"So … what's the plan for tomorrow then? For London?"
"I wouldn't be comfortable with just dropping her off in some strange place. Would you? I want what's best for her."
"I'm sure that if you pick one of the places that your friends use, she'd be fine."
"She's already nervous enough about me going back to work and she was pretty upset this morning. That's why we had a family breakfast, and I suggested getting a hamster. I don't want her to feel like we're abandoning her this week."
"What exactly are you saying?"
Vivian closed the dishwasher door. "I was hoping that you would watch her this week. That way, London will have time to adjust."
"I can't. I have client meetings every day this week."
"I know I'm asking a lot and I hate to do this to you. But I don't know what else to do. I was thinking that you could either bring her to your office or maybe even work from home. When you have your meetings, you can drop her at your mom's. It would only be a week or two."
A week? Or two?
The words continued to reverberate in my mind, even as I answered. "I don't know. I'd have to call my mom and ask if she's okay with that."
"Would you? I'm already nervous enough about my new job, and I don't want to have to worry about London, too. Like I told you, she was really upset this morning."
I scrutinized London; she hadn't seemed upset at breakfast, and didn't appear upset now, but then Vivian knew her better than I did. "Yeah, okay. I'll call her."
Vivian smiled before moving close and slipping her arms around my neck.
"Trying to surprise me with dinner last night was very sweet. And I was thinking that I might just be in the mood for a glass of wine after London goes to bed." She kissed my neck, her breath hot on my skin. "Do you think you might be up for something like that?"
Despite myself, I suddenly wondered whether the entire morning-her appearance, her cheerful mood, breakfast-had simply been part of a plan to get what she wanted, but when she kissed my neck a second time, I forgave her.
Vivian and London were out until midafternoon. While they were gone, I finished the presentation for the chiropractor, the first of the meetings. In the meantime, I'd also tidied up the house and then called my mom. I told her about my client meetings the following week, and asked her if I could drop London off on Monday.
"Of course you can," she said.
I was hanging up the phone just as Vivian and London pulled in the drive, and I could hear London calling for me even before I made it out the door.
"Daddy, Daddy! Come here, quick!"
I trotted down the steps, watching as she held up a small clear plastic cage. From a distance, my first thought was that I was seeing double because there appeared to be two hamsters, one black and white, and the second, brown. London was grinning from ear to ear as I approached.
"I got two of them, Daddy! Mrs. Sprinkles and Mr. Sprinkles."
"Two?
"She couldn't pick," Vivian said, "so I figured, why not? We had to get the cage anyway."
"And I got to hold Mr. Sprinkles the whole way home!" London added.
"You did, huh?"
"He's so sweet. He just sat there in my hands the whole time. I'm going to go hold Mrs. Sprinkles next."
"That's great," I said. "I like their cage."
"Oh, this is just their carrying cage. Their real cage is in the back. Mommy said you can help me put it together. It's huge!"
"She did, huh?" I said, and I was struck with visions of past Christmas Eves, when I'd spent hours assembling various … things-painter's desk, Barbie's Dreamhouse, the bicycle. Suffice it to say, I found it much more difficult than my father probably would have. Vivian must have known exactly what I was thinking because I felt her slip her arm around me.
"Don't worry," she said. "It won't be that hard. And I'll be your cheerleader."
Later that night, after we'd made love, I was lying on my side, tracing the small of Vivian's back with my finger. Her eyes were closed, her body relaxed, beautiful.
"You still haven't told me much about what your job actually entails."
"There's not much to tell. It's the same kind of work that I used to do." She sounded sleepy, the words coming out almost in a mumble.
"Do you know how much you might be traveling?"
"Not yet," she answered. "I guess I'll find out."
"That might get tricky with London."
"London will be okay. You'll be here."
For whatever reason, I'd expected her to say more: how much she'd miss London, or that she was hoping to find a way to travel less. Instead, she drew long steady breaths.
"Do you know your salary yet?"
"Why?"
"I'm trying to figure out our budget."
"No," she said. "I don't know yet."
"How can you not know?"
"There's the base salary, bonuses, and different kinds of incentives. Profit sharing. I sort of tuned out when they started to explain it to me."
"Do you even have a ballpark estimate?"
She flopped a hand onto my arm. "Do we really have to do this now? You know I hate talking about money."
"No, of course not."
"I love you."
"I love you, too."
"Thanks for watching London this week."
Or two weeks, I immediately thought, but I kept the words to myself. "You're welcome."
I couldn't fall asleep, and after staring at the ceiling for an hour, I slipped from the bed and padded toward the kitchen. I poured a small glass of milk and finished it in a single swallow, thinking that since I was up, I might as well check in on London. I entered her room and could hear the hamster wheel squeaking and whirring, a hamster party in the middle of the night.
Thankfully, London seemed not to notice. She was sound asleep, her breaths deep and steady. I kissed her on the cheek before pulling up the covers. She shifted slightly and as I stared down at her, I felt a tug at my heart, a mixture of pride and love and concern and fear, a mixture that mystified me in its intensity.
Afterward, I sat outside on the porch. The night was warm and the sound of chirping crickets filled the air; I vaguely remembered something from my childhood when my dad had told me that the frequency of chirps roughly correlated with the temperature, and I wondered whether it was true, or just something that fathers say to their sons on late summer evenings.
Pondering that question seemed to free other thoughts, and I suddenly understood why sleep seemed so elusive.
It had to do with Vivian and the fact that she hadn't told me her salary. I didn't believe her when she said she'd tuned out when it was being explained to her, and that bothered me as well.
In all the years we'd been married, I'd always shared with Vivian exactly what I'd earned. To me, sharing such information was a prerequisite of marriage; the last thing any couple should harbor was financial secrecy. Secrecy could be corrosive, and ultimately stemmed from a desire to control. Or maybe, I was being too hard on her. Maybe it was simply she hadn't wanted to hurt my feelings because she'd be earning an income while my own business was floundering.
I couldn't figure it out. Meanwhile, I'd been handed the responsibility for our daughter, and all at once, the real reason for my insomnia seemed all too obvious.
Our roles in the marriage had suddenly been reversed.
CHAPTER 6
Mr. Mom
When I was young, my parents would load the camper and bring Marge and me to the Outer Banks every summer. Early on, we stayed near Rodanthe; later we stayed farther north, near the area where the Wright brothers made aviation history. But as we grew older, Ocracoke became our spot.
Ocracoke isn't much more than a village, but compared to Rodanthe, it was a metropolis, with shops that served ice cream and pizza by the slice. Marge and I spent hours roaming the beaches and the shops, collecting seashells and lounging in the sun. In the evenings, my mom would make dinner, usually burgers or hot dogs. Afterward, we'd capture fireflies in mason jars before finally falling asleep in a tent while our parents slept in the camper, stars filling the nighttime sky.
Good times. Some of the best in my life. Of course, my dad recalls them differently.
"I hated those family trips," he confessed to me when I was in college. "You and Marge would fight like cats and dogs on the whole drive down. You'd get sunburned on the first day and you'd whine like a baby the rest of the week. Marge would spend most of the week sulking because she wasn't with her friends, and if that wasn't bad enough, as soon as your skin began to peel, you'd throw the remains at Marge to make her scream. You two were a total pain in the ass."
"Then why did you bring us every year?"
"Because your mother made me. I would have rather gone on vacation."