I.
Four minutes into the drive home, Danny started hoping no one would be there when she arrived. Her mood had been fine all day, but the idea that they might be there tanked her spirits.
And the thing was, she knew they would be. Theo would be home from school and was in one of those phases where he thought hanging out with his friends, maintaining any friendships at all, was embarrassing and an indication of social weakness.
As for Henry, he’d be there too. Where else? He’d have washed all the surfaces and tried to engage Theo in a game of backgammon or something and then given up and sat waiting for Danny to return, all the time preparing what he’d say to her and expecting some type of prize for being a wholesome husband and father.
When she pulled into the driveway, the Subaru was there, sure enough. It had about three inches of snow on it. Danny was pretty sure the last time it snowed was before she left for work that morning.
She almost put the car in reverse and took a lap around the block (or a few blocks) to delay her entrance. It was as likely as not that one or both of Theo and Henry would be perched by a window with one eye between some slats checking for her car. She wouldn’t be able to explain herself if they saw her pull in and back out.
Instead, she inclined her head a bit towards the stereo, as if gripped by an NPR report she’d stumbled on that was simply too fascinating to leave in the middle of.
She thought about making a frivolous phone call. There wasn’t anyone she could think of worth calling, though. Anyone she cared to talk to would be too busy to pick up and anyone who’d answer would bore her even more than Theo and Henry would.
A temptation to hold her phone to her ear and start mouthing imaginary responses came and went. If there was a god or any spirits tuned into her actions, she’d look like the fool of the year for faking a phone call for such petty reasons.
She went inside.
It wasn’t their fault. They were fine. She loved them. Even if they were the least annoying versions of themselves, she still wouldn’t want to see them. She wouldn’t want to have to muster the energy.
Theo was at work on a jigsaw puzzle on the only table in the house that was fit for eating on. It was a fatty too: maybe 3000 pieces. At least three quarters of these were dumped out and spread to every corner of the table. The rest were spilled on the floor.
When Danny came in, he didn’t look up. This offended her, in a small, subconscious way. She felt he was intentionally delaying the inevitably tedious interaction she’d been dreading.
“Is your dad here?” she said.
“Oh. Hi,” he said, in a specific tone of voice.
“Hey. Is your dad in here?”
“He’s somewhere.”
“I’m sure he is,” she said and walked past his table, towards her room.
She went in and put her bag on the bed. She thought about placing herself on that bed too, but the door was open and she imagined what Theo would think: “Overworked mom gets home and retires to bed, leaving son and husband uncared for.” Maybe he wouldn’t see it that way, but if any of those ethereal observers were watching, at least some of them would.
She stood with her back to the door and strategized. Why did she need to strategize? Strategy shouldn’t come into it at all. For a moment, she chastised her own mind for over-analyzing such mundane occurrences. And then she became upset with the part of her that was mad at the analytical side. She thought, “Aren’t we all on the same team here?” Then she laughed at herself, remembering the countless times she’d used that same rallying call to unify all the different imaginary parts of her mind.
She forced herself to snap out of it and walk back into the kitchen area.
“You really don’t know where he is?” she asked her son.
Her son said, “Well, the car’s here, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” she said, “And it looks like it’s been here. Did you go to school?”
They both knew that she barely cared whether or not he went to school. He finally looked up from his piece-littered table and squinted at her as if trying to get her to break. She flinched and almost let the entire mother-son power-dynamic evaporate but then recomposed herself and raised her eyebrows as if to say, “Well, technically, I do have the right to ask you that.”
He released a quiet snort-laugh after a moment and went back to paying attention to the puzzle. He said, “Not today, but I do have to go in tomorrow.”
“I’m pretty sure most people go in every day,” she said, but the tension had broken and neither of them wanted to talk about school.
Henry walked in the back door.
Theo said, “I found him mom.”
Henry said, “Found me? I’m here. I’ve been here the whole time.” He seemed a little nervous. Not as nervous as he would be if he was up to no good, just nervous in anticipation of being accused of being up to no good.
Danny read the entire dynamic but chose not to let him off the hook. She knew he had probably only been sitting in his garden, letting the day pass.
“Hey, Hen,” she said without committing to anything with her tone.
“Danny, I’ve been here all day,” he said, walking towards her.
“So has Theo, I guess,” she said, turning from him and stepping to the fridge.
“I was thinking of cooking something,” he said, “I was gonna start before you got here. But I guess I forgot,” he added.
