Part 16 (2/2)

She didn't know how much was still owed. It was better not to add it up. They didn't know, downstairs. They thought things were under control, that money to buy a house was flowing into a savings account. She couldn't tell them that a river of debt was sucking them under. If she told them, something would have to be done, and she didn't know what could be done. They would say, ”We don't blame you,” but they would. She couldn't keep her husband home. She couldn't manage the accounts. She couldn't look after her children.

They would blame her, or worse: they would tell Dean to shape up or s.h.i.+p out, and Dean would choose the latter. Frank had already hinted at this. ”You can always stay here,” he'd said one evening when Dean had failed to come home for dinner and Vera had gone upstairs to put the kids to bed and it was just the two of them, sitting over remnants of chicken pot pie at the dining table. ”You and the kids. If things don't work out with him, I mean. We can tell him to go.”

Laura had leapt up from her chair, rattling the plates on the table. ”I'd better start clearing up,” she said, grabbing the gravy boat and some gla.s.ses. In the kitchen, she ran the water and tried to breathe through the pain in her lungs. It was the cruellest thing she had ever heard. We can tell him to go. It was like offering to cut off someone's head because they had a headache, she thought, and a gasp like a laugh escaped her.

If things didn't work out with Dean, they didn't work out. Without him, it was all wrack and ruin.

She went to work in the morning, and she came home sick and went to bed. The name of the ailment could not be said with any certainty, but she knew something was wrong, at the very core of her.

”What, sleeping again?” Vera said. Laura showed her the pills. Vera read the label and said, ”Nerves. I told you it was all in your head.”

All in my head, Laura thought. Just like my father.

Vera said she had to fight it off. Pull herself together. Snap out of it. ”I had it too,” she said. ”After my operation. The doctor gave me medicine.”

”What operation?” Laura asked, although she had already guessed.

Vera said, ”A tumour. In my uterus. That's why I couldn't-why we adopted Dean.”

”Did the medicine help?” Laura asked.

”I didn't take it,” Vera said. ”I just put my foot down. I said, *I'm not going to feel like this anymore.' And that was the end of it.”

”I'm trying,” Laura said, her eyes hot with tears that could not be shed.

”Well, you need to try harder,” Vera said. ”That's all there is to it.”

The name of the ailment was failure and shame. There was no cure.

She called home. Her mother answered. They had started speaking again after Dawn was born, and for the last three years, Laura had been telling her how wonderful it all was, her handsome, das.h.i.+ng husband, her beautiful little girl, her kind, loving in-laws, her angelic little boy. Now Laura told her mother she was thinking about coming home with the kids.

”Oh, at last!” her mother exclaimed. ”Dean will drive, I suppose?”

Laura said she was coming alone. With the kids. To stay for a while.

Her mother said, ”What do you mean?”

What Laura meant was, she was leaving Dean. She would take the kids and go home, and then he would realize. He would come to his senses. She said, ”I need to come home, Mom. Just for a bit.” Then she was crying, and in the sweet relief of it, she told her mother everything.

Her mother's voice was gentle. ”Laura, honey, I wish you'd told me sooner.”

”I know, Mommy. But I thought it would get better.”

”It will get better, honey. It will. You just have to work at it. You'll see.”

Laura blew her nose. ”I am working on it, and it's not working. I need to leave him.”

”Laura.” The gentleness was gone. ”Listen to me. You cannot leave your husband. You have two kids. How on earth would you manage? Believe me, I know. It was hard enough for me with one-”

”Mom, if I stay here, I don't know what will happen to me. I don't know what I'll do.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Her mother said, ”Laura, you sound just like your father.” Then she said, ”Your father is better now, and I won't have you upsetting him. Can you imagine-if you show up with Dawn and Jimmy? What would people say? After the stunt you pulled the first time?”

Her mother said no, absolutely not. She said Laura's place was with her husband and her children. She said Laura would have to work at it. That's what marriage was. Did she think it was all flowers and candles and a stroll in the park? It was no picnic, but you didn't jump s.h.i.+p when things got difficult. Laura's mother hadn't left Laura's father, had she? No, she had stuck by him, through thick and thin.

”I don't want to leave Dean!” Laura cried. ”I want him to come back to me.”

”Honestly, Laura,” her mother snapped. ”I can't talk to you when you don't make sense.” She hung up.

Dean came in just as the sun was coming up. ”Where were you?” Laura asked quietly from the chair she had been sitting in all night.

”At Wharton's.

”Don't lie to me.”

He yawned. ”I'm going to bed.”

”What about work?”

”I'll call in sick.”

”They're going to fire you.”

He shrugged and dropped his s.h.i.+rt on the ground. ”I don't care if they do.”

”You don't care if they do.” She leapt up. ”I've been breaking my back working and you-you're out until all hours with G.o.d knows who. You have a wife and two kids living with your parents. You can't even-”

The lamp came flying across the room and broke against the wall.

She staggered backwards with a cry. ”Oh, calm down,” he said, climbing into bed. ”I didn't throw it at you.”

”But you threw it,” she whispered. A deep, wrenching sob shook her. When it was bad, it was horrid. ”Why do you behave like this? What is wrong with you?”

He lifted his head off the pillow to look at her. ”I don't want to do this,” he said.

”Then why don't you call to say where you are? Why can't you-”

”No! This! I never wanted any of this.” He gestured wildly at the room.

”If you hadn't quit the plant, we wouldn't have to live here.”

”Will you listen? I never wanted to get married and live in this s.h.i.+t town and punch a clock. You wanted this. This was your idea.” He turned his back to her and pulled the blankets up to his neck.

Laura stood in the middle of the room, her arms hanging uselessly by her sides. ”What do you mean?” she asked. ”Are you saying you don't love me?”

”No, okay? No. I do not love you.”

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