Chapter 21.
"How could you, Josh? How?" said Kathy. "The one person I am supposed to be able to rely on, and you are the one that told everyone in town."
Josh said, "I didn't tell anyone."
"You told someone. I know you told someone. Thinking back to the call now, I could tell you thought I was pathetic, so I'm sure you turned around and made a comment to someone."
"Jesus, this is a bit much. I'm not in the mood for crazy today."
"A bit much?" Kathy nodded, "Yes it is. It has been a bit much for a long time. A bit more than I like. You don’t take part in this family. We are nothing but a burden to you. You'd rather be anywhere but here. And I'm sick of it!"
"Be sick of it then." Josh motioned toward the bathroom. "Not in front of the kids. If you have to shout, do it in here…"
"Why shouldn't they hear it?" Kathy said.
"Because there's a thing called decorum and this is trash. Please, at least for now." He motioned to Kathy with his arm, tilting the crown of his head at the door.
She grudgingly walked toward Josh and entered under his arm, flipping the light switch on. A spacious bathroom, with double vanities and a large open area leading to the two-person Jacuzzi – a luxury option chosen during construction, used only a handful of times since its installation. Most recently, the Jacuzzi had been used by Josh and Shannon, not Josh and Kathy.
"Maybe I would like to do things," said Kathy. "Wouldn't it be nice if I could just say goodbye and put on my coat and leave the house, like you."
"Go ahead! Join something," said Josh. "Do something. I'd be happy if you found a hobby other than browbeating. People need hobbies, Kathy. Sitting and stewing for years is not the kind of hobby I mean. People need social lives so that they don't sit at the kitchen table and cry over the burden of selecting flatware."
"What night would I have to participate in something Josh? Monday nights? Oh wait, that's your golf night. Or Tuesday. Tuesday, you have the Rotary in Tonnamowoc. Wednesday, Knights of Columbus and cleaning the church yard. Funny you make such an effort for the church – but it's not about the church, is it? It's not about golf, the church, or anything else. It's not even about putting a good face on the bank. I know what all this volunteering and joining is about. It's about yourself. It's so you don't have to raise your kids."
"I love my children," said Josh, pointing at the stairs that led to their bedrooms. She had enumerated his list of excuses for meeting with Shannon. "Don't ever accuse me of not loving them."
"You may love them," said Kathy, "you may. But you don't want to raise them."
"I raise them," said Josh. "I take them to games and school and..."
"I take them to their games, Josh. I take them to school. To the pool. To haircuts. To the doctor. To the bathroom," she shouted. "And that's after I've finished the workday. You take them somewhere once a month."
"Yes, I do nothing."
"Even when you do watch them, you just let them watch The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Roseanne. And what father in his right mind takes children to see Rain Man? And then you joke about autism, teaching them to laugh at people."
"They liked Rain Man. God forbid we laugh sometimes."
"You think it was yesterday that you did chores around here, and then it's the exact opposite in the bedroom, acting like it's been a year since you had it, even if it was just a week ago."
"A week ago, right. A week on what planet?"
"Then when I want it, you don't want it anyway. It's obvious you have no attraction toward me."
He ignored her last comment because he agreed. "So what is it, dear, that you want me to do? Grant you full command of the ship? Put the family jewels into your purse, once and for all?"
"I want you to help me, to be here." She bent over with her hands cupped in front of her, a demanding supplicant.
"No, that's not what you want, Kathy."
"Just a little help."
"You want me to quit my life. I have obligations. You want me to quit doing what I enjoy so I can sit here with you and keep company with your misery. That's what you want. You hate to see anyone smile. But you know what? I know you. And you enjoy being the martyr. You love to sit and complain about all that you do, the cross you bear. Turn around, dear, let me see if one shoulder is lower than the other from the weight."
"Oh, it's there all right. All I ever asked for…I just want a break now and then, for an hour or two."
"We make enough money, we can get some girl to come and clean and play with the kids. A nanny. There's plenty of hayseeds around here who would work for cheap."
"And there it is." Kathy shook her head, no longer begging for help, but having her answer she stood up straight and let her arms hang at her sides. "You just admitted it. It's about you."
"Whatever you say."
"You don't want to raise your kids."
"If it's too much for you, then back off at work," Josh said, chopping his points in the air. "Quit, for God's sake. Why not just watch the kids yourself?"
"Because I like my career," she said, snapping at him. "Why should I have to quit or go part-time? Why does it always have to be the woman?"
"Because you're the mother!" said Josh, raising his voice. "How hard is that to understand? This is how it works. I didn't carry the babies, you did. The bond will never be the same for me as for you. Don't you get it? I don't have time to manage the bank and rush out the door every time one of them scrapes his knee."
"They are ours, not just mine, and I am not sorry if I want to have a career, even if it is just a lowly teller."
"Listen to me, Kathy," Josh said, with his finger in front of her face. "I will provide for us, for all of us, but I will not spend my life sitting in the recliner in the living room like some old broke-ass farmer where the stiffest thing between his legs in twenty years was a brandy Manhattan. If the children grow to hate me as adults, at least I can still provide for them. And I can live with that."
