Lost Along the Way(39)
“You should care about how you look. I don’t understand it. Why don’t you go for a run or something? You used to work out all the time.”
“I weigh the exact same as I did the day we got married. I don’t feel the need to run five miles before the sun comes up. Just add it to the list of things on which we don’t agree.”
Still, Reed was right. Cara used to exercise all the time. She was the captain of the tennis team, the basketball team, and the soccer team in high school. She used to love to spend her weekends skiing, kayaking, hiking, or spinning—the tougher the workout, the better. But then Reed started grilling her about the women she played tennis with, constantly asking her questions about their conversations, specifically what she told them about her marriage. Somewhere along the way, Reed had become completely paranoid that Cara was airing their personal problems to anyone who would listen, and forced her to stop playing with her foursome every week. After that, he began to question her relationship with her spin instructor, and the clothes she wore to the gym, and the amount of time she was gone. Eventually, he’d somehow managed to take something she’d always enjoyed and ruin it. She was tired of dealing with the reprimands that came every time she left the house to go to an early exercise class. She was tired of answering detailed questions about every conversation she had with every woman she encountered. She was tired in general.
And now he had the nerve to wonder why she didn’t work out anymore?
I can’t win, Cara said to herself. No matter what I do, I’ll never win with him.
“That’s how you’re going to talk to me?” He grabbed her duvet and ripped it off the bed, exposing her to the cool fall air that leaked through the poorly insulated windows.
“It’s freezing in here. Stop it!” she yelled, already feeling assaulted despite having been awake for a total of two minutes. Another start to another beautiful day as Mrs. Reed Chase, she thought. “Can we please get someone in here to redo the windows? I shouldn’t have to wear mittens in my own home. We’re both going to get pneumonia.”
“You know, the kitchen is the warmest room in the house. Why don’t you try using it sometime? The stove gives off heat.”
“The last time I cooked for you, you told me you hated it. You told me I overcooked everything and that I should take cooking classes in town. Do you remember that? So which is it, Reed? Do you want me to cook for you or not? I can’t keep up with your constant demands anymore. They change daily.”
“I’ve given you everything you could want, Cara. You should just say thank you for the roof over your head and the clothes you buy with my credit card and maybe for once try to do something that you think might make me happy. Why is my happiness never a concern of yours?”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she sat up and shoved her feet into the pair of slippers she kept at the foot of the bed in case she needed to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. “I’m trying my best to make you happy. You don’t make it easy.” Cara realized that fighting with him was a waste of her time. She would never win. It would be easier to just do what he wanted and hope that he’d leave her alone. Over time, he’d slowly sucked the fight out of her, and now there was very little left.
“Start by getting up. That will make me happy.” He left the room and went down the hall to the master bath. These were the moments, after his tirades, when she sat and tried to think of all the things she’d like to point out to him if she only had the nerve. He had no problem telling her when she had a blemish on her cheek, or when her gray hairs were showing, or that cellulite was now visible on the backs of her thighs. She never pointed out that he needed to start trimming the hair that was beginning to sprout from his ears, which would soon be long enough to braid. She didn’t point out that she could see the skin on his scalp when his hair was wet from the shower. She didn’t dare mention that despite the push-ups and the chest presses and the bench presses, his pecs were beginning to sag and soon he’d be able to fill out one of her bras. She never said any of these things. She was too much of a wimp to handle the consequences.
She exhaled when she heard the door close and the water start to run. She already felt attached to the baby she thought she was carrying, and at the same time resented it, because without meaning to, it was binding her to him forever. She wished she could be one of those women who had no problem admitting her marriage was a disaster. She wished she weren’t so stubborn. She wished she weren’t such a perfectionist.
She wished she weren’t pregnant.
After the test confirmed her suspicions she lay on her bed for hours feeling alone and helpless. There was no one for her to call. She knew she couldn’t confide in her mother—how could she admit that she was going to deny her only chance at being a grandmother? She couldn’t call Meg, knowing how insensitive it would be to involve her in a decision that was inherently at odds with where she was in her own life. The feeling of isolation was the main reason why she finally worked up the nerve to call her doctor and schedule an appointment: she didn’t want to be responsible for bringing a child into a home with a man who was incapable of feeling love for anyone but himself. In her heart, she knew that if she did have the baby, he’d somehow manage to use it against her. That was no way for a life to begin.
It had haunted her ever since, but she still didn’t think that it was any of Meg’s business, or anyone else’s for that matter. Some things you just had to go through alone.