Five Days (7 page)

‘Yeah, but he carried out their dirty work for them.'

‘Unfortunately that's his job.'

‘You sticking up for him?'

‘Hardly.'

‘But you want me to accept his offer.'

‘I don't want you to take the job if it is something you absolutely don't want to do.'

‘We need the money.'

‘Well, yes, we really do. Still, we would find a way to keep things somehow ticking over . . .'

‘You want me to take the job.'

‘I'm not saying that, Dan. And I have asked the hospital if they would let me do ten extra hours of overtime a week – which would bring in around two hundred and fifty more dollars.'

‘And make me feel guilty as hell . . .'

Now, as I was turning this all over in my mind, I headed down my road. It's a country road, around a mile from the center of Damriscotta. A road that loops its way through slightly elevated countryside . . . though the realtor, when he first brought us to see it, referred to the surrounding landscape as ‘gently rolling'. When I mentioned this once to Ben (in a discussion we were having about the way salesmen inevitably pretty things up) he just shook his head and said:

‘Well, I suppose if you were a rabbit you'd think it was “gently rolling”.'

The fact is that, down towards the waterfront, the terrain is elevated, humpy. The town lawyers and doctors live on those wonderful prospects overlooking the Kennebec River. So does one rather successful painter, a reasonably well-known writer of children's books, and two builders who have cornered the market in this part of mid-coast Maine. The houses there are venerable clapboard structures – usually white or deep red – beautifully maintained and landscaped, with recent SUVs in the driveways. Hand on heart I have never had a disagreeable thought about the people who are lucky enough to live in these elegant, refined homes. Hand on heart there is a moment every day when I drive by this stretch of waterfront houses and think:
Wouldn't it be nice if . . .

If what? If I had married a rich local doctor? Or, more to the point, had become that doctor? Is that a tiny little stab I always feel – and yes, it has been a constant silent prod recently – whenever I pass by this stretch of real estate, before turning upwards towards my far more modest home? Is midlife inevitably marked by the onset of regret? I always put on a positive face in front of my work colleagues, my children, my increasingly detached husband. Dr Harrild once referred to me (at a surprise fortieth birthday party two years ago) as ‘the most unflappable and affirmative person on our staff'. Everyone applauded this comment. I smiled shyly while simultaneously thinking:
If only you knew how often I ask myself: ‘Is this it?'

My dad often sang a tune to me about ‘accentuating the positive' when I was younger and getting into one of those rather serious moods I used to succumb to during the roller-coaster ride that was adolescence. But considering how often I caught him singing those upbeat words to himself I can't help but think that he was also using the song as a way of bolstering his own lingering sense of regret. Dr Harrild actually heard me humming this once in the staff room and said:

‘Now you are about the last person who needs to be telling herself all that.'

Dr Harrild. He too always tries to accentuate the positive – and genuinely be kind. The trip I'm taking this weekend being an example of that. A radiography conference in Boston. OK, Boston's just three hours down the road, so it's not like being sent to somewhere really enviable like Honolulu or San Francisco (two places I so want to visit someday). Still, the last time I was in Boston . . . gosh, it must be two years ago. A Christmas shopping trip. An overnight with Sally and Ben. We even went to a touring production of
The Lion King
and stayed in an OK hotel off Copley Square. The city was under a fresh dusting of snow. The chic lights along Newbury Street looked magical. I was so happy that Ben and Sally were so happy. And I told myself then that I was going to find the money to start travelling a little every year; that life was roaring by and if I wanted to see Paris or Rome or . . .

Then, a few weeks later, Dan was out of a job. And the dream was put on permanent hold.

Still, thank you, Dr Harrild. An all-expenses-paid trip to Boston. Gas money. A hotel for two nights. Even $300 in cash for expenses. And all because he was invited to this radiological convention, but his eldest boy has a football game this Sunday and he wanted the hospital represented at the convention, and when I raised the concern that maybe I wasn't senior enough (i.e. a doctor) to be attending, he brushed that worry away with the statement: ‘You probably know more about radiography than most of the senior consultants who will be there. Anyway, you deserve a trip on us, and a break from things for a few days.'

