Kiss Mommy Goodbye Read online

  “Suit yourself,” he said in a tone he adopted for all unsuitable occasions. “It’s you who’ll regret—”

  “Oh, spare me, Victor.” She shook her head, trying to keep from getting angry. She felt a fight approaching and she wanted to avoid it, sidestep it before it became too large to get around. “I wonder what women did before they had prenatal classes.”

  “They suffered,” he said simply. “A lot,” he added for emphasis.

  “But they survived,” she reminded him.

  “Some.”

  His smugness was starting to rile her. Her patience, she was discovering, was decreasing in direct proportion to the increase in her belly. The larger the load, the shorter the fuse.

  “Victor, my survival will have nothing to do with whether or not I tune-tap during transition.” (Two terms they had learned the previous week.)

  Victor shrugged his shoulders and leaned his head to the side. Then he turned silently and walked out of the room. Donna watched the seat of his pants as he moved away from her. Despite the anger she was feeling—out of proportion to the situation, she recognized—she still wanted him, would offer no resistance if he were to turn around, drop his pants and move toward her, lower her to the floor and—sure, she thought, looking down at her exorbitant girth. Sure thing.

  That was the way their fights had usually ended in the past. Not precisely the scenario, of course. The only time Victor had ever actually dropped his pants after a fight, he had ended up hopping the entire distance of the room over toward her, and by the time he had reached her they were both laughing so hard his erection was gone and she had cramps in her stomach. Still, when they were finally able to struggle free of their clothes, their lovemaking was as good as it always was, their soaked bodies melting into each other on the living room floor.

  Maybe that was the trouble now, the reason their fights seemed to be increasing. They hadn’t made love in almost a month. Despite the fact that the books said you could, and their doctor said they could, Victor was increasingly concerned he might hurt the baby, and the simple fact of it was that it wasn’t very comfortable, no matter what anybody said. She smiled with the image of Victor above her, his body perpendicular to hers, his arms twitching frantically in an effort to keep as much weight off her as possible. “You get on top,” he had said, trying to roll them both over. “I think I’m getting a hernia,” he muttered a minute later, still trying with no success to reverse their positions. Finally, both laughing and exhausted, she had landed with a thud on his belly. “The Americans have landed!” he shouted.

  Donna found herself standing alone in her living room laughing. No matter how vicious the argument, if he wanted to, Victor could always joke her away from her anger. Unless, of course, he was still angry. Then it was a different story altogether.

  It had been like this almost from the beginning. After a brief honeymoon in Key West, which he loathed and she loved (“too tacky, too many queers,” he had said; “lots of character; they’re artists,” she had responded; the truth, they both concurred later, lying somewhere in the middle, a truth that existed regardless of their opinions), they returned to Palm Beach and a series of dilemmas that were not so easily resolved. Donna was never quite sure where the source of the arguments began. She knew only that something that would begin as an ordinary discussion, perhaps a mild disagreement, would minutes later erupt in a series of violent explosions, building in intensity, until each word was a potential mine and stepping even near it meant possible death, certain wounding.

  She: “What’s the matter?”

  He: “Nothing.”

  “Something is obviously bothering you. Why don’t you tell me what it is?”

  “There’s nothing bothering me.”

  “Then why haven’t you spoken to me since dinner?” she asked.

  He looked peeved. “All right, there is something bothering me. But it’s no big thing. Just leave it alone and it will go away.”

  “You just don’t want to talk about it?”

  “No. Just drop it. Please.”

  And so it, whatever it was, would be dropped. But not quite.

  “What did you do to your hair?” Victor asked.

  “What do you mean, what did I do? Nothing. I just combed it differently.”

  “Then why did you just say ‘nothing’?”

  “Because I didn’t do anything to it. Just ran a comb through it,” Donna answered, defenses raised.

  “Differently,” he said flatly.

  “So what?”

  “So, just yesterday I told you I liked your hair the way you had it.”

  “So?”

  “So you felt compelled to change it. Naturally. Every time I tell you I like something, you change it. Heaven forbid we do something that Victor likes.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about how I shouldn’t tell you if I like something around here because that’s the last I’ll see of it.” His voice was rising.

  “I don’t believe this,” Donna found herself uttering. “Come on, Victor, we can’t be arguing about the fact I combed my hair differently.”

  “Why can’t we?”

  “Because—because it’s so trivial!”

  “Trivial to you, maybe. Maybe it’s not so trivial to me. Did that ever occur to you? The fact that something that might be insignificant to you might have some importance to me. That I might have feelings that are different to those of Donna Cressy.”

  “You’re seriously upset because I combed my hair with a part in the middle instead of off to one side?” she asked in total disbelief.

  “You’re not listening to me.”

  “What did I miss?”

  “Forget it. There’s no point.”

  “You seem to feel there is. Tell me. What did I miss? What didn’t I hear?”

  “The hair is just one thing. It’s everything. Anything I like around here gets changed.”

