Answering to Him (Old-Fashioned Husband) (4 page)

Oliver

By the time I made it home, my mouth watering for one of Alicia’s home cooked meals, it was nearly six-thirty. In the pre-tax season, I could usually get home a little after five, but come October my family knew not to expect me until late. There would be some days in April when I wouldn’t come home at all. Such was the life of a senior tax consultant. I winced as soon as the thought crossed my mind; I didn’t like to think of myself as senior
anything
.

As soon as I turned the doorknob and walked into the house, I noticed how quiet it was. My ears perked, listening for the sounds of Alicia vacuuming upstairs, or Jonah playing his music much too loud. Nothing. I set my briefcase down and
loosened my tie, walking toward the kitchen. I stopped in my tracks when I saw that the light was off.

“Alicia!” I called out. “Honey, are you home?”

I wasn’t surprised when there was no answer. I headed toward the living room and flicked on the switch before going to my plush, brown leather chair and sitting down. I kicked my shoes off and pulled out my Iphone. I had just hit her number and was raising the phone to my ear when the front door opened. I watched Alicia rush in, her arms loaded with grocery bags.

“Come on, Oliver!”
she called over her shoulder, irritation clear in her voice. I watched as she flicked on the kitchen light, dumping the contents of her bags onto the counter. “I forgot pasta sauce!” she moaned, slamming her hand down on the counter. “Dammit!”

I arched an eyebrow. It wasn’t like my normally sweet-tempered wife to curse. I stood up and walked toward the kitchen, wanting to see if
there was anything I could do to help. At that moment, Jonah came ambling through the door, eyeing me with indifference.

“Oh, hi, Dad.”

Before I could respond, I heard Alicia call from the kitchen, sounding more frantic than ever. “Oliver? Is that you?”

Jonah rolled his eyes, and I bit back a smile. “Unless there is another man my son calls ‘dad’,” I replied.

“Oh, really,” she sighed, clearly not amused. “Of course not, Oliver.”

I nodded at my son, who promptly turned aro
und and shot up the stairs. After he made his exit, I turned my attention to my wife and walked into the kitchen. I took a seat and watched her rifle through the fridge, occasionally pulling out items that she lined up on the counter. “Everything OK?”

“Fine,” she replied, in a voice that told me she was lying. “I just…where did I
put
the Parmesan? Have you seen it?”

I shook my head, mystified by the intensity in her voice. “No. I—”

“Where the hell did it go!” she groaned, moments before slamming the refrigerator door shut.

I sto
od and was at her side in two seconds flat. I took her by the shoulders and turned her to face me. “Hey, calm down. What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing,” she replied, sniffling and avoiding my eyes.

It wasn’t like Alicia to keep secrets, and I frowned in concern. “What is it, honey? Out with it,” I ordered.

Her eyes flew to my face, seeming to search for something, though I didn’t know what. “I just had a bad day
, that’s all.”

I waited patiently. I knew that if I tried to pull information from her, it would just upset her more. At least I’d learned
something
after sixteen years of marriage. She was wilting like a flower right before my eyes, giving in to the urge to come clean. Still, I bit back my smile. She looked like a naughty child right now, afraid of being reprimanded. It was in the way her eyes darted around before coming back to mine, the way she flushed slightly.

“I got pulled over today,” she said, her voice so low I almost didn’t hear her.

“What?”

“I got pulled over,” she said, a bit louder, adding an annoyed huff at the end of her sentence.

“For what?” I asked, with calm that I did not feel. Her eyes skipped away from mine again, and she walked over to the counter and began sorting through the cans and boxes she’d dumped onto the counter. “Alicia?” I called her, my impatience leaking into my voice and making me sound sterner than I’d intended.

She kept her back to me, mumbling again
, so I couldn’t hear her. In three quick strides, I was at her side and took her shoulder and turned her toward me.

“Say it again,” I commanded. From the widening of her eyes, I could see that she was surprised by my firmness, but I was getting too frustrated to hold it back like I normally did.

“For speeding,” she admitted.

I sighed, shaking my head at her.
I’d had a feeling that was what she’d say. We’d had this discussion many times before, and I really didn’t want to have it again right now. I needed to cool off first, before I lost my temper.

“And…”

That just about did it. “And
what
, Alicia?”

She brought her beautiful eyes to mine, which were more blue than green right now, and filled with unshed tears. “I got a ticket for not having my license.”

I clamped my lips together tightly so that I wouldn’t say something I’d regret later. This had been a constant issue for us, and no matter how patient and understanding I was, it kept happening. She was forgetful and prone to running out of the house without her wallet. She always kept cash in the bottom of her purse, or lying around in a jean pocket, so money wasn’t an issue for her. The problem came when she got caught speeding, which was often.

“Say something,” she pleaded, her voice sounding so forlorn that I wanted to reach out and comfort her.

I patted her shoulder, but my voice was a bit detached when I said, “I can’t talk about this now. Don’t worry about dinner, I’m going to go out. I’ll take Jonah with me.”

Her lip bent back in a pout, and all at once, the clock seemed to turn
back. It reminded me of an argument we’d had years ago, during which she’d thrown an enormous tantrum. That had been in our first year of marriage, and I couldn’t remember ever seeing her pout since then. I thought it was adorable, though I wouldn’t ever tell her that. “Are you going without me?”

“I think we need a little time apart right now.”

“Are you that mad at me?” she cried.

“Yes,” I replied simply.

She turned away from me, but not before I saw the tears spill from her eyes. I wanted to tell her that it was all right, she could come, but I fought the urge. She needed to think about what she’d done—apparently nothing I ever said or did made her think twice about going over the speed limit. Maybe if I just gave her some time, she’d see the error of her ways. One could only hope, anyway. Besides, I really
did
need to cool off.

