Chapter 9
A few days later, Wardell had sent an email with the estimate for his service, which, even without the electrician’s work, took my breath away and almost caused me to lose the specialty Gabriella and Elijah had prepared that day: jalapeno-cheddar corn bread.
I swear, that girl could cook her behind off. But inflation don’t play, and I nearly choked when I saw Wardell’s numbers on my phone.
“Is it too hot?” Gabriella asked, alarmed by my reaction to the second bite.
“No, no, no. It just went down the wrong way.”
Elijah pushed my glass of water closer, and I managed to take a drink and calm everyone’s nerves.
I had only been retired and living in my new place for a month, and already I needed a job, like, yesterday.
Roderick came by, and my grandson took off again.
Gabriella slipped away to her side of the house and started playing her music just loud enough for me to catch the beat, but not so loud I could rightfully complain. If we’d had a full separation of the house, I might not have heard it at all.
I’d volunteered to wash dishes, which left me elbow-deep in suds with plenty of time alone to consider how on earth I was going to get this oven repaired.
One of the last arguments Eric and I’d had occurred after I’d filed for divorce.
The conversation started around money. This was odd because we rarely argued about money.
We both worked. I handled the daily spending wisely, he handled investments, and that was how things flowed when we were a couple.
“I hope you don’t expect me to forfeit half of my 401(k),” he had nearly spat as I was clearing out my side of the closet, preparing to donate most of my clothes.
Attempting to sidestep him, I said, “This is why we have lawyers.”
And then he entered the sanctum of my side of the walk-in closet, something he had never done before, to say, “I have always made more money than you.”
“A perk of being a man, statistically.”
He grumbled. I sighed.
Against my will, my eyes filled with tears because, truly, I wanted to stay married.
Who in their right mind wants to divorce after three decades?
No one. But the fact that a person would divorce after all this time means they put up with a lot of stuff for a very long time, and at some point, it’s just enough.
Eric had thrown his hands in the air and left the closet. “This is stupid, Joyce! Two sensible adults have no business divorcing at our age.”
I threw the pile of clothes in my arms on the floor and followed him back to the kitchen, where he poured himself a shot of brandy.
“For the record, Eric, I agree with you.”
“Then why are you doing this?”
“Because two sensible adults would sit down and talk things out, followed by consistent actions toward improvement. You are the one who is not willing to grow with the demands of our marriage.”
He threw the liquid back in one move. “You are making our marriage a demanding place. It was always easy before now.”
“Easy for you,” I bit back. “It seemed easy because I didn’t ask you to participate. It’s like… If our house was a huge party, you would have been the one bringing the ice, and I would be left to do everything else.”
“I bought everything else,” he argued.
“Money is not time, though. Or caring. Or love.”
He shrugged. “Why can’t you just enjoy today? The kids are gone, the house is…decorated, or whatever you did to make it a home. Now all we have to do is ride it out, Joyce. Why are you trying to ruin a good thing?”
“Because, Eric, it’s not fair to me. My reward for getting the kids out of the house shouldn’t be that now I only have one other person to take care of.
It should be that, despite the years we were just going through the motions, we now get to resume our relationship, get reconnected, relearn each other, and decide how we want these final decades to look…
together.” Though I had explained that to him several times before, I took the time to do it again, hoping against all odds that this time it would sink into his soul, and he would suddenly desire to make the pivot necessary.
I added, “I’m asking for a partner. But it looks to me like you want me to carry on as usual: cook, have sex, and leave you alone. ”
And then he’d stood still for a second, considering my words.
I knew my husband. The blank look on his face said, And what’s wrong with that?
Hope died. I knew that if I had stayed with him and let the resentment build up even more, it wouldn’t be long before my body broke down in response. Like my mother. Probably like her mother, too.
Grandma Jewel used to say that a woman has to have her peace.
It didn’t seem fair that walking away from a loveless marriage and a potential heart attack came with the penalty of losing financial security to the point where you can’t afford to replace an oven.
Do we really need ovens? How did our ancestors survive without them?
Just as I was pondering those questions, Gabriella stepped back into the kitchen, wringing her hands nervously. “Can I speak to you?”
I shook my hands dry. “What’s going on?”
The kitchen had seen better days—an old linoleum floor with worn spots, faded cabinets that had once been white but now bore the stains of decades of meals, and the faint smell of grease that no amount of scrubbing could fully get rid of.
“My eighth- and ninth-grade homemaking teacher, Mrs. Maine, is in the competition. She was mean. Some of our parents asked for conferences with her, and she made up lies about our classroom behavior. She almost kicked me out of her class once for accidentally breaking a mixing bowl. I didn’t know teachers could veto you because of a mistake! ”
Gabriella’s glassy eyes said there was a great deal of pain behind her long-held grudge with Mrs. Maine.
“She humiliated me in front of the whole class. She named me ‘the kitchen klutz.’ I didn’t even know what the word klutz meant until I took her class.
People teased me about it for years. I almost lost my dignity and my confidence after two years in her class.
So…ummm…yeah. I really, really need to practice my recipes before the competition because even if I don’t win, I must score higher than her. She is my personal Mount Everest.”
Dang.
It broke my heart to hear Gabriella’s story, being a retired teacher. “I’m so sorry you had a bad experience with her. Teachers are people, too.”
Gabriella shook her head. “True that. But some teachers shouldn’t be around children.
She hated us. One time, there was a new girl in class who went off completely on Mrs. Maine.
And we started cheering. Then Mrs. Maine told us that we were all ingrates—another new vocabulary word—and the only reason she kept teaching was because her husband’s medication was too expensive to afford without insurance benefits. ”
I tried compassion. “Sounds like she was going through a lot. Naturally, it impacted her attitude.”
“Not my problem. If you’re in a bad situation, you should strategize. Find a way to get out of it. Don’t take out your frustrations on poor, innocent children, right?”
She had a point.
“How soon is the oven getting replaced?”
“When is the competition?”
“Next weekend. But I’ve already lost practice time since the broiler coil blew out, you know?”
Of course I knew. “I wish I could say it will be ready in time, but I can’t. I just got the information from Wardell. How well do you know him, by the way?”
She tipped her head casually. “Not well.”
“Good. Anyway, he sent the estimate for removal of the stove, getting a new stove, and reinstallation. But I have to get everything rewired by a certified electrician before he can put a new one in. None of it is cheap.”
Gabriella squinted. “You probably needed him to diagnose the situation, but maybe you don’t need him to remove an electric oven.
” She walked over to the oven. “All we gotta do is cut the power from the breaker, unscrew it, pull it out, and undo the plug. That’ll save a hundred bucks, and probably a day in the process. ”
She’d animated her speech with simplistic hand gestures, but I couldn’t imagine doing it ourselves. “Sounds like a job for a professional.”
“I’ve done this more than once. In one of my culinary classes. We learned everything about the kitchen.”
I shook my head. “I don’t mess around with home repair. Kitchens, toilets, garage doors—none of it.”
“Of course you don’t. You’ve been married almost all your life. And you didn’t have YouTube growing up.”
In one smooth move, she grabbed her phone and opened up YouTube.
She input the make and model of my stove, and voilà, up popped three different videos showing how to uninstall.
By the time we’d finished watching the third one, she and the DIY fanatics had me nearly convinced that we could save ourselves some time and money.
With an enthusiastic chirp, she asked, “You want to give it a try?”
“Now?”
“Yes, now. The contest, remember?”
Goodness. The last thing I needed was to get electrocuted or break my arm trying to catch an oven sliding out from the wall too fast. Not to mention the trauma that Elijah would experience when he came home and found me and Gabriella knocked out on the kitchen floor.
“Let’s at least get help,” I said. “Someone must live to tell the story.”
“Fine.” She tapped her phone. “I’ll call my boyfriend. He’s got tools and should be on break right now.”
My anxiety shot to ten as we waited for him to come, watching even more videos to be sure we both understood what was waiting on the other side of that oven door. I owned a set of tools as well, thanks to my father, but I wouldn’t pretend I knew how to operate them.