We never had a maid or a nanny so all those soft clean clothes must have been her handiwork. Just like the freshly baked cookies still warm from the oven that were on the kitchen table to help with all that homework. She must have mixed the meatloaf with her fingers, mashed the potatoes, peeled the carrots. I can’t remember exactly what she looked like or what she wore. All I remember is a shadow in front of the TV laughing at what seemed to be the same six I Love Lucy reruns again and again.
That’s how I got my name, Lucie, just like Lucille Ball’s daughter.
The rumpled detective at the door wears a shabby raincoat just like Columbo’s, a hat identical to Ricky Ricardo. He sounds like Ricky Ricardo, too. “You got some ’splaining to do, Lucie!”
“I didn’t do anything, detective. It was the cancer.” Such a long and painful way to die. All those operations. All that radiation. The chemo. Even the alternative medicine therapies we tried. So much time for Cameron to reflect on a lifetime of sins that might merit such divine retribution.
I try to explain to the detective with Columbo’s raincoat and Ricky Ricardo’s hat that the real crime is that Cameron never found a moment to say how much he loved me, how sorry he was for sleeping with anything in a skirt that glanced his way. Never once apologized for shattering our carefully crafted arrangement.
We agreed that I would postpone college, slave at any kind of minimum wage job I could find to put him through law school. Then, it would be my turn. No matter what.
We made love in those hectic first years. Passionate love worthy of big screen exposure that somehow faded into dutiful sex with three wonderful exceptions. Two nights of passion that followed Cameron’s almost never spoken “I’m sorry.”
We celebrated Cameron’s law school graduation with a bottle of decent champagne. I proudly showed him my application and tentative class schedule.
“I’m sorry, Lucie. That will just have to wait a bit longer. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me. I’ve been offered a full partnership in the largest firm in town. We have to buy a sinfully expensive house suitable for entertaining clients, put on an impressive show.” Cameron kept pouring champagne, kept trying to convince me everything would work out fine.
Tyler arrived precisely eight months and three weeks later. Just a few short months ago, Cameron said “I’m sorry” again. I hadn’t told him about the new baby yet. One magical night in between, Cameron said “I love you” for the first and only time during all our years of marriage.
In all those years, would it have killed Cameron to mumble a simple apology for all those nights he abandoned me in a sea of strangers without so much as a kind word or a strong arm to lean on? Treading murky water to stay afloat. Praying for a scriptwriter’s magic to give me something to say that wouldn’t make me sound stupid, make Cameron look bad.
Wishing I could magically make myself disappear on that nightmare evening when I finally realized how impossible it was for me to successfully play the role of glamorous wife. Wasting more on having my hair done than I usually spent on a week’s worth of groceries and raiding Sasha’s college fund to acquire a lavender silk cloud to match my newly frosted nails hadn’t transformed me into one of the perfect trophy wives proudly displayed on their husbands’ Italian-suited arms.
Sasha! My night-of-passion-I-love-you baby is wide awake in her soggy crib. She whimpers like an abandoned orphan when I lift her. By the time we get to the changing table, her cheeks are fire engine red and her screams could easily drown out the most powerful of sirens.
I imagine her angelic face on one of those missing children milk cartons, force myself to wonder what it would be like to spend my days staring at progressively older strangers and mentally adding years to what baby Sasha looks like. She could be gone in an instant, snatched away forever. So helpless. So precious that I could never ever consider hitting her just because she won’t stop crying.
Finally. Her stiff stubborn body softens as we rock with her love-tattered teddy bear. She’s almost asleep when the car door slams, starting the screaming even louder than before.
Cameron fills the nursery doorway with his pinstriped bulk. “Can’t you keep that child quiet? I had a really lousy day at the office!”
I make his martini just the way he likes, shaken not stirred, with two olives and an onion. Push the salty chips and salsa where he can reach them without effort. Grill him a steak big enough to clog the cleanest of arteries. Butter, real sour cream, and bacon bits on the baked potato. Asparagus with fresh Hollandaise.
I will bury Cameron at the top of the hill. The prevailing partner will drone on and on about Cameron’s big good heart, tell the Central Casting crowd how it just stopped without any warning. Cameron’s cardiologist will put his strong comforting arms around me and assure me there was nothing more either of us could have done.
“Lucie, you were the perfect wife. Making sure he gave up alcohol. Cooking with no fat and very little salt. You mustn’t blame yourself.”
“Earth to Lucie. Come in please.” Cameron saws off a huge piece of steak, lets it bleed all over the snow-white tablecloth as he dangles it as if to capture my attention. “There will be sixty for dinner on Saturday. Hire a caterer if you like. The last one was adequate.”
Adequate my foot! At least a dozen of your guests including the movie icon and the television idol wannabe tried to hire the caterer out from under me. If only they knew. If only you knew!
I was the caterer. I shopped the Farmer’s Market and the discount warehouse store. Peeled and chopped, baked and broiled, froze and thawed. Produced a veritable garden of radish roses and carrot curls to decorate tray after tray of hors d’oeuvres. Designed a gourmet dinner that Julia Child would have been proud to serve. Baked a picture-perfect dessert buffet that tasted as heavenly as it looked.
Paid the babysitter’s older brothers to rent tuxes and serve. Stashed the difference between what I spent and what it would have cost to hire a caterer in my secret bank account along with the profits from the newspaper route.
Four hundred houses each and every morning when Cameron thinks I’ve driven Sasha and the ritzy jogging stroller to the park. Over the years, I’ve perfected the routine and learned how to avoid complaints by doubling back to deliver a spare paper to the houses where neighbors snatch the first delivery. A spotless record earns generous tips added to the regular fee without any face-to-face contact with customers. No chance of being recognized.
By the time Tyler and Sasha and the new baby are in school, I might actually have enough to pay for my tuition. Just like Cameron promised he would do.
If the balance were larger, maybe I could afford to leave. No! I’d be lucky to walk away with the clothes on my back. This isn’t a community property state. No-fault divorce means Cameron’s adultery doesn’t count. He’d pull every string in the book to win custody of children he never bothers to pay attention to. There’s only one way to be free. I will bury Cameron at the top of the hill. Someday.
The flowing black dress is perfect for Saturday. Smocked at the top with tiny pink rosebuds. Big enough to hide the first bulge of pregnancy just in case I change my mind. Maybe that’s why I haven’t said anything to Cameron yet. No! Even though I marched my quota of miles and then some, carried my share of signs proclaiming a woman’s right to choose, there is only one choice for me.
Matthew… this has to be another boy like Tyler. He’s already heavy and demanding in my womb, nothing at all like Sasha. Matthew will be born in exactly seven months and one week if he’s as punctual as his older siblings.