String Bridge Read online

  “You think so?”

  “Yeah. O’course.”

  “I can’t imagine Alex even thinking about it. He doesn’t seem—”

  “The type?” Heather interrupts again. “Well, none of us do, really, do we?”

  I can’t help but wonder if I am the type. Not just to fantasize about someone else, but to actually cheat on my husband. The idea of a stranger’s hands touching me used to seem as appealing as walking through a man-sized spider web. But now?

  “Heather, we’d better get back to our desks before you start to make a third cup of coffee.”

  “Yeah, I suppose. Oh … Melody?”

  “Yep?” I chirp, already halfway out the door.

  “Are you okay?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You look, er … blue.”

  “Nah, I’m fine,” I say flicking my hand in the air and shaking my head.

  “You sure? ’Cause your neck seems a different shade than your face.”

  “What?” I run to the washroom and look in the mirror. The color of my dress has sweated off onto my skin. I grab some paper towel and try to scrub it off without much luck. Now I feel like a frump. An imbecile. A woman who has given up on her appearance. No purpose to make myself look, or even feel beautiful. Am I in danger of making a wrong turn? What if black is really white and white is really black? What if I am two shades of gray?

  I return to my desk. Heather winks at me as I sit down. I think of button boy as I scan through icons on my desktop. They seem to change position every time I turn on my computer. I envision us on a first date. Button boy touching my cheek from across the dinner table—me blushing and shifting my eyes toward the food on my plate—button boy moving in closer to lightly kiss my upper lip. I get tingles in my toes at the thought. But then I replace button boy’s face with Alex’s. And the tingles turn to warmth. To the thought of his soft hand on my cheek—the touch I used to crave like water in desert heat.

  The last thing I want is to have an affair.

  All I want is to feel desired.

  Four

  Argument with Alex. Chewing gum up Tessa’s nose. Traffic jam. Stressful presentation. Flying dress button. Button boy fantasies. Held up at work. Late picking Tessa up from preschool. Bickered with preschool teacher—again. And now I’m faced with a broken elevator and eight flights of stairs to climb with bags of groceries.

  I stare at the flashing red light by the elevator door. My glands thump and sync with the rhythm of the flash like a turn signal and windshield wiper creating their own symphony. My handbag drops from my shoulder to the plastic shopping bags I’m clutching onto with burning red-raw fingers. I clench my jaw, holding in the desperate scream pounding in my ears to let it out.

  “Mummy, what’s wrong?” Tessa asks sucking on a chunk of hair. “It’s stuck,” I say, not looking down at her, tracing the frame of the elevator door with my eyes in a desperate attempt to find a way to make it work.

  “Call Papa.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Call Papa. He can come down and help us carry the sopping.” Tessa looks up at me and imitates my frown. I smile at her. She smiles back at me. I rest the bags on the ground and release my grip. My fingers ache and sting as I separate them from the sharp, stretched handles. She takes her school bag off her shoulders and puts it on the ground too. I can’t help but laugh a little as she stretches her fingers as if she were the one carrying the shopping bags.

  “Good idea,” I nod, bending down to pull my mobile phone from my handbag. I dial home. It rings. And rings. And rings. Surely he’s not out? “No answer,” I say with a sigh and a shrug, clutching onto the phone so hard that I unfasten the battery cover by accident. I push back tears threatening to erupt like rainwater from a cracked drain pipe.

  Tessa puts her school bag back on her shoulders. “Oh, well,” she shrugs. “I’ll help you carry the sopping.” She picks up two bags full of serviettes, tea towels, kitchen roll and toilet paper and starts to walk up the stairs. I watch her in awe. At her casual acceptance. When did I become so tense? Why can’t I handle frustration like that? How long do we go through life before the monotonous reality of our day starts to infringe on our psychological well-being? When does it all start to matter? And why? Why does it matter?

  Tessa turns around and frowns at me. “Well, come on, Mummy. Spit spot!” she says nodding in determination with a taut mouth and wide eyes. Her Mary Poppins imitation sparks such a warm thrill within me that I burst into laughter. And with the laughter come tears of joy. They wet my cheeks like drizzle in a heat wave. If it weren’t for Tessa, I wouldn’t see the cracks in our walls as lodging for fairies and “plaster-people;” nor would I understand that the damp in our ceiling is “hydrating” their home. Another thing I wouldn’t understand is that the constant frown displayed on Alex’s face on his busy and stressful work days is just “Mr. Grumpy” coming out to parade in the “Let’s Be Angry Festival” for fun.

  Tessa shakes her head and sighs. I bend down and pick up the bags again, wincing a little at the cramps in my fingers and ache in my feet. But I follow Tessa up eight flights of stairs singing “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” so loud that one of our neighbors yells for us to “shut the fuck up” in Greek. Tessa giggles, knowing very well what the words mean, and continues to sing once we pass the autocrat’s floor.

