“Dad. Did I do something?”
“What? No, Buddy, no.”
“Why is Mommy sad?”
“Then why won’t Mom look at anybody?”
I pulled our son into a hug, and I remember thinking this was what my dad must’ve felt like the year before he and my mom split. That same fog in the house. Doors closing softly. A woman who used to sing along to the radio went quiet at the kitchen sink.
I was 10 when they told us. I promised myself when I got married that I’d never let a house get like that again. And now here I was, standing in one.
I pulled our son into a hug.
Claire’s phone was the other thing. She kept it face down on the counter, and if I walked into the room, she slid it into her back pocket. Once, I heard the little chime of an email at 2 a.m. through the guest room door.
“Is it your sister’s?” I asked her on day six, trying to sound casual. “Did you have a fight with Megan or Rachel?”
“Nothing happened.”
“Claire, come on.”
“I said nothing happened. I’m just tired from work stress. I’m handling it. Please stop.”
Claire’s phone was the other thing.
Then my wife went upstairs and shut the guest room door in that soft, careful way that hurts more than a slam.
***
On day seven, I invited her for a walk, just around the block. She said she was going to lie down.
My wife looked sad all the time and constantly pulled away from me.
***
By day eight, I couldn’t take it anymore.
Claire had come home from school pickup, kissed Penny on the head like a stranger going through the motions, and disappeared upstairs.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
The guest room door clicked shut behind her. Again.
I stood in the hallway holding a plate of pasta she wouldn’t eat.
“Dad?”
Owen was on the stairs, still in his soccer socks, his hair sticking up.
“Yeah, buddy?”
“Is something wrong with Mom?”
I stood in the hallway holding a plate of pasta she wouldn’t eat.
I set the plate down on the console table. “Why would you think that?”
“She didn’t read to Penny last night. Or the night before.” He picked at the banister.
I looked down, not sure what to say.
“What’s going on?”
I didn’t have an answer. For a solid week, I hadn’t had a single answer, and my 15-year-old was standing on the stairs asking me to be the dad who knew things.
