Page 37 of The Butcher's Wife
He doesn’t answer.
10
ANNETTA
Squealing erupts from the stove.I curse and flick off the burner, blowing into the frying pan as curls of blackened pork drift smoke back into my face.
Usually, I like cooking. If I follow the rules, I get a specific result. Every time, without fail.
Except today.
I already burnt two pork shoulders, my roux was too watery and then too dry, and I skinned my finger chopping the carrots.
I blow out a long stream of air, throw my apron onto the kitchen counter, and sit cross-legged in front of the massive living room windows, leaning my forehead against the cool glass with a softplonk.
I’m learning to sort my days into good and bad.
That first month at my parents’ house after I came back to Chicago? Bad. I barely remember those days, but I recall how dark it was, like I was one of those jagged-tooth, eyeless fish floating at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Except, even that sounds kind of cool. I was more like a sea cucumber, barely existing in the gloom of my grief.
I laugh a little, my exhale forming a mini cloud on the window pane. Serafina would lecture me about calling myself a sea cucumber. She didn’t like to hear me insult myself.
“Don’t listen to Mom,” she had told me as I brushed her hair into a tight, high bun for her ballet lesson.
Mom made no attempt to lower her voice as she bragged to her sister over the phone that Serafina was going to be theleadfor her next dance recital and that I “was such a good helper.” I’d called myself Serafina’s stage mom.
“If you practiced with me, you could be just as good,” Serafina said.
I remember smiling through all the bobby pins in my teeth as I shook my head. That was something Mom and Serafina didn’t get, although at least Serafina tried to understand. I didn’t care about being the best in ballet or the strongest in Pilates or having the highest grades in high school. It mattered if I was helping the people I loved. Ilikedbeing a helper. I was the first person anyone in the family called when they needed babysitting. Serafina came intomyroom when she needed someone to quiz her or to listen to her presentation.
Those things used to give me purpose, but I now know that they shielded me from reality—nothing I do matters. Serafina was the best at everything she did, and a hit-and-run killed her. I was a good wife to Frederico. He still cheated on me.
There’s supposed to be this benevolent God who’s marking off good deeds and bad ones, but in the end, being good or bad doesn’t change a thing.
The pre-heated oven beeps at me.
I take a deep breath. It’s just the bad day talking. Sometimes I wake up, and I know it’s going to be one of thosedays where the grief stains everything in dark, muddy colors, and all I can do is move as little as possible. The emotions are supposed to exist only in my head, but they feel as real as a brain tumor. Sometimes I can fight them off, sometimes I just want to laze in them and cry, and sometimes they’re a low hum in the background, but they don’t ever go away, no matter how much I wish they would.
In a few minutes, I’ll stand again, turn off the oven, take a thirty-minute shower, and go back to bed. Valeria can bring takeout for Dom. I won’t want to eat today.
Tomorrow, I’ll pull out Serafina’s laptop and make another design for the party invitations. I’ll slow cook the pork—delicious, and hard to mess up. I’ll get on the rower again after Dom leaves the house.
I don’t want to face his rejection. It’s too humiliating, and I already have plenty of negative thoughts to deal with.
Maybe if I go through all the motions of what I used to enjoy, I can trigger some forward momentum.
Maybe tomorrow will be a good day.
As I move to stand, one of the cars in the street below the apartment building catches my eye. It’s a shitty silver car, out of place compared to the others in this neighborhood, mostly luxury vehicles. It sticks out like a sore thumb. I’ve noticed it a few times before, but I thought nothing of it.
Today, though, the driver is standing outside the car.
He has dark hair. And a white shirt.
I throw myself back, crawling on my hands and knees until I can’t see him anymore. My heart pounds in my chest.
It’s an overreaction. Just a random man on the street. Not… not my late husband looking up at me through the window.
My hands shake as I run them over my hair, and a laughstrangles out of me. Paranoia, that’s all this is. The depressed woman with major trauma finally has a mental break.
