Pale Blue Eyes

Sunday afternoon when Todd was dropping the kids off to me, I started to giggle almost uncontrollably when I remembered I had something to ask him.  I had been baking banana bread brownies and was wearing my red gingham apron with the chicken appliques whipstitched to the fabric.  Slightly ruffled, it was the only thing about me that day even remotely fancy.  I had put my hair up just as I always do when I cook, because who wants to find a hair in their Fritos or pot pie?

"Okay, everybody. Have a good week.  Kids, I love y'all," Todd called into my house. It's always like he is too shy to come all the way inside, and when he does he just sort of looms in the foyer and pokes his head around the door.  

I licked my spatula quickly so that I could lay it down and not return to a mess.  "Oh!  Wait!  I have something to ask you!"  Sure, I made it from the back of my house to the front of my house, but not before he could get halfway down the three flights of steps outside.  

Minding the cat and holding her back gently with my pink house-slippered foot, I thrust open the storm door.  It's freezing, I thought.  "Todd!  I gotta ask you something!"  

He turned back, hands in pockets of that navy blue Carhart and shoulders slightly rounded, a surrender all his own.  "Yeah?  What is it, Liz?"  

"Uhhh..."giggles.  "Well, you know when..." And then I heard Molly's voice right behind me.  She reached for her cat.  Picked her up, all floppy and willing.  Oh, how we all love this cat!

Then I did what every mother disapproves of but finds herself eventually doing in spite of how much she detests it when it is from her own children:  I rolled my eyes heavenward.  "Never mind, never mind...I'll catch you another time," I tell him, releasing him to go on about his business.

"What is it?"  He persisted.

"Nuuuh-thing," In an exaggerated flourish, I nod backward over my shoulder to indicate that we had an eavesdropper, a tag-along with a radar for adult conversation.  Maybe I sounded Chinese when I said this.  He failed to understand my subtle gesture of "not now, our daughter can hear us and she doesn't need to be hearing this".

And so he proceeded.  "What?!  What is it?" 

"Nothing!  I'll talk to you about it some other time!  Thanks for bringing the kids home!  Have a good week!  Bye!"  I took a few steps backward, knocking clumsily into Molly.  She has always been this way, hot on my heels, breathing down my neck, bumping into the back of me or ramming into me from behind with a shopping cart when I have to stop abruptly.  "Whoops!  Molly, sorry.  What do you need?!!"  I look at her, head-on and wide-eyed, because that is the way you have to be with some people, and she snaps out of it for a minute.  My Girl is so much like me, but she is also so much like her father.  I feel sorry for her and then instantly feel ashamed of myself.  

"Oh, nothing, mom.  I was just going to say goodbye to dad," and away she went with the cat dangling over her shoulder, tail flicking like a tall and limber flag pole.  

It has been almost four days and I still have not made an attempt to talk to Todd about what I wanted to discuss with him.  I had giggled that day, I had smiled and giggled uncontrollably, like I had a wild secret growing inside of me that I just could not wait to share.  I even had to cover my mouth at one point standing there in the doorway, just so that he would not recognize happiness and try to take it from me.  Too, I am just not yet ready for him to see me in all my giddy regale!  He is not yet allowed to see me like that, for I am afraid he might wish it away from me out of spite for being the first one to physically leave our marriage. 

I had wanted to ask him if he had met anyone and whether he had taken anyone out on a date yet.  I don't know where the laughter stemmed from.  Maybe because I was feeling nervous to ask him such a personal question when for so many years Todd and I have been anything but personal.  Maybe because I was feeling happy with the idea of Todd moving on to someone else whom he considered might could make him happier.  Maybe because I was feeling happy at the prospect of his acknowledgement and conscious nod yes that he wanted to see me truly happy again, too, a kind of mutual permission between us to go ahead and move on from this place where we are now, consensual passports back to our different worlds.