Was that his way of letting me know that he'd heard something about the state of ‘things' at home? I had been pretty damn scrupulous about not telling anyone at the hospital or around town about Dan's problems. Still, small hospitals and small towns breed small talk.

Not that Dr Harrild would ever really engage in such gossip. But he was right about me needing a break – even one that would last just under seventy-two hours. A change of scene and all that. But also – and this was a realization which, when it hit me a few days ago, truly shocked me – the first time I had been away on my own since Ben and Sally were born.

I have let myself stand still
.

But tomorrow I am on the road. Alone. Even if it is a destination I already know – and one that's just a small jump from the place I call home – travel is travel. A temporary escape.

I turned into our driveway. The reclining rays of an unusually bright autumn sun reflected off the new roof of our house. A two-story house, somewhat squat, finished in off-gray clapboard that I would love to darken by two shades if I could ever find the $9,000 our local house painter told me it would cost to redo the entire exterior (and it really needs it). Just as I'd love to landscape the half-acre of land that fronts it, as it has become rather scrubby. Behind us, however, is a wonderful oak tree that, right this moment, is almost peacock-like in its autumnal beauty. Sometimes I think it was the tree that sold me on the house – as we bought it knowing it was a fixer-upper, a starter place from which we'd eventually graduate.

But enough of that (as I tell myself most days). We have raised two children here. It's our home. We worked hard to buy it. We continue to work hard to keep it (though the last mortgage payment falls in seventeen months – hurrah). It is our history. Only now can I honestly say that I've never warmed to the place. Nor has Dan. How I wish we'd talked ourselves out of ever buying it.

Our home.

I thought that as I pulled up our driveway and saw Dan sitting on the bench that covers most of the front porch, a cigarette between his lips. As soon as he spotted my car pulling up he was on his feet like an anxious schoolboy, dumping the cigarette onto the porch deck and then trying to hide the evidence by kicking it into the crabgrass below. Dan has been allegedly off cigarettes for six months – but I know he smokes several every day.

‘Hey there,' I said, all smiles as I got out of the car. He looked at me sheepishly.

‘It's the first cigarette in over a week,' he said.

‘Fine,' I said. ‘Good day?'

‘I took the job.' He was staring down at his feet as he said this.

At that moment I felt relief and a terrible sense of guilt. Because I knew that the last thing Dan wanted to do was accept that offer in the stockroom. Just as I knew that he knew the breathing space that extra money would bring us. I tried to take his hand. He stiffened and pulled away, putting his hand behind his back, out of reach. I said nothing for a moment, then uttered two words:

‘Thank you.'

MEATLOAF. DAN HAD
prepared a meatloaf. He'd used his mother's recipe – covering the loaf in Heinz's tomato sauce and flavoring the beef with three cloves of crushed garlic (a recipe, he'd told me on several occasions, that was somewhat radical for Bangor, Maine, in the 1970s . . . when garlic was considered nothing less than foreign). He'd also made baked potatoes and a fresh spinach salad to accompany the meatloaf. And he'd bought a bottle of Australian red wine – Jacob's Creek – which he told me that ‘the guy at the supermaket said was “very drinkable”'.

‘That's high praise from a guy at a supermarket,' I said. ‘I really appreciate you going to all this trouble . . .'

‘Thought we should celebrate me landing the job.'

‘Yes, I think that's worth celebrating.'

‘And I know you've got your book thing with Lucy at seven.'

‘That still gives us an hour – as long as the meatloaf is ready by—'

‘It will be done in fifteen minutes.'

‘Wonderful. Shall we open the wine?'

He reached for the bottle and screwed off the cap, pouring wine into two glasses. He handed me one and we touched them.

‘To your new job,' I said.

‘I never thought I'd be toasting a job in a stockroom.'

‘It's a supervisor's job . . .'

‘Assistant supervisor.'

‘Still, it's a
management
position.'

‘In a stockroom.'

‘Dan . . .'

‘I know, I know. It will ease up so much for us.'

