Livvy Takes the Long Way

That look. I can feel your eyes on me. Those boring brown eyes. I hate your face, I do. You keep looking at me and all I can I think is, 'I hate your fucking face.' But I don't look up. I don't say that. I never say the thoughts in my head.I re-tuck the damn strand of fly away hair that the oscillating fan has blown in my face for the hundredth time. I should just switch seats, but it'll only provoke him more. It's hot-shirt sticking, sweat beading kind of hot, the kind not usually synonymous with mid-May. The central air has been broken since last August. No one is going come out to fix it until mid-June because I forgot to call the guy back in March, like he told me to. Of course-and thanks to this week's unexpected high temps-he hasn't let me forget that fact. Fortunately, Kadee and I love the heat, but it makes him even more miserable than usual. I glance up-furtive rabbit like-from the corner of my eye. He's started peeling the label off his beer. I hate when you do that. Those damp little snowflakes of paper. They're going to dry up and stick onto his garish new cherry wood table, and I'm going to be the one to scrape it off, later that night, with a dull butter knife and cello sponge. New scratches on finished wood, and probably a water stain too, because I'll be too tired to get a damn paper towel and wipe it all up after. I don't like the table, I prefer the rustic farmhouse look, but he and his mother decided on this one. This shiny, showroom floor monstrosity with matching upholstered chairs, china cabinet and buffet.I'll give it another minute or two. Make it look like I'm invested in this non-conversation we're having. Then, well, then maybe I'll walk out the back door again, go to the garden. Or maybe just sit on Kadee's swing, rock back and forth and kick up a little dust until he goes upstairs for a nap. That's the idea in my head, at least.As is typical, the only conversation happening between my husband and I is in my head, and it's more like a monologue. It is the one we'll never have outside of my head. Bradley Handler doesn't do conversation. In the beginning, I don't know, I guess I didn't notice. That sounds crazy, I know. But, hell, when we started out we were couple of kids-well, I was, at least. Playing grown up, like it was some kind of big fun.But then, like things do, it got real. Not so fun anymore. Those things he did? The constant joking, the one liners, those things... yeah, they stopped being funny. Just like my mom said they would. I want out, but I'm not leaving. Besides, where would I go? Back to my mother's? It's about my only option, far as I can see it.Anyhow, Kadee loves that swing out in the deep backyard just about as much as I love my little patch of dirt trying to be a garden in the back corner. That's how I persuade myself to stay put, like a good girl. A swing and a garden.For the past three days, while Kadee took her naps, I've been digging the whole thing by hand-all 10 x15 feet of it-using a shovel and manual tiller.Then-as I'm raking it into a tidy rectangle-he comes sauntering out the screen door, and laughs that loud fake bray of his as he shakes his head, saying, "You don't have any idea what you're doing, do you? Why can't you just go to the grocery store like normal people?"He's home early, I realize with annoyance. Last I knew, he was supposed to be at the main office in Plantsville till two o'clock. But now he's home, disrupting my peace. An icy fear shoots through my brain-did he get fired? Please, don't let that be the reason he's home. I don't answer, just dig harder. Truth, Bradley? I want to whack you across the face with this shovel. I keep my head down, so he can't see me smirking at the image in my head. You'd want to know what's so damn funny, and well, I might just have to tell you.That'd be another fight...