Life and Other Inconveniences(15)

I had no choice but to stay alive. All those years, I worked. I ate. I dressed. I spoke. I waited for old age or accident to take me.

Now, however, knowing what I know, my perspective has shifted. I want to leave while life is still tolerable. Yes, of course I’m talking about suicide. Don’t be naive.

The only problem is, I can’t quite bring myself to do it alone.





CHAPTER 5


    Miller


Miller Finlay hated being a single father.

He hated being a father, period. He was fairly sure he hated his daughter 95 percent of the time. She was three, but it wasn’t her age. He’d pretty much hated her since the moment of her birth. Six minutes before, to be precise.

Tess was not adorably naughty or energetic or challenging. She was horrible. Malevolent. Not the usual word used to describe a toddler, but Miller could think of nothing else to describe her screaming in the supermarket, a grating edge in her voice as she announced she was hungry (because she’d thrown her breakfast plate to the floor and demanded sugar in place of the eggs). Or when she screamed, “Daddy, no hurt me!” when he insisted she stay buckled in the cart. “Daddy, please, I hungry!”

The other parents would side-eye him and give him a wide berth. Sometimes they’d offer to buy her a muffin, not noticing she’d shredded and discarded the muffin Miller had already given her. Still, she’d take the stranger up on their offer, making him look like a monster who didn’t feed his child. Once, after Tess had announced to a shoe store that he gave her boo-boos, someone had called the police, and he’d had to explain to his former classmate, now chief of Stoningham police, that Tess’s black eye was from her banging herself while jumping on his iron-framed bed after she had locked him out of the room.

She was exhausting and never ran out of energy. She was always angry, always crying, often lying on the floor kicking her legs and contorting her body. When she cried and he tried to hug and comfort her, she only screamed louder and arched her back as if in pain until she literally broke free of his arms.

He wanted to love her and just . . . didn’t.

The pediatrician said she was normal and had above-average intelligence. A therapist had said the same thing, mentioning that when she could truly verbalize her feelings, things would improve.

Which did nothing for the here and now.

Every night he lay awake, sweating as he tried to “sleep train” Tess, steeling himself to her screams of rage, the hours upon hours during which she never seemed to “cry herself out” as Dr. Spock had promised. Instead, she shook the bars of her crib—which had one of those protective tents secured over it. Or, he’d lay awake waiting for those things to start happening, because Tess had never slept more than three consecutive hours in her short life. Every night since her birth had been punctuated by her screams. Colic. Teething. Rage. He didn’t blame her. He’d scream, too, in her place.

When she finally did fall asleep in a sweaty heap, Miller would listen to the quiet. Even though he knew he should fall asleep instantly, though he really needed to be asleep, Miller would remember life before Tess. The day the damn two lines had finally appeared, and Ashley sobbed with joy, and they hugged and cried and laughed. After thirteen years of marriage and seven of actively trying, after four years of being screened for adoption and filling out paperwork, and one heartbreaking “almost” adoption, they would finally, finally have a baby.

He remembered the day of the ultrasound, and when the tech told them it was a girl, he realized how much he’d hoped it would be a girl (though he probably would’ve felt the same way if it had been a boy). He put his face against Ashley’s beautiful, taut belly and thanked God for being so generous. He was not a praying man, but he had thought those words. Thank you, God, for my daughter.

He remembered going into the hospital when, four days after her due date, Ashley went into labor. He’d been proud, concerned, excited—his beautiful wife, so ripe, so brave. Oh, the fucking hubris, such excitement, such complete and utter stupidity. In a day and a half, his life would be over, his wife would be dead, and he’d be the father of a screaming, rage-filled baby.

That was three years ago. Three years, one month, one week and four days.

He glanced at the clock. Four fifty-one a.m. Maybe he could get a little sleep. Closing his eyes, he felt his thoughts skip and slide, and for a moment, he was sleeping, floating, resting.

The wail came, ripping the quiet of the gray morning.

It might be time to call an exorcist, if the only problem were as simple as demonic possession.

The night, such as it was, was over, not that he’d slept for more than ten consecutive minutes.

With a sigh, his eyes gritty from lack of sleep, his legs heavy, neck stiff, he got out of bed, pulled on a T-shirt and entered the chamber of doom. Tess stood there, blondish hair snarled, her lower lip out in a pout and her face wet with tears and crusted with snot. He unfastened the safety net (a straitjacket was probably the next option) and lifted her out, bracing for another day of fatherhood.

“Good morning, sunshine,” he said.

“No!”

At least she hadn’t taken off her diaper and smeared shit on the wall, as she had yesterday. Last night, he’d dressed her in pajamas that zipped up the back, and so far, Tess hadn’t figured it out. But she would. He knew his daughter, and she would.