I barely make out a low scraping sound, like a raccoon is pawing through leftovers in my garbage can or something heavy is being dragged across the concrete floor. Fridays are garbage day in my neighborhood, so I know the plastic bin is empty and a raccoon certainly did not open the garage door. I see my phone on the kitchen table, 911 a quick dial away. But if I called, what would I say,It sounds likenails scratching a chalkboard in my garage, send someone quick?Now that Simon is back, if something happens to me, will Lou and Coco live with their dad, or stay with my mother? In Simon’s absence I let the decision of guardianship lapse, along with selling the house and changing my phone number.
I close my eyes and instinctively make the head, heart, left, right sign of the cross before raising the pan above my head with one hand and cracking open the back door as discreetly as I can. The scraping sound grows louder, accompanied by huffing as I reach right to flick on the overhead light.
“Ahhhh!!”Simon yells. Surprised by the sudden fluorescence, he drops an enormous cardboard box with an earth-shaking thud. To smack him with my frying pan now, I would have to leap over the multiple IKEA boxes littering my recently cleaned-out garage. Sweden has saved Simon.
Instead of hitting him with it, I point the pan toward Simon. “How the hell did you get in the garage?” I strain through tight lips.
“Is that what you wear to bed these days?” Simon replies, taking me in from top to bottom. I look down without recollection of what I slid into at midnight. My worn-thin plaid pajama bottoms have shrunk to floods, and I have on Coco’s discarded Saint Anne’s debate team T-shirt. Inside out and backward. Even though it’s supposed to climb above ninety degrees today, the concrete floor is cool on my bare feet.
“The garage, Simon. How did you get in here?” I repeat, taking the frying pan off Simon and pointing it to the metal rolling door. Simon doesn’t take his eyes off me.
“Last night I swung by and got the extra clicker from the junk drawer in the kitchen. You really haven’t changed a bit, Toni.”
I know Coco and Lou are loving that their dad comfortably comes and goes from our home, able to swing by at a moment’s notice and be there when I can’t. His attention is something they crave, and I’m happy for them that they are getting it. Also, with the possibility of break-inslike this one, it does ease my concerns a bit to know the girls are home alone less than they used to be when I was single parenting.
However, Simon’s invasion of my privacy when the girls aren’t home, even if it is into a house he co-owns, is not okay with me. It strikes me as I stand here ready to strike Simon that this house has become more than a place to rest my head. In two years, I’ve claimed both sides of our marital bed. I hand-wash my bras and hang them to dry wherever I please. I am highly tuned to the sounds the girls make as they go about their daily routines because there is not another voice demanding my attention. And the only schedule I have to work around to invite friends over to the house is mine. My vagabond husband is an intrusion in this garage and a stranger in my sanctuary.
“How many lint rollers does one person need?” Simon mumbles to himself while pawing through my stored items. Exhibit A right here: our lack of established boundaries since Simon’s return. Not that it’s any of his business, but my uniform sweater tends to pill, so in the winter I give it a good once-over before I leave for work, otherwise I’ll just pick at it all day.
“What’s this, Simon? You trying to boost Sweden’s GDP?” Between my entrepreneurs course and my blinding hours reviewingInnovation Nationepisodes, business terminology has crept into my vernacular. We both turn our heads around the garage to take in the half dozen IKEA boxes where the bins of the twins’ childhoods recently resided.
“I know we are taking things slow,” Simon begins with a pout. “But my new apartment is tiny, and I need a proper office to work and see clients.” Other than mutually enjoying the spark that has returned in Lou and Coco since Simon came home, I wouldn’t label our relationship as moving at any speed, slow or fast. The divorce papers are still in their envelope, and Simon is out of his Airbnb and settled into a short-term rental. He does have a key to the house, and apparently now access to the garage. Fewer nights to cook has been a bonus, the increase in tempeh and tofu to my diet has not. We are semicomfortably living inmarriage limbo until I figure out what I want. Simon got to decide to leave, I get to decide if he comes back.
“I hear office sharing is a popular option. There’s a ‘for rent’ banner hanging on the side of the building on El Camino Real near the Menlo Park Safeway,” I say, kicking my big toe on the side of the box that looks to be a desktop.
“I need something more private to meet with clients. A secure space.” The way Simon keeps sayingclients, like he’s still an investment banker and not a charlatan shaman, grates even my dark brew caffeinated patience.
“They need to feel safe in order to open up to me,” Simon pleads, and I can see that he has perfected an expression of empathy mixed with concern, likely in his bathroom mirror. “What better place than our cozy home. Plus, we can write off the square footage of the extra bedroom as a business expense.” I had promised Lou and Coco that the week before high school starts, one of them could finally move into that extra space. They have been nagging for their own spaces since they were ten and Coco wanted to use their bedroom to read while Lou preferred to blast music.