  “Everything? Anything?” Donna questioned angrily. “You’re the one who’s always telling me not to use words like ‘always’ when we’re having an argument.”

  “I didn’t say always.”

  “You said everything. It’s the same thing. A complete generalization.”

  “It’s not the same thing.”

  “Why are there always two sets of rules—one for you and one for me?”

  “Now who’s generalizing?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t win.”

  He was quick to pounce. “That’s precisely your problem. You always think in terms of winning and losing. Not how to solve something. Just how to win.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “True enough.”

  “No, it’s not true.”

  “Did you or did you not say, I can’t win?”

  “I don’t believe this!”

  “Rant and rave all you want. It won’t change things.” His voice was suddenly, irritatingly steady and calm. Donna tried to collect her thought, her emotions, to tie them into a neat bundle. Like so much garbage.

  “This is ridiculous,” she said more to herself than to Victor although he heard and agreed. “What is it we’re arguing about here?” She paused, trying to remember how it had all started. “You said everything around here that you like I change.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “What did you say then?”

  “I said that everything around here that I like gets changed.”

  “Gets changed? By whom? Obviously, not by you or there wouldn’t be a discussion here—”

  “If you say so.”

  She stopped. “What’s that suppose to mean? That you change these things, whatever the hell they are?”

  He shook his head. “You have to swear, don’t you? You can’t even let me agree with you gracefully.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I agreed with you that I’m not the one who changes things—”

  “You agreed with me? ‘If you say so
’? That was agreement?”

  “You cut me off.”

  “What? When?”

  “Before. Look, what does it matter? You’ve made your point.”

  “What point?” She was yelling.

  “Stop yelling. You’re always yelling about something.”

  “I’m always yelling? There you go again with your generalizations.”

  “Well, listen to you. My voice isn’t raised.”

  Donna took several long, deep breaths. “You said everything gets changed. Right?” He didn’t answer. “You don’t do it. Everything obviously doesn’t change itself. So that leaves me, right?”

  “If you say so.”

  “If I say so. That’s an agreement?”

  “If you say so.”

  “All right, I say so.”

  “Okay. Just so we know where we stand.”

  “I’m so confused I don’t know if I’m sitting or standing or lying down,” she said. “But I would like to get to the bottom of this.”

  “No matter what it costs.”

  “Why should it cost anything?” She felt her frustration growing.

  “Because it always does whenever we have a fight.”

  “But why should it? Why can’t we just discuss our problems like two normal people? If something is bothering you, tell me. I can’t second guess you. I can’t read your mind. If you’re mad at me for something, tell me specifically what it is you’re mad about.”

  “I did. You didn’t like what I told you.”

  “My hair? We are really fighting about my hair?” He smiled smugly. “But you said everything? What else do I change that you like?”

  “Let’s drop it.”

  “No. Let’s get it out in the open and then get rid of it.”

  He was furious. She could see the ice reflecting in his eyes. “All right. I mentioned about a month ago that I really liked that shepherd’s pie you made; we haven’t had it since. I told you I thought you looked terrific in that red dress; you haven’t worn it since—”

  “It’s too short. It’s out of style. Nobody wears dresses that short anymore—”

  “You’re interrupting me. Did you want to hear what I have to say or not?” She nodded silently. “The other night,” he continued, “I told you I liked creamed cheese—”

  “We had creamed cheese.”

  “What we had was creamy cottage cheese, which I hate. I told you I liked creamed cheese, but as usual, you don’t listen to me. You get what you like.”

  “That’s not so! I thought I had gotten what you like. Is that what you were so upset about the other night?”

  “What other night?”

  “The night you didn’t say a word to me after dinner? The night you said something was bothering you but to leave it alone, it would go away?”

  “But you wouldn’t leave it alone, would you? You never do. Like now.”

  “Now is happening because I left it alone then! It didn’t go away at all. It just festered and got worse.” She was getting really angry now. “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe you would actually get upset because I made a mistake and got you the wrong kind of cheese! I don’t believe we’re actually having a fight about it two days later.”

  “It wasn’t a mistake.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? That I did it on purpose?”

  “No. Not on purpose. Subconsciously.”

  “Subconsciously?”

  “Don’t yell.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Don’t swear.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do!”

  “Let’s just drop it.”

  “No! Let’s settle it once and for all. I feel like I’m drowning in a sea of trivialities.”

  “Trivial to you.”

  “Yes!” she screamed. “Trivial to me! And they should be trivial to you! Shepherd’s pie, a red dress, cottage cheese, my hair. I can’t believe those are issues worth fighting over! These things are symptoms of a deeper problem. My God, they can’t be the problem itself!”

  “If you say so.”

  “I say so!”

  “Then why ask me what I think? Why bother?”

  “You really believe I deliberately bought you the wrong kind of cheese?”

  “Subconsciously, I said.”

  “There’s no room for honest mistakes in your world?”