‘And it will also lead to other things for you. I'm certain it's just a temporary—'

‘Please stop trying to make me feel better.'

‘Should I try to make you feel rotten?'

He smiled. I came over and put my arms around him and kissed him straight on the mouth and whispered:

‘I love you.'

Instead of kissing me back, he hung his head.

‘That's nice to hear,' he finally said.

I put my finger under his chin and tried to raise his head. But he shrugged me off.

‘I need to check the potatoes,' he said.

I stood there, feeling numb.
Maybe I'm sending out the wrong signals. Maybe I'm telling him things subconsciously which he is interpreting as belittling or critical or . . .

‘Have I done something to upset you?' I heard myself asking out loud. Dan closed the oven door, stood up and regarded me with bemusement.

‘Did I say that?' he asked.

‘Do you feel I am not supportive enough or am conveying some sort of negative—'

‘Why are you bringing this up?'

‘Because . . . because . . .'

The words were catching in my throat, as they were being intertwined with a sob.

‘Because . . . I'm lost.'

What he said next was . . . well, ‘unbelievable' was the only word that came to mind.

‘That's not my fault.'

Now the sobs were no longer trapped in my throat. Now I was sitting down in a kitchen chair, crying. All that I had been repressing for weeks, months, suddenly cascaded out in heaving sobs.

Then Sally wandered in.

‘Another happy night at home,' she said.

‘I'm fine, I'm fine,' I said, forcing myself to stop sobbing.

‘Sure you are. And Dad's fine too. And we all love each other. And everything is just great. And, by the way, I'm skipping dinner.'

‘But your father's prepared a wonderful meatloaf.'

‘Since when was meatloaf ever “wonderful”? Anyway, just got a call from Brad. His parents have decided to eat at Solo Bistro down in Bath tonight and asked if I wanted to come along.'

‘It's a little late for that,' Dan said.

‘And why?' Sally asked.

‘Because your dinner is in the oven.'

‘I'll eat the leftovers tomorrow.'

‘Sorry,' Dan said, ‘but I'm not allowing it.'

‘That's unfair,' Sally said.

‘Too bad you think that.'

‘Come on, Dad – Solo Bistro is a great restaurant . . .'

‘Can't say I've ever eaten there.'

‘That's because you've been out of work and miserable for the last year and a half.'

‘Sally . . .' I said.

‘Well, it's the truth – and you know it, Mom.'

Silence.

Dan slowly bent down and put the potatoes back in the oven. Then, standing up again, he turned away from his daughter as he said:

‘You want to eat with those people, off you go.'

Sally looked at me for confirmation. I nodded and she ran off out the door.

I heard a car pull up outside – and glanced out the window to see Sally heading towards Brad's silver Mini convertible. He got out to greet her and give her a very full kiss right on the lips. She didn't hold back either. At that moment I was absolutely certain that they were sleeping together. Not that this had come as a shock, as I was pretty sure this had been going on for a year. Just as I also knew that she had asked for an appointment with my gynecologist six months ago and just said it was ‘routine stuff'. Did that mean my daughter was on the pill or had been fitted for a diaphragm? Either way I suppose it was better than getting pregnant. Gazing at Brad – so tall, so lean, so deeply preppy in a town where preppy wasn't a common look – all I could think was:
He is going to break her heart.

I watched the car zoom away, and saw Sally put her arm around Brad as they headed off into the actual sunset. Immediately I thought back to the time when I was seventeen, on the cusp of everything, so determined to succeed. I reached for the wine bottle and splashed a little more in my glass. In the wake of Sally driving off Dan had stepped outside and lit up another cigarette. The joylessness in his eyes was palpable. Seeing him staring out at the world beyond I felt a desperate stab of empathy for him, for us. Coupled with the realization:
He is now a stranger to me.

I set the table. I took out the meatloaf and the potatoes. I ladled sour cream into a bowl. I rapped on the glass of the kitchen window. When Dan swivelled his head I motioned for him to come inside. Once back in the kitchen he looked at the dinner ready to be eaten and said: