Three Wishes

There was the Tuesday night when Dan was watching the late news and she was cleaning her teeth. She heard him swear and then call out, “You’d better come look at this.” She walked into the living room with her toothbrush still in her mouth and for the first time saw that plane make its unrelenting, cold-blooded flight across the skyline. They sat up until dawn, watching the twin towers crumble, over and over.

And then there were the personal events. The auction when they bought their unit. “Sold!” the auctioneer cried out, and they leaped to their feet, punching their fists in the air.

The scuba dive when they saw their first Weedy Sea Dragon, a fragile, mythical creature. Dan drew three big exclamation marks on his slate.

The trip to Europe. The wedding. The honeymoon. The trek in Nepal.

A million minuscule events. The pizza that never came. The Pictionary game where they slaughtered Lyn and Michael. The first time they used their breadmaker and the bread was so hard they kicked it around the kitchen like a football. The weird, druggy guy from next door who inexplicably said, “Bitchin’ Barney!” whenever he met Dan at the garbage bins. How could she not be with someone who shared such a major chunk of her life?

Just six months ago they’d had a weekend away in a B&B in the Southern Highlands. It rained and they made up a stupid game called Strip Scrabble. She laughed so much her stomach hurt. Was he experiencing his “niggling doubts” that weekend?

Each time Cat looked the other way did his smile vanish and his face go blank, like a movie character letting the audience know what he was really thinking?

She slammed the book shut and looked over at his empty side of the bed. Was he sleeping peacefully next to Angela right now? Had they made love? Had they worked out positions for sleeping together? Did he complain about her hair tickling his nose? All that long, lovely black hair.

Oh God, this pain was unbearable, excruciating. Nobody could expect her to bear this.

She got out of bed and went around the flat swiching on lights. She stood under the shower and held her face up to the water. She turned on the television and flicked dully back and forth between channels. She stood in front of her open fridge, staring blankly at its contents. A basket of ironing killed off forty-five minutes.

By five A.M., she was dressed and ready for work.

She sat on the sofa with dry, burning eyes, her hands folded in her lap and her back straight, as if she were waiting for a job interview.

Dan was supposedly staying on Sean’s floor until he got a new lease on a flat. He wouldn’t be there every night, of course. Sometimes he’d stay with his girlfriend.

Girlfriend. A girlfriend sounded so much younger, sexier, and prettier than a wife.

Cat hadn’t seen him now, or talked to him, for thirteen days. Thirteen days, where she hadn’t known what he wore to work, what he ate for dinner, who pissed him off, what made him laugh on TV.

And that lack of knowledge about his life would just keep accumulating and expanding, pushing them further apart, a cold empty space between them.

Decisively, she stood up and went looking for the keys to the courtesy truck. She needed to know where Dan had spent the night. If he’d stayed at Sean’s place, she would be able to make it through the day. If he’d stayed with Angela, well, at least she’d know.

It felt good to be outside, moving. The truck made her feel tough and capable. The streets were deserted, the streetlights still glowing.

At Sean’s place in Leichhardt, she drove up and down the narrow street, peering hopefully at each parked car. Finally, she gave up with a sickly sort of calm. So he was with her. Right now, he was with her, in a bedroom Cat had never seen.

It was light by the time she turned into Angela’s street in Lane Cove.

She remembered driving there that first time, filled with righteous hurt. Looking back, it seemed like she’d been luxuriating in her pain, safe in the knowledge that their marriage was a given, that Dan’s love was a given.

Dan’s car was parked outside Angela’s block of units, parked with the assured confidence of a regular visitor. It looked like it belonged there.

Then she saw the car in front of Dan’s. A blue VW. She remembered Charlie on Christmas Day. “Her Vee-dub conked out this morning.”

She looked in the car window and Dan’s long-sleeved blue top was lying on the passenger seat. It seemed she had an endless capacity to be hurt. The casual familiarity implied by that shirt was somehow more shocking than anything.

“Ange? Have you seen my shirt?”

“Your blue one? I think you left it in the car.”

And was Cat in Dan’s consciousness at all when he had these conversations with Angela? Of course not. Cat no longer existed, except as a problem to be solved, a memory to put behind him.

She was an ex-wife. Ex-wives were vindictive women with bitterly lined faces. Fine then, she’d act like one.

There was a Swiss Army pocketknife in Sam’s smash repair truck. It slid back and forth in the center console each time she turned a corner. She got the knife from the car and unsnapped it. The morning sun caught the blade.

It was a beautiful Friday morning. The cicadas were already humming a promise of a hot summer’s day and a weekend especially created for brand new-couples.

Tomorrow was Saturday, and she’d be waking up alone.

She squatted down besides Angela’s car and plunged the tip of the knife into the black rubber of the tire.

Something unlocked in her mind. She tipped right over into blind fury.

She hated Dan. She hated Angela. She hated herself.

She hated the tires for resisting her. It was so typical: nothing ever went right for her! “Fuck you!” In a frenzy she ripped and slashed with all her strength, not moving on to the next tire until she was sure it was satisfactorily butchered.

After she finished Angela’s tires, she moved on to Dan’s, becoming efficient and deadly in her movements. And now it was for her baby. Her baby had been betrayed too. Her baby didn’t have a chance to live and that was somebody’s fault and she was going to kill them!

“Hey!”

The sound made her jump.

She looked up and saw Dan and Angela walking out of the glass doors of the block of units.

Dan’s face changed as he got closer and recognized her.

“Cat?”

The knife was clenched hard in her hand as she stood up. Her chest was heaving, her face hot and sweaty.

It was a moment of profound humiliation.