  He was suddenly very quiet, his tone unmistakably patronizing. “Honey,” he said, taking her hands in his, “I don’t say you mean to do these things. But don’t you think it’s funny that you always manage to do the things that you like the right way and somehow the things that I like either never get done or get done wrong?”

  She shook her hands free of his with a force that surprised them both. “Goddamn you,” she shouted, “you S.O.B., I never heard such a load of crap in my entire life. You stand there like some little dictator and tell me what I should do and not do, what I don’t do, what I do subconsciously. I never heard such bullshit.”

  “If you’re going to swear, I’m going to go in the other room.”

  “Don’t you dare go anywhere.”

  “Now who’s telling who what to do?”

  “You rat!”

  “Sure, now start with the insults. First, I’m a dictator, a ‘little’ dictactor you said, you seemed to put special emphasis on the word ‘little,’ why, I’m not sure. Then you called me an S.O.B., and now I’m a rat. Go on, what further damage can you do?”

  Donna was crying hard now with frustration. “What about the damage that you do?”

  “I haven’t called you any names. I haven’t sworn. I asked you to drop this whole discussion. You wouldn’t. Now you’re insulting me, calling me names. What’s on the game plan next, Donna? Do you throw darts?”

  He started to walk from the room. “Don’t you walk out on me,” she called after him as he continued to walk away from the living room and into their bedroom.

  “Leave me alone, Donna,” he said wearily. “Haven’t you said enough?” He flipped the remote control unit, which turned on the television set.

  “Please turn it off,” Donna said quietly.

  “What, so you can yell at me again? No, thanks.”

  “Please.”

  “No.” His eyes were glued to an episode of All in the Family. She recognized it as one they had already seen.

  “I just want to get this settled.”

  “I don’t want to talk to you anymore tonight, can’t you understand that? Can’t you get that through your thick skull?”

  Donna began crying again. “Now who’s being insulting?”

  “Oh, okay. You got your way. Now I’ve insulted you too. We’re even. I’m the world’s worst husband. I’m a rotten person.”

  “Nobody said you were a rotten person. Nobody said you were a bad husband.” She paused. “Please turn off that damn TV.”

  “Here we go again with the swearing.”

  “Oh come on, Victor. Don’t be such a prude.”

  “That’s good, Donna. Keep it up. Now I’m a prude. Go on, what else can you call me?”

  “Will you turn off that TV?”

  Surprisingly, he pushed the button and the television flipped off. “All right, Donna. It’s off. Go on, but go on only when you understand that you take full responsibility for whatever happens from here on out. I asked you to drop it. I have begged you to drop it. No, you’re intent on doing real harm here. Okay, you’ve bruised me so far, but I can still walk. You have five minutes to finish me off.”

  “Why do you say it that way? Nobody’s trying to hurt you.”

  “I guarantee that within five minutes you’ll have carried this fight into an arena I can’t even imagine yet. But go on. Say what you want to. I’ll listen for five minutes.” He looked at his watch.

  Donna frantically tried to organize her thoughts into words. They refused to unjumble, becoming clogged at the roof of her mouth, sticking to the sides of her gums like peanut butter, em
erging as a confused rehashing of what she had already said.

  “I just don’t understand how we get into these stupid arguments,” she began feebly, impotently.

  “We get into them because you won’t let go. You push until it’s too late.”

  “I don’t think I do.”

  “Obviously. What would you call what you’re doing right now?”

  “I’m trying to get to the bottom of this.”

  “The bottom of this is that you don’t really like me very much.”

  “That’s not true. I love you.” He raised a doubtful eyebrow. “I do.” She had raised her voice and immediately checked herself. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry that you love me, I know.”

  “Not sorry that I love you,” she yelled, “sorry that I yelled.”

  “Please don’t yell at me anymore, Donna. I’ve had enough. Really, you don’t have to yell at me anymore.” He sounded like a prisoner-of-war being tortured by the enemy.

  Donna looked to the ceiling. “What is going on here? Somebody help me.”

  “Is this how we’re going to spend the next five minutes. Because if it is, I’d rather watch All in the Family. At least their fights are funny.”

  “Damn you,” she cried. “You tell me to talk, and then you don’t let me. You interrupt. You manipulate the conversation until I’m so mad I’m screaming.”

  “That’s all you ever do, Donna.”

  “And in the end I never get a chance to say what I want to say.”

  “Just what is it you want to say, Donna? Do you really know?”

  “It’s just that you seem to have such a low opinion of me.”

  “I have a low opinion of you?”

  “Yes. You always assume the worst.”

  “Always?”

  “That I change things that you like, deliberately, subconsciously. However. You seem to feel I’m always against you. But you won’t give me a chance to defend myself. Half the time I don’t even know you’re upset because you don’t tell me what’s bothering you—”

  “Why should I? You just dismiss it as trivial anyway.”

  “Shit, we’re just going around in circles.”

  “And you’re still swearing. Tell me, does it give you an extra charge to swear because I’ve told you how much I object to it. Because you know it bothers me?”