“Are you punishing me?” she asked, still in a little-girl whimper.

The question caught me off guard. Was I
what
? I started to say that of course I wasn’t, but I hesitated. Wasn’t I, in a way? “I’ll bring you something back,” I told her, trying to ease the sting. She didn’t turn her head even when I pecked her cheek. I waited for a moment, but she didn’t respond, and I wasn’t going to push her.

Grabbing my keys, I went to the stairs and called for my son. When he heard we were making a fast food run he came bounding down the stairs two at a time, looking more like the happy little boy I’d
known and loved. I’d begun to think that this video game obsessed, sullen teenager had taken over his body and that I’d never see him again.

Jonah and I rarely spent time alone together, which was my fault, I knew. I hated to admit it, but we didn’t have much in common
. We didn’t share any interests. I wasn’t quite sure when the gap had formed between us, when we’d started seeing each other only at dinner and not saying more than a handful of words to each other. I didn’t know what had caused it, or what to do to stop it, I only knew that it was there—an invisible line that separated us— that at times, seemed insurmountable.

To my surprise, we kept up a steady stream of chatter while I drove to his favorite burger joint, “Whataburger”. I listened as he talked about his art class, which he liked, and his history class that he didn’t.

“Mr. Feltmore is such a dumb ass,” he was explaining. “I mean, everyone knows that the Free Masons started out as a fraternity.”

I wanted to laugh, but I checked myself and said, “Watch your language, son,” instead.

Jonah mumbled assent, and I mentally kicked myself. There went our male bonding. After we parked, we walked into the burger joint. I caught a whiff of hot peanut oil the moment we hit the door, and as we were standing in line to order, Jonah began talking again as though nothing had happened. I gathered that there was a girl, Heather, whom he was interested in, although what he said was how “old” her clothes were.

“Tell you what, change of plans. You want to eat here?”

“Just the two of us?” Jonah asked in the deliberately neutral voice he used whenever he didn’t want to show emotion—which was often.

“Yep.”

He turned his head, but not before I saw his brown eyes light up. “OK. That would be cool.”

When our meals arrived, brought to the table by our cashier, I watched Jonah dredge his fries through ketchup and talk about the latest game he was playing, Oblivion.

“It’s RPG, and it’s really awesome, Dad.”

I recognized the excitement in his face as the same look I got when I caught an error in a return, saving our department money that might have otherwise been spent needlessly. I thought that it was a pity that I couldn’t talk to him about the things that excited me, but there might be time for that later, when he was older. For now, it was my duty to listen to his interests, however far they might be from my own.

“What’s RPG?” I asked, interrupting a tangent he’d been on about doing quests.

“Role play game,” he answered, sounding like he might follow it by saying “
duh
”. “You didn’t have video games when you were my age, did you, Dad?”

“We certainly did!” I exclaimed, affronted. “How old do you think I
am
, Jonah?”

He narrowed his eyes and scrutinized my face, and seeing this level of concentration on his face as he tried to guess my age worried me. “Fifty,” he guessed.

Close enough
, I thought wryly. “I am not fifty, son, I’m forty-two. I’m not ancient, I’m still alive and kicking,” I joked.

Jonah didn’t crack a smile, but instead eyed me skeptically. “Yeah, OK,” he said finally, his tone reeking of skepticism. He promptly launched into a new tale of his latest heroic feats, all performed on his Xbox, and I tried to follow the conversation.

I really tried, but I found my mind wandering back to Alicia. Remembering her tear-stained face, and the pleading in her eyes made my heart twist.
“Are you punishing me?”
she’d asked, and I recalled the flush that had risen to her face after she’d said it. Thinking back on her expression, she’d seemed spellbound by the idea despite how much it also seemed to horrify her.

Now there was an idea! What kind of man “punished” his wife just because he was unhappy with her behavior? Of course, I mused, I had done it in my own way, leaving to let her think about how much this latest stunt was going to cost us. I’d known Alicia
had a problem with speeding since we’d gotten married. She seemed like a cop magnet, and no matter how many others were speeding past her, Alicia was the one who got pulled over. In sixteen years I must have spent thousands paying off tickets, and I had always wished to have a way to stop it. Nothing I said seemed to make her watch her speedometer, no matter how contrite she might be at the time.

The trouble was, she always had what she considered to be a good reason. I’d talked to my dad about it once, in the early years, venting my frustra
tion, and he had shocked me by saying, “Take away her keys, then,” as though it was the most normal thing in the world. I’d laughed at him, and called him “old fashioned”. What man would do that now, in the twenty-first century? Any man that did, I was sure, would find himself divorced and sued for alimony as soon as the keys were in his hand.

My mom and dad had a good marriage, and had been together for over forty years. They had been a great example to me growing up, and I’d always known that I wanted a marriage with the longevity that theirs had. In my family
it was no secret that Dad called the shots, and Mom went along willingly with whatever he decided, but I didn’t think it was necessary to have a wife that catered to my wishes, nor did I find it very realistic. Unbidden, the memory of Alicia calling me “sir” after I’d spanked her came to mind. A rush of emotion shot through me, and I forced myself to turn back to my son before my body started responding in embarrassing ways. That would have to be saved for later.

“Tell you what,” I said when Jonah paused for breath, “why don’t you show me when we get home?”

His jaw dropped. “Fo’ real, Dad?”

I tilted my head to the side, grinning at him. “I think so, yes.”

“Dad, you’re gonna go crazy for this game, trust.”