Christopher Ransom - The Birthing House

9

The routine was comfort. The routine was habit. The routine was boring.

The routine lasted two weeks.

He kept telling himself if he could stay positive until Jo's first planned visit home, all would be reconciled, or at least renegotiated.

He was wrong.

Hot, jobless, wifeless, he roamed in a fugue from one hour to the next. The days passed so slowly Conrad found himself staring at the kitchen clock (a plastic hen happily handing eggs to a farmer), wishing for a gun to blast it to pieces.

And he was trying, at least in the beginning. Conrad forced himself to rise and shower before eight, to dress as if he had a job. Clean-shaven, freshly polo-ed and khakied, his navy and lemon-striped Adidas kicks (his one concession to acting the man of leisure) laced neatly, he would walk the two blocks to the Kwik-Trip and pick up the Wisconsin State Journal , a watery coffee and maybe a banana or plain cake donut for breakfast. After reading the paper during his meditative and open-door toilet time, Conrad would walk the dogs around town. He became familiar with the houses, many of them old like theirs. Most were smaller. Some were twice as large, but these looked tired, thirsty for paint. He told himself 818 Heritage Street was the best in the entire town. That it was a special place.

After walking the dogs, Conrad would work the yard, pruning here and there, never making much of a dent in the wild grapevines and pine trees. It had been a wet spring, and so far June had delivered heat in the morning, rain almost every afternoon and sometimes again at night. The result was a gardener's dream climate of steamy, lush growth. He would weed the gardens until his back spasmed and his arms trembled. By noon he always found himself back inside the house, panting, guzzling iced tea, spitting and wheezing from the humidity or some allergy he could not classify.

To combat the afternoon malaise, he took to drinking iced tea by the gallon. It poured through him while he wasted hours checking email, surfing the web, reading scandalous DrudgeReport and PerezHilton headlines: This Little Starlet Went to Rehab, This Little Starlet Forgot to Wear Panties When She Pumped Gas. This Little Terrorist Had Roast Beef, This Little Husband Had None.

Left to fend for himself, he cooked four-course meals and shared them with the dogs. He looked out the windows and tried to time his trips to the mailbox with the neighbors' comings and goings. Steve Bartholomew worked from home - architecting databases with co-workers in Bangladesh - and always asked about Jo, which only angered Conrad. He talked with Gail Grum when he saw her in one of her six or seven gardens that grew in her backyard and between their homes. Sometimes Big John would wave to his junior neighbor as he unloaded diamond-blade saws and scrap rock from his truck at the end of stone-dusty days.

He thought about Holly, his one that got away. Every guy had one. Eventually you forgot her and moved on, and he had, but she was coming back. He fought the indulgence, however, and in her place turned his imaginings on Nadia Grum. The expectant girl next door. A little blonde ball of blustery ignorance. Did she live at home? Did she have bruises from her fight with what's his name, the boyfriend? Teddy? Davie? What did she do with her days? Was she a student? A dropout? Was Teddy preparing to be the father?

Was he still fucking her?

He spoke with Jo every night. Their conversations were short and depressing. She was always too tired to discuss the job and her routine in any detail. As they talked, Conrad would lie on the couch and imagine her lying on the bed in her pajamas in her suite, both of them flicking channels as the conversation dwindled to static sighs and half-hearted miss-yous, neither willing to admit they were stuck in a rut, separated by a lot more than Lake Michigan. He mentioned how excited he was to have her home for the weekend, floated the idea of a special night out in Madison - drinks on Monona Terrace, some live music, maybe.

'Ugh,' she said. 'All I can think about is sleeping in my own bed, cuddling with the dogs and taking a long, hot bath. The tub in my room is tiny and I just want to sleep for days.'

'Yeah, you sound tense,' he said, angling for the common thread. He imagined her long body folded up in the suite's tub, a washcloth draped over her eyes. 'We could always, you know . . . like we did that one time.'

She didn't remember 'that one time', back when they did all kinds of things. Undaunted, he hinted around it three or four times. She yawned. Finally he just said: 'Here's an idea. You're alone there. I'm alone here. Pour yourself a glass of wine, let's get crazy and have a hot and dirty conversation.'

He could hear her tense up and he immediately regretted the suggestion.

'No, not happening,' she said. 'Sorry.'

Maybe she was just tired. And maybe he was being too sensitive, sounding weak, which she always despised. Either way, her answer felt cruel.

'I wish you'd never gone.'

'Conrad, please. We chose this.'

'But I didn't go away. You did.'

'Don't be mad.'

'I'm not mad.' I'm fucking horny. Seventeen years old revved up and ready to go fifteen rounds! 'It's been a long time.'

'I'll make it up to you, honey. No pouting.'

'Yeah, yeah.'

'Call me tomorrow.'

'I will.'

'I love you.'

'Love you, too.'

It didn't add up. Shouldn't she be the one trying to make it up to him? Shouldn't she be writhing at his feet for the way he forgave her? For the house he'd bought for her? For getting her out of the rut, no questions asked?

He couldn't recall the last time they'd had sex, but he remembered their last night together in this house all too well. He'd had the chance and somehow he'd blown it.

It had been late and they were in bed. They had been tired from chores, but it was a shared pain and therefore good.

Jo had leaned against his shoulder and whispered, 'I love it here.'

He'd been cranky on purpose. 'What kind of training makes you leave home for eight weeks?'

'Think of it like, I dunno, the down payment on your own business. As soon as I'm done, I can telecommute -'

'- from anywhere in the world,' he finished for her. 'Is that what Donna said? Are you still selling me, now?'

'Maybe I am selling you. But if I do this, you can take all the time you need to figure out what you're going to do next. And I don't care, I really don't. Take as long as you want.'

'I thought this would be different. I thought it would be a relief for you.'

'What's to relieve?'

'I never liked being the man who depends on his wife. I'm supposed to be supporting you, and now I am.'

'I don't want you to support me.' She had said as much before and this always bitched him up. He had married a smart, capable woman, but he couldn't help feeling useless for the past couple of years. Maybe it was a man thing, not just a Conrad thing, but that didn't change the basic truth of it. 'It's six figures. One-fifty plus a bonus, to be precise.'

'Yeah. That's a lotta lettuce, Baby. But will you be happy?'

'With one-fifty? How can I not be?'

'Jo--'

'That's not what I meant. But this is a good thing. You know I never wanted to be the stay-at-home mommy. I have to do something. '

'Is that all this is about? Career fulfillment? Or is there something else going on?'

'Like what?'

'Jo. Okay.' He chose his next words like a man on a game show who's just realized this one's for the trip to Maui. 'We never went into it. You might have thought I was avoiding it, or just too mad to deal. But I want you to know. I . . . I understand what happened.'

'What does that mean?' She wasn't looking at him. Just whispering, but he could feel her tighten under his hand.