Page 18 of The Husband Diet
He blinked at me and I now feigned surprise, slapping my forehead. ‘What am Isaying? That goes forgoodfathers. But you don’t care about this family, Ira. All you care about is yourself. And I’m sick of it. The kids aren’t idiots. They can see what’s happening here.’
‘The kids have nothing to do with this,’ he spat.
‘They have everything to do with it!’ I spat back, only louder. ‘You’re upturning their entire world!’ Which was only half true, really.
Sure, divorce was always painful. But in my heart I knew there was nothing keeping us together anymore as a family. All those years, slaving for him, to make his life comfortable, to compensate for his own shitty mother, working day in, day out for years on end to support him… Finally being able to buy Quincy Shore Drive, raising our kids single-handedly, then going to his office on weekends to scrub his urinals and sort out his accounting books… And what the hell had I got out of it, if not shattered confidence and a broken heart?
Maybe Maddy and Warren would benefit from this separation, seeing mommy and daddy unburdened by love woes. Then a thought. His lover would, if it lasted, eventually want to become part of the kids’ life. Or would she? Some women don’t want to know. Sooner or later, I’d find out who she was. There was no way I was exposing my kids to a homewrecker.
No. Divorce was the only solution now. Emotionally and financially. Because at the rate he was going, if I gave him the time, he’d wipe me out completely. We had a prenup, the house was in my name. I had Nonna’s inheritance. All I needed was to get my life back in gear. And my dream house in Tuscany.
Screw Ira. Somebody screw him, because I sure wouldn’t be doing it anymore. Not that there was any danger of that happening. And yet, although our marriage had been sinking for years, betrayal had come as a surprise. And it hurt big time. I should have seen the signs. He liked that I cooked all the time, but whenever I put something in my mouth that wasn’t a leaf of lettuce or an apple, he’d go ballistic.
On Fridays, I always baked multiple recipes in my fantastic multifunction oven. Once, I remember I’d made a pizza, a roast with vegetables and an apple pie. Which, out of sheer frustration (or gluttony, call it whatever you will, I don’t care anymore), I’d polished off, one slice at a time, in the space of an afternoon. And after dinner, satisfied, he’d pushed his empty plate away and said, ‘How about that pie I can smell?’
‘Um, didn’t I tell you? It was an apple crumble. It didn’t turn out… I burned it, so I threw it away.’
Ira had turned in his seat and stared at me. I’d tried to keep an honest-looking face, but I was sweating. That’s why I never made the selections for the drama groups at school.
‘You ate the whole thing,’ he sentenced as if pronouncing someone – or something – dead.
My mouth screwed into a grimace and my eyes fell to my empty plate.
There we went: three, two, one…
Keep it light, Erica, I’d told myself.Keep it light. Don’t let him hurt your feelings.
What I should have done was read the damn signs of our crumbling relationship. This was the life I’d lived up to that point.
7
The Final Countdown
The next morning – my first as an unburdened woman – I rose extra early, woke the kids and drove them to school, where we parked and ate muffins. We were the first to arrive and would probably be the last to leave after school, because I couldn’t envisage going home as long ashewas there.
A couple more months to Christmas. I could do it. If I’d pretended everything was alright all these years, what were sixty measly days?
As if to speed up time, I worked like a madwoman all day, never stopping once, and at the stroke of three, I hauled my betrayed ass out of the office and picked up my kids. Only instead of taking them home, where Ira was bound to return sooner or later, or to a healthy alternative like my aunts’ restaurant, I took them to McDonald’s. I was going to turn them into blimps at this rate. They obliviously munched on their Happy Meals as I worked out my war strategy.
Was he going to be a decent man at least now and share the responsibilities? Notice how he didn’t ask for my forgiveness. Not that it was happening. Or would he go as far as claiming full custody? That wasn’t happening, for two reasons.
The first was obvious and the second was that it would never even occur to Ira. What the hell was he going to do with their continuous arguing, the constant questions (that’s the way kids learn, I’d told him) and the howling when he failed to pay them attention? But maybe, just maybe, out of vengeance, I’d reward him with custody every other weekend. That way, he wouldn’t be able to flop on the sofa and watch his Saturday games and Sunday reports. It would serve him right. But it would also kill me to think of them abandoned to their own devices while Ira acted as if they weren’t even there. To hell with him. It was time for a change. Many changes, in fact.
A week later, when I got home dripping with rain and groceries after a trip to the supermarket (I didn’t even look at the snack food shelves!), I hardly recognized our house. I can’t begin to describe it. Magazines, head sets, controllers, keyboards, Chinese takeaway cartons strewn all over the floor, the coffee table and even the sofa. A baseball game was on full blast, and so were the kids, hyper to their limit, bouncing off the walls and running around, rolling over my pristine sofa with sticky fingers. The kitchen sink, a glance told me, was loaded to the ceiling with dirty dishes and some dirty clothes even littered the hallway.
‘Hi, Mom!’ was Warren’s greeting as he sped by me on a skateboard.
On my wooden floors. And that’s when I realized that smack dab in the middle of it all, sitting in his favorite armchair, was Ira, hidden by his usual paper. So much for his promise to be there for the kids. I preferred it when he wasn’t.
Keep it light, girl, went the voice inside my head, and I tried to erase the image of me going round to the local gun shop to buy a bazooka. Just until after the Christmas holidays. Then Ira would be gone and my house would be a nicer one. In every sense.
I put down my bag and he looked up.
‘Hey… here’s dinner,’ he said, nudging a carton of leftover Chinese takeaway (which he knows I absolutely hate) with his foot.
Just two more months, I told myself.And then I’m really free.‘Why are the kids still up? It’s ten o’clock.’
He shrugged. ‘They didn’t want to go to bed just yet,’ he answered, still camouflaged in his sports section.
