Page 8 of Finding the Pieces

“It’s not about dinner, Dom. Your answers are so clipped, you might as well not even respond.It’s fine. I don’t know.Are you hearing me? Did you hear me say our sondidn’t nap?” She jerks her arms around as she struggles to hang a pair of corduroy overalls onto a clothes hanger before she gives up, tossing everything onto the closet floor and closing the door.

“Is this what our communication is going to be like now? Us coordinating and surviving one day-to-day task to the next with no real substance?” Her voice is pitchy, shaky as she crosses her arms over her stomach.

I want to calm the winds of this brewing storm, but I’m tired, work was a shit show this week, and I can’t seem to pull any patience from my arsenal.

“Ellie, I just got home, and in case you haven’t noticed, our son is a D1 wrestler now. It takes at least seventy-five percent of my brain power to Houdinihim into a diaper before he pisses everywhere. Let’s figure out what we’re doing for dinner, and then we’ll talk, I promise.”

Wrong. Everything I just said was very wrong.

Ellie glares at me while she picks up the laundry basket and wordlessly leaves me and Luca alone in his room.

Fuck.

“Looks like Dad screwed up, my guy. Any advice for your old man?” Luca gives me a look that says,psh, you’re on your ownbefore blowing raspberries and spitting everywhere.

Yup, sounds about right.

***

Dinner could have gone better. Ellie mostly talked to Luca, only addressing me or looking at me when necessary.

My stomach sinks knowing it’s only a matter of time before all this unresolved shit between us explodes, but I can’t figure out what I need to do to fix any of it. I don’t know what she needs from me and everything I say only seems to piss her off.

We’re cleaning the kitchen while Luca crawls around his gated play area in the living room, babbling, shrieking, and playing with his toys.

“Hey, come here.” I reach for her hand, hoping to pull her in for a hug, but she shakes off my attempt. “El, I want to apologize.”

“For what?” she says, her voice soft and hollow, and her expectant eyes find mine, waiting for me to go on.

“For not…I mean, you wanted me to say more earlier and help plan dinner and I was focused on Luca. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t get it,” she says, turning away to load another dish into the dishwasher. “I don’t want to talk about this now. Not in front of Luca.”

I get it. She doesn’t want to argue in front of Luca. I don’t want to argue, period.Can’t we just talk about this?

We both know Luca isn’t going to go down for bed easy tonight, and I can’t wait that long to know what’s bothering my wife.

“Just tell me what I don’t get, please.”

“I said not now. Please,” she whispers, squeezing her eyes shut like she’s holding back tears.

After a moment, I nod, picking up a rag to wipe the kitchen table and clean off Luca’s high chair.

But the night comes and goes as it usually does, and we never get to talk about it or about us. It takes almost three hours to get an overtired Luca to bed and we both crash immediately afterward, only to be woken by him two hours later and start over.

The cycle repeats, and we shove our shit to the back burner…again.

I’m so fucking tired.

Chapter five

Ellie

Ipress my palms to my eyes, willing the familiar ache to dissipate. That worn-out feeling from crying too hard for too long and the never-ending exhaustion from months of sleep deprivation.

Luca, my sweet almost-one-year-old, has been sleeping for forty-five minutes now. The nap he refused earlier today came too late and now bedtime will be way too late and another battle. My heart sinks and I feel desperate to justrest.

This built-up exhaustion is bone deep. Soul deep.

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