“I can do it,” she said. Actually, she wanted to. It was something to do. But just saying she would cook without expressing enthusiasm, she knew, would come across as a judgment of his laziness.
“Really, Danny, I want to,” he said, “I’ve been planning on it all day.”
“What do we have?” She opened the fridge to check. It was true, he hadn’t been shopping.
“I gotta go to the store.”
“I can scrounge something up,” she said, “It’s ok.”
“No. Danny, I really want to go to the store. I’ve been planning on going. I want to make something. We don’t have to live in a world where scrounging something up is the usual protocol.”
Danny kept peering in the fridge, as if another compartment might reveal itself, filled with secret ingredients.
“I’m honestly not even hungry,” she said.
“You are hungry! I know you’re hungry. I can go to the store right now and when I get back, I’ll make dinner for all of us. It won’t be that long.”
He was speaking to her back and emphasizing certain words with jolts of noise, thinking she might spin to face him if one of his words was loud enough to startle her.
“I think it’s ok,” she said, with one hand still on the open refrigerator door and her eyes on one quarter-onion that would probably completely whither and sprout a little green antenna before ever being eaten.
“It’s ok, yeah, of course it’s ok,” he said, “I never said it wasn’t ok.”
She knew how hard he was trying. She didn’t say anything.
“Danny? I said it’s ok.”
“No. I said it’s ok.”
“Then we’re in agreement.”
“I guess so.”
“It doesn’t feel like it,” he said, pretty loudly.
She kept quiet.
“Danny?” He was right behind her and she still didn’t turn.
“Danny? Hello?” He was raising his voice.
“What,” she said.
This was it.
“Will you close that fucking refrigerator door?” he yelled, leaning very close to her.
She put shock in her facial expression and finally turned to face him. She didn’t close the refrigerator.
“You’re letting out all the cold air,” he said. His voice was quieter than before but had a shaky desperation in it. “A fridge is supposed to be left closed. You shouldn’t keep it open all day long like this. Danny. Please. You’re wasting all sorts of energy. A fridge runs on energy. You’ve got to close it.”
Danny looked past Henry and made eye contact with Theo. He was holding one puzzle piece in his hand and watching his parents become upset with each other over a refrigerator door.
Danny said, “Henry. It’s just a refrigerator. And it doesn’t have any food in it anyways.” She closed the door.
Henry released his breath and walked back outside to his small garden behind the house.
II.
Fifteen minutes later, he walked back in. Danny was sitting at the table with Theo and his puzzle and waiting for some water to boil for pasta. Both of them looked up at Henry when he walked in the door.
He came over to the table and said, “Danny, can I talk to you?” He wasn’t breathing heavily or anything.
She said, “Yeah, of course,” but made no motion to get out of her seat.
Henry winced and said, “In private?”
Theo snorted and took it personally.
It took a lot for Henry to stay calm and Danny saw that he was trying. She felt sorry for him, but didn’t have the energy to try that hard herself.
“Well, I’m about to put some pasta in,” she said, “The water’s probably starting to boil as we speak.”
“Can you turn it off for a moment?” Henry asked.
“Then I’d have to reboil. I’m hungry,” she said, in contrast to what she’d claimed earlier.
“You just screamed at her in front of me,” Theo said, “I can only imagine what you’ll do in private.”
With incredible strength of will, Henry didn’t react. It was probably this moment of restraint that made Danny’s mind up to forgive him for everything he’d ever done and let him talk to her in private.
“Here,” she said, “I’ll put the pasta in and set a timer.”
She did and the two of them walked outside. The walls of their room were too thin. Even in the cold, outside was better.
Henry brushed snow off the second adirondack chair beside his garden. The first chair was already cleared off, from when he’d sat there before. Danny knew it’d be cold to sit on, even if there was no longer any snow. But she was now feeling such sorrow and gratitude for him that she sat down anyway.
As soon as he apologized, she knew she’d go over to him and sit on the arm of his chair and play with his hair to comfort him. They’d stay out there and laugh at each other for how grumpy they’d been earlier. When they went back inside, they’d still be laughing and Theo, the little punk, would be slightly irritated with them for making up without him.
Danny sat down and was ready to accept his apology. She even felt prepared to apologize for her own actions, even though he had clearly been the one in the wrong.
When they were both seated, angled slightly towards each other, Henry calmly said, “I thought about it out here and realized I don’t deserve to be treated that way by you.”
