You understand what I’m saying, don’t you, Hilary?”
“Yes. I understand.” The vise was closing.
“We’re a needs-blind school here, when it comes to aid. But I’m not sure I can run with you if this continues into next semester.”
“I hear you. I’ll figure something out,” I said.
I told Margaret Wheeler and Eileen Pace, Brandon’s social behavior and physical therapy tutors, that we’d have to put things on hold for a while.
“But he’s doing so well,” Margaret said, her disappointment clear. “Look, if this is what it’s about, you don’t need to pay me right away. We’ll work something out.”
Margaret was a retired special ed teacher. Her husband was a cop. Ten days ago I was bringing in more than they did together.
“Just for a couple of weeks, maybe,” I said. I hugged her. “Thank you, Margaret.”
I put together a balance sheet of my finances. You didn’t have to have an accounting degree to see that it was bleak.
I had twenty-six thousand left in the bank, including the thirteen and change I’d received in severance. Forty-two hundred was due every month for the mortgage. And zero chance of refinancing that now. Utilities were another six hundred. Not to mention the sixty-five hundred due next month to the town of Armonk for property taxes. Jim used to pay that, like the mortgage. But no longer. If I made Brandon’s school current, that left me only ten thousand.
The house payments alone would eat that up.
I couldn’t go to my folks again. They owed as much in unsold boats as I had in debts and it was bleeding them dry.
I could cut the tutors, all the stuff for me I’d always fit in—mani/pedis every couple of weeks and facials every couple of months and the trips to the mall.
That was all history now.
I could cut back on Starbucks, along with eating out. I could even cut back on the barre method and my kickboxing, though sending a spinning, grunting side kick into a sixty-pound bag was about all that was keeping me sane right now.
But I saw the wave that was coming at me. Like someone in the path of a tsunami coming onshore with no chance of getting out of the way. Maybe not this month, but certainly the next. It was going to crash over me and snap me in two. Me and Brandon. Like matchsticks. And even if I did find another job, and quickly, the math still didn’t add up.
I looked at the numbers and saw what any person would have seen a while ago.
Everything was falling apart.
It wasn’t Slick anymore who was whispering on my shoulder.
It was survival.
Something had to change or I wouldn’t last another month.
“Jim …” I had to try him one more time. I had to try anything.
“Hil …?” His voice was cool and reserved, clearly not delighted to hear from me. “Hil, we’re out in Vail. Can’t this wait until we get back?”
“No, Jim, I’m sorry, it can’t wait. Not any longer.”
I heard him whisper to someone, an exasperated tone, like his hysterical ex-wife was on the phone and can you believe he had to deal with this out here, with ten inches of fresh powder on the slopes and an Irish coffee in his hand?
Maybe I was starting to grow hysterical.
“Jim, I’ve only got a month’s cushion to my name. I don’t know how I’m going to pay the mortgage. Not to mention Brandon’s school. You said you’d think it over and get back to me, but all that’s past. I need your help, Jim. Now. Not for me, but for your son. I don’t care where you are right now …”
“Hil, hang on,” he said. I heard him excuse himself and there were a few seconds of silence. When he got back on, he was probably outside. “Listen, Hil, I thought I told you we’re pretty much in the same pickle.”
“I don’t care about your fucking pickle, Jim. You’re out in Vail. Your pickle is keeping your wife’s name in Greenwich magazine and holding on to your Porsche. I’m doing what I can to protect our son.”
He was silent.
“Jim, look, through everything we’ve always dealt with things pretty reasonably. But I don’t have the luxury of being nice anymore. You owe me for over a year of child support. You bailed out of Brandon’s school. I can’t sell the house. I won’t get a fucking nickel from it even if I could. And I can’t even sue you—it would take too long, even if there was something I could get from it. Jimmy, please … you know I don’t beg easily, but I’m begging. I’m trying to save ourselves …”
I was also begging for him to save me from doing the one thing I didn’t want to do.
“Look, I shouldn’t even say this …” He cleared his throat. “Maybe there is something I’ve kept aside. But we’re not talking much, Hil.”
“How much is something, Jim?”
“I don’t know.” He paused. “Maybe five or ten thousand. Max …”
“Five or ten grand?” The blood pretty much stopped in my veins. The math ran over me like a train had plowed into my car. Ten thousand would barely get me past March. No more.
“I had to pay off some obligations with the company. Otherwise, I was headed to Chapter Eleven, Hil. Anything else is Janice’s. And you know, that gets complicated.”
“Jim, that’s only a month, maybe two, of Brandon’s school. I’m not asking for anything for me, but—”
“Anyway, it’s going to have to wait until I come back. This isn’t exactly sitting in my 401(k). And, Hil, all I can say is that this isn’t going to get any easier. I know you don’t want to hear this, but we really are going to have to consider putting Brandon in public school. I’m told the programs are really good up in Chappaqua and Bedford.”
“Chappaqua and Bedford …?” The words fell off my lips like heavy weights.
“I checked. Bedford has a separate special ed school. And Ridgefield, I know that’s in Connecticut, but it’s good too and it’s tons cheaper to live up there as well.”
“Screw off, Jim.” Tears flooded my eyes. I couldn’t hold it back. I’d never said those words to him before.
“Hil, please …”
The phone in my ear, I flashed back to the day we were married. Me, in my white lace dress, my hair in braids. Jim, nervous, clumsy, a big, cushy walrus, fumbling for the ring. I knew he wasn’t the safest of bets, even back then. Just a big, overgrown boy with his toys. But what I did think was at least I had a partner. Someone