When Simon left, I thought it was best for Lou and Coco to continue sharing a room for consistency and company being minus one person in our family. I wanted no doubts in their minds that while their father may have cut out, sisters are forever. They do not leave. In my mind there would be nothing more reassuring than being able to roll over and stare into your mirror image. That level of comfort I could assure them. And for me, their sharing a room ensured Lou and Coco remained young and innocent a little longer. If I allow Simon to use the extra bedroom as an office, it will keep the girls together, preserving the childhood that I am not ready to let slip. Bonus, I could blame the change in plans on their dad.
“If I use the extra room, then we can trial run my being back in the house on a more regular basis.” Simon delicately wades into roughrelationship waters as I am still lost in the thought of tucking the girls into their matching twin beds for the foreseeable future.
Sensing a genuine opening, Simon steps into my sight line and continues. “We can try it for six months. If I get funding fromInnovation Nation, then obviously I will need to hunt for a professional office space in Palo Alto by the start of the new year. Best U Man will be exploding, and I’ll need a business manager. You love numbers, so you could leave your airport job and come work reception and deal with the quarterly books.” Simon’s voice speeds up in fervor for what he thinks is a brilliant idea, and he rubs my arms to warm me up to it. Until recently, as far as I knew, Simon was wrapped in Tibetan prayer flags chomping on chia seeds. Now he’s back predicting that in six months’ time Best U Man will be the next California maleness rage and I’ll, once again, passively relinquish my forward momentum to his latest project. Simon still believes that as long as he is advancing spiritually, professionally, whatever, the family will thrive, and I will be content standing still.
Content my ass. He has no idea about my own advancement, let alone my contentment.
“You seem pretty confident you’re going to make it past the final selection for the show.” I shake Simon’s hands off me and place the frying pan on top of a box. I cross my arms under my boobs to hold them up where they used to sit.
“I’m not confident, I know.” Simon throws his shoulders back and grins. I swear he grows an inch taller. “Found out Wednesday. The producers let all the selected contestants know before the holiday weekend.”
Oh my God, this hit show will turn into a shit show if Simon and I compete against each other. Hopefully the producers really don’t know we’re married, we do have different last names. And even if they do, they’d never put us on the same episode.
“Congratulations. Sounds like prioritizing yourself has really paid off,” I remark with a backhanded compliment Simon doesn’t pick up on.
“Thanks. I think I have a good shot.”
Following Ash’s text and the Monday-morning table talk with Krish and Zwena, I rushed to upgrade my website and set myself up with a Brown Butter, Baby! company email. Should I accept Ash’s generous, if not wholly above-board deal, I want my company to look legit. Only thing is, I have completely forgotten to check the new email since I set it up. I must have gotten the same email Simon did.
“I have a ton of work to get pitch-ready between now and then, so I really do need a quiet place to work, to focus. A normal business pitch is around forty-five minutes, but onInnovation Nationyou only get eleven minutes before going to commercial, so it has to be tight.” Simon explains the obvious like I haven’t studied every aspect of the show. “I’ll probably have to cut back on my time with Lou and Coco to get it all done.” Simon sees my facial muscles tighten, just not from what he thinks. “Though if you let me back in the house, I can keep being a star dad.”
Oh, how convenient it is to be a father who believes he can float in and out of parenting duties based on where he lays his head at night.First time, shame on you, Simon. Second time, it’s a pattern.
There’s no way I was going to tell Simon that I made it on the show. That intel was too formidable to share on a random Tuesday daughter drop-off. It’s perfect ammunition for I don’t know when, but I’m withholding it for now. I haven’t even told Ash yet that I’m accepting his generous offer. I’d been struggling to receive it for exactly what it is, charity, but Simon has pushed me over the hump.It’s on.
“Trust me, Toni, this is going to be great for our family. Just great,” Simon states definitively and reaches into his pocket, pulling out a Swiss Army knife. He’s readying himself for a day building a home office set with the assistance of overly complicated directions despite having a disgruntled wife with one foot planted on his desk box.
“Think about it,” Simon continues with his professional daydreaming. “When I get funded, Best U Man will take off, the money will be rolling in, and we can go back to how things were. You can take care of the girls, help in my office, and if there’s time, pick up a class or two.”I can see Simon is proud of himself for mentioning I have intellectual interests as he spins what he believes is a pretty convincing vision of our future. “Disneyland this year for sure, a new house in two. This is our destiny, Toni, we both know it.”
