Blind Acorn Page 14

  “The point is,” she continued, as if she hadn’t heard, “people who are packed together like that aren’t at their best. Even families, they struggle as individuals. It’s easy to forget that you’re part of something when all of life is such a fight. When it feels like it’s you against the world. You have to scratch and scrape for everything. Everything.” She paused again but only for a moment. “Brothers forget that brotherhood is bigger than other things. And that’s what happened that day. Three brothers were sharing an old wreck of a car. The thing hardly ever ran; it was noticeable when it actually did take to the streets. But it was theirs and maybe they liked the sense of freedom, independence they got from owning a car. This day, though, there was some dispute over who left it with an empty gas tank. All three brothers were in the parking lot, circling the car as if it was an enemy, and maybe it was. They were yelling and accusing each other. They began to circle faster and yell louder.

  “Then one of them left the lot and ran toward the building. He was back in no time at all and he had a baseball bat. He ran right up to one of the others and he swung that bat as hard as he could, hitting him in the side of the head with a sickening thud. It was loud enough to hear throughout the neighborhood. The one who was hit fell to the ground. His body hit the pavement, offering not a bit of resistance. Ever smack a dead fish onto a counter? No?” as I again shook my head.

  “Well, it makes a sound like nothing else, that body with no resistance, no attempt to break the fall. That’s what I remember most vividly, the sound he made when he fell. Because you knew, you knew, in that instant that that man was dead. If you saw it happen, you knew. You just knew. One second, he was alive and yelling and the next he was dead. In a split second, one man had taken life from another. Gone. No way to get it back. No way to start over, try again. Gone. Gone forever.” She focused her attention now on me. “You,” she said slowly, “you have done the exact opposite. You have given my life back to me. You have given me and Jazz something that I don’t know how I could have gotten for myself. You have given us hope. No. More than hope. Because I no longer hope for a better future for her. You have given us enough for me to make her a promise of a better future. I can never repay you,” she finished with eyes brimming.

  “I — It isn’t really so much,” I choked out. This was supposed to be fun, exciting, wasn’t it? How did it get so big? I wondered. “You’re actually doing me a favor; I don’t want any repayment. I can’t be here anymore to see that it’s taken care of and I’m sure the owner would prefer that it not be empty all the time.”

  Rona shook her head adamantly. “You don’t understand,” she said. “This,” again waving her arm to take it all in, “this is a game changer. I promise you, I will use this to boost myself and Jazz up that ladder and we will not be coming back down!” She sobbed loudly as we both stood, and she came to embrace me in the middle of the room. I could feel her back and shoulders already pulling herself together and the sob turned into a laugh. “Where on earth,” she asked with a twinkle in her eye, “did you ever find that lamp?” It was impossible not to laugh along with her.

  “Two more things before I go,” I said. “First, here’s the key. I’ve taken everything I needed out already. Whatever is left here is yours to do with as you wish. Yes, even the lamp.” I walked toward a closet and opened the door. “And this,” I said as I dragged a large laundry basket across the floor, “is a housewarming gift. I wanted to prove to you that I do listen.” I had filled the basket with soap, shampoo, cleaning products, toothbrushes, and paper products. And a couple of bus passes. Microwave popcorn. Tea bags. Lotion and sunscreen. The basics.

  Rona brought her hand to her mouth and nodded repeatedly. “I don’t know what to say anymore,” was all she could manage.

  Picking up my purse, I started toward the door and replied, “Just let me get back to work and say goodbye for now. I’ll see you on Monday.” I held the door for her again and we left. It was a pleasant surprise to feel no nostalgia, to realize that I wouldn’t miss the place at all. I guess I hadn’t bonded with it. Maybe I hadn’t needed it after all. We drove away, me feeling at peace with the whole thing and happy not to be keeping that secret any longer. And Rona thinking —well, I don’t know what Rona was thinking. I usually didn’t, but I was trying.

  Forty-Five

  “Can we talk?” I asked Mitch as he returned from the gym on Saturday morning. I tried to sound calm and serious.

  He studied my face for a moment and said, “Okay. Sure. But I need to take a shower first. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  I nodded, not trusting my voice to stay as cool as I wanted it to be. In truth, I hoped that I would think of something magic to say before he returned. Of course, I didn’t.

  Fifteen minutes later, he came back and sat in a chair across the room. “Okay,” he said, “What’s on your mind?”

  Get it together, Trinity, I thought. This is your big moment. I looked at him, barefoot with his still damp hair and weekend tee shirt. He was watching me expectantly. I opened my mouth, and nothing came out. I tried again, still with no words. I shook my head and finally managed, “I don’t know where to begin.”

  “Okay,” he said agreeably. “But you called this meeting.” And then he sat back and waited. I could see that I’d get no help from him. But I hadn’t expected any. I’d made the situation what it was, couldn’t expect him to know how to handle it now.

  I exhaled loudly and finally said, “I’ll begin at the end, I guess. I don’t know what has gone wrong between us, but I know that I’ve made it worse than it had to be. And I want to fix it. I’ve given it a lot of thought, I really have. Even though I can’t seem to tell you about it. I miss you, I miss us, Mitch.” I willed away the tears that were already forming behind my eyes. “Can we try to figure this out together?”

  He said nothing for what seemed like a very long time. Maybe it was a long time. And then he cracked that lopsided smile, the little one barely noticeable if you don’t also see the light in his eyes. I loved that smile! “I was beginning to think,” he said softly, “that maybe you weren’t ever coming back.”

  It hurt to swallow, and I still held on to those tears. “I was always ‘coming back,’ Mitch. It’s just been hard to deal with some negative feelings that I’ve had, and I wasn’t sure how much you cared anymore.”

  “What ‘negative feelings’ are we talking about?” his defenses were up, I could tell. But he was also trying to stay calm, rational.

  There we were —just two adults being reasonable. Until I said, “Well, for one thing, I thought you didn’t have my back anymore. I felt like you didn’t care what happened.” I saw his face gather more color than seemed healthy.

  “I didn’t care? You thought I didn’t care anymore? What the hell gave you that particular impression?” It seemed that he had some pent-up emotion, as well. I supposed I should have expected that, but I hadn’t.

  I told him about that long-ago rock-climbing dream. He laughed out loud.

  “Let me get this straight,” he said. “We’ve spent the all this time, a year or more, miserable because of a dream you had? A dream convinced you that we had a problem? Is that right? Because you’ve gotten carried away before but this, this is a new record. Even for you!”

  “No! No. It wasn’t like that,” I hurried to explain (but what if he’s right?). “I admit that it made me wonder a little. Like, about exactly where we were, you know? And then I began to examine everything between us in that light. I know,” I held up my hand to stop him interrupting me, “I know it wasn’t fair to do that. But once I started, well, I couldn’t stop easily. Everything seemed to feed into it. Every time you didn’t back me up with the kids or forgot something you’d promised to do, I thought you didn’t care. Sometimes I even thought you were outright antagonistic. And I should have talked to you. I know I should have talked to you. Maybe I was waiting for a sign. Maybe I t
hought there’d be some other dream that told me I was wrong. But no sign ever came, and I started to get scared. I started to think we could never go back to being us, that we were doomed to being separate forever. Are we? Are we doomed?”

  He didn’t answer right away. At last he said, “Wow! Now I’m speechless. I don’t know how to respond to that. But, before I do, is there more?”

  It’s time, I told myself. You know you have to do it and do it now. I took a deep breath and said, “Well, there is something else I need to tell you. We can go back to the other stuff later, but I have to tell you what I did. I know you’ll be angry but please, please try to hear me out before you react, okay?”

  He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Oh, this sounds like it’ll be good.”

