Chapter Twenty
Twenty
Look, Vin and I are not movie stars. We’re not civilian detectives or real detectives. We’re not surgeons or even all that attractive. We’re normal people. So after we drive home early on Tuesday the fifth, Vin goes to work and I go to work.
I grocery shop and when he gets home, he’s dirty and stinky and takes a shower. I feed him burgers and fries and salad. We watch two-thirds of What About Bob? curled up on the couch together and Vin falls asleep. And then he falls asleep again, this time in our bed.
Did I mention he brought home a carton of gorgeously ripe cherries because he knows me? Because he’s in love with me. Because he knew I wouldn’t want flowers.
It’s not flashy. But this is life, baby. And it’s the happiest consecutive four days I’ve had in over a year. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and all that. And Vin, my Vin, has been very absent. Up until now, of course.
Wednesday night we transition very smoothly from sitting on the couch to having sex on the couch and I almost cry it feels so good.
Thursday, though. Thursday, Thursday, isn’t it always a fucking Thursday? The volunteer roster is a nightmare this week. So many people called in to change their shifts that all the work I did on Tuesday had to be redone.
It’s not my fault. It’s just one of those weeks.
But when I drag my ass into Kitchen B, I’m really feeling like it’s my fault.
Especially when I open the fridge there and find some kale that smells like old socks and two plastic bags filled with mushrooms too slimy to save.
I toss the food in the compost bin and this one really is my fault.
I’m pretty much the only reason they stock this fridge.
I screw around, trying to put a new spin on bean soup and end up with…bean soup.
When you’re in my line of work, there’s a ninety percent chance that whatever you set out to cook, you’re going to end up with bean soup.
Deb has to toss one of her students who came to class drunk. Cherise is fighting with a vendor over the phone.
I leave work in a foul mood. The train is crowded and loud. I’m finally headed up the street to our building when the toe of my sneaker catches the curb and I totally bite it.
I’m fine, definitely fine. But the shock from the fall punches up from the ground and through my arms. My palms throb and so do my shoulders.
I’m on all fours on the street like a total klutz and two high school kids stand about five feet away and stare at me.
My heart bangs, my stomach has started churning with the kind of adrenaline that happens when something—anything—unexpected happens, and my head just… aches.
“Oh, honey.” This is an elderly man. He carefully puts one knee on the ground and grips me by the elbow to help me stand.
Look, I just don’t have very many elderly men in my life.
Certainly not one who would get on the ground and help me stand up.
And the whole situation just sort of shreds me.
The high school kids have either grown consciences or they’ve realized the situation is not as funny as it first seemed, because here they come, grabbing my other arm.
“Is she okay?” someone asks from behind.
“Get her bag for her,” someone else calls.
All of New York has turned out to see my embarrassing trip and fall. Oh, joy.
“Thank you,” I’m saying to one person and the next. “Thank you. Thank you for your help.”
“I’m afraid we can’t save the tomatoes, honey,” the elderly man says, handing me the brown paper bag of tomatoes that I brought home from work. I was gonna make dinner with them tonight.
They’re dripping out of the bag, lopsided from being ground into the dirty street.
“That’s okay,” I say. “Thank you.”
I wave everyone away and gingerly pick my way through the entrance of our building. And then I stand at the bottom of all the stairs and just weep. There’s no other word for it.
“It’s not a big deal,” I say to myself, over and over, through tears, as I trek all the way up. “It’s not a big deal.”
I’m through the front door and dying to throw myself into Vin’s arms. God, wouldn’t it be so great to just walk straight into the safest place on earth and fall asleep?
But, of course, it’s still too early for him to be home. My apartment is still and quiet. And lonely.
I shower off, testing the bruises on my palms (no scrapes, thank goodness), and continue with my refrain. “It’s not a big deal. It’s not a big deal.”
I get straight into pajamas and when I’m just hanging up my towel, Vin finally comes through the door. I run into the main room, about to vomit my feelings all over and ask him to clean it up.
But then…his face. Lined and tired and…something else.
“What happened?” I ask, and I need the answer now. “Vin, what happened?”
“Nothing,” he says, toeing out of his boots. “Not a big deal.”
And that’s when the weeping starts up again. “Whatever. It. Was. It. Was. A. Big. Fucking. Deal. So tell me! Right now!”
I don’t mean to be shouting at him. Or even crying. And I certainly don’t mean to be swearing. But here we are. In the bright/hollow light of early dusk because neither of us has turned on the lights yet.
“Why are you yelling at me?” he says back in a low voice. This is the closest that Vin ever gets to yelling. And it rocks me a little.
“Why are you yelling at me?” I demand.
His hands go out to either side. “What the hell?”
“Vin, what happened. Just tell me what happened.”
He approaches me slowly. “It wasn’t a big deal, like I said. Everyone’s fine. I’m fine. But somebody rear-ended the work van today and—”
His voice suddenly fails and he rips his head to one side. Probably so I don’t see his face twist with severe emotion. But I see it. I feel it.
“Oh, Vin.” I close the distance between us and pause.
A fender bender is never fun. Definitely something that you replay in your head for a couple days.
But for us? After what we’ve been through?
The sound of tires screeching. The crash of any two things together.
Being shoved forcefully by a lethal metal box…
It’s definitely enough to make you cry in the kitchen the night it happens.
