My Wife Is Missing(41)
“Will you need me extra hours this week?”
Natalie finally caught herself. Scarlett had always been tried and true, helping her for years, and Natalie had no reason to be suspicious of her. It was Michael who should be on guard, not poor Scarlett.
“I’ll let you know,” Natalie said. She gave Scarlett’s arm a gentle squeeze as if to say all was right between them. In her grip she felt the nanny’s well-defined tricep muscle, and remembered that she, like Michael, was big into the gym. Suddenly, Natalie found her graciousness taking a minor detour. “I’ll go up and check on the children. You can see yourself out,” she said.
Upstairs, after saying a quick hello to Addie, Natalie entered Bryce’s bedroom. Lying on his bed, she rubbed her son’s back while she finished reading him the story he’d started on his own. She tried not to think of Michael driving away from that McDonald’s, following Audrey’s car out of the parking lot, but twice she lost her place in a kid’s book.
When Bryce was sleepy enough to drift off, she headed back into Addie’s room, which had recently been decorated with LED lights. The room glowed purple as if it were a Euro nightclub. Worried the mood lighting would strain her daughter’s eyes, Natalie turned on a bedside lamp without first asking permission. She didn’t look about as she might have done normally, didn’t check out the magnetic board Michael had hung on the wall, which Addie often adorned with handwritten notes, musings that offered insight into her world, her way of thinking.
Instead, Natalie got right down to business with a slew of questions: “Is your homework done? Did you have enough to eat? What’s on your agenda for tomorrow? Did you need my help studying for that spelling test? What about the belt to your dance costume, did you find it? I’m not buying another one, just so you know.”
Addie adopted a defensive posture in response to the onslaught, arms folded across her chest, eye contact broken, and it took a moment for Natalie to realize she was doing to her daughter what she’d done to poor Scarlett. Fighting off a sting of regret, Natalie kissed Addie on the top of her head, inhaling her fragrant scent, and told her to turn off the light when she was done reading. She was in the middle of I Am Malala, a selection Natalie had bragged about to Tina.
“I didn’t suggest it. Addie picked it out all on her own.”
Tina, who’d had her children earlier in life, wasn’t overly impressed. She been through the “Everything they do is a miracle phase” and was entering the “I don’t think I love my husband anymore” time of her life. Natalie had always assumed she’d avoid Tina’s marital travails because she and Michael were excellent communicators and great friends, too. Now she wondered if she’d been wearing blinders for the entirety of their marriage.
Addie said, “I got in trouble today at school because I didn’t have my field trip form. Now I’m not sure I can go.”
Natalie knew all about the scheduled trip to a mill-turned-museum because she’d signed that form along with a check for the required ten-dollar fee. Students were to learn about factory life during the industrial revolution, and Addie was looking forward to the experience in part because one of her American Girl dolls was from that era.
“What are you talking about?” Natalie said, adopting the same folded arm posture her daughter had moments ago. “I put the form and check in your backpack. I told you all that this morning.”
“It wasn’t there when I went to get it,” Addie said, tears coming to her eyes, poor thing.
Natalie was incensed, not at Addie for having an overstuffed backpack, but rather at the teacher, who was being overly rigid and could have helped her find those documents. No matter.
“I’ll take care of it, not to worry,” Natalie said, before heading downstairs to email Addie’s teacher. In her small office on the first floor, Natalie saw something that changed her mind about the wording of the email that she’d already crafted in her head. There, on top of a pile of papers, right near her checkbook, Natalie saw the signed field trip form along with that check for ten dollars. She sighed aloud, shifted her gaze to the ceiling, letting the fatigue behind her eyes drip down her throat like bitter medicine. Instead of a screed, she’d have to send an apology.
Dammit, she thought. I’m not with it. I’m always with it, but now I’m not.
Natalie sent her an apology email, and soon after received assurances from Addie’s teacher that she could still go on the field trip. Addie, pleased with the news, could finally get to sleep. Thirty minutes later, Michael returned home looking quite bedraggled. Natalie noted the strain in his eyes. He strode into the kitchen stoop-shouldered as though whatever was weighing on his mind also weighed him down physically.
“Hey, hon,” he said, acting like everything was normal between them, and he even gave her a kiss on the cheek. Natalie, who had yet to rid herself of the guilt for the field trip debacle and for being a bit of a zombie parent, didn’t have much fight in her. Tomorrow she’d reach out to her doctor, maybe try a new sleeping pill.
Michael opened the refrigerator, poked his head inside.
“Anything to eat?” he asked.
With his back turned to her, he couldn’t see Natalie’s eye roll.
“There’s plenty to eat,” she said. “It’s just all in cans, jars, and wrappers, so if you open those up and mix them together in some procedural fashion, I’m sure you’ll be able to create something edible.”