Rise: How a House Built a Family(25)
In reality they made two separate pours a week apart. The foundation pour didn’t have to be smoothed much, just enough to prop concrete blocks on top. But the shop pour would actually end up being the permanent floor, so we rented long-handled floaters and did our best to make it perfect. Despite being a lifelong perfectionist, my definition of the word had relaxed dramatically over the past few months. “Good enough,” I declared when my biceps were burning and my feet were heavy enough with dried concrete to sink me in the neighbor’s pond for good.
Our nine-month construction loan was well under way, but our house was not. I pretended we could make up the time during easier phases of the build. But a little voice told me there was no such thing, and it grew more and more difficult to hear my own determination over the voice of reality.
–8–
Fall
Black, White, and Gray
An alarm woke me and I tapped buttons across the clock, searching for that sweet snooze spot. No matter what combination I hit, the noise continued. I sat up, heart thumping when I realized it was my phone. There hadn’t been a middle-of-the-night call in years.
I said something that resembled “Hello,” dimly noting that it came out a lot more like “Um-mah-oh.”
“Cara? You okay, honey?”
And then I was as fully awake as if the voice were inches from my face, one hand holding a knife and the other sketching an idea for a laser scanner to revolutionize the postal system. My next phrase sounded exactly like “Shit.” I sat up and turned on my reading lamp, expecting to see him on his side of the bed with a wild gleam in his brown eyes. He wasn’t there, of course, because he was on the other end of the phone. His papers and books were on the floor, but his side of the bed was empty and cold. He had been in his office when I went to sleep. We’d joked about the weather and he had laughed like a perfectly normal man. It worked that way too often, the normal days stretching into months until I doubted that anything was wrong at all, until I believed him when he said that it was me, that I just overreacted when he worked too hard. I clutched the phone tight enough for the plastic to groan. The light left me feeling exposed—spotlighted—so I switched it back off. “Adam? Where are you?”
“It’s so good to hear your voice. God, I’ve missed you,” he said, sounding like the old Adam, the good one, the one before all the insanity. “How are the kids?”
“They’re fine. Really good.” And I realized it wasn’t really true. I had never been a skilled actress, and hiding Adam’s vacationing mind was growing more difficult. But he had seen them earlier that night over supper and even managed part of a conversation. Why was he acting like he hadn’t seen them in years? My heart beat so fast I imagined it sounded more like a purring kitten than a human organ. The back of my head started to throb, and I could feel an artery pulsing in the side of my neck as though it were trained to gallop along quickly in preparation for Adam’s next rant.
“I’m so glad. They’re good kids. Smart.”
I rolled/fell out of the bed and made it to the door and then out into the den, doubled over like I’d been gut-punched. “Where are you, Adam? Are you in the house?” I pushed open his office door, forbidden territory. He wasn’t there, and his desk had been swept clean. The monitor and desktop computer were gone, keyboard and mouse cords trailing like long fingers pointing out the door. My head pounded. I could hear Adam breathing fast and nervous on the phone, but he wasn’t saying anything.
Tiptoeing even though my heart felt louder than my footsteps could possibly be, I checked the rest of the house. Hope and Drew were sleeping the comatose sleep of preteens. Jada’s floor was scattered with dolls, so I couldn’t get close enough to check her bed without risking a broken limb or puncture wound. She rocked sideways and mumbled something when I flipped her light on and off. Even at three and a half she was prone to nightmares so terrifying that I didn’t like her to tell me about them. I convinced myself that the reason her waking hours were so carefree and happy was because these nighttime demons chased her worries and fears away. The alternative looked too much like hiding, or avoiding—too much like me.
“Tell me what’s going on, Adam. Talk to me.”
“They got too close. They’re putting things on my computer now. Messages. Words. Numbers. I can’t let them get everything. Not all of it. If they just take my thoughts, steal them right out of my head, then I can’t make the deal. I need the money for you and the kids. I’m going to take care of you. I can do that. I can take care of you.”
Facing as many doors and windows as possible in the den, I curled into the corner of the sofa, phone pressed bruise-hard to my ear. I could hang up. I could just hang up. He was so far past understanding that nothing I said would matter anyhow. But I had spent too many years doing what I imagined to be the right things. The safe things. The things that would be right enough to level his mood. Don’t set him off, please don’t do anything to set him off had been my internal chant long enough to become a personal motto. I didn’t know another way to think. Placating and pleasing Adam was a mind-set I didn’t know how to escape even though we had been talking about separating, giving his mind a break from the chaos of the kids.
“… is what she said. So, we’ll do that tomorrow?” he asked.