Page 6 of The Husband Diet
I looked down at him and saw a bitter old man who cared only about himself. I saw a bitter old woman who was done trying and fighting. I saw the bitter old woman heave a deep sigh and measure the length of the cord of the hairdryer, gauging the distance to the bathtub. It was enough.
I saw my reflection lift the hairdryer high above his useless body and let go. I saw him jolt, the shock in his eyes as he sizzled, jerked once, twice, thrice, like in a magic formula, and finally slide below the surface of the water, like a sea monster that had finally met its match. It felt fantastic to be finally free.
‘Are you listening to me?’ he yelled, pulling me back to the here and now.
‘I’m done listening,’ I replied as I unplugged the hairdryer, wound the cord around it as if it were Ira’s neck. ‘I take care of you –andour childrenandthis houseandeverything that comes our way, and I do all this on top of my own job. What the hell do you do? Where are you when your children need you – at parents’ night, track-and-field day, Madeleine’s ballet, at Warren’s big games… at bedtime! Where are you?’
He stared at me and I stared back, my breath sawing in and out of my shaking body. Boy, I could feel it, feel the anger oozing out of every pore, like a thick dark liquid that had been pent up inside a barrel for years, fermenting to its most acidic, unbearable point. That was a frustrated, exhausted and murderous working housewife for you. And boy did I need to de-stress.
‘I come home from work and clean up the messyou’veleft the night before. Then I cook dinner.Anddo the laundry. And you can’t even iron yourself a lousy shirt?’
He stared at me as it slowly sank in and I realized I’d never given him one of my masterpieces that I’d strictly reserved for my poor staff at The Farthington. Maybe I should be my usual belligerent, confrontational self – the self I’d hidden over the years so as not to scare perspective suitors (ha!) away. It sure made me feel better, more in charge; because if I couldn’t be in charge, then I was nothing, nobody.
Ira wasn’t used to this side of me. My dark comedy side. If only he knew my real thoughts – how many times in my fantasy I’d left him bludgeoned and bleeding to death. I think he was in shock, actually. Then again, so was I. I’d never expected to react like that to what was a normal routine between us lately. But hell, was I proud of myself.
All these years I’d managed to harness my aggressiveness and channel it only into my work, and never onto him, despite the increasing gap between us. Truth was, the daily domestic grind was wearing me out and more and more often, I imagined my husband hanging from power lines, his electrocuted body swinging in the wind like forgotten laundry.
The scary thing was that I still found it hilarious. Was my murderous potential finally about to surface? Would I soon pick up an axe and wipe him out, and then laugh about it? Why was I having these delicious fantasies all this time? Was I that unhappy? I was beginning to worry. And then, in an effort to return to normality, I’d go into the kitchen and begin to chop onions, blaming the fumes for my tears.
But then all the kids had to do was show me their appreciation for something I’d done for them or draw me a picture and I was instantly rewarded for all my efforts, and thoughts of bludgeoning Ira to death ebbed, disappearing into the fringes of my unconscious. Not that I’d ever do something like that, mind. (Isn’t that what murderers say before they kill someone?) But it’s nice to fantasize.
I left the bathroom, slamming the door behind me, and buried my head under the pillows, the beautiful image of his dead body keeping me company.
‘You have to do something about that grinding,’ he said as he climbed into bed next to me. ‘It’s annoying. Go see your dentist. Maybe he can fix you. And while you’re at it, go see a shrink so you can stop talking in your sleep.’
‘Anything else?’ I asked, crossing my arms in front of my chest.
‘Yeah. Do it tomorrow.’
And that, to me, sounded like an ultimatum.
The next morning, as I was getting dressed, he came into the bathroom wearing the damned blue striped shirt. Rumpled and creased.
I sighed. ‘Don’t be silly. Take that off.’
He obeyed immediately and left it hanging on the doorknob. I brushed my hair into my usual tight bun, so tight it acted as a natural facelift, and applied a thin veil of make-up. I scooped up my coat, ready to leave, only to find Ira sitting on the bed in his trousers and undershirt.
He blinked. ‘Where’s my shirt?’
I blinked back. ‘Your shirt?’
‘I thought you’d ironed it,’ he exclaimed, shooting to his feet, his eyes checking the bathroom doorknob.
‘What, while I was in the bathroom getting dressed, you mean?’
‘You told me to take it off so you could iron it!’ he squeaked in a panic. Now, he really was going to be late.
‘No,’ I said slowly, like you talk to foreigners. ‘I told you to take it off because you looked silly in a crumpled shirt – not because I was going to drop everything else because you don’t like your other nineteen shirts. I have to go to work. See you tonight.’
I didn’t even stay to hear his linguistic masterpiece of a rant, instead hustling the kids out in front of me, but it was loud. On the way out, I gently closed the door behind me, but not as gently as usual, and smiled.
2
Operation Seduction?
Among theten(at least) things Ira hates about Erica, the easiest to solve had to be the teeth-grinding. Right? Because if – and only if – I still thought that this marriage was worth it, I could put up with the discomfort of a dental bite for a bit, especially if the reward was possibly a good solid session of marital benefits.
If I could get Ira back to how it used to be in the good old days, surely all the other sources of tension in our marriage would slowly melt away? If there was any chance that deep down, he still had some love for me, I had to do my best to exhume – and resuscitate, eventually – that feeling. Not for me but for my kids.