For a moment, there’s a pause.
The muscle memory of this year is very strong. This is the moment that he goes into his bedroom and I go into mine, right?
He reads my eyes. I read his. I’m assuming he’s seeing my heart right there, just like he did in my drawings. His expression softens.
I open my arms and he goes immediately into them.
His forehead rests on my shoulder and he takes long breaths, in his nose and out his mouth, like someone must have taught him to do.
“Baby,” I whisper into his hair, and the endearment makes a shudder of emotion wring free of him.
“It’s not a big—”
“Yes, it is,” I assert. And the funny thing is, when I’m defending Vin to Vin, I also end up defending myself to myself.
“It might not seem like a big thing on the outside. But on the inside, it absolutely is. I tripped on the sidewalk today and it ruined my day. My week. I cried the whole walk up to our apartment.”
He straightens and tugs me close. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I landed on my hands. But I got this shot of adrenaline or whatever and now my head aches.
And I’m in a bad mood. And I didn’t make dinner.
And I just feel like the world peeled me like a banana today.
But I don’t want to be a peeled banana. I want to be an unpeeled banana.
And it seems like everybody else gets to be an unpeeled banana, so, what the fuck! ”
He’s laughing. “I’m definitely a peeled banana, too. Let’s order Chinese food.”
I’m tapping my temple. “I knew there was a reason I married you.”
“Yeah. I always know when to order Chinese food. It’s my superpower.”
I order the food while he takes a shower and then, in his boxer shorts, he comes to find me lying on my side of the bed, trying to read a book, but really just watching my thoughts play out on the page.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” I whisper. He was in a (minor) car accident today. My eyes fill involuntarily. I know that emotions don’t make you weak, but it sure is hard to feel strong when you’re leaking out of your paper bag like a smashed tomato.
He crawls across the bed and lies on top of me, his head resting on my chest. It’s such a nice position. It’s so friendly and warm and husband-ish. It’s countless, the number of times he’s cuddled me just like this. Given me his perfect weight and let me hold him.
But…
The awful truth is that his chest pressed atop me like this might always make blue tile flash through my mind. My hand on his back, warm with sticky, fresh blood. Vin, I said, over and over. But he didn’t answer.
“Vin.”
“Hm?”
Vin.
“Vin.”
“Yeah?”
Vin.
“Vin!” I plant my two aching palms on his shoulders and shove him off me. “Off!”
Our nice, safe moment is ruined, scratched to ribbons. He’s scrambling back, breathing hard, eyes on my face. I can’t stop myself. I grab his pillow, strap it across my face, and attempt to scream my soul clear out of my body. I drop the pillow and inhale fiercely, sucking my soul back inside.
“Wow.” Vin’s eyes are wide. He’s reaching out for me, brave man.
I lunge forward and collapse on top of him.
“Baby, what’s going on?” He’s clasping me, scrubbing a hand up and down my back.
“Sorry! I’m just! You can’t lie on me like that anymore!
” And, yes, all the weeping from earlier takes a right turn into straight-up sobbing.
The weeping didn’t help. The sobbing does.
Every ugly quake pushes handfuls of this unfairness out of me.
My new refrain? “It’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair.”
“I know.” This is Vin’s new refrain. “I know. I know. I know.”
“I can’t believe I can’t handle it when you lie on top of me anymore. I love when you lie on top of me.”
“Deep breaths, baby. You’re triggered right now. I didn’t think—I even knew that that was a trigger for you, but I forgot. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.” And it really is. Even though the situation just so isn’t. My sobs have descended into hiccups and Vin goes to the bathroom and comes back with tissues. “Is this how you feel when you see my scar?” I ask him through gasps.
“Yeah.” He’s rubbing feeling back into my hands, brushing my hair back.
“But I can prepare myself for it, now that I know it’s a trigger.
I literally say to myself, Vin, you’re about to see Roz’s scar.
Which makes you feel all sorts of panic and anger and fear and sadness because you and she were in an accident where you thought she might die. ”
“Well,” I consider. “When you say it like that.”
He smiles a sad smile. “I literally say that to myself. I know it’s clunky. But it helps. It makes me feel less like I should be over it already.”
I scramble up onto his lap. “What if…what if we’re never over it?”
“I…I don’t know. Then I guess we’ll just have nights like this.”
“It’s not fair,” I say one last time, but the gasoline’s already been all burned up.
“It’s really not,” he agrees.
The doorbell rings, which makes both of us jump and then laugh at ourselves. “Food,” he says, lifting me off his lap and then going to give cash to the very sweet kid who climbed four flights of stairs just to feed us tonight.
We’re both tanked. Emotionally and physically. We’re already in our PJs and eating Chinese food in front of the last third of What About Bob? I literally can’t remember the last time Vin and I finished a movie together.
After we’re brushed and in bed together, meeting in the middle, noses almost touching, I whisper to him through the dark, folded shadows of our familiar bedroom. “I guess nights like this are how the porcupines do it, then. Marriage.”
He’s smiling. “They have big fights and cry a lot and hug.”
I run my hand over his stubbly cheek, which he shaved this morning before work. For me. “They have to be careful when they hug, so they don’t prick each other.”
“They do,” he agrees solemnly. “But that’s not so bad.”
“It’s not so bad,” I agree.