Best Kept Secret (5 page)

It was our first official fight. The next day, I found the e-mail in the recycle bin and experienced great pleasure in pushing it through the paper shredder at work. Martin brought home flowers that night and apologized profusely for his misstep.

“It’s just the way she is,” he said. “Maybe you could talk with her. Tell her how you feel.”

“I’d feel a little strange doing that,” I said. “Couldn’t you do it?”

“And say what?”

“That her e-mail was totally offensive. That she hurt my feelings.”

He sighed. “She won’t get it. She’s a very factual person.”

“What would you do if it was you? If she hurt your feelings like this?”

“I don’t let her hurt my feelings. And even if she did, whining about it is not who she raised me to be. I told you she’s old-fashioned. She’s also a very strong woman. It’s not worth the energy trying to get her to change. She won’t.”

I forgave him, of course.
Nobody is perfect,
I reasoned.
He just made an error in judgment. Mother-child relationships are complicated.
Since my relationship with my own mother was fairly distant, I attempted to find it sweet that Martin shared a close relationship with his. I understood it, to an extent. Martin was an only child. After his father’s death, Martin and Alice became partners in life just as much as they were mother and son. I rationalized her blunt insertion in our relationship as a result of her heritage. Germanic women just said what they thought—no sugar-coating necessary. That was just who she was. Over time, though, this logic wore thin. Martin didn’t see it, calling me paranoid. I called him a mama’s boy and an idiot. Yes indeed, it does take two people to end a marriage. I’m not so delusional as
to think I played no part in our downfall. However, I am still child enough to proclaim that my husband is the one who started it.

We lived together about a year before I found out I was pregnant. Not a minute after I stepped out of our bathroom with the positive test in hand, he smiled and said, “Marry me.” I said yes immediately—he was smart, funny, and sweet; all the good things I thought a husband should be. I loved him. I also didn’t want to be like my mother, resigned to survive my life alone. I was certain having a husband would make motherhood that much easier to navigate. And besides, Martin was delighted to become a father. I could still be a journalist. I could still live the life I’d planned. I’d just have Martin and a baby living it right along with me.

Alice, of course, was thrilled to learn she would be a grandmother. We told her about the baby a few weeks after the impromptu wedding. At her urging, with the sudden knowledge he was about to become a father, Martin surprised me by leaving the public school system, parlaying his technical savvy into a cushy, well-paying programming position with Microsoft.

“But you love teaching,” I said when Martin informed me he was switching careers. Martin’s intense fondness for his students was one of the things that made me believe he would be the kind of father neither of us had ever known. “What about becoming a principal someday? Isn’t that what you’ve wanted?” We were driving during this conversation, on our way out to dinner. My hand rested on the curve of my stomach, a first attempt at cradling our child.

Martin shrugged. “The benefits at Microsoft are amazing, Cadee. They’ll pay for everything . . . your pregnancy, the birth, insurance for all of us. Plus, there’s the opportunity to move up in the company.” He threw a brief glance out the window. “I’d never get that with teaching. Not really.”

“But—” I began, and he cut me off.

“I want this, honey. I do. I want to be the kind of father my dad
would have been proud of. I want our child to have everything we didn’t.”

I hadn’t argued with him further. I tried to be supportive the way I assumed a good wife would. Not that I had any firsthand knowledge of what a good wife actually looked like. But since life presented me with the opportunity to have everything my mother never did—husband, kids,
and
a career—I wasn’t going to screw it up. I was going to have it all.

For a while, it felt like I did. Toward the end of my pregnancy, with the security of Martin’s new job, I left the
Herald
and started freelancing. My first few articles sold quickly, so I assumed I’d have no problem picking it back up a few months after Charlie’s arrival. Aided by a perfectly timed spinal block, giving birth was easier than I expected it to be, though learning to take care of an infant was much harder. Charlie was colicky, and no matter how many times we tried, he refused to take a pacifier or a bottle. The first six months of his life, if he wasn’t sleeping, he was nursing. Sleep became a rare luxury, and even with breastfeeding, my body didn’t bounce back the way all the books I’d read promised that it would. Instead, it clung to fifteen of the thirty-five pounds I’d gained while pregnant. I was puffy and exhausted. I also discovered that I really didn’t want sex anymore; that overwhelming physical desire simply ceased rising up beneath my skin. This startled me and had a profound, immediate effect on my marriage. The one place Martin and I always connected was in bed.

