I'm Sorry You Feel That Way (24 page)

It was me.

Al returned to the kitchen where he ladled hot chili into the plastic Miracle Whip container; I followed him. One of us said you’re really immature. The other said no, you are.

Then we started to argue about the boy. The day before, the boy had been running in the backyard, he tripped and fell, gouging open the meaty part of his palm on a tiki lamp. I thought he needed to go to the emergency room, he needed stitches; Al thought I was overreacting, just squirt Bactine on it, some Neosporin, wrap it up, he’d be fine.

I turned out to be right. I reminded Al of this.

He tightened the lid on his chili. He put it in the freezer. He said, “I don’t have to listen to this. I don’t have to take this baloney from you,” and I said, “Well, I don’t have to take this baloney from you,” then he walked away, and it didn’t take long for a basic scientific principle to do its thing: The lid that trapped the hot air inside the container blew off. The freezer door blew open. Chili blew out. Everywhere. Inside the freezer, down the refrigerator, across the floor. It even splattered on the counter, the cupboards.

I’d never been happier. The single red kidney bean sticking to, then falling from, the ceiling pleased me more than if I had been proclaimed Most Beautiful Girl in the Universe.

There was silence. Silence while I helped him clean it up, and silence while we went to the store and bought more hamburger, red kidney beans, canned tomatoes. When one of us did finally speak, it was to say do we have any more onions at home, while the other said we better get some more green peppers. We did not discuss the fight we’d just had. Neither one of us said what was that? or that was pretty ridiculous or why? why would we talk to each other like that?

I don’t think any of our fights were ever about green bean casserole or Renée Zellweger. How often, looking back, would the timing of our arguments match up with the mailman bringing a letter from a collection agency planning legal action addressed to me or a letter from the parole board announcing another hearing addressed to Al? How often would I, for seemingly no reason at all, get it in my head that Al secretly thought I was a moron? How often would Al, for seemingly no reason at all, become distant and withdrawn?

And when our squabbling becomes bickering that grows up to be arguing about the position of the toilet seat or hair in the sink, about clothes on the floor and don’t-talk-to-me-like-I’m-an-idiot, isn’t one of us saying,
Good God, you’re irritating,
while the other says,
Oh really? What are you? Not-irritating?
And when we’re ignoring each other or when we’re talking to each other in a hyperbolically polite way—
After you! Oh, I couldn’t, please, after you!
—isn’t it true that one of us is really saying,
I’m afraid you don’t love me
, while the other is saying,
I’m afraid I do.
How long will it take for us to trust each other with our biggest secrets?

More than a year or even two. Maybe ten million. Maybe more.

 

 

 

 

 

People are always surprised to learn Al and I have a cat. The day after our fight about me versus Renée for the title of Most Beautiful Girl in the World, two days after the boy gouged open his hand on the tiki lamp, we adopted a kitten, dainty, small-boned, green-eyed. She’s a striped tabby but her coat is overlaid with the markings of a calico, like she wanted to be both or like she couldn’t make up her mind about who or what she wanted to be.

When we’re with colleagues at a cat-talker’s dinner party, we don’t say anything about our cat, how strange she is, how fretful, fearful, skittish. How she lives in the basement. How she won’t come upstairs, preferring instead to lurk in dark corners, to tremble in dark places. But if you go to her, if you approach her, gently, patiently, on her territory and on her terms, she can be very sweet, purring and weaving between your legs while you sort or fold laundry. Pets reflect their owners’ neuroses, and what this cat reveals about me and Al is obvious.

In the spring of 2006, after serving twenty-six years of his sentence, the man who murdered Al’s son was released from prison. Seven months later, a sixteen-year-old girl would go missing. This man would be the last person seen with her. This man would draw a detailed map that showed police exactly where they could find her body.

When the phone rang—it would be a reporter calling to ask Al for a comment on this tragedy—he was in the basement. He’d been sorting laundry. He sorts by color, not by fabric. For years, I tried to convince him that just because a towel is blue and a pair of jeans is blue and a silk dress is blue, it doesn’t mean they should be washed together in hot water. It was a losing battle, one I accepted after I realized I could do the laundry myself or I could shut up and thank him for getting it done. I went to the basement not to ask did he need help folding but to ask who was that on the phone.

That’s when he told me about the girl, about how after she’d gone missing, her dad went looking for her. It was her dad who found her empty car—even before the police did—parked alongside a stretch of dark country road, her purse and cell phone on the ground beside it. Al said he couldn’t stop thinking about the girl’s father. Al said he had a pretty good idea what her father was going through, Al said he knew something about how her father feels, and that he was sorry. Al said he was terribly sorry.

I put my hand in his. He squeezed my fingers. I thought I knew something about sadness, about depression, about feeling bad, but it turns out I know nothing. Al and I were sitting on the floor in the basement, piles of dirty laundry all around us, while a boy we loved was alive, safe, playing video games in his room, and a cat was purring, flicking her tail and weaving herself between our bodies. Al and I had been together ten years. I wanted us to be together at least ten million more.

I
owe these people a big thanks: My agent, Randi Murray. My editor, Amy Einhorn. Sarah Vowell. Rebecca Howell and the Kentucky Women Writers Conference.

I’m much obliged to Minnesota State University, Mankato, for giving me release time and financial support; this is a wonderful place to work. My colleagues in the MFA program are terrific. Here’s a special shout-out to Rick Robbins, who graciously and without complaint read draft after draft after draft; to Roger Sheffer, who is, hands down, the most careful and enthusiastic reader in the universe; to Candace Black and Dick Terrill, who offered encouragement; and to Terry Davis, Mick Jagger to my Keith Richards, who insisted I keep going, reminding me there’s really no other choice.

Thanks to the following editors of journals where versions of some essays first appeared: Nate Liederbach of
Marginalia
; Brad Roghaar of
Weber Studies
; Joe Mackall of
River Teeth
; and Sam Ligon of
Willow Springs
.

I’m lucky there are people who’ve got my back: Al Learst. My brothers. My dad. Jessica Smith. Nate and Dawna Vanderpool. Jeremy Johnson. Nate Liederbach. Elijah and Korie Johnson. Tyler Corbett. Danielle Starkey. Brandon Cooke. Nathan Wardinski. Luke Rolfes. David Clisbee. Jason Benesh. Seth Johnson. Ryan Havely. Greg Nicolai. Melanie Rae Thon.

I’m lucky to have a son. That boy is the best part of my world.

About the Author

Diana Joseph teaches creative writing in the MFA program at Minnesota State University, Mankato.