Megan Lindholm - Cloven Hooves

And it usually does, where we’re concerned, I think. No, I have said the foolish words aloud, I can tell by the sparks that light suddenly in Tom’s eyes. He finishes undressing in silence, kicking his pants away into a heap on the floor. He pushes the covers aside and swings his long pale legs into bed. His posture tells me I won’t be getting any tonight. He pulls up the covers before he speaks again.

His voice is a lie and a deception, reasonable and sweet. “If you want to take that attitude, then I suppose there’s no point to our discussing it at all.” You idiot, you spoiled brat, you cowering, narrow-minded little wretch, his attitude says to me. Refusing without even hearing me out. Heartless bitch. He hunches his shoulder under the white sheet and blue blanket. His soft hair fans out over the pillowcases. The pillowcases are white, but the cuffs feature Mother Maurie’s cross-stitch embroidery. A gaudy rooster on Tom’s, a plump little hen for me. The cross-stitched motto on Tom’s proclaims that he’s “all set to strut and crow,” while my hen petulantly affirms that she’d rather “set awhile.” They match a set we were given for a wedding gift. Steffie thinks they are adorable. They make me want to retch. Tom’s voice draws me back to our argument. “I’ll just tell them you didn’t like the idea, and that will be that.”

Oh, goody. You do that. I’d love to see their faces. I take a deep breath, put pettiness aside. “Tom. Don’t snap at me. You know what I’m thinking about, or at least you should. There’s our house. It’s been sitting empty since March, and we’re just asking for vandalism. God knows it’s probably full of mice and red squirrels already.”

“Pete and Beth said they’d keep an eye on it.”

“Pete and Beth both work, honey. Driving into our place twice a week only means they can let us know after the windows get broken. We’re not as isolated as we once were out there. Last summer I saw hikers and backpackers almost every day. And poor Bruno will be wondering what happened to us. I know they’ll feed him, but he’s only a pup. He’ll be half wild when we get back there as it is. And there’s Teddy’s school. He starts kindergarten this fall. I don’t want to have him start here, and then pull him out halfway through the year. Starting school is tough enough on a kid without doing that. And, last but not least, there’s the small matter of my job.”

In spite of my best effort, my voice was getting cold and rocky. Don’t make this a fight, I beg myself. Make it a discussion. He has to see the logic of what you’re saying, you don’t have to be a bitch about it. Just tell him. Lay it all out for him. I pause a moment, hoping he’ll say something. He doesn’t. I take a breath and go on.

“It took a lot of nerve for me to ask for this much time off. If Annie weren’t my friend as well as my boss, she’d never have said yes. But she can’t keep running the store on her own. She’s got some kid in there for the summer, but come winter the kid has to be back in school and she’ll be on her own. She’ll have to hire someone to take my place, and there won’t be a job for me to go back to.”

I pause and gather the reins of my self-control. Tom will see. He’s a reasonable man, one who has always treated me as an equal, as a person to be considered. But the silence lengthens and it looks as if he is having to struggle to control himself before he speaks. Neither of us are good at this, at quarreling. We do it very seldom, most things are settled conversationally, or one or the other of us will demur to the other’s area of expertise. I let Tom select the used truck we bought, he let me choose the insulation for the attic, we recognize there are areas where one of us is more knowledgeable than the other. But this is a different thing, an area of opinion based on emotions. And we are both experts on our own emotions.

“Jesus Christ, Lyn,” he sighs at last. “You make it sound like I’m contemplating murder. All we’re thinking about is spending a winter here with my folks and giving them a hand over a hard spot. I mean, hell, they paid for my college, they brought me up … I feel I owe them. And I have thought about all the stuff you mentioned. There’s a good school for Teddy just down the road from here. The school bus stops right by the gate. And I bet Pete and Beth could rent our place out for us in only a couple of weeks, if we let them know the kind of tenants we want. Taking care of Bruno would be part of the deal. And, hey, Dad said that if we were staying the winter, he saw no reason why Teddy couldn’t have that little pony that Red has up for sale. You know how he drools over that little pinto every time we drive past there. His eyes practically popped out when Dad mentioned it.”

“You discussed that in front of him? Tom, that’s not fair! You get his hopes all set up, and when Mommy wants to go home, that makes her the bad guy. And you still haven’t mentioned anything about my job.”

I am honestly angry now, paying no heed to the little sane voice inside telling me to be cool, be an adult, try to see both sides. Tom is frozen by his outrage, stiff as a corpse between the cold white sheets. The tendons stand out against his jaws when he speaks.

“You’re making a big deal out of nothing. Teddy is big enough to understand that what he wants isn’t always what he gets. I don’t see why you always have to get so mad. Any idea I have, if I talk it over with Mom or Dad first, you automatically hate it. It’s wrong, no matter what it is. And so what about your job? Clerking in some weird little shop, that’s not a big deal. I mean, what are you going to become, manager of the fruit and nut section? The buyer for organic teas? It’s not a big deal, Lyn! You can always get it back, or another piss-ant job just like it!”

“It is a big deal! It’s a big deal to me! And you’re damn right I don’t like it when you take your ideas and plans to your parents first! You’re supposed to be my husband! Remember? Usually married people make their decisions with each other, not with their mommys and daddys. And I happen to like my crummy little unimportant job. It’s hard to find a job you like, you should know that. You’ve walked out on enough of them. And my crummy little job was just fine with you last winter when it was the only damn thing that was feeding us!”

I stop suddenly. Carefully I fit my knuckles against my mouth and teeth, feeling where they would strike if I could hit myself, wishing I could. I wish I could. I’ve gone too far, way over the edge, past the unspoken boundaries we’ve set up for our quarrels. Never have I thrown things like that at Tom. He cannot hold a permanent job, that is something we both silently acknowledge, not as a fault but as a facet of his independent ways. Never have I thrown it at him like a dagger.

His eyes are wide open with vulnerability and hurt. I have struck true and deep, wounding him where the blood will puddle and congeal inside him. I have demanded my own way as something that is owed me, throwing his failures in his face to make it his duty to comply. He looks at me silently, his pain trickling through his guts, too badly injured to even fight back anymore.

“Tom, Tom, I’m sorry. I just got so mad, I started to say anything to hurt you back. I didn’t mean it that way, you know I didn’t mean it. I understood about those jobs. I didn’t want you to stay with them. But I’m hurt, too. When you go to your folks all the time, for advice and make decisions with them, it makes me feel so small and unimportant. There’s nothing for me here, and it makes me feel like nothing.”

“Teddy and I are nothing.” He says it acceptingly, dully.

“No. No, that’s not what I meant. You and Teddy are everything. Don’t listen to my words alone, you know what I mean behind the words. Please, Tom. I’m sorry for what I said.”