This time, it was a remark about how I was going hiking with Paul and some friends while she would be schlepping the kids around for various activities and a birthday party.
Her exact words were, “Have fun, Rhys.”
“You going to be okay?” I was trying to be considerate.
“Of course.” Her response was nonchalant. “I just have drop-off and pick-up duty all day…and I need to bake cookies for Finn’s team to get together.”
That got my back up. “Do you want me not to go hiking?”
She gave me a confused look. “Why?”
“If you’re having duty all day, then maybe I should pitch in,” I snapped.
She kept looking confused, which pissed me off even more.
“Come on, Jayne, are you trying to make me feel guilty for taking a fucking day to myself?”
“Rhys…you asked if I was going to be okay, and I?—”
“Do you want me to help you?”
She looked aghast, and I knew I’d lost the plot. This was on me. I was transferring my guilt for not helping onto her when she supposedly accused me of not helping.
Jesus. What the fuck was wrong with me?
“No!” I saw hurt in her eyes. That gutted me, compounded the guilt.
“Dad, why don’t you just go?” This came from Finn, who looked at me like I was the villain in his mother’s story. “We’re all going to be just fine.”
I left, angry.
I came back angrier.
Paul hadn’t been on my side, so to speak, when we talked about why my mood was off.
He’s one of my oldest friends, and usually I feel safe when I talk to him about feelings, which is not very often; in fact, I rarely do. He was entirely on Jayne’s side. Which was why by the time we got to bed, I was spoiling for an argument.
I lay stewing while she took her shower, and I wasready for her when her head hit her pillow. “Can you stop pitting my son against me?”
“What?”
“Finn is being disrespectful.” That wasn’t the entire truth. He was holding up a mirror, and I was—fuck—failing as a father, as a husband.
“I’ll talk to Finn,” Jayne said hesitantly.
“He’s my son. I can talk to him.”
What was wrong with me? Why was I getting so defensive?
“Then do so,” she retorted, and that was the first time I heard her irritation.
“Jayne, I have a right, don’t I, to take a day off after working a sixty-hour week?”
She met my eyes with something close to a sneer, which I’d never seen before. It shook me.
“It’s always about how much you work. How much you do, isn’t it? How about the rest of us mortals, Rhys?”
I shook my head, tired, exhausted, completely drained. This wasn’t how life was supposed to be. My home was supposed to be the place where I could relax, not be a war zone all the time.
