No, all Loomis wanted was to see if there might be a little something he could nosh on while Izzy was in the bathroom. He even offered to help Kate put the groceries away, an offer she politely declined, a declination he politely ignored. Loomis was going to be helpful because it was the right thing to do. He held to this conviction until the precise moment his eyes fell upon a small container of Greek yogurt.
He and Kate had discussed this product at length. They had agreed it was an unnecessary luxury. He tamped down his urge to speak, then realized he was tamping down his urge to speak, then glared at Kate, who was reaching into the fridge to put the almond milk away and humming — humming, of all things! Her ass looked delish. This made Loomis wish he had not seen the yogurt. But it was too late. He was going to say something now, something awful and thrilling — he’d had enough of muzzling himself, of kowtowing, of groveling, which is probably how Kate had got the idea that the fucking Greek yogurt was back in play. She turned from the fridge. Her eyes followed his. He suffered an exquisite moment of pre-regret, of wanting to fall to his knees in some kind of spiritual silence. Then his vile mouth began to speak.
On Monday morning, having forgotten to pretend to have an early meeting, Loomis walked Trevor to preschool. They bonded. This consisted of listening to Trevor hold forth on the Uhmoomah, a species of his own invention that appeared to embody all the vital Freudian archetypes. (Pale wormy body? Check. Damp cave habitat? Check. Humps that squirt white lava? Check.)
They passed all the landmarks Izzy had loved: the tree with the tiny door at the bottom, the doghouse shaped like an igloo. Trevor droned sweetly on. Loomis missed the days of one child. The math was so complicated now. Someone always had a cold. They all fought too much. Loomis was fat and unhappy and lonely in his unhappiness. That was why he picked fights. What did one do with such insights?
They were standing in front of the church basement where Trevor was being taught to clean up glue spills and use his words. Loomis crouched down to hug his little weirdo goodbye. Over Trevor’s shoulder he spotted a red Scion parked down the street. The vehicle pulled a U-ie and raced off. Loomis jumped up and waved his arms and started yelling, “Hey! Hey!”
A number of kids and parents were by now staring at him. Loomis fell silent. Trevor regarded his father with the solemn majesty of one burdened by too many secrets. He held a pink finger to his lips. “The Uhmoomah don’t like yelling,” he whispered. “It hurts their tentacles.”
The interview with The Lesbian Anita was brief. It had to be, because The Lesbian Anita was extremely busy. She was a rabbi and a tenured scholar of transgender literature, a kind of Venn-diagram celebrity. She had three offices, two secretaries, a solar system of overly sexualized graduate assistants. Loomis ambushed her outside her synagogue.
“Look at you,” she said. “You’ve gotten fat, Toddy. It gives me real pleasure. Your hairline’s fucked too.”
They stood, not hugging.
The Lesbian Anita wore a flowing white robe and Pocahontas braids. She looked like a Manson Girl back from rehab.
“I’ll cut to the chase,” Loomis said. “Two armed men approached me in a threatening manner regarding a dispute I had with Kate. I believe you hired these men because you’re in love with my wife and hope to drive us apart.”
The Lesbian Anita roared like a pirate. “Is this what happens when you turn forty and start turning tricks for the man?”
“If you come clean, I’ll let this go without involving the police.”
“Omigod! Let’s by all means involve the police. Let’s call them right now. I want to see how this plays out. It’s so awesomely unhinged.” She pulled out her iPhone and dialed 911.
On speaker, a dispatcher asked, “Is this an emergency?”
The Lesbian Anita stared at Loomis. “Yes.”
“Okay. Point made.” He tried to grab the phone, but The Lesbian Anita caught his hand and gave it a quick crushing. She’d been an Olympic finalist in the hammer throw.
Loomis looked around to make sure no one had seen him physically subdued by The Lesbian Anita. It had happened before, on a vacation to Squam Lake long ago. Loomis was the new suitor, seeking the approval of Kate’s brilliant best friend. They drank a lot and smoked weed and skinny-dipped, and somehow the subject of Indian leg wrestling came up, as it often does among the drunk and erotically agitated. So there was Loomis with a confused half-chub and a bota bag of sangria, slathered in mud like an Iroquois. He stepped forward to fell The Lesbian Anita. Down he went, like Foreman in Zaire.
He had squirmed in the muck, not unhappily. “Okay, now do you surrender?” he howled. Kate was doubled over on the porch. The Lesbian Anita cupped her mons pubis in a gesture whose precise meaning Loomis declined to interpret. Instead he adopted the accent of a Native American person imitating English. “I, Him Who Pisses Self at Dawn, bow down before you, the mighty warrioress She Who Munches Squaws!” and they all whooped and the loons whooped back and later, in front of the fire, Kate whispered that she loved him. Why not? He was man enough to take his licking with good humor, and he gave it right back that same night, between Kate’s sturdy thighs, the region he called Sweet Valley in tribute to her Kansan youth.
The Lesbian Anita had pocketed her phone. She squinted rabbinically. “Whatever you’ve gotten yourself into, get out of it.”
“I haven’t gotten into anything.”
“I’d hate to think I was right about you all these years,” The Lesbian Anita said. “Pull it together, Toddy. Have a little faith in yourself.”
Faith. Right. That was what Loomis needed — a little taste of the ancient codes, the chance to maybe slaughter an animal with sanctioned hooves. He settled for the local Unitarian Universalist Church, tagging along with Kate and the kiddos. “My little atheist wingman,” Kate called him, and he pretended the “little” part didn’t offend him. He made fruit salad for the potluck, sang the ungendered hymns. It was nice: holding hands, participating in the sudden vulnerability of human voices lifted together, letting the ponchoed crones fawn over his kids. Later he wolfed French toast stuffed with cream cheese and tried to forgive himself.
He did his weekend time with the kids, the playground, the drop-offs, the dizzy itinerary of domestic duties that now passed for foreplay. Why was he so angry at his wife all the time? It was as if he’d come to the end of his decency. Kate herself was done arguing, into some ominous new phase.
“What?” Loomis found himself saying defensively, standing in the middle of an empty room with some useless implement in his fist, a paint scraper or egg whisk. Then, with a note of scorn, “What?” Trevor had spent weeks building an elaborate home for his Uhmoomah out of construction paper, glitter glue, Legos, popsicle sticks. He carried it to the back porch and stomped on it with a sudden al-fresco wrath.
Loomis burst through the back door. “What are you doing?”
“It’s ruined,” Trevor explained.
“It’s not ruined!” Loomis shrieked.
“Yes it is,” Trevor said calmly. “There was a volcano that exploded. Why are you yelling, Dad?”
A few days later Loomis was standing in back of the Dunkin’ Donuts across the street from Izzy’s soccer practice. She wouldn’t be done for another half hour, so he ordered a dozen Munchkins, half for the kid, but she didn’t need the sugar and he did, because he worked for a living and she didn’t. He finished the last one and sky-hooked the box into the dumpster.