“I had to take a pewp,” Naomi informed me with a sniffle, and displayed her reddened right wrist.
I looked at her. “Did, did you poop in the tub, sweetie?”
“She didn’t poop in the tub,” Grace barked. “Philip, you’re missing the point. Did you not hear your daughter scream out and start crying?”
I did. Of course I did. But I knew — or at least assumed — that Grace had things well in hand. Which she did.
My eyes flicked to the wall clock. Jesus.
“Look, what do you want from me?” I tried a half smile. “I fixed the sink up there, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you fixed the sink — after I nagged you about it for five months. What, do you want a medal for that?”
“Grace —”
“I’m serious, Philip. Would you like a prize for fixing the sink? We could write to the French government and get them to create a new international award for plumbing, and give it to you. They could call it the Douche d’Or.”
“You’re hilarious,” I deadpanned, but then chuckled on the inside. She must have been sitting on that joke for weeks.
I shrugged at her. “Look, what can I say? I’m not handy. You know that. This kind of stuff stresses me out, and I have enough stress in my life right now. I’m teaching two courses this term. I’ve got the new book. I’ve got the thesis defence I’m chairing in a few weeks, and …” My eyes floated back to the clock. “I’ve got this CBC thing this afternoon.”
“So you don’t have time to pick up the phone and call a plumber, is what you’re saying.”
“It’s not about calling a plumber, Grace. It’s about having the headspace to figure out if there are any plumbers left in this city who haven’t screwed us over.”
“You weren’t teaching in the summer,” she pointed out. “You could have done it then.”
“Yes, but I had a breakthrough with the book, and …” I pinched my nose, sighed. In that moment, I longed for my old life, before we bought this huge, and hugely expensive, house in Cabbagetown. For sixteen years prior to marrying Grace, I had lived in a loft in the Annex. If the sink broke, the landlord came and fixed it. Which felt like something that only happened in fairy tales, now.
“Look,” I went on, “just because I wasn’t teaching doesn’t mean I had the capacity to deal with …” And yes, I said it then; the words just flew out of me. “… a bunch of domestic trifles.”
“Wow,” she said, long and slow, and blinked at me. “So I guess what you’re saying is it’s really my responsibility, because you’ve got all that,” and here she mock-furrowed her brow at me, “deep thinking to do.”
“Oh, come on, Grace.”
But she took a step toward me then, her backside leaving the counter. In one fluid motion, she jutted her hip out, picked up Naomi, and parked the child upon it. Engaging, she was, in that most basic act of motherwork: to hold her child close. Then Grace threw back her thick, curly hair — sporting a henna dye job she’d acquired a few months ago, one I thoroughly approved of when she first modelled it for me, burying my face in its waves later that night, in bed — and looked at me with those wild, emerald eyes of hers.
“I guess what I’m saying, Philip,” she said, “is that I don’t much care about the tub. Or the sink. What I care about is that you don’t really seem all that plugged in to what’s happening in your own house.”
“Grace, do I need to remind you that I’m appearing on national television this afternoon?” I felt a more echt emotion than the one I’d been feigning for the last five minutes swell up inside me. “Do I need to remind you that what happened on Friday is going to make the 2008 crash look like a bad cocktail party? The CBC wants my commentary on it, and they’ve pitted me against —”
“I don’t care,” she said. “Philip, your daughter scalded herself. And obviously you consider the tub issue to be a ‘domestic trifle.’”
“I shouldn’t have said that —”
“But you did. You did say it.”
“And obviously, you don’t care that I’m now very late for this CBC thing.”
“You know, you’re not the only one with a public persona to worry about,” she said. “You’re not the only one whose writing is important.”
“Is that what this is about?” I asked. “That I’ve somehow disrespected your work by leaving you to deal with Naomi while I got ready? Well, I’m sorry, Grace. I’m sorry I can’t just satisfy your ego whenever you want.”
“Well, Philip,” she said, “I’m getting pretty used to your inability to satisfy me whenever I want.”
In shock, my jaw sort of unhinged then, like a python’s, and my eyes grew wide. “Oh,” I said, twisting my neck as if testing it for sprain. “Oh!” I looked at her, and she looked at me. “I … I can’t believe you said that.”
She set Naomi back down and the child scampered off. This was clearly getting out of hand. The flesh around Grace’s throat and collarbones had turned an intense red — as if she were aroused rather than infuriated by our exchange. Which was, of course, possible: stranger things had turned my wife on in the past.
“I can’t believe you said that to me,” I repeated.
“Look, I can only talk about one of your inadequacies at a time,” she said. “I need you to focus. What I have a problem with — right now — is that you don’t seem all that interested in what goes on around here. You have trouble remembering things I tell you, or ask you to do.”
“I remember lots of things,” I said.
“Really?” she asked. “What are you doing on Wednesday night?”
Quick — scan your brain! Scan your brain! “I’m … I’m taking Simone to that dance recital at the place up the street. She’s really looking forward to it.” I grinned, intensely proud of myself.
“And what are we doing next Sunday?”
The smirk slipped from my lips. Oh shit.
“Philip — what are we doing on Sunday?”
Something huge. Something important. I scoured hard, dug deep, but it wasn’t there. Just a big blank space where what it was should’ve been.
“Look, I have to go. I’m extremely late.”
She refolded her arms over her breasts and sneered at me. “What are we doing on Sunday, Philip?”
“Look, we’ll talk about this when I get back,” I said.
She gave her head a slight jiggle, her hennaed hair flapping, as if to say, I guess I made my point.
“Look, I have to go. Wish me luck, okay?”
But she looked away then, staring off into whatever galaxy of indignation floated before her mind’s eye.
“Grace, wish me luck.”
But she wouldn’t.
So I left her there, and made my way to the front entry. Dug a decent pair of Payless shoes from the hall closet and stepped into them. Then I was out the door, finally, and onto Metcalfe Street. Down Carlton and over to the west side of Parliament. Raised my hand to hail a Beck taxi. Miraculously, one pulled up right away.
“The CBC building on Front Street,” I said to the driver as I climbed in, then shut the door and sank into the leathery lung of his back seat. I inhaled a long, wheezy breath and tried to relax as we sailed southward. Took a moment to straighten