it looks bad,” Ted said.
“It’s just...I don’t understand what you’ve been doing all weekend. With us gone and the house to yourself—” She stopped, because if she kept going he might actually tell her, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. “Never mind. Just never mind.”
“Don’t you think I’m trying?” Ted said. “Is this really about the job search? Is that what this is?”
“What? No, I know you’re trying. I know it’s a tough market out there, and—”
“No. You don’t know what it’s like to send out thirty résumés and get only four callbacks. You can’t know what it’s like when a guy you trained—a guy who got out of business school in two thousand five, for Chrissakes, gets hired instead of you.”
“Ted, please. The kids’ll hear.”
“Hear what? We’re just talking, and it’s long overdue. I guess you’ve been wanting to say this to me for a while, and—”
“I didn’t even say anything! You brought it up. I have never once criticized you for not looking harder, not trying hard enough.” Tears welled up in her eyes, and she swiped them away.
“Hey, hey,” Ted said, instantly abashed. “Jen. Jesus. I’m sorry. Don’t cry. God, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to go off on you like that.”
He reached for her, and after a moment she stepped into his arms. She pressed her face pressed against the soft cotton of his sweater, feeling his heart beat against her cheek. What was she doing? How could she really believe Ted would cheat, would risk everything they had built together?
“Jen, look...it’s my fault, too. I don’t—I know I’ve let you down. I’ve let the family down. It’s just, knowing that I’m not providing for you guys, it eats away at me.”
“Oh, Ted...” Jen closed her eyes and inhaled, his soapy shower scent tinged with the faint metallic sweet smell he had when he drank too much the night before.
A tiny leftover spike of suspicion flared inside her, but she fought it back down. He probably took a break to watch a game, have a beer...and just let the afternoon overtake him, that was all. She could hardly hold it against him, considering she’d had more than enough herself last night.
“We’re going to get through this,” she said as much for her own benefit as his. “They say the economy’s picking up, and even if it doesn’t, we’re fine—we have money put away for exactly this situation. We could go another year before we have to worry.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Ted said heavily. “I don’t think I could take that.”
“No, that’s not what I meant, honey. You’ll find something long before that. I just mean that there’s nothing to worry about.”
They held each other for a moment longer before Ted pulled gently away. There was something in his eyes, some troubled emotion. God, she hoped he found something soon.
“I’m going to do better,” he muttered. “I’m going to make things right.”
Chapter Four
In the hours before dawn on Wednesday, Jen dreamed the red bird again. It was bright as blood, coiled in a circle, its beak open and angry. In the dream, the bird slowly unfurled its wings, expanding until it filled her mind, its screams growing hungrier and its beak widening until it seemed that it meant to consume her from the inside out.
She’d first had this nightmare years ago, when she was fresh out of college and just starting to date Ted. The bird didn’t do anything but scream, its beak open wide, spinning and getting larger and larger until she woke up. It had been years since she had the dream, but now it had come twice in one week.
When it first happened, Jen had researched the meaning of birds in dreams and decided the bird was nothing more than a symbol of her struggle—to put herself through school, to get her first job, to pay back her loans, to survive the stress of trying to fit into the society she had worked so hard to join. She struggled to erase her past, to project the ease and confidence that her colleagues and friends seemed to come by naturally, to be the mother she hadn’t had, the wife her own mother hadn’t had a chance to be.
But none of that had been a problem for years. So why was the dream returning now?
Jen was tired and irritable as she got Teddy fed and ready for preschool. Livvy refused to eat breakfast and dashed out the door so she didn’t miss the bus. Ted took his car to the dealership to have the oil changed and a dent fixed. He’d been complaining about the dent for weeks—someone had dinged him at the Target Center parking lot during a Timberwolves game.
After preschool, Cricket Stern brought the boys over for their standing playdate. “Listen, Jen, something happened today,” she said as Mark and Teddy shot past her into the house. “I thought you’d want to know.”
Instantly Jen was on alert. She had worked so hard to get the speech pathologist and Teddy’s teacher on the same page. A year ago, when he was three, Teddy stopped talking to strangers; when he stopped speaking to his babysitters and then to his friends and teachers, Jen and Ted became concerned enough to have him evaluated, and Teddy had been diagnosed with selective mutism.
For the past year, he hadn’t spoken to anyone outside his immediate family, but the speech pathologist said that Teddy was responding well to the self-modeling and desensitization exercises. She thought Teddy was very close to verbalizing one-on-one with a trusted adult.
“It’s nothing,” Cricket said hastily. “Just, the kids are starting to pick on him. Well, not all the kids. Mack and Jordan. Of course, right?”
“Oh. Shit.”
“I know.” Cricket grimaced. “Sometimes I just want to smack Tessa. It’s like she wants to raise a couple of delinquents, the way she lets them run wild.”
The twins had been a problem since the beginning of the year. Recently they pushed a kid out of the castle in the play yard and knocked out two of his teeth.
“What did they do?” Jen asked, steeling herself.
“They had him in the corner by the dress-up box, and they were trying to make him talk. Mack was making fun of him and calling him retarded. Or maybe it was Jordan—I can’t tell them apart.”
Jen’s anger was tempered with dismay. “What did Teddy do?”
“He managed to get past them. They’re big, but he’s fast, you know?”
“Well, it could have been worse. Did he look upset?”
“Not too bad. More like aggravated. I said something to Mrs. Bray, and she talked to the boys. I thought you could decide whether you want to have her talk to Tessa.”
“No, I feel like that’ll make it worse. You know, like he’s a tattletale. Damn it. He’s so close. He’s been talking to the speech therapist over Skype. She says any day now...” She felt her eyes tearing up.
“Oh, honey, it’s okay. I didn’t mean to upset you,” Cricket said, pulling a packet of tissues from her purse.
“No,
