A cry erupted over the monitor, most likely Lexie. The vomiting episodes, while brief, and taken their toll on both girls. Lexie’s discomfort might mean we’d be launching into another round of sickness, soon.
“I’ll go check on them,” Theo said, then rose from the table and pushed in the chair. For one split second, the chair’s leg caught on the seam of the area rug, and I feared both Theo and the chair would tumble to the floor. Instead, Theo righted himself, adjusted his shoulders, and trudged to the bedroom.
He was a ghost of the man I had married fifteen years prior, on the hottest day of the year. That afternoon, no one could have convinced me we wouldn’t be together forever. We’d written our vows of extraordinary love for one another, and we’d refused to add a phrase about for better or for worse. Which young couple wants to imagine a dismal future? And that future, our future, had been full and bright...
Until Theo’s PTSD.
So there, in the thick of what wasn’t even by far the worst we might experience, I questioned my future—
“Sadie, I need help cleaning up Lexie.” Theo’s voice filtered through the monitor. Despite his mental state, Theo still had his physical health, but situations involving bodily fluids were more difficult to accomplish, and cleaning up a mess alone would be next to impossible for him.
I wiped my hands on the damp dishtowel and draped it over the handle of the stove. Now clearly wasn’t the time to bring up the topic of signing the divorce papers, but should I try to speak to him about these newfound feelings? Learning about my reaction at the grocery store might be too much for him to take, even if it was one of his good days.
. . . . .
Two months, one week, and a day after I ran into Grocery Store Man, and when I thought Kettering really was that big and coincidences no longer happened to me, he and I met again, this time inside my office building.
“Which floor, miss?” A voice reverberated as I strolled into the elevator with my head down, looking at the report in my hand. That drawl. I lifted my gaze.
“It’s you!”
The man narrowed his eyes and tilted his head until a wave of comprehension rolled over him.
“Bloom Market? Kettering Plaza?” He pointed at me.
“Father’s Day.” I nodded, my index finger against my sternum.
“Right.” Adjusting his necktie as he cleared his throat, he looked away to the dark corner of the ceiling. Soft Muzak trailed out of the speakers above our heads.
The whole situation dripped with hokeyness. A few years before, I’d edited an article on the best places to meet a mate. The author had included convincing evidence that the number one place to meet a potential spouse was on the job. Where did the grocery store fall on the list? At a respectable number four.
I stepped closer to Grocery Store Man, my back to the corner of the elevator, and the tall doors closed. My agitation grew, and I tugged at the corner of the report in my hands. “So, did you have a nice Father’s Day?” Part of me wanted to know, another part of me wanted to hear his voice, and the last part of me wanted him to keep talking so the awkwardness engulfing the small space would dissipate.
“Actually, I did.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his dress pants. “We had a nice barbeque and a relaxing day. And Sydney’s balloon stayed inflated for hours. It’s the little things, right?” The smile I’d tortured myself with for the last two months flooded his face, as if the mere thought of his daughter brought him joy.
My shoes suddenly held my interest, so afraid was I that my tears would fill my eyes. “Yes.” Little things Theo no longer seemed capable of: Being able to pick up the children from school or having the energy to get out of bed by himself. Walking the kids to the bus stop and having confidence his neighbor isn’t really a threat.
I caught him staring at me, his body poised, as if he wanted to ask a question. Holding his gaze seemed impossible as I fixated on the pronoun he’d used. We? Does he mean the kids and himself? Or does that we include a wife?
“Umm. Which floor did you want, by the way?” He reached out to the panel of shiny buttons on the wall.
What sort of man made me forget what floor I needed? Was he trying to get rid of me? My tight lungs struggled to inflate. “Seven, please.”
He used his left hand to push the button—confirmation of no wedding band on the ring finger. I clenched my eyelids shut. What in the hell was wrong with me? Any progress I’d made over the last two months with trying to forget this man evaporated like my sense of humor on a hot, humid day. But as long as he didn’t get off on my floor, I would be fine. To calm myself, I tapped a rhythm with my foot to the awful rendition of Elton John’s “Rocket Man” filtering through the speakers.
The elevator’s abrupt stop jolted me out of my seventies time warp, and the smooth, gray doors slid open. Without looking backward, I stepped forward onto the shiny tile floor and tossed a brief wave behind me. Introducing myself was out of the question—the less I knew about this man, the better.
. . . . .
I closed the door to my small office—junior book editors didn’t command much space, if any—and hung my summer sweater on the silver coat rack standing in the corner. Rounding my desk, I bumped the corner of it with my hip, and the expletives I rarely used at home rushed
