The Burning Side(38)

I stay in our house because I am a father. Meals are eaten and laundry is washed. Trash bins fill and oranges fur with mold. Phones ring and mail is retrieved. Days pass and the baby cries, the only one of us who does. He wails like a banshee.

Every day, I stand in front of the rising generation of students, telling them about figures of the past. But something about the familiar stories feels incomplete now. I shut my classroom door after school and ask Google how many of those historical figures had affairs. I’m insatiable for the details that didn’t shape headlines but shaped people. How many wives did Sam Houston have? And, How did James Bowie survive the death of his wife? And, Did Stephen F. Austin regret not marrying? And, What about the women behind the men of the Revolution? I find some personal information out there, but most of it is about muskets and land disputes. Love and lust and shame were kept closer to the heart. They were taken to the battlefield or the grave, where the faithful and unfaithful alike fill plots of land that were hard-won and, therefore, hard-lost.

Then, every night, I lie on the floor of Otto’s bedroom wondering if April will run off with Cody. I see them together whether my eyes are open or closed. I want to yank out the part of my brain with the memory of that cataclysmic day, with the memory of April altogether. At least I finally understand why she’s been pushing me away: Cody makes more sense for her than I ever have.

But he seems to vanish, and I don’t ask about it. In fact, not asking becomes my mission. I could obsessively demand every detail, but it’s too painful to imagine even one.

The cruelty of this is that I have to be the one to call it. After a couple of weeks of us drifting through our house like shadows, school lets out for the summer and I can’t bear to stay any longer. April is making dinner, and the kids are in the other room in front of cartoons when I tell her that I want to end this. Then she’s back and forth across the kitchen, saying, “Now you’re ready to talk? It’s not the right time for a big conversation. I have kids to take care of.”

I have kids to take care of too. But they’re fine with their noodles and television. April is just the sort of overwrought mom who thinks they need every little thing done for them.

I peek around the corner at the backs of their heads. Otto is in his high chair, curls at the nape of his neck. Sadie is giggling. I would die for them without hesitation, but I also wish I never had them. They are light enough to lift in one arm, yet their dependence is as heavy and immovable as failure itself. They didn’t ask to be born to parents who would lose each other. They only asked to be held in the dark, to have one more book read to them, to eat buttered noodles instead of broccoli.

Looking at them now, I clutch my chest. Children make it grueling to stay married and grueling to get divorced. I knew the world into which I brought them, and yet I brought them still. This is my fault. Mine and April’s. Two idiots who believed ourselves immune.

“Fine,” I say. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

But six hours later, I wake to smoke.





Part Two Flames





DEB


July 12, 2022

I BEND TO COLLECT THE morning paper, wet with dew. Billy likes the sports section, especially in July with Wimbledon and the Tour de France.

John and Brenda Miller are loading suitcases into the back of an Uber across the street. I wave as Brenda steps into the street with a tilt of her head. “Everyone doing okay?”

She’s referring to the fire. She doesn’t know about the Alzheimer’s.

“We’re getting by.” I smile. “Where are you off to? Need me to grab your mail?”

Her face lights up. “Paris, can you believe it?! Spreading our wings now that the nest is empty, you know how it is.”

Brenda is my age. Her kids grew up playing with mine, sharing walks to school and front yard soccer matches. Birthday parties and prom nights. Brenda and John’s golden years are ahead of them. But she’s wrong. I do not know how that is.

“Would the mail be a terrible inconvenience? We’re back next Tuesday.”

“Not at all.” I wave as they get into their car. “Have a good trip.”

“Thanks!” Their Uber motors around the corner, and the street goes quiet.

Billy and I haven’t really traveled. Our hands were always full, travel meant for tomorrow back when tomorrow was a given. But barefoot here in my front yard, I have the sinking understanding that we will never go to Paris together. I have no particular attachment to Paris, haven’t thought about it one way or another. But now it looms in front of me as a thing we will never do. I will never watch Billy watch the Tour de France in person. I’ve always known we wouldn’t do most things in this wide world, but I didn’t know we wouldn’t do this thing. It’s specific. And the specificity is a dull, spreading grief.

I turn toward the house, drying dew from the paper.

Inside, Sadie and Otto are at the dining table with their grandfather and bowls of oatmeal. Sadie’s tongue is peeking out of her mouth as she focuses on squirting the honey bottle.

I notice the time. “When’s your first patient?”

Billy follows my gaze to the clock. “Shoot. Ten minutes.” He stands as he spoons a few last bites of oatmeal. He has officially given notice of his retirement, and not a moment too soon. I worry he might give someone a crown who only needs a cleaning, or administer an anesthetic when they only need a fluoride treatment.