“I get it,” he said.
You get it that I don’t know how to do this, how to take a breath past these cramped vocal cords, how to reconcile the fact that my husband is ecstatic because I have nothing left to do? Nothing left? And that I think that I may be slipping into an ugliness I won’t be able to crawl out of . . . and I can’t tell the man I’ve committed to love forever because it’ll look as if I don’t love him?
“What do you get, Charlie?” Her voice broke. She prayed he’d realize the cause wasn’t disappointment in him, but in the turn life had taken. The hairpin, narrow, cliff-edge, crumbling, nauseating turn.
His gaze focused over her head. Maybe he, too, saw the dollop of Berrington Blue on the crown molding. “I get it”—he dropped his gaze to her eyes—“that I never should have changed deodorants. I’d be more pleasant to be around.” He chuckled. “Come on, LucyMyLight. You have to admit that was funny.”
His comedy act proved he really, truly, most sincerely did not get it at all.
She swallowed. The simple, no-thought-involved act didn’t go well. “What time is your appointment with the Worm Whisperer?”
“Ten-thirty.”
Lucy put her grapefruit bowl, untouched, in the sink. “We’d better get moving then.”
“Look, don’t come along if you don’t want to.”
“And miss the opportunity to expand my knowledge of a worm’s digestive process?” Courage, Lucy. Courage. It’s only part of a morning. And it’ll bless him.
“That’s my girl.”
Our daughter Olivia is your girl. I’m your wife.
Chapter 7
7
Worm-casting tea?”
“Not to drink, Lucy. For fertilizer.”
He was excited about fertilizer. Passionate about it. She cinched her seat belt for the drive home. “So, worms thrive on dead things.”
Charlie glanced her way as he pulled the car onto the main highway. “You were listening?”
“Took notes,” she said, holding her phone toward him.
“Sure you did.”
He was skeptical? She opened the notes app. “ ‘If it was once living and is now dead, worms will eat it.’ ‘Fifteen dollars for eight pounds of worm feed.’ ‘It can take as little as 350-400 square feet of space to produce almost eight tons of worms and more than two tons of worm castings per month.’ ‘A garage, basement, or even a spare room can be the scene of a starter worm farm since . . .’ ”
“Go on.”
“ ‘Since there are no offensive odors related to worm farming.’ ”
Charlie smiled, the lines from his nose to his mouth triplicating. “That”—he slapped the steering wheel in victory—“was great news.”
A vermiculture headache clamped down hard on the top of Lucy’s skull. “You believed that line?”
“That it doesn’t take much square footage to get started?”
“About the odorlessness of this process? Dead things. They eat dead things.”
“How many square feet is the guest room?”
“No. No, no, no, no. Nope. No.”
Charlie’s fingers played a nameless tune on the steering wheel. “Think about it a minute, Lucy.”
“My head’s about to explode.”
“You’re probably dehydrated. We’ll stop at the drive-thru for something to drink.”
She slipped on her sunglasses and leaned her head against the headrest. “Lemonade. I need more lemonade. Apparently.”
“We should probably wait to talk until your headache’s better.”
“Good idea.”
The blessed silence lasted less than a minute. Charlie’s favorite radio station was recognizable by its unending stream of news. He could listen to the same series of news reports with no apparent annoyance at the repetitiveness, the mind-numbing, soul-deflating repetitive account of all that’s wrong and twisted and broken in the world.
Her phone’s earbuds lay in a zippered pocket in her purse. The thought of them tugged at her. Music waited on her playlist. Soothing, uplifting, intriguing, soul-fortifying music. Worth listening to. Worth the time and attention. Songs she could listen to again and again without—
Without caring about the repetition.
As if viewing it from the sunroof, she pictured Charlie in his corner of the front seats, content, and her in the far corner, earbuds firmly planted, content. But alone. A wall of differences making the two feet between feel like an ocean’s width.
Not what she wanted.
After this many years of marriage, was it unthinkable they could each have what they wanted without trampling the other’s interests?
“Did you hear that?” Charlie said.
What fascinating piece of news had she missed? “Hear what?”
“That little trivia bit they just did.” He nodded toward the radio and turned the volume down.
“No.”
“I would have thought— Never mind. Anyway, they said Native Americans used to tell how sick people were by how long it had been since they sang.”
He let the words hover, not tagging any editorial or husbandly comment to their end. He glanced at her, then briefly at the glove compartment or something near it before returning his focus to the stretch of highway in front of them. Was he looking at hash marks on the road or farther—into their future?
She’d weathered crises before. What was different about this time? Why did it seem this trauma had no note of hope? Even when her parents died, she found solace in song. “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” brought expression to her grief. She sang it in the garden and hummed it in the kitchen until it no longer stung but soothed.
“It’s been a while,” Charlie ventured, “since I caught you singing.”
“I know.”
“Or playing piano, guitar, anything.”
“You’re right.”
Charlie swung into line for the drive-thru. “You haven’t even made an attempt to line up private lessons or apply for a teaching position elsewhere, if it means that much to you.”
If?
“Are you going to be okay?”
The word eventually made it as far as the tip of her tongue. Could she promise eventually? Lucy’s cell phone vibrated. She wouldn’t have to decide right now.
“Hey, Olivia. What’s up? We don’t usually hear from you during the day.” A car length away from the order speaker now, Lucy said, “Olivia, can you hold for just a sec? Dad needs my order.” She underscored that all she wanted was a tall lemonade.
Charlie nodded and placed their orders.
“So, what’s up?”
“Mom, I made my decision.”
Lucy adjusted the sun visor. “Go ahead.”
“I’m going to work part-time this summer, rather than full-time.”
“Oh?”