Two by Two(33)

My mom felt no guilt whatsoever about using guilt as a tool to control  us, and sometimes, I wish could be more like that. I wish I could simply  forgive myself and move on, but then again, if I really wanted to  change, why didn't I? Once, when London was still a young toddler, I  brought her to a trail just off the park. We didn't walk long or far,  but at the halfway point, I could tell she was getting tired and I  pointed out a stump where she could rest.

Seconds later, I heard her cry out, and then all at once she was  screaming wildly in obvious pain. I scooped her into my arms in a mad  panic, trying to figure out what on earth was happening when I spotted a  few ants on her leg.

But they weren't simply ants. They were fire ants, ants with both jaws  and stingers, and wildly aggressive. They swarmed, biting and stinging,  leaving welts, and while I swatted at the ants, even more kept  appearing. They were in her clothes, in her socks, even in her shoes. In  that instant, I put her down and started ripping the clothes from her  body as fast as I could, even her diaper. I swatted and brushed, getting  stung countless times in the process and rushed my screaming child as  fast as I could to the car.

I didn't know what to do. This, like so many things, was Vivian's area  of expertise, and I drove like a wild man for the five minutes it took  me to reach home. I carried London into the house and Vivian took over  immediately, her tone sharp with me but soft with London. She brought  London into the bathroom and applied rubbing alcohol to the already  swelling stings, gave her an antihistamine, and started applying cold  washcloths to the affected area.

Perhaps it was the efficiency and confidence she showed that finally  ended London's hysterics. Meanwhile, I felt like a passerby on a city  street, in the aftermath of a horrible accident, amazed that Vivian had  known exactly what to do.

In the end, there was no long-term damage. I went back to the park and  disposed of London's clothes in a trash bin, since the ants were still  swarming over them. The swelling lingered for a day or two but London  was soon back to her normal self. She doesn't remember the event-I've  asked her-and while that makes me feel better, I still experience guilt  when I think back on that awful day. And guilt serves to teach me a  lesson. I'm now cautious about where London sits whenever we're in the  woods or in the park, and that's a good thing. She's never been swarmed  by fire ants again.

Guilt, in other words, isn't always wasted. It can keep us from making the same mistake twice.





After lunch at Chick-fil-A with Emily, I spent the afternoon working.  Wanting to get a sense of how much Taglieri was spending, I spoke to a  friend in sales at the cable company. It turned out that Taglieri was  paying premium rates and had too many poor slots, a bummer for him but a  godsend to me. After that, I touched base with the head of the film  crew I intended to use. We'd worked together in the past, and we went  over the kinds of shots I wanted, as well as the projected cost. All  that information was jotted on a pad of paper for easy retrieval when I  needed to add it to the presentation. After that, I continued to perfect  the scripts and tweaked a few more of the generic images I'd pulled  together; by that point, my outline for two of the commercials was  nearly complete.

I was in a good mood as date night approached, despite having to bring  London to dance with the evil Ms. Hamshaw. Vivian made it home at a  reasonable hour, and after we got London to bed, we ate dinner by  candlelight and ended up in the bedroom. And yet, there was less magic  than I hoped for; it wasn't until Vivian started on her third glass of  wine that she began to relax and while I know that the honeymoon period  of any marriage eventually comes to an end, I suppose that I'd always  believed that it would be replaced by something deeper, a  two-of-us-against-the-universe bond or even genuine mutual appreciation.  For whatever reason-maybe because I sensed a continuing distance  between us-the night ended with me feeling vaguely disappointed.         

     



 

On Saturday morning, Vivian took advantage of her Me Time before  spending time with London the rest of the day. It gave me the quiet time  I needed to focus on other areas of the presentation: an updated  website, Internet advertising, billboards and sporadic periods of radio  advertising. I added in projected costs for everything over the course  of a year, including vendors' fees and my own, along with a slide  showing Taglieri's projected savings.

I worked on Sunday as well, finishing up on Sunday afternoon, and wanted  to go through it with Vivian. But for whatever reason, she seemed to be  in no mood to listen or even talk to me, and the rest of the evening  unfolded in the same stilted way that seemed to be becoming our norm.  While I understood that our lives had recently veered in directions  neither of us could have anticipated, I found myself wondering not  whether Vivian still loved me, but whether she even liked me at all.





On Monday morning before London woke, I wandered into the master bathroom while Vivian was applying mascara.

"Do you have a minute?"

"Sure. What's up?"

"Are you upset with me? You seemed irritated last night."

"Really? You want to do this now?"

"I know it's probably not a good time … "

"No, it's not a good time. I have to leave for work in fifteen minutes. Why do you always do this?"

"Do what?"

"Try to make me the bad guy."

"I'm not trying to make you the bad guy. After I finished the presentation, you barely spoke to me."

Her eyes flashed. "You mean because you pretty much ignored me and London all weekend?"

"I wasn't ignoring you. I was working."

"Don't make excuses. You could have taken a break here and there, but instead, you did what you wanted to do. Just like always."

"I'm just trying to say that it seems like you've been angry with me for  a while now. You barely spoke to me on Thursday night either."

"Oh, for God's sake. I was tired! Don't try to make me feel bad for it.  Have you completely forgotten about date night? Even though I was tired  on Friday night, too, I got all dressed up and we had sex because I knew  you wanted it. I'm tired of feeling like I never do enough."

"Vivian-"

"Why do you always have to take things so personally?" she demanded,  cutting me off. "Why can't you just be happy with me? It's not like  you're perfect either, but you don't see me coming in and complaining  about the fact you can't even support your family anymore."

Her words made me flinch. What did she think I'd been trying to do all  weekend? But she didn't want an answer. Instead, she walked past me  without a word, grabbed her workout bag and stormed from the house, the  front door slamming behind her.

The sound must have awakened London, because she came down the stairs a  couple of minutes later and found me sitting at the kitchen table. She  was still in her pajamas, her hair puffing out on the side.

"Were you and Mommy fighting?"

"We were just talking," I said. I hadn't yet recovered from Vivian's  outburst and felt sick to my stomach. "I'm sorry if the door was too  loud."

She rubbed her nose and looked around. Even groggy, I thought she was  the most beautiful little girl in the world. "Where is she?" she finally  asked.

"She had to go to work, sweetie."

"Oh," she said. "Do I have tennis this morning?"

"Yes," I said. "And art class with Bodhi. We have to remember to bring your hamsters."

"Okay," she said.

"How about a hug, baby girl?"

She came over and wrapped her arms around me, giving me a squeeze.

"Daddy?"

"Yes?"

"Can I have Lucky Charms?"

I held my daughter close, thinking how much I'd needed a hug. "Of course you can."





Taglieri wasn't in the bleachers that morning; in his place, I saw a  woman I presumed was ex number three because she walked past me with  Taglieri's daughter. I'm not sure what I expected-bleached blond hair,  maybe-but she seemed to blend in well with the other mothers.

I brought my computer with the intention of rehearsing my presentation  but I found it hard to concentrate. My mind kept circling back to the  cutting words Vivian had spoken and while I may have worked all weekend,  her reaction to it struck me as out of proportion and completely  unfair. I wished again that I could make her happy, but I wasn't, and  her expression as I'd stood before her made that clear.         

     



 

It wasn't simply her anger at me that I'd witnessed, after all.

I'd also seen, and heard, her contempt.





"Are you okay?" Emily asked.

I'd walked into the art studio and London made a beeline toward Bodhi,  holding Mr. and Mrs. Sprinkles in their carry-cage. As I watched her,  Emily must have seen something in my expression, but I didn't want to  tell her about Vivian and me. It seemed wrong somehow.