Typing Up The Loose Ends

I am back to pretending I am asleep when Robin climbs into bed.

I haven't done that for a very long time. It used to be the way I'd avoid sex, although we all know that at a certain point in every marriage the wife being fast asleep, snoring and drooling, is not necessarily a deal-breaker for sex. 

But that's not why I am feigning sleep these days. The reason this time is that Robin and I take turns doing Molly duty during the night. Our old dog isn't sleeping well, needing to go out, and then in, and then out again, and then up the stairs and then down the stairs. Some nights it's every half hour. 

When it was our young kids keeping us up all night, Robin and I were not quite as charitable towards each other than we are now. We had a major competition going back then, each of us competing to be The One Who Most Needs Sleep. Robin put up a good fight, I'll give him that; his best arguments centered around his being an electrician who (in his most serious voice, would remind me),"works in life and death situations. One wrong wire and I could die!"  Oh waah waah, fucking waah.

"Oh please," I'd parry, "I drive your children on the mean streets of LA. I need to be rested and alert." And then I'd remind him of the time I drove the carpool home with the back of my Volvo station wagon wide open and all the kids' notebooks and papers and violins and shit flew out onto the San Diego freeway. This was my trump card story, especially when I added at the end, "I just thank God that the children were buckled in."

Nobody outguilts me. I have seven thousand years of my people's skill in my pocket. Don't fuck with a Jewish mother.

In the end, however, none of us ever won the sleep fight. For most of those years we were both exhausted. And Robin was horny, to boot. And I was pissed off. And we had no air conditioning. And it was, like, 200 degrees in the summer. And once, on my 35th birthday, the toilet backed up into the bathtub and I took a nice, warm shitshower. And Robin was out of work a lot.

You know,  I kinda miss the old days.

When things got really bad I would fantasize that I was a single mom, living with my boys in a perfectly clean little apartment with perfect plumbing and top notch air conditioning. The part of the fantasy that always threw me, however, was how I came to be single. I mean, I didn't want to fantasize that Robin had left me for another woman, because that would highlight my shortcomings ("well, of course he left her for the babysitter. I mean, look at Ann! She's a mess. Big as a Buick. And just as mean...."). And I was afraid to fantasize that Robin had died because there is that tiny little matter of karma.

So when I allowed myself to go there, I made sure he hadn't just died - I made sure he was killed, accidentally and unjustly so he'd be a hero. And I made sure he was killed by a loathsome, megawealthy corporation with deep pockets whom I could sue for trillions of dollars. Someone like Donald Rumsfeld or Rush Limbaugh. I would totally bring them to financial ruin. I had to be able to provide for my sons, after all. Mervyn's Cheetah tee shirts don't come cheap.

But because I am Jewish and guilt-ridden, and because my parents raised me right to care about others, in my fantasy I give away half of my trillions from Robin's wrongful death suit to the California farmworkers and migrant workers all over the country. I think Robin would have wanted it that way. And Rumsfeld and Limbaugh would totally shit when they heard. Win-win.

Ultimately, my solution to the single mom fantasy was simple: 

Robin would leave me for another man. 

Eureka! He was gay. He loved me and he was devoted to me, of course, but he woke up one morning, raised the rainbow flag up the pole (so to speak) and that was that. And if the new love of his life happened to be fabulously wealthy - and grateful to me for being such a swell sport about it all - well, what can you do other than graciously accept the consolation gold Amex card and commence shopping?

But that was a long time ago. These days, I am pretty happy Robin and I have made it this far.

After almost thirty years together, I'd kinda miss his crap if he was gone.

And, frankly, he is the one who gets up with Molly most of the time.

Comments

[Babara]

Oh Jeeezus. And to think that I am the one who got divorced.

[Claire]

One question: how mean ARE Buicks? A fun and delightful read, as always!

[Claudia]

I loved the way you gave away half of the imaginary settlement!

I've always loved that short story (can't remember who wrote it) where the wife of a soldier thinks her husband has died during a war, feels sorrow, then finds herself feeling an odd euphoria. Suddenly, she gets news her husband is fine and feels devastated. That woman had to be the mother of small children, I now think. You captured so well the longing for a kind of perfection of home when nothing else is perfect, a longing for everything to be NICE. And it's sweet how you didn't really want Robin to die to achieve this, simply had him changing his sexual persuasion.