The General (Professionals 4)

It wasn’t surprising that he came home in a rage. In fact, that was more common these days than him coming home in a good mood.

I couldn’t say for sure, of course, but I had suspicions that something was altering his mood. Not the drink. That was in the earlier days of our marriage. Until his father thought he was too sloppy at an event, causing him to all but quit alcohol altogether. Bertram Ericsson had that impact on people. Most especially his son.

All it would take was a condescending brow raise or a disappointed head shake.

But occasionally, there would be a situation – like his drinking – when he would use his dad-voice and Teddy’s full name.

We need to talk, Theodore.

But Teddy didn’t function well without some respite from life. Never mind that his life was a lucky one, a blessed one, that he had never had to know hunger or cold or heat if he didn’t wish to, that he never had to suffer ridicule for wearing what could only be called rags to school, that he never wanted for anything in his life, that he barely had to work but got to live in a grand mansion, got to take vacations anywhere in the world he wanted, could drive the newest and most ridiculous cars without having to worry about how to pay for them.

But, I think, that was the problem for those raised with silver spoons in their mouths, with gilded high chairs. They never had to work for anything. Their minds and bodies always idle, creating too much space for unwarranted dissatisfaction to burrow in and set down roots.

And unlike the whiskey, the scotch, the vodka, there was no scent for his father to find distasteful, embarrassing.

So he had gotten away with whatever this new vice was for years. And only I seemed to realize the extent to which it was overtaking his life.

Maybe because I was the one who felt the brunt of it when he didn’t get his fix, or was coming down from it, so I was the one to notice it.

He went out in the morning, likely showing his face at the company he supposedly ran, though anyone who knew things knew that Bertram Ericsson really ran the place even though he made a show of being a full-time, dedicated public servant. Teddy couldn’t order a different kind of ink for the office without his father’s permission. Then, well, who knew where he went. To his country club, out trolling for women, who knew. All I did know was he was rarely home for dinner and usually not even before nine or ten at night. On many weekends, I didn’t even have to see the man.

But many nights, he came home angry at the world, at himself, at his circumstances in life, and he took it out on me. The one person in his life that he had such power over, knowing I was truly stuck, had no way to get away from him. At least not unless I was willing to pay the price for that. And I wasn’t.

I would endure it every day if I had to.

And when I heard the door slam, heard the sound of the lock fiddling, a hand slapping the wood when he couldn’t get it to engage, the curse as he did so, I braced myself, shutting off the tea kettle, knowing what was coming.

His footsteps were clipped, purposeful as he made his way through the dining room and into the kitchen. It was my favorite room in the house. Not because I got to cook there.

We have staff for that, I was informed when I said I wanted to cook him dinner when we were first married. I don’t need you slaving away cooking and cleaning like some blue-collar wife with a bunch of snot-nosed brats clinging to you.

I couldn’t cook. Or clean. Or do my laundry. And I damn sure couldn’t work. It never occurred to him how hollow a life was without a purpose.

Regardless, though, I loved the kitchen. Even if all I got to do in it was make my tea – a small concession the staff allowed since I wanted it frequently and they wouldn’t be able to scrub and wash and prepare things in this giant, empty house if they were constantly brewing me tea.

It was the kind of kitchen I had dreamed of as a little girl. In fact, the kitchen was larger than the home I sat in dreaming of this kitchen.

It was all white. And as a little girl full of garish, awful colors, of dirt and filth, all I dreamed of was clean and white.

Walking into the house the day after Bertram gave it to us as a wedding present a few months after our actual marriage, I felt like I had gone to heaven. White cabinets, silver pulls. Stainless steel oversized fridge, stove with eight burners, a dishwasher that had a separate compartment for just a handful of dishes to do. Like on the Saturdays when the staff left by noon or Sundays when they didn’t come at all and I had a few dishes – oatmeal bowl, teacup, salad bowl, dinner plate if we didn’t happen to have a social engagement. Which was unlikely.