A second later her phone buzzes. “Hello?” she says. “Yeah, yeah.” Her voice is getting higher and higher. I have no idea who she’s talking to. “Yes, I’ll be there!”
She’s more excited than I’ve seen her in a long time. She hangs up and turns to me. For a moment, I think she’s going to tell me her good news and then she says, “What’s your mom’s schedule like tomorrow…or can you just stay until tomorrow night and we’ll switch then?”
“Why?”
“Because I have an important meeting, Alex.”
“I have patients all day tomorrow. I’ll be at work.”
“They go to school at seven-thirty in the morning, as you know, and their school is five minutes from the clinic. It’s just this once. I’ll be with them four days a week from here on out and you’ll only be doing three. Do you even have clients that early?”
“Patients, not clients, and their school is more like twenty minutes from the clinic.”
“Whatever…do you?”
“No, but who’s going to pick them up? I have patients at two-thirty in the afternoon, back-to-back until eight o’clock at night to make up for my limited schedule the last three days. As it is, you were supposed to pick them up today from school and Icovered that. Remember, it was promised that this arrangement would only affect my schedule two days a week.”
She’s staring at me, her eyes are as big as sand dollars. “Are you serious, Alex? Throw me a fucking bone. You could hear me on the phone with Connie.”
“You didn’t tell me anything,” I say, but instantly regret saying it.
She’s very calm. I can tell she’s mad, even though she’s not hysterical. Noah is watching us from ten yards away in the dugout. He looks sullen.
Dani smiles at him and he smiles back. “You know what?” she says. “I’ll figure it out, though I think you should consider this…I also work and have a job, and sometimes I have to show up for it. Not very often…but sometimes…like tomorrow, when there is a meeting that could potentially bring my career back to life. Do you feel that canceling one afternoon appointment and bringing the boys to your office will be detrimental to your entire career?” She cocks her head to the side. This is classic Dani, trying to make me feel like an idiot.
“Dani, I’ll stay with the boys again tonight. I’ll cancel my appointments and take them and pick them up tomorrow, but remember you were the one who said you wouldn’t be there to help me out, and now you’re the one asking for help.”
She takes a deep breath and very calmly says, “Honestly, forget I asked. You’re right! It’s my problem. I can pay a babysitter. That’s what you are anyway. Actually, you’re worse. You’re a babysitter who outsources his work to his seventy-year-old mother.”
Ouch. Why did I let this conversation happen?
She stands, turns on her heel, and heads for the dugout. I consider stopping her and insisting that I go back to the house with the boys. I also consider wishing her good luck and askingwhat the news is. There is so much resignation in her. This is a Dani I have only seen in the last few months. A Dani who doesn’t care enough to fight.
I sit, contemplating what to do. The practice is wrapping up. Dani is still standing near the dugout with her back to me. She looks thinner. Her hair is different. Her personality seems different too. She’s moving on, I guess.
As I get up from the bleachers, I look up and see that both boys are watching me. I wave goodbye to them. When Dani turns around to see what they’re waving at, I instantly look down to avoid eye contact. I make my way to the car and don’t look back. I’m so tired, mentally and physically. I don’t have the energy to antagonize her, but I want to. I want to rile her up. I want to scream,Why aren’t you burning up inside like me?
14
par for the course
Danielle
A couple of years ago we were seeing a therapist who was also a psychologist. We thought we could doctor our relationship back into bliss. Dr. Gray was his name. Gloomy from the start. He also had taxidermy in his office, which I thought was bizarre and inappropriate.
Every time we were there, an image would flash through my mind of my and Alex’s heads stuffed and mounted on the wall, next to a largemouth bass. But Dr. Gray had come highly recommended, regarded for his unique approaches to solving marital unrest, so we gave it a try.
For the first twenty minutes of the appointments, we would do regular talk therapy and then the last part would be an exercise. He had us practice and work up to doing headstands side by side, against one wall of his office. The pure absurdity of it would make Alex and me laugh every time. Other sessions included us doing small jigsaw puzzles without being able to talk, and one time he even had us feed each other. It was all verystrange and new wave, but for a while, the distractive nature of it helped us get along better. So maybe Dr. Gray was on to something.
What eventually happened, though, was that we would do his silly exercises and then get into the car and fight.
At our last meeting he took on a more traditional approach. He talked about John Gottman’s Four Horsemen. Basically, a theory that names four relationship characteristics that inevitably will lead to divorce. Alex and I had them all.
The memory is still vivid in my mind, not only because it was our last session with Dr. Gray, but also because that same morning was the last time Alex and I slept together. By that point we were already living in separate bedrooms of the house, so sex was few and far between and never involved any sort of rapturous passion. It was basically a quickie every couple of weeks. But that morning was different, or so it could have been. The boys were on spring break and had stayed overnight at a friend’s house. My mother had already been gone for six months so the topic of her abuse was rarely coming to the surface anymore. I had passed Alex in the hallway. He was dressed in running clothes.
I said, “We have Dr. Gray in an hour.”
He seemed irritated and rolled his eyes. “I know, I’m going on a short run. I’ll be back by the time we have to leave.”
