When the Lights Go Out(30)

“It’s getting late,” I say, excusing myself, saying my goodbyes, and leaving.

I make my way around the periphery of the house, cutting across the patio and onto the lawn. There I pause midstride, hands on hips, and look skyward to see that the stars are lost somewhere behind the clouds. That there isn’t a star in sight. The moon is there, but only a sliver of it. A crescent moon that doesn’t do anything to light up the night. The fall air is cool; goose bumps appear on my arms. I rub at them, hoping the friction will make them go away. For now it does, though I’m dreading another night in the freezing cold carriage home.

The home is enveloped in blackness as I arrive. I have to fight to get the key into its hole. Twice I drop it, scrabbling around on the stoop to hunt it down.

The sound of a siren in the distance startles me. As I glance backward, over my shoulder to see the red and blue emergency lights whirling through the sky, I find Ms. Geissler standing in the back doorway of her home. She’s illuminated by kitchen lights, easier to see than me, who stands in total darkness.

And yet her eyes are unmistakably on mine as if she’s been watching me the entire time.

I find the keyhole and open the door. I hurry inside.

As I climb the lopsided steps, I feel the weight of fatigue bearing down on me. Fatigue from physical exertion and fatigue from lack of sleep. I lie down on the mattress, staring at my shaky hands before my eyes. There’s an anemic quality to them. Blanched and mealy, the skin at their edges disappearing somehow, evanescing, like a loose thread being tugged from the hem of a shirt, the whole thing unraveling, coming apart at the seams. That’s me. Coming apart at the seams. Little by little, I’m disappearing.

I look again at my hands, and this time they are fine. Intact.

But still shaking.

I close my eyes and even though sleep is there within reach and I stretch my hand out to grab it, it’s unattainable. Elusive and shifty. It moves away, mocking me. Laughing in my face.

For as tired as I am, I still cannot sleep.





eden

December 21, 1996 Egg Harbor

For months now, Aaron and I have become slaves to the red circles on my pocket-size calendar, our intimacies slated out in advance. During my most fertile days we make love two, sometimes three times a day, though there’s something inorganic about it now, something mechanical and forced. Our entire world, it seems, has become about making a baby, and I struggle to remember what our lives were like before we made the decision to start a family.

Two nights ago I stayed up until he was home from work, in bed, reading my book. Twice I rose from bed to look outside, searching through the bare trees for signs of headlights in the distance—a shock of blinding yellow against the blackness of night—rambling down the long, winding drive. But there were none. The night was pitch-black, no moon anywhere, not a star to be seen. It seemed to take forever for him to be home.

The bedroom lamp was dimmed, a candle burning on the dresser for ambience, though when he finally did arrive, Aaron took one look at that candle and blew it out, thinking I’d gotten tired and plumb forgot about the burning candle. The small room filled with the noxious smell of smoke as he pulled his chef getup from his body, dropping it to the floor. He climbed into bed beside me, saying how he was so tired, how his feet hurt. His words were slurred with simple lethargy and fatigue. He didn’t bother to turn off the light. I smelled the chophouse on him, the garlic, the Worcestershire sauce, the flesh of chops and steaks.

And yet there it was, another red-circled date on the calendar.

Beneath the blankets I wore a satin robe and beneath the robe nothing, though in it I didn’t feel nearly as sexy as I’d thought I would, as I’d hoped I would, a feeling that was only exacerbated when I untied the ribbon from around my waist, revealing myself to him, and in Aaron’s eyes spied a moment of hesitation, an excuse ready to form on his lips.

“Remember?” I asked, childlike hope in my eyes. “I’m ovulating,” I reminded him, and before he could speak, before he could tell me why it wasn’t a good night, I lowered myself beneath the sheets and easily changed his mind.

I don’t think he minded that I did. In fact, I think he was quite pleased.

When we were through, Aaron pulled away and moved to his side of the bed, leaving me and my elevated hips alone in the hopes that this time, gravity might work its magic.

For three days in a row now it’s gone like this, though tonight Aaron did object and it was much harder to make him acquiesce, and even when he did there was little satisfaction in it, little pleasure, but rather the knowledge that he was doing this for me. Because I wanted him to. Because I was making him do it. There was resentment in it, disgruntlement in his every move. When we were done I offered a pitiful thank you, which felt entirely wrong, as we each drifted to our own side of the bed, an ocean of space spread between us.

It’s become apparent that these days we do it because we have to, not because either of us wants to have sex. We skip any sort of foreplay and get straight to the grunt work, finding sex as pleasurable as brushing teeth or washing dishes. Our movements have become as repetitive and predictable as cleaning laundry.

Just like any other of our daily chores, we’ve begun to grudgingly make love for three days out of the month, finding the other twenty-seven to be a blissful reprieve.


January 9, 1997

Egg Harbor