Chasing Windmills

Maria | One: One More Night

Tonight was tougher than usual.
   First off, Natalie was extra fussy. She didn't want to go to bed. She's got a stubborn streak a mile wide, and I didn't get her down until almost ten. And of course this is the first of the two nights of the week that C.J gets to stay up late until his daddy comes home. Pops, he calls him now. I guess he figures that sounds more mature. Anyway, because they're not school nights, he can stay up. That's our deal. But that's also the beef with Natalie. Why does C.J. get to stay up and she doesn't? Well, it's easy, kid. He's almost seven. You're not even three. Sounds good to me. But I guess if I was still in my terrible twos, it woulnd't.
   It's not fair, she kept saying. I used to say that, too, to my dad. Life's not fair, he would say. Kind of self-satisfied, like it pleased him to dissapoint me. So I don't say that to her. I don't say that to anybody. It's true enough, but let somebody else rub it in. I never like to be the bearer of bad news. 
   Anyway, I finally got her down.
   Carl came home around midnight and I slipped our right away. Even though I had no work to go to anymore. Every night at just this time I go to work. Have for years, except for that time around when Natalie was born. I always leave just about when Carl gets home. I leave him to look after the kids. Natalie is always sleeping, and five days a week, C.J. is too, but if C.J. is up I leave him with Carl. Because Carl, he just loves C.J., especially right after work. Carl works with the public and when he gets home at night he needs a better opinion of humanity. Or so he says.
   Anyway, I've never tested the theory that it would be tell Carl anout how I lost my job. And I wasn't brave enough to test it that night.
   So, for the last nine nights, at least the six of them that would have been my shifts, I've walked out the door like nothing was wrong. Like nothing was different. I let him assume I'm going to work. But of course I never do. I always ride the subway. Because, really, I don't think I would be welcome there at my old job anymore. Not even for just a little friendly visit. Even though it's a place of business, and it's open to the public. I mean, anybody can go into a grocery store, right? But even so, I think I burned my bridges there, and there is no making it right. 
   I also think the longer I put  off telling Carl, the harder it's going to be. He'll ask when I got fired. I could lie but he'll look at my pay stubs and see the truth anyway. Every day I tell myself I'm only making it worse. The longer I put off telling him. But then everyday I think, Well, I've waited this long and one more day won't make so much of a difference. Since I'm in a world of trouble anyway.
   So I just walk out the door and ride the subway. One more night. 
   What's one more night? 
   He reall only said one thing to me. He put a hand on my chin. Sort of turned my face so he could look at my cheek in a better light.
   "You wearing makeup on that?" He asked.
   "No. No makeup."
   "Oh. That's not that bad, then."
   I didn't say how bad it was or wasn't. I didn't say anything at all.
   Just as I was slipping out the door I looked back and there they were on the couch, watching TV together.
   It's really spooky how much that boy is like a clone of Carl. The thin, baby-fine blond hair, and the sort of no-colored eyes. Well, not no color. I mean, they're not just white or anything. It's just that they're not blue and they're not gray and they're not green. They're all of the above and none of the above at the same time. Carl used to be the only one in the world to who had them. That I know of. Until C.J. came along. And they both have those thin, narrow shoulders and skinny chest that looks almost sunken.
   Wouldn't you know he would even have to end up with his father's name? And I fought hard against that. Not that Carl is a bad name, but Carl Jr.? That's just plain cruel. Why not name him Jack in the Box or White Caslte or something? Jesus. But I guess C.J. will do.
   They didn't even notice when I slipped out the door. Those two are in a world of their own. They are a club of two, all right.
   All the way down to the subway station I walked in the street, brushing against parked cars. So I wouldn't have to deal with the whole thing about the sidewalk cracks. It's really humiliating to admit it. I mean, I'm a grown woman. I'm not saying I won't step on a crack. Just that it's easier for me, in some weird way, if I don't have to. If I don't even have to worry about it. I'm not a complete psyhco. But I had a big thing with that when I was younger, and little bits of that stuff can hang on.
   I think it's because my mother died of a broken neck, which is reall just a broken back but higher up. I mean, if you want to look at it that way.
   Not that I think it was my fault or anything. We all know who did it. Well, all except one. Everybody in the world knew my father did it, except my father. He was weird about stuff like that. It was like he thought he could make history disappear. And he could, in a way. He made it disappear from himself. 
   I went to see him in jail twice, and both times he just talked about how much he loved that woman and how he would never do anything to harm her. But he did do a million things to harm her, usually right in front of me and my sister. So then I just didn't go see him anymore.
   He died in jail, or so I hear. I didn't hink about it all that much. I still don't. I've got no opinion on any of that. Or, at least, none that matters worth a damn when all is said and done.
   I don't even know why I'm talking about that. I didn't set out to get into that. I'm just talking about that night because of what happened on the subway.
   Not that anything happened. I just looked at this kid. And he looked at me. And even Carl can't get upset about that. Right?
   Except he would have. He would've hit the ceiling if he'd been there.
   I don't guess it's right to call that subway guy a kid. He wasn't a kid. He was probably six feet tall. I just have this thing now where everybody used to be older than I was, and now anybody younger looks like a kid to me.
   Probably he was around nineteen.
   God, that's young enough. What I was thinking, I don't know.
   Except it wasn't really thinking. There was no real thinking to it. It was just one of those moments when you're trying to change a lightbulb by feel, and you get a jolt. Shock yourself. It's not something you do on purpose and you sure as hell don't see it coming. Sometimes electricity just conducts.
   And the funny thing is, I don't even know what it was about him. He's not the sort of guy who would catch my eye for any special reason, and usually I don't even look at guys on the street or in the subway. I mean, I look. But not like that. What I guess I mean is, there was nothing about him I would really even notice, until that power ran along the invisible line between our eyes and zapped me.
   I liked his hair, though. Because it was so big. I'm not used to big hair, living with Carl and C.J. Natalie's hair is really fine and thin, too, even though she's dark like me. She got color of my hair, but not the thickness. But this guy had hair that was really there. Really thick and curly. Some of it came forward onto his forehead, and you just got this sense that however it spilled, it was right. Like, no matter how it decided to fall, or not fall, or lie down, it looked just like it was supposed to. It must be nice to get to relax about something like that.
   Other than that, I just looked at him, like I would look at anybody. Not expecting anything at all. But I got something. 
   That never happened to me before, not once. I swear. Not in the seven years I've been with Carl. Actually maybe closer to eight years. I mean, I see guys. Sometimes I think they look good, but it's just a thought in my head. Like I was seeing them on a page of a magazine. Ever since there's bee Carl, which is like forever, since I was fifteen, there hasn't been anything with anybody else.
   Sometimes I wonder if that's because of his thoughts on what he would do if there ever was. Which he shares with me. Regularly. But deep down I don't think so. Because I think you can scare somebody out of doing something, but not out of feeling like they want.
   I think it's because my loyalty to Carl is very real.
   Where that night fits in, I don't know.
   I purposely got off the train why the guy was sleeping. I don't want any trouble.

I DO NOT OWN THIS STORY. ALL CREDIT GOES TO CATHERINE RYAN HYDE.