Page 5

Three
The Stay-at-Home Mom
(The shit they don’t tell you in the job description.)
“What doyou mean you had sex with him?”
“That’s exactly what I mean,” I whisper into the phone as I pick at the edges of the leather notebook in my hand.
Kate sighs, her disappointment evident. “Kel, how can you tell him you think you should separate, and then have sex with him in the pantry?”
She’s right. “I don’t know if I meant it,” I admit, chewing on my fingernails.
“The sex?”
My mind scrambles to find justification or even the right words. I’m so lost inside my own head that I don’t know if I’m making any sense. I’m probably not. “No, telling him I wanted to separate.”
Kate lets out a laugh. I think she’s beginning to understand what a headcase I can be at times. “Then why did you tell him that?”
“I… don’t know.”
See? Told you.
Two nights ago, I told Noah I wanted a separation after a very heated discussion. Noah hates fighting so he practically fucking whispers when he’s mad to keep from losing his temper. It’s one of the things I hate about him. I just want him to slam a door or punch a hole through a wall to show me he cares. Instead, I’m met with silence. So, in an act of desperation, I threw a pillow at his head and told him I thought we should separate for a while. I don’t think I was serious, and to be honest, I doubt he thought I was either. If you’ve ever been married, you know exactly how that happens. I know you’re curious to know why we were fighting. Well, we were fighting over the remodel, never agreeing on anything, and I said, “You know what, we should just… I don’t know, take a break.”
I remember the look of devastation and anger on his face. “Take a break from what? Marriage? It doesn’t fucking work that way, Kel. You don’t just take a break to fix shit.”
And that’s where the argument ended. He walked out of the room and we haven’t talked about it since.
Kate, my neighbor from up the street and now my venting partner, groans into the phone. “Shit, girl. I gotta go. My dad is going through the neighbor’s trash again.” Kate’s mentally ill father lives with her now, along with her ex-husband who refuses to move out, and her twin eleven-year-old boys. She’s got her hands full for sure and doesn’t need my drama. “Goddamn him. He’s not even wearing pants!”
When I hang up the phone, I think about what happened this morning. I shouldn’t have led Noah on like that. I’m the one who brought up taking a break, yet here I am, constantly falling back into our old ways, and the moment he touches me, my heart flutters and the need to have him closer takes over.
Do I want a divorce? No, I don’t, but I don’t know how to fix anything that’s happened. More importantly, I don’t know how to fix myself because deep down, I’m the problem, not Noah.
When I was younger, I don’t remember my mother being happy. Every memory of her I have is her stressing about money or her relationship with my dad or her being so drunk she couldn’t function. After my parents divorced, I swore to myself I wouldn’t be that person once I got married. Now what had I turned into?
Picking up my pen, I take the journal I’ve been writing in for the last two years and open it up. I flip through the worn pages I’ve already written in to a blank page. Running my fingers over the blank slate, I press the pen to the page and spill my thoughts I can’t bear to tell anyone else. Even Kate.
Journal,I don’t know what’s happening. We tried to have sex this morning and Noah saw a spider and ruined the moment. It’s like I’m on that bus in Speed and there’s certainly no Keanu Reeves there to guide me through it. Why is that? Oh, probably because my Keanu Reeves is… I don’t know what he is. I don’t even know what’s happening to us, let alone how we stop the bus when I’m the only one on it. Why is it that after you have kids, things go to shit? Where’s the naughty sex go? Date nights? I don’t even know what date nights are anymore because we moved away from family and finding a good babysitter is harder than you think, Journal.
Tell me the truth. Am I being ridiculous to think we should be able to have sex without it ending in an argument? Is it me? I know I’m not myself since Mara, but it’s understandable. We lost something so precious to us, even time can’t make that better. I admit we’re different now, but I hate to admit I think we’re slipping away from one another faster than the bus is going. The reality of being married with kids is quite a bit different than you would imagine.
Am I overreacting, Journal? It wouldn’t be the first time, and I know I shouldn’t have said the word “separation” to him when deep down I don’t mean it. I remember that first year of marriage when I was pregnant with Oliver, and Noah and I couldn’t keep our hands off one another. We made time, even when we didn’t have it. I miss that newness. Where’d it go?
Mara.
It begins and ends there. I know it does but admitting that to you, Journal, is easier than admitting it to Noah. I’m afraid of his reaction if I tell him that. Will he be mad? He won’t even mention her anymore. If I talk about her, he gets up and leaves the room.
Yesterday, the roofer asked me how many children I had and I broke down in tears, and Noah, he stared straight ahead, his jaw flexing as he bit the inside of his cheek and refused to acknowledge the guy’s question. Why do I always have to be the one to explain? Is he trying to erase her from his memory?
You know, I don’t think I was on that speeding bus alone. I think we started the chase together and now he’s jumped off and left me to handle it myself and figure out how to dismantle the bomb alone.
Closing the notebook,I tuck the pen inside the leather strap and push it aside, reaching for my coffee. Do you ever have days where you feel like you’re failing at pretty much everything? Sister, I’m with you on this one. All this talk about taking control of your life and finding your tribe, I don’t know who they’re talking about, but my tribe eats their boogers and thinks farting in the tub is hilarious. Where’s my coffee dates and girls’ trips with my besties?
Oh, right. I’m a mom, and it seems the moms who have it all together only exist on Instagram. I’m pretty sure they stage their entire lives and have nannies controlling their kids in the background.
“I hate cheese,” Hazel remarks, covering her mouth as if she might puke. If you’ve ever met a five-year-old girl, you’d realize quickly how it’s completely possible for her to make herself puke over simply smelling cheese. “It smells like Fin’s diaper.”