  And I did it. I told him about the apartment. I told him about sharing it with Gina and how it happened almost accidentally. And how it seemed like a good idea at the time, but that I knew it was the wrong thing to do. And then I waited for him to process it all.

  Finally, he said, “So you thought it would help if you had your own space, away from your family, and the best way to do that was to rent an apartment on Salisbury Street and not tell anyone about it. Is that right?”

  “I know it sounds—” I began. And then I stopped. “Wait a minute. I never told you where it was. How did you know it was on Salisbury Street? You knew about this? How long have you known?” I could barely contain myself. I’d struggled with how to tell him for so long - and for nothing?

  He threw his hands in the air, “Do you think I’m an idiot? Of course I knew! How could I not know? You’re not exactly a master spy, you know. You weren’t really cut out for a double life.” He shook his head. “I’ve been waiting for you to tell me.”

  I started to say, “Well, I wish you had said some—” His look, though, froze the words and the rest never came out of my mouth. He’s right, I thought. This is not on him. “You’re right,” I conceded. “I should have told you a long time ago. I’m a little surprised that Lucy didn’t tell you.”

  “Lucy knew about this?”

  “Not at first. But she figured it out and paid me a visit recently when I was there. I was pretty sure she’d tell you.”

  “Well, she didn’t. Maybe you underestimate all of us.”

  “I guess I deserved that.”

  “I guess you did.”

  We sat quietly, glancing at each other occasionally. Finally, Mitch asked, “Did you find it?” His voice sounded rough and I got a glimpse of the uncertainty that must have been dogging him for all the time he’d known about the apartment.

  “I am so, so sorry that I did it. In the end, there was never anything there for me to find. All I managed to do was amp up my own anxiety. There was no solution there. The solution, I came to realize, is in here,” pointing to my own chest. “At least, the solution to me is in here. I’m working on that, but right now I’m more interested in the solution to us, Mitch.”

  He swallowed and nodded, saying nothing. My eyes were pleading with him, but his eyes could barely meet mine. “Is it finished, then?” he asked.

  “Oh! Right! Of course, you wouldn’t know,” I’d been so flustered that I hadn’t told him about Rona. “Yes, it’s finished.” And I explained what I’d done.

  He squinted a little at me and said, “You know, you could have sublet and recovered some of your money.”

  I didn’t want to accuse him of not listening, not just yet anyway. It had been the right thing for me to do and I was completely sure of that. “Maybe,” I offered. “But this felt better than that would have.”

  “Sounds like you,” he smiled.

  Quiet again, we both sat back in our chairs. “If you knew,” I wondered aloud, “what is it you thought I was doing?” I was curious and trying to put to rest that nagging thought that he actually didn’t care enough to even wonder.

  He gave a mirthless little laugh. “Oh, you know,” he said. “I suspected the usual reasons someone would get an apartment without telling her husband. But after watching you come and go for a while, I realized that there was no one else involved. I didn’t even know that Gina was part of it. I didn’t ever see the two of you there together. So, I waited for you to tell me about it. It took a long time.”

  “I really am sorry, Mitch. I suppose it seemed to be the right place for me to be since I felt so alone. Once I got there, I wasn’t sure what to do without you. I felt just as alone there as anywhere else. I know I made the problem worse, not better.”

  “What I don’t understand,” he said, “is ‘the problem.’ What was ‘the problem’ anyway?”

  I shook my head. “Not even so sure anymore, if I ever was. As I said, I thought you didn’t have my back, I thought you didn’t care anymore.” I couldn’t yet bring myself to tell him that I strongly suspected he was having an affair. The last time I’d tried to suggest that I’d only gotten an ambiguous response.

  “And, other than that —dare I say ridiculous —dream, what made you think that?”

  I sighed. “Too many little things. Things that, considered alone, likely wouldn’t have mattered. But together, they made me feel that way.”

  He persisted. “Things like—”

  “Your Christmas party, for one. You went alone. I was floored the night you did that as if it was the most normal thing in the world. I thought that was our thing, you know?”

