Real Life Test

by Angela Rasch

 

My life was a never-ending supply of dirty laundry, dirty rooms and dirty dishes. The sink was yet again jammed with the damn things; they were covered with baked on eggs, dried oatmeal and ketchup remnants. One side of the stainless steel monster was filled to the brim with the filth and hot bubbly water. "Keep the water as hot as you can stand it." Who was it that told me that? Momma maybe had, though it could have just as easily been Grams. I had learned a lot from Mom. She was the one who showed me how to stick by your man. Mom was better at that than I was. Mom had alternatives, yet she never left Dad. Not a day went by that I didn't wish I could leave Kirby.

The dishwater was so hot the window was beginning to steam over. I had to be careful. Most of my dresses had stains, even though I always wore an apron. My aprons were so threadbare that they offered almost no protection. I had been silly when I bought them, looking for the frilliest and not caring about how they would last or protect my clothes.

The weather had begun to get colder, not terribly cold by most peoples' standards, but still far too cold for my taste. I reached down into the scalding water and began to scrub the plates. The baby was asleep in his cradle near the couch. He was snoring lightly causing me to smile. The snoring seemed to be the only trait that my son Matthew had acquired from my side of the family. Dark wisps of hair covered his round little head. His eyes were as blue as the sky over Butte. Butte, by the way, is the world's biggest single-word oxymoron.

I reached in to pull the plug from the sink and began rinsing the dishes, setting them in the rack to dry. The clock above the stove read a quarter past eleven. Was it time for me to worry? Not that it would do me any good; he would get home eventually. He always did. "Boys Night Out" had been hidden somewhere in the small print, somewhere long after the vows to love, honor, and cherish. But then there were things in our marriage that were left out of the contract. Not that we had really been married. It had been an informal affair before a liberal minister.

Mom wouldn't have liked my wedding. She had always wanted me to be like all the others. When I had crazy ideas about doing things, Mom would let me know how unrealistic I was being. She wanted me to get along with people; to do the little things that people liked; so I could have friends.

Surely I couldn't have been the only wife home alone on a Friday night. I ran through the numbers in my cell phone as I picked up the rattles and soft animals from the living room floor. When had the carpet gotten so stained? I dialed Claire first, my oldest and dearest friend. My oldest and dearest friend—who wasn't home on a Friday night. After four more fruitless calls, I threw the phone down on the couch. Apparently I was the only person in the entire world who was home.

I should paint the living room and brighten things up. Imagine that. Me – painting? I didn't know the first thing about painting. I would screw it up and make a mess. I had learned long ago to stick to those things I know how to do and could afford. I would be sure to teach Matthew all about how to fly under the radar . . . where it's safe.

Kirby didn't like it when I taught Matt things. He said that Matt would end up like me, if I wasn't careful. I had to be very careful about how I dressed Matt. I even had to throw out some of the cute outfits that my sister had bought for him. It was so odd that I hadn't taken her number off my phone yet. One time I even dialed it to see who would answer.

I had made dozens of friends since moving to Butte from Cut Bank. Not that Butte was the open-minded big city, but it was big enough to allow me the anonymity that I wanted. It hardly seemed like four years since Mom and Dad were killed in that car accident. I could still remember Mom's voice, and how she would calm me after some embarrassing episode at school. Luckily, I could forget what Dad had said and done. I hadn't been all I could be, in his eyes.

I wasn't the person I had been in Cut Bank. I had paid a lawyer I found in the yellow pages to change my name, and as much as possible—my gender. The process had been embarrassing. He had asked the most incredibly personal questions.

I walked into the freshly cleaned kitchen and grabbed a Diet Pepsi from the fridge. Popping it open I found the phone and dialed Sarah. Sarah was the only one of my friends who didn't have caller I.D. I could count on her to pick up, even though she wasn't all that good of friend. She was okay. I wasn't very nice sometimes. Kirby says that I'm intolerant. Some of my friends were intolerant of Kirby, but they didn't know him like I did.

"Hey girl. I was just wondering about you." Her voice sounded like a life raft.