"What goes through your head?" She put the back of her hand to her forehead. "Like it's a choice? You can either be a good father, or an absent one? You live under a sad set of ideas. You act like you never wanted kids…"
He turned away from her as if to avoid the question, but spun around and blurted, "I already had a kid! Before I met you! Yes, that's right, Kathy, that's the truth. I already had a son."
She exhaled in disgust. Her face whitened.
"That doesn't mean I don't love Dawn and the others," Josh said, retreating. "I will put them into the best clothes and school programs. They will want for nothing."
She shook her head. "I knew it. I knew you never wanted them. Their own father a stepfather. Why don't you leave? What do you live here for? Why don't you go find Ethan, if he's the only child you wanted? Go run out and tell Renee you still love her, because I know you do. I knew it, I always knew that. Why don't you just leave?"
"Leave? Get out of my own house?" Josh said, laughing, thumbing his nose twice and smirking. "I don't think I will. I think I will stay right here. Because I know something else, Kathy. I know that you stopped taking the pill when we were dating. Didn't you?"
"I did not," she said, folding her arms, lip beginning to quiver with anger.
"You stopped taking the pill to trap me when you could see our relationship was in the toilet. You set your little man-trap on me."
"Then set yourself free and leave. Or maybe I'll leave you and take the kids. You don't love them. You don't love anyone, except yourself."
"You can leave," said Josh, "but you won't take the kids, that I promise you." He sat in the recliner. "I promise you that. I will guarantee you, it will never happen. Especially after this whole cornfield incident. Who do you think will appear more responsible? You? Don't run that route, Kathy. I would think living through that experience once was enough. In court, it will
sound much worse."
The threat punctured her. She could not answer.
"And if you left," he continued, "I'd find someone else who was more content. Someone happy with what she'd been given, not always trying to be the boss, not keeping score on who went where for how many hours on a Tuesday night. I'd find someone who loved me." He smiled and said, "No, someone who even worshiped me."
"Don't you already have a dog?"
"Clever. Old Fetz at the bank told me once, 'Josh, don't marry the one who you fall in love with, marry the one who falls in love with you.' I fell under your spell. I've snapped out of it now. Now I see someone in love and I pity them, since they have gone temporarily blind. Why don't you go out for a while, Kathy. Go for a week. Take the break you crave so much. Just go somewhere."
"I will," she said. "And you'll see how much work it is, you'll see in three hours." She turned to go and stopped at the bathroom door to say, "That's right, I stopped taking the pill. I stopped taking it right after I found you flirting with that grocery clerk in Tonnamowoc."
"Confirmation. Hallelujah! I knew it, I knew you did, you trap. And now we're back to the infamous grocery clerk," Josh said, with disdain and a glowering stare. "The old hatchet, half-buried, you can never let that one go. You know, I should go back and find that grocery girl, go to Tonnamowoc and chase all the grocery clerks in all five grocery stores, just to live up to your accusations. Maybe I'll get a harem of grocery clerks. I'll have them wear their aprons to bed. The grocery clerk from ten years ago. Maybe she was my true love. I better get out there again, go find my clerk, see if she's still scanning yogurt."
"To think I rejected poor Harold Bynum for you, that simple and happy man. God knows why, only God knows, when you have proved such a black hole." She spat at Josh's face, but he jumped aside.
"You're cleaning that, not me," he said. "But that's a good idea. Sure, Kathy, why don't you go find Harold. Go find him and his chickens, you can collect eggs for him all day. I'll go find my clerk and we'll open a deli. What a ridiculous conversation. Where are you going?"
Kathy shoved past him. "I'm leaving. Move your arm."
"If I don't?"
"You'll be impotent," she said, readying her knee.
His arm dropped and she rushed out of the bathroom, to the laundry room. From the dryer she collected unmatched clothing, tossing shirts and socks into a laundry basket. Without acknowledging Josh, she passed through the kitchen and realized that Dawn and Rhea had been listening. Tear-stained cheeks broke the mother's heart. Using her index finger, she collected tears and touched their noses. She whispered, "I love you both. And Bryce. Where's Bryce?"
"He's in the closet with Mop."
"Mommy needs to go out for a while," Kathy said.
"Where Mommy?" asked Rhea.
"I don't know."
"Can I come, Mommy?" said Rhea.
"No, honey. Not now."
"Can I, Mommy?" asked Dawn.
"No." Kathy started to cry. "Just stay here with Daddy, for now."
"Don't go, Mommy," said Rhea. "Who will take us trick-or-treating?"
On the stoop, the faces of children called Kathy back to the house but she moved away, unable to occupy space with Josh. Across the yard, at a storage shed, she opened a door and placed her laundry basket inside her old Toyota Tercel, dusty and dirty. But it was not the Cadillac. It was hers and not his. It was hers before she was his. All shared things now felt tainted. She prayed that the old junker started. The starter lolled, chugged on the spinning wheel, and finally turned over. Green smoke spewed from the rusted muffler.
She drove to the road, down the same lane she took every day, but turned in the other direction, attempting to escape the gravity of Immaculate.