a light drizzle falling outside. The boys were moaning in the back, comparing party bag spoils, wailing about any differences between them. Jake suggested – without looking at me – that we go to the supermarket, and I agreed, my voice almost lost in concrete. In the car, I closed my eyes so I could feel just how fast we were going, how much I was letting myself be carried on.
~
I knew I was meant to pity the unicorn, to feel his pain in my own skin.
Poor creature, my mother always said, turning the page.
But it was the bird-women I felt for. I couldn’t stop imagining what it would be like: my wings filling with air, the whole world flattening beneath me.
~
8
The feelings didn’t start all at once. They came slowly, gradually. We went to the supermarket, and I planned meals in my head, dishes that I would cook and serve to all of them, that Jake would insert into his mouth. Jake would sit there and chew my food and swallow it: I assessed this information for cracks, for gaps that I might slip through. It seemed very important that I could tolerate this exact thought: the meat tenderized by me, stirred by me, being chewed by him, digested by him, becoming part of his body.
I thought that I could tolerate it, but I noticed another feeling beginning in my belly button, or perhaps lower, in my C-section scar. The feeling spread over my abdomen, like a menstrual cramp, an early contraction. It tightened me up. When Jake came back towards me, pushing the trolley, I noticed that he was smiling, telling some joke to Ted, leaning close to the trolley, where Ted’s bottom spilled around the child seat, his plump hands paling as they gripped tightly onto the handle.
The boys were hungry, having left most of the food at the party, and as we shopped they began to throw themselves around as though their muscles were failing, becoming loose beings, grabbing things from the shelves. Jake and I presented ourselves for duty, emergency workers at the same crisis, speaking sharply to our children, replacing chocolate bars in their places. Our lack of eye contact, of touch, counted for very little. As we had been for years, we were teammates now, classmates. We were learning – or unlearning – the same things.
I was startled by how much the new reality was like the old reality: how we could still buddy up and parcel out the duties so smoothly. Jake cooked that night, making burgers with Paddy, letting him flatten them with his fists. And we did bath time, as usual, Jake sitting beside the boys, containing their wildness in the water as I scurried around finding pyjamas, tidying bedrooms, setting out reading books. I wondered if we could continue like this forever, spend a lifetime never quite looking each other in the face.
~
Sometimes I question whether anyone can know what it’s like before it happens. Marriage and motherhood are like death in this way, and others too: no one comes back unchanged.
Even now, it is hard to look at that woman (myself), at those boys (my sons), with anything like a clear lens. My sight is still coloured, infused by the blood we shared, by their journeys through my lightless body.
~
9
After dinner, while the boys played on the floor, Jake came and sat next to me. To this day, I think he was going to suggest that we watch a TV series or a film when the kids were in bed, as we had done almost every night since I was pregnant with Ted. I have often wondered what would have happened if we had done that. I can see that imaginary possibility – which surely exists in some other dimension – almost as clearly as I can see the actual events that have taken place.
I would have put my feet in Jake’s lap: a true act of forgiveness. He would have allowed me to have the remote – the first of so many small allowances, over so many months – and we would have turned our faces to the fire of the screen, let it absolve us, a living presence, an endless alternative. One evening – not that evening, but on some night not too far away – he would have put his hands on my feet, the first touch, and we could have started again.
But as soon as the boys were asleep, I put myself to bed. I carried out my skincare routine, the adult version of childhood prayers, rubbing my face in precise circles, my own touch gentle on my cheeks. Before I turned off the light, I rubbed cream over my hands, an expensive product with all-organic ingredients blended to create the illusion of calm, the impression of the desire to sleep. This could be a normal night, I told myself. I have done the usual things. I am sticking to a routine.
I was not even close to sleep when I heard his footsteps; I was looping around a curve in my mind, falling down the slopes of a particular feeling. I tried to stay there, to feign sleep, make my breath as regular and slow as I could. But he sat on the edge of the bed, tilting the mattress sideways with his body.
It seemed to be up to me to put the bedside light on, but I didn’t do it. At that moment, any movement felt like a capitulation, an agreement that he could be there.
What do you want?
This came out as more of a whisper than I intended, the lack of light lowering my voice naturally, making it seem more like a question than an accusation, a soft noise between us.
His shape changed in the darkness, a collection of rocks moving with geological slowness. He had his hand on his forehead, I thought, from what I could see from the edge of my vision. The image was fuzzy: he could easily have had his hand anywhere else.
Just as I was dragging my arm out from under the pillow, turning my weight on my side, his shape changed, came much closer, his hand stretching for the cord of the light. I moved my own hand forward as he did it, set on stopping him. One of my nails caught the underside of his forearm: there must have been a tiny jagged edge, no bigger than the end of a pin.
Shit! What was—? Put the light on.
I fumbled for it, the small click, light over us at last, Jake’s head bent, examining his arm, eyes narrowed.
I moved forward instinctively, as I would move to the children when they had hurt themselves, to reassure, apply the soothing balm of motherliness. The scratch was superficial, pale pink, but there nonetheless. I moved to touch it, and Jake’s whole body startled, as though he was being woken from a brief, deep sleep.
His voice was wounded, little-boy tender.
What did you do that for?
It was an accident, Jake. I couldn’t see.
It was becoming difficult to speak again, I noticed. There was something in my throat preventing it, rising up like an Adam’s apple, blocking the way. I wanted something from him, but if he said it, I thought I might actually vomit, right there on the bed. The blockage would come out, I imagined. The talk-stopper. I would not be able to stop screaming.
I came to talk to you, Jake was saying now. He was saying something else.
I’m sorry, Luce. I don’t know how else to say it. I shouldn’t have done it. It was just sex, I swear. So stupid.
I realized my hands were creeping up, past my neck, towards the sides of my head. I felt the softness of my hair, pushed it to one side. I put the flats of my fingers against my ears. Shook myself from side to side, felt the heaviness of my skull, this weight that I carried around,