At first, Martin was patient. He said he understood. We’d climb under our covers at night and he’d just hold me. After a couple of months passed, though, that wasn’t enough. He’d hold me, but then start to kiss my neck. His hands moved over my hips, urging me to him. I knew what he wanted. I felt guilty, so I forced my body to mimic the correct motions, despite my mind silently screaming to be left alone. This was a new sensation for me. I was used to wanting him, too. At that point, the only craving I felt for physical connection was cradling my child in my arms.

“Mmm, you feel so good,” Martin whispered in my ear. My body felt stiff and unresponsive, but I murmured a loving sentiment in return. I crossed my fingers that because it had been so long since we’d last made love, it would be over quickly. If it wasn’t, I barely managed to hide my relief when Charlie interrupted us, crying out from his crib in the other room. I extricated my body from my husband’s and slipped into my bathrobe.

Each time this would happen, Martin rolled over onto his back, arm thrown over his forehead. “He’s
fine
!” he insisted.

“He is not fine,” I said. “He’s crying.”

“You need to let him cry it out,” he said, propping himself up on his elbows. “He needs to learn to comfort himself back to sleep.”

The fleshy kickstand of his erection stuck out at an odd angle from his body. It was a sight that used to arouse. Since having Charlie, it simply made me tired; yet another task I needed to check off my to-do list.

“According to who?” I asked, heading toward the door. “Your mother?”

Even in the dark, I felt the leaden weight of his eyes on my back as I walked out of the room. When I returned to bed after nursing our son and settling him back to sleep in his crib, Martin was most always already asleep. Or at least, he was good at pretending.

During the day, when Martin was at work and Charlie still slept better than he did at night, I tried to get back in the habit of writing. It took longer than I thought it would, but when Charlie was eight months old, I sold an article to a local consumer parenting magazine. I recounted what it was like trying to figure out what my baby’s cries meant, and how frustrating it was that my breasts were the only pacifier he’d use. It was more of an essay than the fact-driven, journalistic style I was used to at the paper, but I enjoyed writing it, and felt enormous satisfaction signing the back of the nominal check the magazine sent upon publication. I set a goal to finish at least five articles a month, which often meant working feverishly a few hours late at night after Charlie was asleep.

“We don’t need the money,” Martin said. “I don’t know why you think you have to work so hard.”

“It’s not about needing the money,” I told him. “It’s about retaining my sense of self.”

Luckily, my experience at the
Herald
translated easily into my attempts at freelancing. I knew my queries to editors needed to be specific and attention-grabbing; several years spent penning headlines came in handy for that. It wasn’t “The Best Way to Potty Training Your Child,” but “Potty Train Your Child in Two Days!” Not “An Interview with the Chef at the Space Needle,” but “Local Chef Spills All!” I kept a notebook of topics that interested me, ranging from child rearing to profile pieces on local celebrities. I didn’t want to put myself in a niche, the way I had at the paper, where I only covered lifestyle subjects, so I kept my eye on the news for controversial issues and tried to jot down ideas for story angles that I might be able to sell. I ended up in a niche anyway, focusing for the most part on parenting and relationships, with a few interviews and how-to career articles thrown in. I wasn’t making enough money to support myself the way I had at the paper, but I sold enough work to avoid feeling that I had been completely swallowed by motherhood.

Then came the sweltering August evening when Charlie was about a year old. It was nearly eight o’clock and Martin was just making it home. I was so busy that day taking care of Charlie and furiously writing during his naps, I hadn’t managed to shower. Martin strode through the front door, brushed his lips against my cheek, and handed me a brochure for a gun-metal gray, two-seater BMW.

