I Liked My Life(21)

Goddamnit it … No matter how high I lift the mattress to shove the hanging sheet underneath, a section still falls lower than the comforter. And no matter how many times I circle around tugging each side, the top border isn’t parallel to the headboard. I can’t believe Maddy did this every week, on every bed in the house, without complaining. Or, at a minimum, bragging. I’m adding it to the cleaning lady’s list, which used to take four hours a week and now requires two full days. I hope she doesn’t quit, because I’d have no idea how to recruit a replacement. Every week I leave more money on the counter next to a note outlining additional requests, praying it’s still worth her time.

I’m redoing a particularly sloppy corner when Eve walks in. “Why are you grunting?”

“I’m not grunting,” I snap. “I’m making the bed for Bobby.” Her expression is blank. Now I grunt. “I’ve told you a hundred times.” Still nothing. “My friend from high school? He’s coming for the weekend.”

She ticktocks her index finger in sarcastic recollection. “Ohhhh, that’s right. I think it’s hard to remember because I didn’t know you had any friends.”

I remind myself that a normal person would laugh, then force myself to act like a normal person. It’s amazing how quickly in life your standards can change. At Christmas, a good moment was eating Maddy’s homemade tortellini, listening to Michael Bublé, and hanging out with my family. Now, a good moment is getting made fun of by my daughter and not losing my temper.

Eve turns to go so I can complete this impossible domestic task, but I stop her. “Did you see my note? The Y called to confirm your lifeguard schedule for the summer.” She nods. “I told her you were volunteering at a special-needs camp every morning, so afternoons were probably best. I left out that it’s mandatory community service.”

Eve flaps her wrist. “Whatevs. I’m not working anyway. I’ll call to let them know.”

I put the last pillow in place—it looks like the work of a monkey—and sit on the bed, trying to hide my disappointment. “Why not? You love that job.”

“I don’t feel like saving lives right now.”

I’ve noticed showing I care about an outcome tends to work against me, so I stick with questions. “What will you do all afternoon?”

Eve purses her lips, annoyed. “Mom found plenty to keep busy around here.”

“But how will you earn spending money?”

She shrugs. “You only need money if you’re going places.”

Apparently, that’s the end of the conversation, because she walks away. Of all my behaviors, it serves me right that this is the one she emulates.

Clearly Eve needs therapy, but even thinking about that conversation makes me wince. Her moodiness gives her an upper hand. I’m the lion in The Wizard of Oz, searching for my courage. Maddy once shared this whole working theory about professional men who spend the day building an empire and ego at work, then come home assuming they deserve the same status, despite the fact that it’s a different audience. I’m such a moron; I missed the obvious connection that she was referring to me. Maddy made the fa?ade succeed in our house. She was the liaison between Eve and me, negotiating my sense of entitlement down while playing up my role as provider with Eve. Without my wife’s intercession, Eve doesn’t see me as successful at work, at least not as much as she sees the failure I am at home.

I am trying. I put a moratorium on travel until Eve leaves for school, and I get home from work by seven with dinner in hand, cognizant that forgetting to secure food for my daughter over the past several months is a substantial parenting offense. But these are easy, tactical changes. My temper still wins more than it loses, and I end each day housing reprehensible thoughts, like, What if we never had Eve? Appalling, I know. But when night hits and loneliness takes over, I imagine our life as it was in our late twenties, when all Maddy and I had was work and each other. Without a child, we wouldn’t have gotten rid of the cappuccino machine we sold when Eve turned one and it consumed prime bottle-cleaning, baby-food-making real estate. And if we still had the cappuccino machine, I would’ve had coffee with Maddy every morning instead of alone at Starbucks. And if we had that extra time together, I would’ve known she was unhappy. It’s at this point in my nightly spiral that I start to gulp the bourbon I’m plowing through, drowning my despicableness until Maker’s Mark tucks me in for the night.

Perhaps my daughter isn’t the only one in need of therapy.

The doorbell rings. Hearing Eve greet Bobby brings me back to the now. My daughter won’t be impressed. I should’ve had Paige host a sleepover. Bobby is an entertainer who never found a career that sponsored his talent with a paycheck. Twenty-seven years after high-school graduation and he’s an insurance adjuster for auto claims, the same job he held when I left for college. It seems a cruel waste of a great personality, but the job does feed him good material. When I get to the kitchen, he’s already started on a story.

“She didn’t want her husband to know she’d hit the boat trailer, but she had a huge dent that needed to be fixed, so the genius decided to hit her mailbox too.”

“How do you know it was intentional?” Eve asks, I assume to be polite versus actual interest.

“When the mailbox didn’t tip on the first try, she backed up and hit it again. A neighbor called nine-one-one thinking she was having a stroke or something.”