“I have screenshots.”
“Good. Grab your phone.” I wave at her to follow me. “We’re driving to the police station right now, and we’ll get a restraining order if we have to.”
“Mom . . .”
I stop and turn. “No. Listen. She can’t get away with this kind of thing. She needs to learn a lesson about consequences and know that you’re not going to take it. Get up. Let’s go.”
Amanda scrambles off her bed and follows me downstairs, where we pull on our coats and boots and march outside to the car.
It’s not until afterward, when we’re leaving the police station, that I think about calling Nate. I unlock the car door and get in, and that’s when Amanda mentions it.
“Are we going to tell Dad about this?”
“Of course,” I reply as I buckle my seat belt. “Do you want to call him right now? Or would you prefer that we tell him later, when he gets home?”
“You can tell him later,” she replies, tipping her head back on the headrest and closing her eyes. “I’m not up for explaining it again. It sucks, and it’s so embarrassing. I just want to go home and chill.”
I glance at her and worry that this experience is going to damage her self-confidence—the kind of energy that drove her to try out for the high school musical. She was always fearless as a young child, adventurous and buoyant, but in this moment, I sense a gloom in her, a withdrawal I’ve never seen before, and I’m not sure how to handle it. Should I give her space to recover? Or encourage her to talk more about it and call her father? But if she called Nate right now, would he have time for her? It’s past five o’clock, and Oblique has just opened its doors.
I press the ignition button and start the car, back out of our parking spot, and decide to leave it alone for now. Unfortunately, that decision amplifies my resentment.
As we cross town during rush hour, I wonder how Nate and I got here. I remember a time, early in our marriage, when I’d never hesitate to call him for anything, even just to chat. But as soon as he opened the restaurant, everything changed, and he started ignoring my calls. Not always, but often enough that I noticed. Or if he did pick up, he was distracted or even annoyed at me for interrupting him at work.Eventually, I stopped calling, and over time, I learned how to deal with life’s many challenges, big and small, on my own.
But today, the situation feels monumental. I just took our daughter to the police station to file a report about a crime committed against her, and she and I are both shaken up.
Nate is her father. He should know about this. And yet ...nottelling him feels strangely satisfying—because if he’s unaware of what’s going on, it shines a glaring spotlight on how negligent he’s become as a parent. I almost feel like I’m rubbing it in his face, hoping that he’ll wake up and feel guilty. It’s the ultimate act of passive aggression.
I pull to a halt at a stop sign, flick the blinker, look both ways, and steer onto our street. Amanda has been quiet the entire way home, scrolling mindlessly through her Instagram feed. I’ve been quiet too, reflecting, simmering with my bottled-up hostilities, which seem to have come to a head.
In that moment I decide that I shouldn’t let this fester. I’ve always prided myself on being a good communicator, so I resolve to call him as soon as we get home and tell him what happened today. I’ll give him a chance to rise to the occasion. For once.
He’d better pick up, or at least return my call. If he doesn’t ...
I pull into our driveway and swear that if he fails this test, my resentments might explode in the deep, dark place where hopelessness lives—that old den inside me where I believe future happiness is beyond the realm of possibility.
I know that place. I lived there once, for a very long time.
It’s the place where dreams go to die.
It’s past midnight, and I’m waiting up for my husband. After Amanda and I arrived home, I called Nate, but unsurprisingly he didn’t answer. I left a voicemail and told him it was about Amanda, and it was important, but he never called back.
Maybe I should have reached out to Martina, the restaurant manager, but every time I speak with her, she shares colorful details about incidents in the kitchen—things Nate clearly hasn’t shared with me. She then responds with sympathy, as if she understands how painful it must be to be so out of touch with my husband. But I refuse to take her bait, even though I’m conscious of how much time they spend together. I feel like she can smell weakness, so the last thing I want her to know is that Nate doesn’t return my calls.
When at last I hear his car in the driveway, I rise from the sofa to meet him at the door and will myself not to make this about me. Yes, I’m annoyed as hell at him for not calling, but this is about Amanda and what she needs from us. I’ll address the broader subject of our relationship after we get that out of the way.
“You’re still up,” he says with surprise as he walks in.
“Didn’t you get my voicemail?” I can’t help it that my tone is full of accusation.
He sets his backpack on the floor and kicks the snow off his boots. “I saw that you called, but I didn’t have a chance to listen to the message. It was a busy night.”
I turn away from him and go to the kitchen. “It’s always a busy night.”
He removes his coat and boots and follows me. We end up standing across from each other at opposite ends of the kitchen island.
“Isn’t that a good thing? That Oblique is busy again?”
I don’t want to get into how long it took to revive the business after the COVID-19 closures, so I say nothing, because I want him to recognize that I’m miffed.
