“So I’m not welcome at this Disney thing?” said Perry. He sipped his wine. She felt it then. In her stomach. A tiny squeeze. But his tone was casual. Humorous. If she trod carefully, she might still save the night.
She put down the chocolate. “Sorry,” she said. “I thought you’d appreciate a bit of alone time. You can go to the gym.”
Perry stood above her with the wine bottle still in his hand. He smiled. “I’ve been away for three weeks. I’m away again next Friday. Why would I need alone time?”
He didn’t sound or look angry, but she could feel something in the atmosphere, like an electrical charge before a storm. The hairs on her arms stood up.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t think.”
“You sick of me already?” He looked hurt. He was hurt. She’d been thoughtless. She should have known better. Perry was always looking for evidence that she didn’t really love him. It was like he expected it, and then he was angry when he believed himself proven right.
She went to stand up from the couch, but that would turn it into a confrontation. Sometimes, if she behaved normally, she could gently nudge them back on track. Instead, she looked up at him. “The boys don’t even know this little girl. And I hardly ever take them to see live shows. It just seemed like this was the better option.”
“Well, why don’t you take them to live shows?” said Perry. “We don’t need free tickets! Why didn’t you tell Madeline to give the tickets to someone who would really appreciate them?”
“I don’t know. It wasn’t about money, really.”
She hadn’t thought of that. She was depriving some other mother of a free ticket. She should have thought of the fact that Perry would be back and he’d want to spend time with the boys, but he was away so often, she was used to making social arrangements that suited her.
“I’m sorry,” she said calmly. She was sorry, but it was fruitless, because he would never believe her. “I probably should have chosen the party.” She stood up. “I’m going to take my contacts out. My eyes are itchy.”
She went to walk past him. He grabbed her upper arm. His fingers dug into the flesh.
“Hey,” she said. “That hurts.”
It was part of the game that her initial reaction was always one of outrage and surprise, as if this had never happened before, as if he maybe didn’t know what he was doing.
He gripped harder.
“Don’t,” she said. “Perry. Just don’t.”
The pain ignited her anger. The anger was always there: a reservoir of flammable fuel. She heard her voice turn high and hysterical. A shrieking shrewish woman.
“Perry, this is not a big deal! Don’t turn everything into a big deal.”
Because now it was no longer about the party. Now it was about every other time. His hand tightened further. It looked like he was making a decision: exactly how much to hurt her.
It hurt, but not that much.
He shoved her, just hard enough so that she staggered back clumsily.
Then he took a step back and lifted his chin, breathing heavily through his nostrils, his arms hanging loosely by his sides. He waited to see what she’d do next.
There were so many options.
Sometimes she tried to respond like an adult. “That is unacceptable.”
Sometimes she yelled.
Sometimes she walked away.
Sometimes she fought back. She punched and kicked him the way she’d once punched and kicked her older brother. For a few moments he would let her, as if it were what he wanted, as if it were what he needed, before he grabbed her wrists. She wasn’t the only one who woke up the next day with bruises. She’d seen them on Perry’s body. She was as bad as he was. As sick as he was. “I don’t care who started it!” she always said to the children.
None of the options were effective.
“I will leave you if you ever do that again,” she said after the first time, and she was deadly serious, my God she was serious. She knew exactly how she was meant to behave in a situation like this. The boys were only eight months old. Perry cried. She cried. He promised. He swore on his children’s lives. He was heartbroken. He bought her the first piece of jewelry she would never wear.
A week after the twins had their second birthday, it happened again. Worse than the first time. She was devastated. The marriage was over. She was going to leave. There was no doubt at all. But that very night, both boys woke up with terrible coughs. It was croup. The next day Josh got so sick, their GP said, “I’m calling an ambulance.” Josh was in intensive care for three nights. The tender purple bruises on Celeste’s left hip were laughably irrelevant when a doctor stood in front of her saying gently, “We think we should intubate.”
All she’d wanted was for Josh to be OK. And then he was OK, sitting up in his bed, demanding The Wiggles and his brother in a voice still husky from that awful tube. She and Perry were euphoric with relief, and a few days after they brought Josh home from the hospital, Perry left for Hong Kong, and the moment for dramatic action had passed.
And the unassailable fact that underlay all her indecisiveness was this: She loved Perry. She was still in love with him. She still had a crush on him. He made her happy and made her laugh. She still enjoyed talking with him, watching TV with him, lying in bed with him on cold, rainy mornings. She still wanted him.
But each time she didn’t leave, she gave him tacit permission to do it again. She knew this. She was an educated woman with choices, places to go, family and friends who would gather around, lawyers who would represent her. She could go back to work and support herself. She wasn’t frightened that he’d kill her if she tried to leave. She wasn’t frightened that he’d take the children away from her.
One of the school mums, Gabrielle, often chatted with Celeste in the playground after school while her son and Celeste’s boys played ninjas. “I’m starting a new diet tomorrow,” she’d told Celeste yesterday. “I probably won’t stick to it, and then I’ll be all filled with self-loathing.” She looked Celeste up and down and said, “You’ve got no idea what I’m talking about, do you, skinny minny?” Actually I do, Celeste thought. I know exactly what you mean.
Now she pressed her hand to her upper arm and battled the desire to cry. She wouldn’t be able to wear that sleeveless dress tomorrow now.