We Are Not Ourselves(80)

“What exactly?”

“Well, it was a surprise.”

“I don’t need any more surprises.” She looked at him for a few moments. “How did it go today?”

“Fine.”

“No problems?”

“No.”

“No students complaining?”

“No.”

She hesitated for a moment, then came out with it.

“Do you want some help with that other stack tonight?”

“Yes,” he said in an instant.



She had no energy to cook, so they ordered pizza. At the end of the meal she took a long, hot shower. Afterward, she wanted to rest for an hour before she helped Ed with the lab reports. She didn’t feel like drowsing in the musty air of the bedroom, so she availed herself of the couch. It was one of those times she wished they had a television in the living room. It had been a principled stance of theirs—of Ed’s, mostly, though she went along with it. At the beginning of their marriage, Ed didn’t hate television, precisely; he just didn’t like what it was doing to American life. It wasn’t always convenient to be without a set in their living room, but there were benefits. Actual conversations took place when people came over, unlike at Ed’s sister Fiona’s house, where the all-seeing eye made any exchange a series of distracted monologues. And when the three of them crawled into the big bed on Sundays to watch Fawlty Towers, it was an event. Recently, though, Ed had grown more severe about it, insisting she shut it off when she tried to watch Johnny Carson at night. It was part of a general trend in his thinking. He was becoming more reflexive, more reactionary. She was becoming the opposite. When they moved to the new house, she would get a big television for the den.

She went to the bedroom and wheeled the little television out to the living room. She wanted to shut her brain off. She didn’t care if the noise bothered him. He couldn’t be doing anything of consequence, and it was only a matter of time before she’d be sitting with him at the kitchen table, running through the grades.

She woke to Ed pounding on the television set.

“Keep that off,” he said. “I’m trying to work.”

She was too sleepy to take umbrage at what he was saying. She waited curiously for the next thing.

“Take it inside. Take it away.”

“I happen to live here too,” she said, her blood rising.

“Get it out of here! I can’t concentrate.”

She stood and fixed the pillows behind her. “We don’t talk to each other like that in this household. I didn’t let my father talk to me like that, and I’m not about to let you do so. You’ve been a complete jerk for I don’t know how long. I’ve had it. I can’t take another day of it. Either you stop this behavior right now, or I swear, Ed, I’m leaving. I won’t make a big production of it. I’ll just take our son and go. Do you have any idea how tired I am? How long my day was? Because I stayed up to help you. You want to do everything yourself, fine. Do it. It’s easier for me to have nothing to do with you.”

He dropped into the armchair and sat looking at her. It almost unnerved her how intent his look was. Against her will, she felt herself warming to him. There was something in his gaze that could make her embers catch fire, even when they were buried under layers of ash.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“You said that yesterday.”

“I’m under so much stress at work.”

“I am too,” she said.

“I know.”

“Since when are you under this kind of stress? I thought one of the perks of your job was how low-stress it was.”

“Lately it’s not.”

“Your head’s not in it,” she said. “I think your mind’s not right. But you won’t talk to me. You won’t let me in.”

“I’m dealing with a new generation,” he said. “I need to be perfect.”

“You’re having a midlife crisis,” she said. “I don’t mean to diminish it, but that’s what it is.”

“I just need to get through the next couple of weeks,” he said. “Then I’ll be fine. I need the summer to recuperate. I put a few things off, and now I’m dealing with them. I’ve tried to shield you from all this. I’m tired. I’m making mistakes. I haven’t been sleeping well. I just need to recharge my batteries.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

“I know the feeling,” she said as she yawned. “When do you need to return those lab reports?”

“Tomorrow is the last day of classes.”

“Go get them and we’ll check them together. Then we can both get some sleep.”

She put on water for tea. She felt as if she was moving through a thick soup. She stood by the stove, watching the kettle boil. She fixed her tea and with languid movements joined Ed at the table. She wanted to insist on a little ceremony. She was going to sip her tea, not gulp it. But she needed Ed to calm down first. His knees were jackhammering up and down in that way that sometimes overcame him.

“Let me drink this before we start.”

“Fine, fine.”

She tried to let the warm liquid have a tonic effect, but she had put too much milk in it, and it wasn’t a good cup. It was foolish to make tea in order to stay awake; all her years of drinking it before bed had turned it into a soporific.