"Hi Sarah, I thought I'd better call and make sure y'all were doing all right."

"Oh, you know how we are. All work and no play." She paused a moment, and I could hear her husband in the background. "Tom says hello. He wants you to bring that sweet little baby over next week." What he had really said had sounded much less friendly.

"Tell him hello. I'll come over, if the car is running." I was the proud owner of a late seventies Toyota Corolla. Originally the paint had been a yellowish-green, but it was now a deep shade of rust and primer.

My house smelled like baby, and not a Johnson & Johnson baby. If only I could afford an air freshener.

"I thought Kirby was going to fix that for you?"

"He was … he will. Eventually, he will." I could hear the disappointing tone in her voice. I shouldn't have called her. She always knew how I was feeling, without my ever having said it.

She just knew.

"You okay, darling?"

"I'm fine. Matt is waking up." I lied. "I better get him. Let's do lunch next week." I knew we wouldn't. I didn't have the money and neither of us had the time. Wal-Mart doesn't schedule my hours to facilitate my social life. "I love you, Sarah."

"Love you more." I smiled for a moment before the tears began to streak across my face.

I wanted so badly to scream, yell, or cry; anything that might have made me feel better. Instead I set the phone back on its charger, grabbed a blanket, and curled up on the couch. I hadn't been feeling too good about myself since I had to cut my medicine by half to save money. The hair on my face was getting darker and seemed course. I think the boy who bagged my groceries noticed, because he sneered at me the way the boys in Cut Bank did. Kirby gave me enough for a household budget, if I was just good enough with coupons and didn't waste so much. I turned on the TV but was too lost in thought to follow the plot.

The money from Mom and Dad's estate had been split between my sister and I. It had given me the opportunity of a lifetime. I had been taking my pills for just over six months when I first met Kirby. I was on my way home - - enjoying the walk in the spring sun. A soft breeze flowing through my long hair and under my pink suit intoxicated me with the wonder of womanhood. Back then all my things had been new. My job as a receptionist at a law firm required that I wear suits. My eggshell blouse was silk and I had a cameo broach at the neck. I miss my jewelry. I had to pawn most of it.

I had interrupted my walk to watch a softball game in the park. I had been a pretty good player at one time. Kirby saw me sitting in the stands and came over as soon as the game ended. He offered me a beer, and after several other beers, then gave me a ride home. I had felt no interest in boys before meeting Kirby. I had never dated … girls or boys. His attention surprised and excited me.

Kirby was so incredibly handsome and so ambitious. He told me all about himself, and where he was going in life, once he got his big break. For the moment, he was working at a second-hand sporting equipment store, but would either become manager or would move on to a better opportunity.

Kirby treated me with the utmost respect. It never occurred to me that there might be a problem when he found out my secret. The first time I saw his … I knew instinctively what to do. I think I did it okay because he never complained. The first time he felt me down there he got really mad. I suppose I deserved it. I lost my law firm job when I couldn't come to work, because of the bruises. Jobs like that are hard to find. Things hadn't been going that good for me with the lawyers after a bar association meeting where the lawyer that changed my name had a talk with my bosses.

Most of the money from Mom and Dad's will went to pay for minor cosmetic surgery, pills, and doctors' visits. The breasts operation was expensive, but Kirby said that they're worth every penny I paid for them. He could be so sweet! The one thing I did that was smart was to buy our house before the money was all gone. I put enough down so that I could manage the payments. Even so we were always a month behind at the bank. Kirby was a genius with credit cards, moving money around so they didn't know how much we owed in total. It was the only thing that was keeping us going, although the interest rates seemed awful high.

After our wedding ceremony, Kirby moved in with me, and things were good. Every once in while Kirby would get mad about me not being able to have a baby. Kirby really wanted to be a daddy. He loves kids so much.

It was like God had heard about our problem. My sister died in childbirth – not that God would kill my sister just for my happiness. No one knew who Matt's father was, and there wasn't anyone else to help—so I ended up with him. It seemed to me that with a baby everything would be perfect between Kirby and me.

