Page 21 of The Light Year

Barbie, who has been kneading bread in the kitchen, wipes her hands on her apron as she stands over Todd with a worried frown. She puts a hand to her husband's forehead as if he might have a fever or something.

"Well, honey," Barbie says, sitting down next to him and pushing his briefcase to the side. "I think we have to trust him if he sees a reason for an x-ray. Have you been feeling anything strange?"

Todd closes his eyes for a long beat and then opens them again, focusing on Barbie. "During the day, I feel fine, but when I get up from the bed in the morning, everything is still spinning," he says, looking pained to have to admit this.

Barbie sucks in a breath. "Why haven't you told me?"

Todd shrugs, looking so much like his teenage self that Barbie wants to lean in and kiss him.

"I didn't want you to worry," he says. "You're busy with the kids and the house, and when I was off work, I realized that you already had your hands completely full. You don't need me underfoot, and to be perfectly honest, I get bored being at home all day."

He at least has the good sense to look apologetic when he says this, but Barbie still rears back, all thoughts of kissing him gone.

"Oh?" she says. "My life is boring to you?"

"No," Todd says, realizing that he's said the wrong thing. "No, no, no. It's fine for you, Barbie, but I need to be out of the house doing something. I need to be contributing to the world."

Barbie sits there for about twenty seconds, stunned, looking into her gorgeous, amazing husband's earnest blue eyes, and then she stands up again, looking down at him with both hands on her hips.

"Are you actually telling me that being a good mother isn't somehow contributing to the world? You think I do nothing around here?" Her voice is high-pitched and screechy, and angry tears prick at the back of her eyeballs. "You've got some nerve, Todd. Calling women's work unimportant," she says in a huff, turning and walking away. Before she reaches the kitchen, she turns back to him, untying the belt of her apron as she stares him down. "You think what I do around here is so mind-numbing and dull that you're above it? Well, guess what, Mr. Roman? Sometimes it's the same thing for me. Who made these rules anyway? Who decided that women have to do all the grunt work, while the men get to go out into the world and 'contribute'?"

Todd's face has fallen, and he's watching his wife in disbelief, looking as though he expects her to admit at any moment that the joke’s on him—ha ha, your wife is just playing at being mad, Todd Roman!

Only she's not. Barbie yanks the apron off over her head and balls it up in both hands before tossing it at Todd. The light yellow fabric falls open on his lap, draping over his knee as he stares at it open-mouthed.

"If you think my job is stupid, then you do it for a while!"

Todd sits upright, lifting the apron off his lap and looking at it like it's a foreign object. "Barb..." he says. "That's not what I meant."

"Well, that's sure what you said." Barbie is now standing in the archway between the living room and the foyer, and her chest is heaving with the exertion of her emotions. "And you know what? I get bored sometimes too.”

Todd still looks like he’s waiting for the punchline of a joke. “So… what—are you going to volunteer at the hospital with Jo Booker?”

Barbie can hear the disbelief in his voice, and she doesn’t like it. She and Todd rarely fight or even disagree, but this feels fundamental. This feels as though, if she doesn’t stand her ground now, she’ll eventually have no ground left to stand on at all.

“I might, Todd,” Barbie says. “But first I’m going to volunteer at the First Baptist Church of the Gospel.”

Todd laughs like she’s making a joke. “The what?”

“You heard me.”

“But… Barbie. Is that a—is it a?—“

“A Black church?” Barbie lifts an eyebrow. She knows that Todd, at his core, is a loving man who believes in the equality of all humans, but she’s also aware that he, much like everyone else she knows, is a product of his time. The thought of his wife giving her time at a church in a part of town where they might not otherwise drive is undoubtedly a hard pill to swallow. “Yes, Todd. It is a Black church. And I went there with Carrie and we packed meals in the kitchen with the women parishioners.”

The smile falls away from Todd’s face. “You’re serious? You did this?”

Barbie gives a curt nod. “I did. I went there, and it was wonderful. The people. The mission. The camaraderie… I loved all of it.” She pauses, expecting Todd to object and tell her she is, under no circumstances, to go there again. But instead, he just watches her face, looking at his wife like he’s meeting her for the first time.

“Okay, Barb,” he says, turning his palms to the ceiling. “Do what you need to do. I trust you.”

This stops Barbie in her tracks; she’d been prepared to fight tooth and nail to make Todd see how important it is for her to give something of herself in this world. But now he’s just looking at her with eyes of acceptance. And maybe a little pride. He trusts her to decide, and Barbie feels validated. She is also not quite as surprised as she might have been, because she’s known all along that the man she married is good and loving.

“Right,” Barbie says, her indignant attitude somewhat deflated. “Okay then.”

“Will Huck go with you?” Todd frowns slightly.

“This time I asked Maryanne Justice to watch him for a few hours,” Barbie admits, tipping her head in the direction of the neighbors who live diagonally across the street from the Romans. Maryanne has two small children of her own, and she’d been fine with watching Huck as well, but that’s not a permanent solution. “The church has a daycare room and several of the other women brought their little ones along. I thought it might be good for Huck to meet some kids who… well, who don’t look like him and his brothers,” she says, holding her head high. “It was a big, formative part of my life to get to know the people my parents employed, and to understand that they didn’t live or look like us.”

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