“When is my turn?” Liv asked.
“I’m tired of this,” Oscar said.
“Why don’t you switch for a while?” her mother suggested. She had joined them and was now watching, too, as if this were family movie night.
Maribeth went to rinse off the comb and empty out the bucket under the leaking window. She made a mental note to call the super to apply another coat of sealant that never fully worked.
She dampened Liv’s hair and began to brush the tangles out. “Owww!” Liv screamed, bucking so hard she nearly head-butted Maribeth. “You’re hurting me.”
As gently as she could, she tried again. Liv whipped around. “I said, you’re hurting me!”
“Let’s try putting the conditioner on,” Maribeth said wearily. She began to squirt it on Liv’s head.
“It’s cold!”
“It’ll warm up.”
She pulled the comb through her hair. “Oww!” Liv yelled.
“Calm down!” Maribeth snapped.
“You calm down,” Liv yelled back nonsensically.
Maribeth sank back into the sofa. She remembered those TV commercials for bubble bath from her youth.
Calgon, take me away, she thought.
Anyone?
“Why are you stopping?” Liv shrieked.
Maribeth spread the conditioner through Liv’s hair. Then she gathered a small bunch of hair and combed through it. Out came four fat bugs. She went through the same bunch of hair, more bugs. Once more, and yet still more bugs.
She was infested. She was patient zero. They probably all had it now.
Her own head started to itch.
She went through the clump again. More bugs, and the telltale egglike nits, too. Again and again. And still more crap came out. It was never ending.
“You’re hurting me!” Liv yelled every time Maribeth ran the comb through.
“I can’t hear the movie,” Oscar complained every time Liv yelled.
“Shut up,” Liv yelled every time Oscar complained.
“Mom,” Maribeth said after several rounds of this. “Can you maybe sit between them?”
“Oh, what a nice idea. Scootch for Grandma.”
Liv’s hair was full of tangles. When the teeth caught on a particularly extravagant knot, Liv screamed and spun around. “I hate you!” she yelled. Then she shoved Maribeth right in the chest.
It hurt. It knocked the wind out of her. But most of all, it shocked her. But what shocked her more was what she did. Which was to hit Liv back. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to betray.
Liv’s mouth curled into a stunned O as she absorbed what had just happened. It was only after Maribeth apologized that Liv started to bellow.
It was the part of the movie when the Susan Sarandon character went from animated to live action. Maribeth’s mother thought Liv was crying because she was scared. “It’s okay, honey,” she said. “The witch dies in the end.” As if death was a comforting notion for a four-year-old.
Liv kept on crying, and then Oscar started up, too. Her mother suggested that they put on a different movie.
Maribeth excused herself, went into her room, where she too started to cry.
12
The next morning, Joanne, the Wilsons’ babysitter, arrived at seven to comb out the twins’ hair. Apparently, she’d instructed them to sleep with some kind of oil and a shower cap, which seemed far too easy, but such was the Jason way. After yesterday’s crying jag, Maribeth had called him with the news that the kids had lice. “You fucking deal with it,” she’d fumed to his voicemail. And he’d called the Wilsons. Shocker.
Joanne had offered to walk the twins to school with Maribeth’s mother. “Go kiss Mommy good-bye.”
Liv pouted as she puckered her lips sourly and turned toward Maribeth. Part of Maribeth wanted to refuse the kiss. She understood that she was the mother and had to be the adult here, but for once, could someone cut her a break?
Apparently not. Jason had slept on a blow-up mattress in the twins’ room last night. A lot of trouble to telegraph his contempt. Maribeth, meanwhile, had not slept at all.
Policeman Oscar shuffled over for a kiss and then the twins left, along with Joanne and Maribeth’s mother. Jason, who should’ve left for work an hour ago, paused by the bookcase. “Are you going to get out of bed today?” he asked.
“If I want to,” Maribeth replied, acidly.
“Do you really think you’re helping yourself by getting so worked up?” he asked. Like he was the wronged party here.
“No,” Maribeth said flatly.
“Then don’t,” he said.
AT ELEVEN, THE buzzer rang. When Maribeth opened the front door and saw Luca there, she broke down in big, gusty tears.
“Oh, no! That’s not good,” Luca said, motioning Maribeth over to the living room. She sat down on the sofa. “What’s going on?”
Maribeth recounted the days since coming home. The sense of backsliding. Her family’s unrelenting dependence on her.
Luca listened patiently. “I wish I could say you’re the first woman who’s had this complaint,” she said.
“I’m not?” Maribeth said, feeling both heartened because it wasn’t just her and disheartened because, really?
Luca smiled wryly. “Would it surprise you to learn that one of the top fantasies for women is a prolonged hospital stay?”
“That’s absurd.”
“Not if you think about it. The exhausted, multitasking woman. A trip to the hospital, it’s like the ultimate vacation. A chance to be the nurtured one instead of the nurturer. Guilt free, no less.”