“Is this where you’ve been?” I asked, looking at the picture of the sleek vehicle. We sat at the table in our kitchen. Charlie was next to us in his high chair, up to his elbows in a before-bedtime snack of cottage cheese and diced peaches. I attempted to convince my child to use a spoon, but he much preferred the hand-to-mouth shovel method. I’d be picking bits of cottage cheese out of his ears for days.

“Yes,” he said, lifting his chin almost imperceptibly.

“You told me you were working late.”

“I did work late. And then I stopped by the dealership.”

“Um-hmm.” I pressed my lips into a thin line to keep from saying more.

“So, what do you think?”

I gave him a slightly confused look. “What do I think about what?”

“The car.”

I placed the brochure on the table. “It’s not exactly child-friendly,” I said. “And not very practical for us. At least, not right now.”

“Well, it’s kind of too late,” Martin said. He picked the brochure up and gave it a little wave in the air. “I bought it.”

I looked at Martin, my mouth open in a soft O. “What?”

He sighed and dropped back against his chair. “Don’t look at me like that. We have the money, Cadence. And my mom pointed out you have your Explorer for carting Charlie around. I needed a better car for commuting.” There it was—my husband’s linear brain. A plus B equals C.

“You talked to your
mother
about this?”

“BMWs are German cars. I wanted her opinion.”

“But not mine.”

“Please don’t start,” Martin said.

“Whatever, Martin.” I didn’t know what else to say to him. That he made such a big purchase on his own was unsettling, but I swallowed my concerns.
His money, his decision,
I thought.
Who was I to tell him no? He works so hard—he’s entitled.

The year after Charlie turned one, Martin’s working late stopped being the exception and became the rule. He rarely called to let me know when to expect him home, and when I’d try to reach him, he claimed he had turned his cell phone off so he could concentrate on whatever code he was writing.

“I was worried about you,” I said one morning after Charlie’s
second birthday in August. He had come home after I was already asleep. “Do you really need to work late
every
night?”

“I’m doing it for us,” he said. “For Charlie. I want to get into management, and the only way that’s going to happen is if I show them I’m willing to put in the hours.” He paused. “I’m playing golf with a couple guys from the office today, too.”

I rolled over in bed to look at him. “You are? Is it a work thing?” Microsoft often held employee engagement events—basketball tournaments or picnics on Lake Sammamish—but Martin usually told me about them beforehand.

“No, I took a vacation day,” he said. He sat up and patted me on the hip, the same way he might have petted a dog. “I need some time with the guys.”

“Oh,” I said. I paused. “What time do you think you’ll be back? I could make us ribs.” My recipe for smoky, oven-baked ribs was almost always a guaranteed lure to bring him home.

He stood up and walked toward the bathroom. “I think I’ll be late, honey. Jeff wants to do drive practice and walk all eighteen holes. We’ll probably grab dinner out, too.”

“Okay,” I said, and on the surface, it was. I wasn’t bothered that Martin wanted to play golf with his friends. It was that he made plans without letting me know. I also hoped he would want to spend at least part of his day off with his wife and son. Still, I didn’t push the issue.

Instead, I tried to up the romance in our relationship. I put sweet notes in his lunches and made sure to kiss him passionately before he left for work. I cooked the food he adored, and despite my insecurities about my post-pregnancy body, I donned the skimpy lingerie he was so fond of in an effort to reignite our sex life. One night, I arranged for my sister to babysit Charlie and planned an elaborate dinner, being sure to text Martin a reminder that we had the entire evening to ourselves. As the candles burned low, I sat in the kitchen wearing a scant red dress, crying. He strolled through
the door at midnight, claiming he’d been busy at work and simply forgot about our date.

“Sorry,” he said. “Why are you so upset? It’s just dinner.”

I stared at him through swollen eyes. “No, Martin. It’s not. Charlie is with Jess until tomorrow morning and I went to a lot of trouble to make this a special night for us. You know we don’t get enough time alone together and you totally blew me off.”

He stepped over to the table, picked up the glass of wine I’d poured for him earlier, and took a sip before speaking. “I think you’re overreacting. I’m here, now, aren’t I? You look great, by the way. But I think you’d look better out of that dress.” He winked at me, and I shook my head in disbelief. Was he kidding?