“I saw it on an episode ofThis Old House. We can get it all at Home Depot.”
Dani is nesting at the moment…quite literally. She wants to blow tons of insulation material into our attic, like an actual nest, and I can’t tell her no.
“I think it’s like a two- or three-man job,” I say.
“Man?” she snaps.
“Person,” I reply, a little exasperated. “You know what I mean.”
“You and I can do it,” she argues.
“No, Dani! No way. You’re not going up in the attic right now.”
She takes a deep breath and calms down. “You go in the attic and I will put the insulation into the machine outside. It runs through a big hose and you’ll just shoot it all around up there.”
—
It’s now the afternoon and I cannot believe I agreed to do this, but I knew Dani wouldn’t takenofor an answer—and honestly, how could I refuse her? She is smiling as she stands in the side yard preparing to dump giant bales of insulation into the hopper machine down below. I’m watching her from the attic opening and through the kitchen window. She has the radio blaring “Eyeof the Tiger,” and she’s bobbing her head to the beat. She’s ready. “Go ahead,” I yell and then prepare myself for the onslaught. The insultation comes shooting out with the force of a fire hose.
It’s not slowing down and now I’m about knee high in the stuff. I wonder if Dani will ever stop throwing the bales in. “Stop,” I yell, but she keeps going. The music and sound of the machine are drowning me out.
I finally set the hose down and go over to the opening. The hose is flailing around wildly, but I need to get her attention. She’s covered in sweat and insulation particles and she’s frantically cutting the bales open and tossing them in. I pause for a moment to take it all in. It’s hilarious. She’s so determined.
Finally, I have to scream, “Stop, Dani!”
She looks up, still smiling. “Oh, sorry!” she yells.
When I get down from the attic, I check my phone and see there is a message from our neighbor, Carl. It says:
Monica and I are very concerned, Alex. We see your wife across the street frantically throwing stuff around. Isn’t she very pregnant?
I laugh to myself and reply:
Yes. Today is her due date and she decided she wanted to insulate the attic. I love her so much.
4
i haven’t heard your voice in years
present day
Danielle
It’s 4:32 in the morning and he’s walking down the hall toward the stairs. I know the time without looking at the clock. The springtime light isn’t yet piercing the horizon. There are no cars on the road; his will be the first. It’s quiet out, but loud in my head, loud in this house.
He’s shifting his 170 pounds from one foot to the other, down the stairs…loudly. It feels intentional. He clears his throat. It feels intentional. I can hear him from my bed, far away in my bedroom. What used to beourbedroom.Ourbed.
No one is awake at this time in the morning. No one in this house, no one in this neighborhood, no one else in my life. He must know he’s waking the whole house as he shuffles his feet across the travertine floors, down the hall, past the dining room, and into the kitchen, where he presses the button on the coffee grinder. We’re up now!You’ve made yourpoint, asshole.
This is how it has been for years. After 3,008 complaints, it hasn’t occurred to him that he should grind the beans the nightbefore? It’s not evident to him that no one else in this house needs to be awake for another three hours? Not me, not our twelve-year-old son, not our thirteen-year-old son, not even the damn dog. After so many years of tolerating his inconsideration for the sake of marriage, it no longer feels like a sacrifice…It feels like a crime, one in which I’m victimizing myself by staying.
In the last several years, there hasn’t been a single morning I’ve woken up on my own, or even by an alarm I had set myself. No mornings lying naked, languid, exposed…wrapped up in a lover. Wrapped up in him. I have entertained such phenomenon, I have revisited that life in my mind many times. The life I used to know. I shimmy out of my tattered sweats and T-shirt at dawn. I run my hands across my breasts, my stomach. I feel what I might feel like to someone else…someone who isn’t in such a hurry.
I imagine a man being awestruck, telling me he doesn’t want to leave. I remember that feeling, which is now so far away. He asks me to stay…in bed…I imagine sleepy morning sex while listening to Chet Baker croon quietly from the speaker in the corner. Later we amble directionless around the room until we’re dressed, teeth brushed. Strolling to a café, sharing a meal, drinking our coffee, kissing, and saying goodbye. Realities I no longer experience.
I’m alone. I feel the scars he calls “marks” like they’re tattoos chosen from a wall off the retail store of my youth. Drunken mistakes? A tramp stamp, as it is so terribly referred to? No! These are stretch marks from pregnancy…scars. Four pregnancies in all. My two beautiful sons and the two horrific second-trimester miscarriages I endured alone…my daughters. He doesn’t see them every day the way I do. He doesn’t imagine thewomen they would’ve become every time he looks at his own body in the mirror.
The grass isn’t greener, it’s gravel on the other side. This is what I have told myself for years and this is why I’ve stayed, but now my imagination has become too wild. The grass isn’t greener, it’s a vitamin-rich waterfall oasis with magical, golden baby goats and Adonis angels feeding me calorie-free chocolate ice cream.
