Rory nodded, left the room, and pounded up the stairs. Trying desperately to hide my plethora of emotions, I turned back to the ladies, and we finished our lineup.
Then I went to release some pressure.
“No one speaks to me that way,” I muttered to my sweet doggie as we left the kitchen. Being patient with Rory was growing increasingly difficult. What could I possibly do to calm down? I wasn’t ready to face him again, as I still had an urge to hurt him, maybe jab a heel into his eye socket, so I stayed downstairs. I paced around searching like a crazy person for a way to find a release.
While glancing toward the bar in the corner of the living room, I found my answer. There was a beautiful garland with glass ornaments running along the face of the wooden bar, but I wasn’t interested in my decorations at the moment. My eyes went to the lines of liquor bottles on the shelves behind the bar. I focused on a bottle of Scotch. Oh, I knew how to get him. The most apropos song in the world came to me like an early holiday gift. The words rose from my lips. “A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down, the medicine go down, the medicine go down.”
I rounded the bar and poured two fingers of Scotch over a fewrocks in a lowball glass. Humming my song, I walked into our laundry room and opened our utility closet, where we kept our medicine. I reached past the more commonly taken over-the-counter drugs like Advil and Pepto-Bismol and found the prescription antibiotic I’d taken to fight through a debilitating bout of strep throat a few months before. This pill’s active ingredient was penicillin, a drug Rory was allergic to. Not so allergic, in a small dose, that he would die. I wasn’t there yet.Not yet!But he would most likely break into hives and a terrible rash.
Philippe was sitting on his hind legs looking at me with wide-eyed wonder.
“Don’t look,” I begged. “This isn’t my proudest moment.”
He turned his head, as if working hard to translate my words.
I carefully pulled the gelcap apart and shook one half of the contents into the glass of Scotch. “That should do it,” I said.
While giving the devious concoction a nice stir, I started up my song again. “A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down, the medicine godooowwwwn, the medicine go down.”
It occurred to me as I left the laundry room that the Scotch might not be enough to conceal his poison. I looked at the brown liquid and then shrugged my shoulders. What the heck. I took a tiny sip. I never drink Scotch, but I knew that bitter taste wasn’t normal. What could I do?
Only one answer. I rushed back to the bar and scanned our mixers. I removed from the shelf one of our mixology books written by a bartender in Manhattan and searched for Scotch. You wouldn’t believe what I found! He had a drink called The Penicillin. The recipe called for lemon juice and honey-ginger syrup, which I didn’t have and didn’t have time to make, so I improvised. I have a thing for Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur and always have a bottle sitting around. I put in a splash and then ushered my melting cocktail into the kitchen. Offering a chirpy “hello!” to my team, I found a lemon and squeezed a skosh into the drink.
As I gave it one more stir, I heard Rory coming down the stairs. Those creaky steps had become warning bells. I met him on the last step and held out the drink. “I’ve come to make a peace offering.”
“What is it?” he asked with a furrowed brow.
I didn’t dare tell him the name of the cocktail. He was terrified of penicillin, having accidentally taken it a year ago to bad effect. Even the word would have turned him off.
“Scotch with some ginger and a twist of lemon. I thought it might make you feel better, ease those silky words from your throat.”
He thanked me and took the glass. I hoped he might apologize for earlier, but he didn’t bring it up.
No matter then. As he enjoyed his first sip and gave a nod of approval, I felt much better. Mary Poppins better! Where, oh where, were my white gloves and umbrella?A spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down…
“I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier,” I said, finally able to meet his eyes without wanting to throw up.
Rory savored another sip and replied, “Me too.”
I kissed his lips, tasting the lemon and ginger. I told him I loved him, excused myself, and made my way up the stairs.
If he wanted to play his games, I was prepared to be his fiercest competitor.
2
THE DREAM KILLER
Iam more than confident that no therapist, including my own, would recommend the pressure-cooker solution I’d embraced—in fact, they’d probably have their license revoked—but I’ll be damned if it didn’t work.
As I climbed the steps to get ready, Philippe close behind, I wasn’t nearly as angry. Maybe a hair annoyed, but I wasn’t engulfed in fury to the point of wanting to poke him with a sewing needle. Rory often made rude comments, but I couldn’t get hung up on those. Especially since I was trying to pull him back to me.
I’ll admit: Rory had a difficult job. I had previously thought his occupation as an attorney had taken all he had, but lawyering didn’t even compare to mayoring. Are those words? The day he’d committed to campaigning for mayor, he began running on overtime. Night and day. Day and night. Even in his sleep, he talked business and politics. This past year had been the steepest slope of his career. I had to support him and be his climbing partner, which meant feeding him some slack.
Until death do us part. In sickness and in health. And all that. When I’d married him, I’d promised to be his best friend and hispartner and his cheerleader. I refused to let those promises slip away without a good fight. If being a great mayor and climbing to a US Senate seat would give him an outlet to fulfill his true potential, I wanted to be the partner who helped him achieve his goals. I knew he’d pay me back down the road. If I had to ignore a few verbal jabs and lonely nights, months, and even years, so be it. That’s part of what love is about, what marriage is about. When one of us was down, the other must rise.
But I was getting fed up. While I bettered myself, he worsened, letting his demons of political aspiration drag him deeper into the cave.
Our bedroom boasted fine antique furniture, including a stunning king-size bed made in Paris at the turn of the twentieth century. Philippe jumped onto the white duvet. Rory didn’t want a dog in the bed, but you guessed it, I did. Before closing the blinds, I stared out a window overlooking the front yard. My eyes went right of the driveway, close to the tree line. That area is where I wanted to put a chicken coop, stage two of my plan to build what I liked to call Margot’s Ark.