The social worker who placed Matt with us had been acting less than cordial. She did something called a background check on Kirby and me. Maybe she had found out about some of Kirby's run-ins with the law. He just couldn't seem to keep away from drugs. It wasn't his fault. At times, I made him uncomfortable with himself. That was understandable given how secretive we have to be with everyone about me. No one knew. Some days I even forgot, and then Kirby would remind me and I would be startled.

All of my thinking about the past had made me drowsy, or maybe I had had one too many toddies waiting for Kirby. When I woke, the house was in complete darkness, the TV had been shut off, and I had slept long enough to put a terrible ache in one side of my neck. I reached a hand to massage the knot while I walked down the darkened hallway.

Kirby was sprawled across both sides of the queen bed we shared. The smell of alcohol hit me at the doorway; so much for his promise to get up early and finish the yard work. I flicked the light switch a few times hoping to get a response, or, at least, a piece of the bed to sleep on. He was motionless.

I could have covered him, but if I had woken him it would have turned bad. If he had found me sleeping on the couch, he would have felt rejected and accused me of not loving him. I didn't have any good options. If it wasn't for the baby I would have considered getting a can of gasoline, and ending it all - - burned together.

Why did I think thoughts like that? Kirby was right to scold me when I was lazy and didn't tend to things the way I should. If I didn't deserve it, he wouldn't have gotten so mad.

I took the extra blanket from the foot of the bed and settled back onto the couch. It was better than the floor and far better than what I was sure to get if I woke him.

Lightning streaked across the sky, momentarily filling the living room with light. Matt's eyes winked open. I stayed still, waiting for him to decide whether to go back to sleep. His eyes drooped again. I shifted my position on the couch and the remote fell to the floor with a clunk. Matt's eyes flashed open, and he let out a screech.

"Shh, baby. Momma's here." Please don't let Kirby wake up. "It's okay." I bounced Matt lightly in my arms. Left, middle, middle, right, middle, middle. He liked to be bounced in a specific pattern. Kirby thought I was babying him. Not even the steady bounce could calm Matt when he missed his real Mom and the milk from her breasts.

"Can't you shut that kid up?" Kirby screamed from the bedroom.

"Shit." I wasn't sure if I had said it out loud or just thought it. Either way, it didn't really matter. I could see him heading down the dark hallway. I couldn't make out his expression, but I knew what was coming next. He pushed past me, turned on the TV, and cranked the volume up.

"If we're all gonna be up anyway, we may as well see what's on." His breath could have knocked a buzzard off a manure wagon at forty paces. He picked up the remote from the floor in front of him. He turned it over in his hands a few times, like he was examining it for some sort of evidence then turned his gaze toward me. The cable company had shut us off a few months back, and he missed his ESPN. His eyes were gray empty voids. "Shut that damn kid up." He threw the remote across the room. It crashed into the vase on top of the book shelf, sending water, yellow roses, and shards of crystal around the room. It was the last of the leaden crystal. Kirby was hard on things.

I set Matt down in his bassinet, even though he was still howling; knowing full well that I was expected to clean up the mess left by Kirby's little outburst. He grabbed me by the wrist and shoved me against the wall. "I told you to shut that kid up. Now look what he made me do."

"Just go to bed, Kirby. Everything will look different in the morning." I tried to pull my arm free.

"Don't tell me what to do in my own home. Everything will be the same, unless there's some magic pill that can completely change 'everything' about you."

"You should have stayed at the bar." It was barely out of my mouth before I regretted it. His grip on my arm tightened and from the corner of my eye I saw his free hand making a ball. The room around me went black as I fell to the floor.

In the morning there would be roses waiting on the counter, maybe even breakfast in bed. He would say, "I love you baby. I didn't mean to hurt you. It will never happen again."

I had everything I had always wanted, plus fresh cut flowers at least once a week.

 

The End

Thanks to Geoff and Kim for your help and inspiration.

  

  

  

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© 2004 by Angela Rasch. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, and compilation design) may be printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without the express written consent of StorySite and the copyright holder.