And a man who has spent five years not looking does not enjoy the first clear sight of himself.
Chapter 12 — The Facade Cracks
Without me, the household came apart with almost comic speed — though no one inside it was laughing.
The first dinner was half-raw instant ramen, because Marlene declared delivery pizza unsanitary.
The second night Shane tried to boil pasta, got pulled into an angry email from his boss, and scorched the thin aluminum pot Marlene had always insisted was better than my cast iron, filling the apartment with smoke.
Tiffany laughed until Shane snapped at her to cook, then — and the kitchen went silent — asked why her sister-in-law had somehow known how to do all of this, and Tiffany said, without thinking, that it wasn’t as if Lorna had anything better to do with her life.
The truth none of them would say out loud was simpler.
I had left for work at 7:30 and fought traffic home by 7:00, and bought the groceries, and made the meals, and washed Marlene’s lace curtains by hand on my weekends, and driven her to her clinics, and carried Tiffany’s feverish child to a cab at two in the morning.
My free time had been whatever scraps were left after the whole family finished setting their burdens on my back.
A sweater went into a hot wash and came out toddler-sized.