We watched him go from the front doorway. As his car pulled out of the driveway John leaned down and whispered, “Are you in love?” and I walked away from him so quickly it was as if I jumped. He followed me into the kitchen and began to help me clean in silence, but after a few minutes in which his bustling presence became more and more unbearable, I snapped at him to leave me alone.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said. I had drunk more alcohol than usual that afternoon, and though I knew I was angry with him, I also knew I wouldn’t be able to find the correct phrasing to tell him why. He pressed and pressed, becoming more and more aggressive, until finally I told him to fuck off, and that as far as I was concerned he was a sadist. It wasn’t the right word, but I couldn’t express how he had taken a beautiful, almost spiritual afternoon, the kind of afternoon one remembers long after it has passed, and ruined it, for no reason, with his cruel and leering comment. In response, he, drunker than me, volatile and irascible, emptied the full recycling bag he was holding on to the floor, so that beer bottles and plastic clamshells tumbled out onto the tile. He told me I was a miserable woman and accused me of taking a shit on every nice thing, all because of what other people thought, not even what I thought. I told him what people thought had nothing to do with anything, and besides, he was the one who took a shit on things, he was the one, he did that, and then I lowered my voice and told him I couldn’t go on like this anymore. He told me fine then, please, file for divorce, please, miming begging gestures and histrionically picking up the scattered recycling he had spilled and throwing it back into the bag. I watched his display with what I knew was a look of ugly disdain, then laughed and told him not to worry, that I was seriously considering it. He paused, then threw the empty tin can he was holding at the wall to my right and let loose on me a torrent of blame and expletives so foul and hideous that I can’t repeat them other than to say that by the end I felt like there was a sandbag in my stomach, and my head hurt from crying, and my limbs felt limp, and I couldn’t finish cleaning, I could barely even walk to my bed before succumbing to a sleep that felt like the heaviness of death.
The next morning we resumed our distant cohabitation, contrite but bruised from our inebriated altercation. I wrote to Vladimir about his book. I told him that I deeply admired it and that I would like to take him out to lunch once the semester “got rolling” to discuss it. I hadn’t brought it up the day before because John hadn’t read it, and I didn’t want to hurt Vladimir or embarrass John. As the day wore on and I didn’t hear back from him, I began to feel more and more sick about what had transpired at our home the day before. I went over it in my mind—was I too eager, somehow tense or hovering? Was he mad about the lemonade, or did I talk too much in the conversation? Did I interrupt him—I was known to interrupt, I hated this about myself. Did he think I was merely unworthy of his time and respect? But no, no, I didn’t want to work myself up like that, it was Sunday, he wasn’t on his email, nobody writes back right away on a Sunday.
At around two in the afternoon I took a drive （with my phone on Do Not Disturb and locked in the glove box） to my cabin near the lake, an hour north and west of where we were, where the reception was nonexistent unless you hooked up to the Wi-Fi. The last renter of the season had gone the week before and I needed to bring in the outdoor furniture and lock up the boats before it was too cold. I had received an inheritance when one of my childless uncles on my father’s side died, a moderate sum of money with which I bought a modest amount of property with a little entryway to a medium-sized lake that didn’t allow motors. After clearing and replanting the trees and leveling the ground I bought a prefabricated, non-winterized log cabin and had it installed along with a dock. I had purchased it as a retreat for myself, a summer writing cabin, though since it was built I had rented it out, first to help pay for Sidney’s college, then law school, and now to help her with her student loan debt.
When I pulled into the gravel drive I was surprised to see that the cleaning service I used had clearly not come. There was a tipped-over garbage can from which trash was traveling across the driveway （the service usually took the garbage to the local dump）。 I chased crumpled fast food wrappers and drink containers, balled-up napkins, and rotten fruit skins across the lawn. The cabin, when I entered, was picked up, but there was the tacky film of use over all the surfaces, the mildewy smell of damp towels and used sheets piled up by the washing machine, toothpaste marks, and a ring of foundation left on the bathroom counter. The last tenants had been a couple with a young child and a grandmother—like how we used to travel with John’s mother before Sidney turned eight （old enough to go to the Frick） and became good enough company that we did not require a babysitter. The small bedroom, where I imagined the grandmother had stayed, smelled of powder; the big one, where the couple and their daughter must have slept, smelled of sweat.
I was sure that there were many years before my daughter would have a child, if ever. When she was very little and I would ask her what she wanted to be when she grew up, she would say, “a mom.” And if I asked her what else, she would say, “a babysitter.” Now she was a lawyer for a not-for-profit similar to the ACLU and would perform the sign of the hex if children were mentioned. Still, I considered the small bedroom and my eventual relegation to it. If I stayed with John we would get the big bedroom, out of deference to our matriarchy and patriarchy. But if we split up, it would be cots and sofa beds and small bedrooms for me. My worth would be equal to how helpful, useful, and uncomplaining I could be. I would be tolerated as long as it was clear I appreciated the cots, the sofa beds, the small bedrooms. I would have to demonstrate gratitude for the scraps and crumbs of time, attention, money, and luxury that came my way. I would work for it, with early mornings watching the baby, or nights doing dishes after everyone fell asleep. I couldn’t be particular. Particular old women are not invited on vacations. Unless they are very rich, which I was not.
The cabin was wooden inside and out, the logs of the exterior making up the walls of the interior. The main part was one large room, the kitchen taking up one corner, a dining table in another, and the remainder a sitting room framed by two large glass doors that opened out to a small deck and a view of the lake. There was a hallway that led to the two bedrooms, two hall closets, a washer/dryer nook, and a small bathroom. I unlocked the closet where the cleaning supplies were kept. Despite feeling slightly disturbed when I saw the garbage swirling all over the lawn, and irritated that I was going to have to track down the cleaning service to ask what happened, I was looking forward to scrubbing the house. Something to get my back into. I began by drawing the microfiber feather duster over all the high surfaces to knock down the dust, then cleaning the windows, then the mid-level surfaces, and then the floors. High to low, like my mother taught me, so that the last thing to go was all the dirt you knocked down. In the bathroom I wiped down the counters and sink, scrubbed the shower, then the toilet, then got on my hands and knees to wipe the bathroom floor.
The side caddies of the refrigerator were filled with the hot sauce and dressing whims of all the combined summer renters, which I packed into a large cooler to take home. I wiped some stuck maple syrup out of a drawer and brushed some green flakes that looked like spilled frozen spinach out of the freezer. There was a lone ice cream sandwich, “S’more Flavour” printed on its label, in the back corner. I took a bite and spit it out—it was chewy with freezer burn. When the blankets, sheets, and towels were out of the dryer I folded them, wrapped them in clear plastic bags, and packed them in a large Rubbermaid garbage can that kept them safe from mold and mice and moths.