Always the Last to Know(14)

He always, always took her side. “She’s not Juliet. She’s her own person, Barb.”

“I know that! But she needs more boundaries and focus, John! I spend all day with her, and you breeze in for two hours of fun after all the hard things are done.”

“What’s so hard about your life, Barb?” Again, said in a condescending way.

You can see there was no winning these arguments.

By the time Sadie finally left for school, I was fifty-eight years old, tired and awfully relieved. And this time, John was the one who cried on the trip home. I’ve got to admit, it felt a little bit like justice.

I did hope that once we were alone, things would improve between us . . . hoped that my constant irritation with him would fade and we could become close again. But there was always a disconnect. If I put my hand on his leg in bed, he’d say, “Oh. I’m sorry, hon. I’m exhausted.” The next night, he’d be completely up for it if you get my meaning, and I’d be fighting to stay awake. If we did have sex, it was rare that we recaptured that old sunshiny feeling. Instead, it was just a box to be checked. Sex with husband. Done, thank heavens.

Men didn’t understand how hard it was to get in the mood. I hated movies when one kiss was enough for the woman and three seconds later they were doing it. Men thought that was normal. They took it personally if you weren’t like that, and please. I wasn’t twenty-five anymore. Men didn’t realize that we women had to talk ourselves into the mood a lot of the time, had to go through the motions until they were sincere, had to deal with the consequences of an aging reproductive system. Dryness. Hot flashes. Urinary tract infections. Less sensitivity. Cysts. All men had were penises that were or were not erect.

We started sleeping in different bedrooms during Sadie’s sophomore year of college, when his snoring took a turn for the louder and my bladder got me up two times a night. When we watched TV together, he’d sit in the recliner, and I’d sit on the couch, and ten minutes later, he’d be asleep.

John worked. I volunteered. Though he was Sadie’s favorite parent, I was the one who knew her college schedule. I was the one who made her retake her math requirement at the community college so she could graduate. I asked Genevieve London, who lived here in Stoningham and was quite a force in fashion, if Sadie could have an internship in the design department, hoping her art degree could somehow support her. (Sadie turned that internship down, FYI.)

And yet, I was always the mean parent, always the odd man out. I wondered what it was like to be loved by Sadie, to be respected, to have her come up and put her arm around my waist. Must’ve been real nice, I thought. If I put my hand on her hair or tried to give her a hug, she’d act all surprised and give me a look that said, What are you doing?

It was just so . . . draining.

To fill myself up, I turned to the place where I felt most like myself: Juliet. And her family, of course. But Juliet especially. There, with them, I was the best, truest version of myself. Happy, funny, helpful, listening intently as Juliet told me something about work or her friends, offering advice when asked. “That’s a great idea, Mom,” she’d say, or “I knew you’d have the perfect words.”

I volunteered, as I always had in Stoningham. I was on the school board, the historical society, the garden club, the Friends of the Library. There were hardly any year-rounders I didn’t know by name. Shopkeepers greeted me gladly; teachers would come to me with problems; newcomers to town were steered to me for guidance on how to fit into our tight-knit little community. I knew the pastor, the priest and the rabbi. I recommended volunteer groups—trash pickup, the food pantry, adopt-a-grandparent, the after-school program.

John knew I did these things, but they didn’t interest him. He played golf; he was on the fishing derby committee, which meant I wrote a check for $500 for the Scouts each spring, and John went and talked to the other dads.

And still I tried. It’s the woman’s job to steer the relationship, Caro told me (which didn’t prevent her divorce, mind you). So over dinner, I’d ask John about his day and get the customary answer . . . “Nothing exciting. Just the usual.” If I offered up what I did, his eyes would glaze over, and he’d say, “Hm?” in response. We took to reading instead of talking as we ate.

Holidays were generally wonderful, because of Juliet and the girls. I’d bake and decorate and play special music—all the things my childhood lacked out there in cold Minnesota. Juliet and her girls would help or admire, and Sadie would come home and sometimes even say something nice, like, “The house looks pretty, Mom” or “It smells so good in here.”

Times like these, I’d look at my husband and smile, thinking, Aren’t we so lucky? Two healthy children. Two healthy grandchildren. A lovely son-in-law. A beautiful home. Sometimes, I’d even say it. “Sure are,” he’d answer, and that would be it.

It was hard, feeling nothing but irritation toward him. Harder and harder with every passing year. When he retired at sixty-eight, my heart sank, because after all those years, he would be here, every day, day after day, getting in the way, pretending to try to be helpful but gumming it up enough so I’d shoo him away. He’d clean up the kitchen, which to him meant putting the dishes in the dishwasher and running tepid water into the pans. He wouldn’t wipe off the counters or empty the drain catch . . . The bits of food would just sit there until I took care of it. Inevitably, I couldn’t take the mess, so I’d start cleaning the pots and pans, and John would say, “Oh, I meant to do that! I’ll do it now.”