  “But,” he spluttered, “but you hate that party. You complained every single time we got the invitation.”

  “I know,” I agreed. “I know, but it was something that we got through together. We’d wander our separate ways and once in a while I’d catch your eye and we’d smile at each other with the promise of stories to be told later. We’d make those silly bets about how long it would take for Carl to be escorted out. On the way home, we’d share our relief that it was over for another year. It was one of many things we shared.”

  “Well, you got me there. When you complained about it, I thought you wanted me to do something to fix it. That’s all I was trying to do. I just wanted to protect you from something you didn’t enjoy.”

  “I don’t expect you to fix everything, Mitch.”

  “Could have fooled me!”

  “It’s true! Sometimes I just want you to hear me, be supportive, let me vent.”

  “What’s more supportive than fixing the problem?”

  “Standing by me while I figure out how to solve it myself! And, the Christmas party was never a problem to be solved!” How could he not get this?

  He held his hands up and said, “Okay! I give up. I’m sorry I tried to fix the problem. I get it. I’m usually better than that. I do think I know what you need and that isn’t it.”

  Now I was curious. “What is it,” I asked softly, “That you think I need?”

  “What you’ve always needed —the space to deal on your own. I’ve always known that and usually tried to respect it. But you don’t always make it easy and my patience has been waning for some time now.”

  I didn’t respond right away, considering what he’d said. He might be right. I knew that I held people at arm’s length, preferring control to cooperation. But did I bring that to my marriage, as well? I thought, how could I not bring it? After all of these years, I’d had a glimpse of myself through Mitch’s eyes. And it wasn’t a flattering picture. Yet he had stayed.

  It was true that I was a master at keeping secrets —both my own and everyone else’s. I seemed to be someone whom people wanted to confide in. And I could keep their secrets. But what about me? With whom did I share my secrets, my hopes and fears? I realized that I didn’t, never had. Had Mitch known all along? Was he waiting for me to let him in? Did he know that I truly never had?

  “And, I wondered,” I blurted out before I could stop myself, “I mean, I thought you might be having an affair. But I guess you kne
w that, although you left it hanging between us when I brought it up.”

  He laughed. It sounded mostly like an amused laugh. But there was a little edge of something to it. I waited. He stretched his legs out and put his hands behind his head, looking at me the whole time. “I’ll admit that I thought about it,” he finally said. “I do occasionally have an opportunity, you know. Blind acorn.” He grinned. “But, no, I haven’t had an affair.”

  He was still watching me, and I tried to smile when I said, “Well, I’m glad to hear that. It would make it much more complicated, wouldn’t it?” But he had thought about it!

  “I suppose so,” he agreed.

  I was feeling giddy with relief and hope. Only now did I begin to really understand how crazy I had been making myself over this. So many thoughts were flying through my head, I didn’t know what to do next. Mitch was quiet and I briefly wondered if the same was happening to him.

  “Look,” he finally said, “let’s just take a few days and each catch our breath. Then maybe we could go away next weekend and talk then. All you want. I’ll be captive.” He grinned. “We could drive up to New Hampshire and stay at the Fieldstone Inn. I’ll call for a reservation. Can you take Friday afternoon off, so we can get there before dinner?”

  Gratitude and relief loosened the tears that had been threatening and I couldn’t speak. I nodded and tried to turn so he wouldn’t see. He got up and walked through the room, patting my hand as he passed. “It’ll be fine, Trin.” And he was gone.

  Forty-Six

  I had had a good week. A grant application that I had been working on for months was finally complete and had been submitted. I was hopeful that we’d get the money we needed for some supplemental programs. And I was looking forward to going away with Mitch without that application buzzing around in the back of my mind like a mosquito.

  It had been a pleasant week at home, as well. While we hadn’t talked further about anything significant, Mitch and I were on the same page with the kids and the tension had retreated from the house. We smiled more and moved about in sync with each other. I was looking forward to the weekend with warm anticipation.