Six Going on Seven, Chapter 3 ~ Ball and Chain, part 2

Later that night, when the children were in bed, Liseli sat watching one of the late night shows.  She didn’t even know which one, really, she wasn’t paying attention.  It ended, and she couldn’t remember a thing about it.  She took a shower, moving through the motions of getting ready for sleep while listening for the sound of a car in the driveway or a door opening.

He hadn’t invited her to the Sarcophagus Club Friday night.  Maybe it was a silly thing to expect, but . . . .  It wasn’t that she wanted to go.  But if it was such a big step for them . . . .  Well she’d have to stay home with the children, anyway, even if he did bring it up she would have to say no.  She didn’t like clubs, anyway.  It wasn’t surprising that he hadn’t asked.  Of course he didn’t want her there.  He hung around with the guys to escape her, it was ridiculous to think he’d want her to come to their big show.

I’m only good at two fucking things in my life and I’ve already given one of them up for you.

She slammed her hairbrush down on the counter and turned the bathroom light off, leaving the room in a disarray.  As she passed through the living room she saw Muttface on the sofa already, but she said nothing.

It was obvious why he found the idea of the band so appealing, she thought.  The whole rock star persona that went with it, the idea of playing to a crowd, selling albums, being famous, going on tour . . . it was the closest thing to an interesting life he could come to trapped in this world.  And who had trapped him in this world?  The old ball and chain . . . .

I won’t got to bed just yet.  She paused in her bedroom doorway and looked at the computer.  Without Russ trying to sleep she’d be able to do whatever she wanted on the computer.  It was a good chance to get some writing done.  If only she could think of a story to write.  She hadn’t had any new ideas in a while, and now that she thought about it, she hated all her existing ones.  They were all so . . . dry.  Nothing she’d even want to read.  Nothing worth reading.  Nothing worth writing.

She sat at the computer for an hour, typing just enough here and there to stop the monitor from shutting itself off.  She could change the settings so the economy switch-off didn’t occur, but that gave her incentive to write, so she left it the way it was.

She didn’t begrudge Russ his rock ‘n’ roll aspirations.  After all, he’d been playing the guitar since he was ten, long before she’d even met him.  It wasn’t very different from her dream of being a published author.  But she saved her writing till after other responsibilities were finished.  She knew when to call a dream a dream.  If he had wanted to be a rock star, he shouldn’t have started a family.  They shouldn’t have had three kids.  Look at her . . . she hardly ever wrote anymore.  That was because she had her priorities straight.  Russ didn’t care about priorities.  Apparently he figured that staying in this world was enough.

I’m only good at two fucking things in my life and I’ve already given one of them up for you.

Liseli backspaced over the measly paragraph she’d written in the last hour.  Then she deleted all her files.  She dug out her backup copies and erased the discs, opened the cabinet, got out all the printed copies she could find, and sat on the floor with a scissors, shredding.  She didn’t have a nice automatic shredder like at work.

Furball came slinking into the room, purring.  Liseli didn’t know how the cat got in; she thought she’d closed the door.  She ignored it at first, as it curved itself around Liseli’s back and paused to sniff the strips of paper.  Liseli sniffed, and said, “I wish I hadn’t asked him to stay, Fur.”  The cat flicked its tail and sat down, blinking once.  “I should have just let him go wherever he wanted.  I should have just left him.  I . . . I mean I knew it would be this way.  Didn’t I?”  Furball offered no opinion.  “Look at this,” Liseli cut a crooked line through the last piece of whole paper.  “Look at this stuff.  He never liked reading my stuff.  And what else is there to me, really?  Really?  Besides . . . oh, besides sex?  I don’t know.  Nothing.  Would you give up all the worlds for me, Fur?”  She laughed, knowing how silly it was to be talking to the cat, the cat who didn’t even look very interested.  But Furball was more interested than Russ, at least.

She tossed aside the last shreds and sighed.  This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.  Margaret was how it was supposed to be.  A safe, normal life, with no monsters.  It was supposed to be a good life.  Not mundane, no, just reliable, just not frightening.  But it had all turned out wrong.  Russ hated it.  He hated her for making him live it.

“Fuck this,” she said.  She didn’t usually talk that way, but it was almost, almost comforting to say what Russ would say.  She looked down at the scissors, opening and closing it a couple times.  You’re handy with a blade, aren’t you?  And it would be fitting, wouldn’t it?

She shook her head.  What kind of thought was that?  It wasn’t that bad.  No one stayed newlyweds forever, she knew that.  She got to her feet and set the scissors down on the desk, turning the computer off.  She switched off the lights and shed her bathrobe, climbing into bed in her thin cotton nightgown.  It was a warm night, and she shoved the comforter down to the end of the bed, pulling the sheet and light blanket over her.  “Good night, Furball,” she whispered to the cat as it jumped up and made itself comfortable by her feet.

It wasn’t a good night.  She couldn’t sleep.  Liseli tossed and turned, running over the same thoughts, replaying Sunday’s argument, thinking of all the things she could have said or done.  She thought about what she’d say when Russ finally got home, then thought she’d just pretend she was sleeping.  But that was impossible.  Russ knew she couldn’t sleep alone, without him.  The cat at the foot of the bed was little comfort.  Russ knew she wouldn’t be sleeping without him.  He knew every minute he stayed away would be spent awake by her.  Damn him.  What could they be doing?  Probably watching strippers, or something.  Something like that.

When she did fall asleep it was the dreaming kind.  Alisiya plagued her dreams.  Ten years that witch had been dead, but she lived on in nightmares.  Where is Elly? she asked, smiling, her eyes white.  Don’t you know?  What kind of a mother are you?  Such a bad mother.  Why were you even allowed to have children?  I should have made it impossible.  Where is Elly?  Where is Elly?  Where is Elly?

