“I didn’t say anything was wrong with you, but hiding up in that nursery all the time isn’t helping. Rushing to have another baby won’t help.”
“I’m hiding? Who lives at Grits because he doesn’t even know how to be in this house anymore? And it’s not just Henry. You haven’t slowed down since Byrd died. You’ve been in constant motion. Never even taking the time to grieve. You didn’t cry for her either.”
“Stop it.”
“You need to hear this. Maybe I am stuck, Si. Maybe I can barely leave the house most days, and maybe I am going crazy.”
“I never said you were going crazy.”
“Well, it feels like it, but at least I’m letting myself feel it all. Every bit of it. They deserve that, both of them. I’m not afraid to mourn, to hurt, to grieve.”
“You don’t think I hurt?” Anger, disbelief, resentment crack my words down the middle. “Because I don’t huddle in the dark every day, barely able to function? I don’t hurt?”
“Shut up!” The pain in her eyes slices right through me, echoes around us, absorbed by the shelf-lined walls of the garage.
“We can’t afford for us to both break down,” I plow on, fueled by my own defenses. “Who do you think is keeping a roof over our fucking heads?”
I slam my hand on the hood of the car between us.
“Me! Keeping the doors of our business open? Me!”
“You’ve got it all under control, Si! Why do you need me?”
“I don’t.”
The words come out before I have time to think about the effect they’ll have. How they’ll land in the cold trapped in these four walls with nowhere to go.
“Right,” she says, her laugh void of humor. “Because you have the whole world running like a well-oiled machine.”
“A well-oiled machine?” I yank the notice from the door out of my pocket and hold it out toward her, clutched in my fist. “We can’t even afford to get our damn lawn mowed, Yas. The restaurant is bleeding money and the mediocre cook we do have put in her notice. I’m working fifteen-hour days.”
There’s shock in the eyes flitting from my face to the paper crushed in my hands.
“Why did you keep all of this from me?” she asks, her tone hollow. “Because I’m so crazy, so fragile I’d break?”
“Kept this from you? It’s been months, months, baby, since you’ve shown interest in anything,” I point over our heads. “Except that damn nursery. Barely paying attention to the kids.”
“I take care of my children!” The words ring loud and shrill. “You have no idea what it takes to even get out of bed most mornings, but I do it. Everything hurts, but I keep doing it.”
I’m silenced by the sound of her grief, at how deep her pain goes. How encompassing it is. Still.
“And I’ve tried with you, but you’re never here. You’re off saving the world, so we’ll all be grateful. Well, guess what, Si?” She storms over to the garage door in a flourish of silk and fury. “I’m not grateful. I’m tired.”
“Of me?” I demand of her back. “You’re tired of me?”
She looks over the smooth brown curve of one shoulder and doesn’t answer with words, but the resentment, the anger festering in her eyes, confesses the truth. She walks through the garage door and into the house without a reply.
And it’s too much. Her indifference, her bitterness. My body refusing to cooperate, refusing to do what it’s supposed to do. It won’t cry when people die. It’s not erect when my nearly naked wife whom I love like my own breath touches me, kisses me. Fury spikes through my blood. It runs hot and quicksilver from my heart to my hands and feet. I stride to the row of cabinets along the garage wall and jerk open a door, scanning the contents until I find what I’m looking for. A paintbrush—and a can of pink paint left over from redecorating Deja’s room. I grab it by the handle, feeling the heft of a half-full can, and charge through the garage door and into the kitchen. Sheer rage and adrenaline propel my tired legs up the steps two at a time and down the hall to the nursery. Sure enough, she’s there again, curled up in the rocker with a blanket draped over her scantily clad body. Wordlessly, I walk over to the wall bearing the verse and, with one swift stroke of the paintbrush, slash through the words.
“What are you doing?” Yasmen rushes over, reaching for the brush, which I hold over my head, out of her reach. I quickly slap the brush against the wall, dragging it over the wishes we had for Henry that died with him.
Yasmen cries, heaving against me, beating my chest, slapping at my back. “I hate you. I can’t believe you…”
I wrap myself around her, circling her, pinning her arms to her sides, pressing her to the wet wall, heedless of the pink paint staining her negligee, my suit.
“I don’t want this anymore,” she says, tears streaking down her cheeks. “We can’t do this. I want…I need a divorce.”
I go completely still, blood freezing in my veins at the word I never expected to hear from her.