“Yes, I’m awake.” Irritation infused his voice. “And I can’t do it. I can’t live like this anymore.”
“Live like what?” I asked.
“Have you not noticed?”
“Not noticed what? I’m sorry...but...what do you mean?” What was Theo trying to tell me? It was too early for my brain to be working on all cylinders.
“It’s...it’s...” He dropped his head toward his chest.
“O-kay.” My damp running socks stuck to my feet as I worked to slip them off, then the chill of the ceramic tile floor shocked my toes on the walk back into the kitchen. Why was he talking about this—whatever this was—at 5:53 in the morning? Why not wait until later? Making coffee rose to the top of the priority list. If I waited any longer to get caffeine into my body, my day would turn from delightful to deadly.
“You don’t understand, Sadie.” Theo had followed me into the kitchen and slumped into a chair. “Charlie called out while you were running. He was scared. I went into his room to bring him into ours. But when I went to pick him up, it was like my arms wouldn’t work. His thrashing—something about it...I panicked.” Theo paused, his face haggard in the low lighting. “It isn’t that Charlie’s too heavy. It’s that I can’t get through...the screaming, the flailing...it brought me back. I can’t help him.”
My body felt drained of all blood as I glanced then at my husband. At the man who still played volleyball on the weekends and coded websites well into the night. The man who carried me over the threshold on the night of our wedding and tugged the children in the little red wagon with the wheel that squealed like a banshee. The slouch of his shoulders and curve of his spine indicated a true problem, and the fingers of his right hand tapped against his thigh, as if to remind him at least one part of him still worked properly. I pulled his fingers against mine and looked into his eyes, studying them. They were the same, but different—Theo, but not. Slightly muted, not as strong as they once had been, like old decals that had faded in the sun.
I’ve rarely been struck speechless, but that day, not even one single appropriate word came to my mind. The quiet of the kitchen surrounded me as I thought about what it meant to Theo and me if he had issues to work through. Up until that time, Theo had always been the robust one in our household. But on that wintry December morning, the entire universe as we knew it shifted without warning, and now, my veneer had started to crack.
I pressed my back against my office chair, daring it to ground me in the here and now. Where did Theo and I stand? What did our argument that morning mean? Holding the kids together, the family together, mainly for the sake of his health and happiness, was becoming too much. Simply caring about Theo wasn’t difficult, but we’d made our choice, hadn’t we? All signs pointed to the fact I needed to let go. Scorching tears ran down my cheeks, and I clawed at my chest, hoping to keep it from caving in as I thought about what to do about Theo and our situation.
. . . . .
After my cathartic cry, the scene outside the enormous plate glass window of my office held my interest for a long time. Thoughts of everything that had happened over the last twenty years hovered in my mind. Speaking to my mother did that sort of thing to me, brought memories and emotions to the surface that had no business being there. Here I was, a thirty-eight-year-old woman and mom of three, and my mother had managed to push the exact buttons she knew would bother me. Somehow, she always had.
Putting off work just a bit longer, I reached into the lower drawer of my desk and pulled out the small, leather photo album hidden there. Recent technology made photo albums almost obsolete, but having physical proof of my life, something tangible to hold in my hands, made it easier to wade through the muck and focus on all the wonderful treasures scattered throughout my current existence.
The plastic pages stuck together at the front of the album where a few photos of my early life lay, gummy but dried adhesive peeking from the corners. Three pictures of me with Mom and Dad. Judging by the fashion in the photos, I must have been about six. My long hair was pulled into pigtails, and Dad’s huge yet artificial grin consumed his face. Mom, well, she looked like she always did—the proverbial deer caught in a car’s headlights. As if she was afraid the person manipulating the camera would somehow, in the act of taking the picture, also capture the reality that loomed behind the lens. What was that reality then? Was she happy?
Moving onto a later photo of the family showed nothing had changed: Mom’s face held that same expression. I hadn’t recognized it when I was younger, but with the wisdom of time and photographic evidence, it was clear my mother might never have been happy in her marriage to my father. That she might have needed to change, or at least be flexible, and because she hadn’t, happiness had been intangible. Dad had tried to make Mom happy: coming home early to help make dinner and taking care of me on the weekends. He told Mom to go out, get a job or go to school, whatever she wanted, to “do something for you, Marjorie,” and she never did. She’d conjure a plethora of excuses for why her life was the way it was, but none of the reasons made sense. Mom was the master of placing responsibility on another person’s shoulders: it was always someone else’s fault. And the fact that she wasn’t happy? That specific problem she had