Liseli woke up with the question ringing in her ears.  She started, raising herself to one elbow.  Alisiya was gone, but Liseli wasn’t alone.  Russ was in the room.  He hadn’t turned the light on, but she didn’t need that to know he was there.  She could hear the sounds of him undressing next to the bed, but she could also smell him.  Smoke clung to his clothes . . . he’d probably die of lung cancer from all the secondhand smoke he got from his friends.  Little comfort that he didn’t actually light up, himself . . . so far as she knew.  But he had been drinking.

She rolled over and put her back to him as he climbed into bed.  She could sense the unsteadiness in his movements.  He only did this to bother her.  She knew Russ didn’t like being drunk and liked hangovers even less; he only did it to bother her.  She wouldn’t be bothered.  She peered at the red numbers on the clock . . . 2:24.  He’d been out all night.  Oh, he was trying to push her buttons, alright.  He was . . . he was snoring . . . .

Russ didn’t snore very loud, it was one of his more lovable qualities.  Usually it was more of a loud breathing than an outright snore, but when he’d had too much to drink he slept more loudly.  She gritted her teeth together as she listened to the rhythm.  She wouldn’t be upset, she would not be upset . . . I’m not upset I’m not upset I’m not upset . . . .

Liseli flung the blanket aside and got out of bed.  The shredded paper crinkled as she walked across it in her bare feet, but she wasn’t in any mood to clean it up.  She shoved her way out the door and went down the hallway, pausing to gently open the boys’ door and look inside.  They were breathing deep and even, two calm lumps in their beds.  She shut the door and moved to Elly’s room.  Where was Elly?  Elly was in bed, sleeping soundly.  Liseli went in and stood above her for a moment or two, watching her face in the threads of moonlight that shone around the edges of the curtined window.

There was nothing wrong with the children, it was all her own mind.  It’s all in your mind.  She went into the kitchen, sitting down at the table and clenching her hands together.  They were shaking.  Why did they always have to shake?

In the dead silence of night she listened to the faucet drip.  She had asked Russ to fix it weeks ago.  She could have hired a plumber to come in, but she didn’t like strangers in her house, and why pay a man when you have a husband?  It just seemed like a waste.  Russ had said he could figure it out, no problem, but had he even tried?

Drip, drip, drip.

Liseli closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against the tabletop, spreading her arms out, holding her palms down flat.  She hated dripping faucets.  The slow plop, plop, plop . . . .  Like blood.  Like that night.  Blood, running at first, then dribbling, then dripping till there wasn’t any more.  Drip, drip, drip, plop, plop, plop.  The trough had filled with it, the table had swam with it, and it had dripped for hours and hours into the night.

Drip, plink, drip, plink.  The faucet wouldn’t stop.  Her eyes had gone from blue to white as she died.  Drip, plink, drip, plink.

Liseli shivered.  She wished there was somewhere she could go.  She wished she could make the faucet sink stop dripping.

She got up, skidding the chair across the floor, and went over to the sink.  She dabbed at the faucet with her fingers, fighting the tremors of disgust as she imagined it was something other than water.  She arranged the dish rag so that it was under the drip and would absorb the water, and felt a little calmer.

Then she saw her.

Out the window, in the back yard, on the swing.  Swinging.  Liseli hadn’t wanted a swingset in the yard, but Russ had fond memories of the swingset he’d grown up with and insisted the kids have one.  Liseli hated swings.

She closed her eyes and turned away.  It’s not real.  It’s your mind.  Just go to bed.  Please.

Instead she turned to the side door, opening it quietly and stepping out onto the stoop.  There was a breeze that night; it blew her hair back and wrapped her nightgown around her body, but the girl on the swing had grown still.  She watched Liseli approach out of unblinking eyes.  Liseli stopped a few yards away, bare feet in the prickly grass.  The girl looked the same.  She always did.  How long had it been?  Ten years.  She looked so much like Elly, with the long wavy auburn hair and Russ’s eyes.  Once long ago she’d seen a lopsided smile on the little girl’s face, but she never smiled when she saw her now.

“What do you want from me?” she said finally, her voice sounding harsh in her own ears as it broke the silence.

She got no answer.  The apparition faded from sight, and Liseli was left staring at an empty swing toyed with by the breeze.  “Why?” she muttered under her breath, walking up to it and taking it by the chains.  “Why?”  She turned around and sank into the seat, looking at the darkened neighborhood from the perspective of the ghost.  Why did it always end that way?

“I can’t take this,” she admitted to the emptiness.  “Margaret always says ‘He never gives us more than we can bear.’  Well I can’t bear this.  I can’t do it.  You can’t do this to me.  Margaret said so.”  It seemed funny, so she allowed herself to laugh.  The noise carried, sounding demented in the still night air.  One woman, laughing alone on a swing in her nightgown at two thirty in the morning.  It was all so pathetically funny, if she really thought about it.  She was a stressed out working mom, with an unemployed husband going through a very early midlife crisis, that was all.  That was all it would seem, to anyone like Margaret.

She’d been told by some that therapy was good.  Margaret believed in attending Sunday services, but others swore by their therapists.  Liseli didn’t much see the point.  She couldn’t talk to anyone about her life, except for Russ.  Anyone else would just put her in a straight jacket.  But she couldn’t talk to Russ, that was just it.  She couldn’t talk to anybody.  Talking out your problems is overrated . . . .

Liseli slid from the swing and sat on the ground, covering her face.

You do need a straight jacket.  Even Russ would say so, if he could see you right now.

Oh God, she ran her hands through her hair, pulling at the roots.  I’m going insane, and I don’t know what to do.  I just don’t know what to do anymore.

She did the only thing she could do — she got up and went back inside, back to her room, and crawled into bed beside Russ.