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Must be nice, she’d thought bitterly.Must be nice to live life that way, feeling safe.
Even though he apologized, it was the beginning of the end of their connection. Because when she told him she’d decided to take a self-defense class, the thin, closed line of his mouth silently told her, “Don’t you think you’re overreacting? Being dramatic over nothing.”
After that, any emotion she showed—jumping in fright at a housecentipede that crawled from under the bed, irritated at his being late, trying to vent about an unfair grade—he’d roll his eyes. Sigh. “Those can’t bite, you know.” “I’m not even that late, calm down.” “What did you do wrong to get that grade anyway?” “Relax.” His words made it simple to read his thoughts.She’s overwrought. She’s illogical. She’s just like all the others, feelings not to be trusted. Turn that dial down, sister, to something a little more little.
“You’re not taking me seriously,” she told him. But his thoughts were as hard to find tangible evidence of as his breath. “What do you mean?” he’d say. “What are you talking about?” Her complaints were just another overreaction.
Easier to think that way, she supposed, than for him to accept he’d been inadvertently cruel. Easier to think she had a problem than accept how instead of protecting her, he’d terrified her. Because those things did happen. Could happen.
Those things are happening to you right now.
“Why are you so mopey? Why are you so annoyed?” As if he had nothing to do with her tears, with her irritability. As if feelings were things she picked up at random, clutched to her heart, completely separate from his small cruelties as he sought to justify himself.
The self-defense class she attended was disappointing. She’d imagined kung fu. Cool moves that would somehow turn her smallness into an advantage, like in the movies where the little lady in heeled boots takes down the big bad.
But it was mainly about screaming.
“Women are conditioned to be quiet, not to make noise,” the teacher said. “Most of us are too self-conscious to be loud. To draw attention. Even in an emergency.”
She couldn’t scream loud enough, uninhibited enough, to please the teacher. With triumphant banshees wailing around her, sound caught in her throat and came out strangled. They learned only oneaggressive move in the class, a thrust with the butt of the palm to crack a nose. A shock and awe approach that (maybe) allowed a chance to run off screaming. She had no trouble popping the defense class dummy in the face hard as she could, so hard it bruised her hand. The dummy’s head barely wobbled.
“If I were you,” the teacher said coolly, “if I were your size? I’d focus on making some real noise.”
Well, well, well. That teacher was way off. Imagine where being loud, screaming when you saw him on those stairs, would have gotten you.
But the linoleum of the dorm room floor resurfaced, and the momentary feeling of superiority, of vindication, vanished.
No matter what, you can’t unravel like that again. If it happens, if he gets in here, you kick and gouge and use your nails, your teeth—anything. Everything! Or you’d never forgive yourself.
“You wouldn’t deserve forgiveness,” echoed her husband’s voice.
“Mommy?” said the little girl, startling her so much she gave an involuntary huh noise, a whole-body jerk. Drifting sleepily in the depths of her memory, her imaginary conversations, she’d assumed the children were asleep.
“Mommy, I need to use the bathroom.”
“One or two?” she asked, thought to herself,You’re on autopilot.
“One.”
Typical, typical. You get the kids all packed up and ready to go. All buckled in. They’ve got a stuffed animal, a snack, you juuust pull onto the highway, and then you hear, “Mommy? I need a bathroom.”
At least it isn’t number two.
“Mommy?”
“Shhh, I’m thinking.”
Thinking made her acknowledge she needed to go, too. Terribly.
“All right,” she whispered. “Buddy, I need you to take off your diaper. Mama will help, okay?”
Before lockdown, her son had gone several months without needing a diaper overnight. But bedwetting began within two weeks of staying home, a thing she and her husband attributed to his sensitivity, his worry over their worry. The pediatrician shrugged it off. Told them to be patient, that stress-related setbacks were normal, and not to shame him. Over the summer, seemingly acclimated to the strange new world, their son’s accidents stopped. But in November they resumed, more frequent than ever before. She had put him back in diapers, trying to shoo away the guilt that she couldn’t shield her perceptive son from the cruelties of the world.
It was a strange dance in the dark, unwinding the blanket and helping the little boy take off his pajama pants, then the diaper.
“Gross,” the little girl said as she threaded on her brother’s diaper.
“I know,” she whispered. “But do it anyway.”
