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NINE
AMBER
Mark and I don’t speak as we get into our beat-up family sedan. Badly in need of new tires, a new paint job, and at least two belts, considering the screams that come from the engine when it starts up. Mark loves this car. I have no idea why.
I sink into the seat and lean back with a heavy sigh.
As we drive through the school parking lot, I observe the teachers hurrying over the crosswalks. Each has multiple bags hung over their shoulders, and holds brightly-colored travel mugs probably filled with coffee. Each on their way to tell a little boy or girl’s parents that their child is totally normal.
There are ten thousand questions I want to ask my husband in this moment.
Why didn’t you speak?
If you weren’t going to participate, why did you come?
What were you looking at on your phone? What was more important than our son?
What happened to our marriage?
When did we become strangers?
When did you stop loving me?
When did I stop caring?
“What do you think?” I ask as we brake at a red light.
“I think he’s in first grade.”
Like a flame to gasoline, my defenses ignite. “Meaning?”
“Meaning the kid is seven years old, Amber. School is new to him. He’ll catch up.”
My jaw literally unhinges as I gape at my husband. Words evade me, because I know that if I press the subject, Mark will offer only a few nibbles of feedback before closing his mouth and returning to the dull, lifeless expression he wears like a mask. And that will be it, the subject will lie dormant until I bring it up again. Me, the nagging wife.
I don’t know when, but somewhere along the line, my husband became depressed.
Mark’s only interest is his handyman business which he named Blackbird Cove Handyman Services. A name as boring and colorless as our marriage has become. My husband works out of a small, one-room shop downtown that he inherited from his late father; it’s where Mark spends most of his life. What he does there, I have absolutely no idea. Certainly not work because last year his total gross revenue was $27,346.90. His net revenue was $-4,394.06.
About a year ago, I decided to surprise him with lunch on a random Wednesday. To my surprise, a customer was in the shop, so I quickly stepped into the shadows and watched from the windows, eager to see my husband in action. Mark smiled and laughed, energetically, jovially, to the elderly man inquiring about new cabinets for his kitchen. That was the day that I realized that my husband hadn’t checked out of life. He’d checked out of his family.
We ride in silence the rest of the way home. The drive takes twice as long with the morning school traffic, the extra time only adding to the tension swarming like bees around us. Actually, I’m not sure Mark even feels the tension anymore, only I do.
Mark rolls to a stop at the curb and jumps out to get the mail, causing a soccer mom to blare the horn and flip us the bird as she zooms past in her minivan. Her bumper sticker reads: Powered by Jesus.
As we accelerate up the driveaway, my gaze drifts to a beam of sunlight shining on the statue of the cartoonish frog that sits next to our red front door. A meditation frog, the tag read. I purchased him at a festival downtown three years ago, hoping the symbol of peace would transfer into the home. So far, no luck.
I stare at the statue that I love so much—his little frog hands folded across his lap, his legs bent in a meditative position, his eyes closed, the small curve on his mouth—and I wonder when I allowed my life to become so bleak.
The garage door jerks before grinding open. We slowly roll inside. The smell of motor oil fills my nose. It grinds back down.
Leave it, leave it, leave it, I internally tell myself, regarding the bills. Leave them for him.
When he doesn’t grab the mail, I am so mad that I don’t even want to walk into the house with him. So I push out of the car, and ignoring my husband, kick off my shoes, and make my way to the mess that has taken over the second bay of the garage.
Mark disappears inside the house, shuts the door behind him. The moment he is gone, I exhale, feeling the weight release from my shoulders.
“Okay,” I say to no one, fisting my hands on my hips. I have a few hours until my first appointment of the day. I stare at the stacks of boxes and old office furniture and supplies that were once in my office.
