Parades and the baring of teeth
I keep hoping that we can show that boy that even though we’re no longer together, we’re still something like a family. Or if not a family, then to give him the idea that his mother and father love him and can still do things together. That’s the theory anyway.
My town has a nice little Fourth of July parade. Not as quaint as the one in the town I used to live in, but very small-town America. I thought it would be a good idea if we all went. I told Beth we’d meet at the cafe on the corner at 9:00am. Well, 9:00 came and went, so I went over to the barricade so we would have a nice place to watch the parade. About twenty minutes later, my cell phone rings.
“We’re here at the cafe. Where are you?”
“Just walk north, I’m right at the barricade.”
“What barricade?”
“Just walk north, you’ll see me.”
“You told us to meet you here.”
“Twenty minutes ago, yes.”
She finally finds me, and I make my way back to the space I had staked out.
“I didn’t want to lose this space,” I said.
She scowls and bares her teeth at me. Not metaphorically. Not figuratively. Literally. She opened her mouth and showed me her teeth.
I couldn’t help laughing.
“What is that? You’re showing me your teeth?” I ask.
She’s angry that she’s late? That I’m not where I was supposed to be? That I’m not afraid of her big bad teeth?
“Not being together means that I don’t have to put up with this shit,” she hisses at me. “I’m going home. Have the boy back at 12 or 3.”
“OK.”
“Which?”
“Do you need him back by a certain time?” I asked.
“No.”
“Then I’ll bring him to your house when we’re done here.”
Throughout the parade, as the boy and I watch the noisy fire engines, the lackluster bands, the veterans of various stripes and lodges staving off the heat, I keep wondering. Was she always this bitter? Was she always this mean? I replay little scenes from our marriage and no, she wasn’t always like this. The early years, when we were courting. Our first years discovering each other. The years of infertility working together. And then this. Did I make her this way?