Danny felt a tightness return to her entire body. Her breath caught for a moment and she blinked.
Henry was very serious. He went on, “I’ve been trying so hard. I’ve been doing everything I can think of. I sit out here all the time. It’s actually been helping. I want you to give me credit, but you still seem so pissed at me. Like, always. All the time you seem pissed. You know I get confused but you still don’t give me anything. You haven’t been communicating, you’ve just been acting pissed and it’s fucking scary. I don’t know what else to do.”
She didn’t look at him but said, “You’re being so dramatic.”
He said, “Maybe so, but it’s how I feel.”
“What did I do?” she said.
“I don’t want to hash it out,” he said.
“Yes you do. Obviously, you do. What did I do wrong in there?” Now she was getting worked up.
“Danny.”
“What? Jesus Christ.”
She’d been calm through everything until now. Even in the worst mood, she hadn’t done anything but stay calm. When he yelled at her, when she thought he might reach around her and slam the refrigerator door closed on her body, she hadn’t reacted nearly at all. He was trying? Did he know how hard she was trying?
He stared at the ground between his feet. This wasn’t going how he’d expected it to go. Clearly.
Well, what had he thought? That he could yell at her then wallow in his self-pity and she’d immediately admit she was the devil or something?
To Danny, it seemed like he was trying to decide between crying and exploding in anger. Those were his only modes when he was anxious: looking for sympathy like a child and becoming indignant like a tyrant.
She thought about Theo. No wonder he only sat around all the time. No wonder he couldn’t treat anybody with respect. Look at the model Henry had set for him. Yelling about a refrigerator door. Jesus christ.
She was just about prepared to begin berating him. Her whole body was defensive and she had much more energy than she’d had all day. She knew exactly where to push to get him to go over the edge. It would be incredibly easy. He was way too predictable.
If he cried, she wouldn’t feel sorry. If he yelled again, it would prove how out of control he was.
She wished there was video footage of everything that had happened since she got home. Maybe she hadn’t gone out of her way to treat him with warmth, but she definitely hadn’t done anything to deserve this garden scolding.
If any of those impartial observers were watching, they’d know she was well within her rights to poke the bear a little bit. Who’s in the wrong: the person who pokes the bear or the person who behaves like a bear?
She looked at him. When she saw him, one more wave of dangerous determination passed through her.
Before she could say anything, he got up and walked towards the house.
“Where are you going?” she said.
He didn’t answer.
“Henry? You brought me out here. That’s all you wanted? To yell at me one more time?”
It looked like he almost stopped, but he kept going.
“Grow up,” she said.
Henry walked into the house and Danny slumped low in her adirondack chair.
She imagined the impartial observers. They were sitting on their panel in heaven shaking their heads at her. Silently, they reminded her that just because Henry was wrong didn’t mean she was blameless. Hanging in the infinite space behind their dias, the pendulum of righteousness swung away from Danny’s side of its continuum.
She was exhausted.
Here she sat in his garden. She looked at it. It was only two chairs, two wooden planter boxes filled with snow, and a lopsided mesh-wire fence surrounding the sad setup. How could anyone feel especially safe in such a lonely, caged-off area?
If there had been plants growing, maybe she would have got up and ripped them all out, to spite him. But it was winter and he didn’t know how to grow anything even in growing seasons and she had lost all motivation. So she didn’t do anything to his garden.
After a couple minutes, she got up and went inside. Again she felt nervous to see her family, but in a different way than before. Before it had been their fault. Now, she wasn’t sure. Now, she was sort of ashamed.
The pasta water had boiled over and Theo had done nothing about it. Danny walked to the stove and turned the gas off. The overflowing water had extinguished the flame lord-knows-how-long ago and now her kitchen was being pumped full of propane and methane.
She pulled out her phone and saw there were still two minutes left on the timer. She strained the pasta and then threw it all away. She wasn’t interested in tasting the noodles to see how much more time they needed. She didn’t even have any plan for the sauce. It was a lost batch.
“Dad came in here and walked right out the front door,” Theo said. After a few seconds, he also said, “I think he took your car.”
“That’s ok,” Danny said, “He owns half of it.”
“What happened out there?” Theo asked.
“We just talked.”
“Not for very long.”
“Yeah, I guess not.”
“He can be a real asshole sometimes,” Theo said.
Walking out of the kitchen to finally lie down, Danny said, “He’s trying his best.”