don’t want me to cheer you up?”
“I really don’t.”
“Not even a little?”
He sighed again.
“You sure?” she asked, teasingly. “Really, really sure?” And then she started to slide beneath the covers.
He reached down and held her head with both hands. “Susan. Please. Come on.”
She giggled. “It’s only eight-thirty. You can’t be that tired.”
“I am.”
“I bet you’re not.”
“Susan, damn it. I’m not in the mood.”
“Okay, okay.” She pulled away from him. “But I don’t know why you put on the after-shave, if you’re not interested.”
“For Christ’s sake.”
“We hardly ever have sex anymore, as it is.”
“That’s because you’re always traveling.” It just slipped out.
“I’m not `always traveling.’ ”
“You’re gone a couple of nights a week.”
“That’s not `always traveling.’ And besides, it’s my job. I thought you were going to be more supportive of my job.”
“I am supportive.”
“Complaining is not supportive.”
“Look, for Christ’s sake,” he said, “I come home early whenever you’re out of town, I feed the kids, I take care of things so you don’t have to worry-”
“Sometimes,” she said. “And sometimes you stay late at the office, and the kids are with Consuela until all hours”
“Well, I have a job, too-”
“So don’t give me this `take care of things’ crap,” she said. “You’re not home anywhere near as much as I am, I’m the one who has two jobs, and mostly you do exactly what you want, just like every other fucking man in the world.”
“Susan . . .”
`Jesus, you come home early once in a while, and you act like a fucking martyr.” She sat up, and turned on her bedside light. “Every woman I know works harder than any man.”
“Susan, I don’t want to fight.”
“Sure, make it my fault. I’m the one with the problem. Fucking men.”
He was tired, but he felt suddenly energized by anger. He felt suddenly strong, and got out of bed and started pacing. “What does being a man have to do with it? Am I going to hear how oppressed you are again now?”
“Listen,” she said, sitting straighter. “Women are oppressed. It’s a fact.”
“Is it? How are you oppressed? You never wash a load of clothes. You never cook a meal. You never sweep a floor. Somebody does all that for you. You have somebody to do everything for you. You have somebody to take the kids to school and somebody to pick them up. You’re a partner in a law firm, for Christ’s sake. You’re about as oppressed as Leona Helmsley.”
She was staring at him in astonishment. He knew why: Susan had made her oppression speech many times before, and he had never contradicted her. Over time, with repetition it had become an accepted idea in their marriage. Now he was disagreeing. He was changing the rules.
“I can’t believe you. I thought you were different.” She squinted at him, her judicious look. “This is because a woman got your job, isn’t it.”
“What’re we going to now, the fragile male ego?”
“It’s true, isn’t it? You’re threatened.”
“No it’s not. It’s crap. Who’s got the fragile ego around here? Your ego’s so fucking fragile, you can’t even take a rejection in bed without picking a fight.”
That stopped her. He saw it instantly: she had no comeback. She sat there frowning at him, her face tight.
`Jesus,” he said, and turned to leave the room.
“You picked this fight,” she said.
He turned back. “I did not.”
“Yes, you did. You were the one who started in with the traveling.”
“No. You were complaining about no sex.”
“I was commenting.”
“Christ. Never marry a lawyer.”
“And your ego is fragile.”
“Susan, you want to talk fragile? I mean, you’re so fucking selfinvolved that you had a shitfit this morning because you wanted to look pretty for the pediatrician.”
“Oh, there it is. Finally. You are still mad because I made you late. What is it? You think you didn’t get the job because you were late?”
“No,” he said, “I didn’t-”
“You didn’t get the job,” she said, “because Garvin didn’t give it to you. You didn’t play the game well enough, and somebody else played it better. That’s why. A woman played it better.”
Furious, shaking, unable to speak, he turned on his heel and left the room.
“That’s right, leave,” she said. “Walk away. That’s what you always do. Walk away. Don’t stand up for yourself. You don’t want to hear it, Tom. But it’s the truth. If you didn’t get the job, you have nobody to blame but yourself.”
He slammed the door.
He sat in the kitchen in darkness. It was quiet all around him, except for the hum of the refrigerator. Through the kitchen window, he could see the moonlight on the bay, through the stand of fir trees.
He wondered if Susan would come down, but she didn’t. He got up and walked around, pacing. After a while, it occurred to him that he hadn’t eaten. He opened the refrigerator door, squinting in the light. It was stacked with baby food, juice containers, baby vitamins, bottles of formula. He poked among the stuff, looking for some cheese, or maybe a beer. He couldn’t find anything except a can of Susan’s Diet Coke.
Christ, he thought, not like the old days. When his refrigerator was full of frozen food and chips and salsa and lots of beer. His bachelor days.
He took out the Diet Coke. Now Eliza was starting to drink it, too. He’d told Susan a dozen times he didn’t want the kids to get diet drinks. They ought to be getting healthy food. Real food. But Susan was busy, and Consuela indifferent. The kids ate all kinds of crap. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t the way he had been brought up.
Nothing to eat. Nothing in his own damned refrigerator. Hopeful, he lifted the lid of a Tupperware container and found a partially eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich, with Eliza’s small toothmarks in one side. He picked the sandwich up and turned it over, wondering how old it was. He didn’t see any mold.
What the hell, he thought, and he ate the rest of Eliza’s sandwich, standing there in his T-shirt, in the light of the refrigerator door. He was startled by his own reflection in the glass of the oven. “Another privileged member of the patriarchy, lording it over the manor.”
Christ, he thought, where did women come up with this crap?
He finished the sandwich and rubbed the crumbs off his hands. The wall clock said 9:15. Susan went to sleep early. Apparently she wasn’t coming down to make up. She usually didn’t. It was his job to make up.
He was the peacemaker. He opened a carton of milk and drank from it, then put it back on the wire shelf. He closed the door. Darkness again.
He walked over to the sink, washed his hands, and dried them on a dish towel. Having eaten a little, he wasn’t so angry anymore. Fatigue crept over him. He looked out the window and through the trees and saw the lights of a ferry, heading west toward Bremerton. One of the things he liked about this house was that it was relatively isolated. It had some land around it. It was good for the kids. Kids should grow up with a place to run and play.
He yawned. She definitely wasn’t coming down. It’d have to wait until morning. He knew how it would go: he’d get up first, fix her a cup of coffee, and take it to her in bed. Then he’d say he was sorry, and she would reply that she was sorry, too. They’d hug, and he would go get dressed for work. And that would be it.
He went back up the dark stairs to the second floor, and opened the door to the bedroom. He could hear the quiet rhythms of Susan’s breathing.
He slipped into bed, and rolled over on his side. And then he went to sleep.