  We reach our door. The second-to-last story. We put the bags down. I’m panting, but Tessa is still humming the Mary Poppins tune. I insert my key into the keyhole expecting the door to be locked. But it’s not. Alex is home. I can’t believe he ignored my call! Tessa looks at me as if she has a complete understanding of what is going through my head. She stops singing and looks at the wall. I take a deep breath and close my eyes, trying to control my temper—again. I reach for the door handle, my fingers brittle with rheumatoid-like tension. I grasp it. Lever it down. The click of it opening travels through my arm like an electrical current, seizing my heart with disappointment. He ignored me. The door swings open and Alex is at the end of the corridor, about to come to greet us. I glare at him. His eyes glaze over with triumph. He knew it was out of order. How am I supposed to take this? As some conniving attempt to punish me for wanting something out of my life? Or to simply piss me off out of spite? Can’t he see he does that enough without trying?

  “Papa!” Tessa squeals, running inside, leaving me at the front door with the shopping bags. If only I knew where she got “Papa” from, I might be able to convince her to use “Daddy” instead. I feel like I’m in a scene from Little House on the Prairie, and I wince in conjugal torment every time she says it. I suppose it’s better than malaka (wanker), though—a word I’m convinced Alex taught her how to say, but insists he didn’t.

  I look down the corridor at Tessa in Alex’s arms, shopping bags surrounding my feet. My arms hang limp at my sides like banana skins. He lifts Tessa up. She wraps her legs around his waist and squashes his cheeks in her hands. She giggles as Alex’s face warps like Play-Dough, exposing his teeth and gums. Alex moves his head side to side and kisses Tessa’s palms. They smile at each other like the smile was just born into existence. The connection between Alex and Tessa is as rare and intriguing as a unique religion to a spiritually lost soul in search for something new to believe in. I’m jealous of it. I’m jealous that my daughter can turn Alex into the man I used to love and ache for, while I continue to sculpt him into a man I wish to hate with my irrational nit-picky behavior, so that I can excuse myself for needing something other than him—than Tessa—than my family.

  I kneel down to pick up a couple of bags to take into the kitchen, but as soon as my knees touch the ground, tears threaten to bleed through the walls of my mouth like a warning: Don’t become like your mother. Do not let your daughter become a target of your frustration.

  “Guess what? I was smelling my chewing gum this morning, Papa, and it, and it crawled up my nose. It was funny, Papa! It was really funny!” Tessa gasps for breaths betwe
en words as if her brain is working too fast for her lips to keep up. I stand, swallowing self-disgust, and take the shopping into the kitchen. I look at the floor as I walk past them, avoiding eye contact with Alex.

  “Wow!” Alex exclaims, as I put the shopping bags on the kitchen table. “Did the gum tell you why it wanted to crawl up your nose?” he asks. I peek through the door and Alex has put Tessa on her feet and is kneeling down on his knees to speak to her face-to-face, stroking her hair. I pull out the can of tomatoes and packet of pasta. I leave them on the bench by the stove.

  “Yep, yep! It said, it said it was on a business trip, Papa!” I walk back to ask one of them to give me a hand putting away the groceries. But Tessa’s eyes are half-squinted. She does this when she thinks she is saying something really intelligent, and I wouldn’t dream of interrupting her now.

  I lean against the door frame, with my arms crossed, to watch and listen. Alex looks up at me. We smile at each other and catch a glimpse of something unsaid, but written in our eyes—something that reminds me of the early days, when small simple looks and smiles came from somewhere a lot deeper than our faces. I look at the floor, wondering what just happened, what it meant. A mutual glint of pride, perhaps? A brief moment where our daughter caused us to forget we are supposed to be angry with each other? Or was it real? Was it a taste of what we still have, and what we need to savor?

  Alex focuses his attention back to Tessa. “A business trip?” he asks in a cartoon voice. “That’s a funny place to have a business trip!” Alex says, squeezing Tessa’s nose.

  “No, it’s not, Papa. It was from Mars, looking for a place to make babies.” The end of her statement trails off a little, I think as she realizes the impossibility of what she is saying. As soon as it comes out of her mouth she puts her hands behind her back, tilts her head to the side, and looks at the floor with an impish smirk on her face. Where does she come up with these things?

  “Babies?” Alex asks in his proper voice. “Babies from Mars, on a business trip, up your nose? Why?” Alex’s voice is laced with amused confusion.

  Tessa perks up again. Facing her nose toward the ceiling and pointing up her nostril, she calls out, “Because it’s warm in there.” I shake my head and go back into the kitchen, hoping Alex will follow and help me put everything away.

  I can hear Alex’s knees crack. “Come on, Tessa. Let’s go and play with Doggy,” he says.

  And he leaves me.

  Alone.

  Once again.

  To be the wife.

  In the kitchen.

  Where I belong.

  I’m preparing pasta sauce when Tessa and Alex come skipping into the kitchen for some chocolate milk. Alex opens the fridge and lifts Tessa up to reach it for herself.

  “Not before dinner,” I snap.

  “Why?” Tessa asks, looking to Alex for support. He winks at her and pats her on the head. I glare at him.

  “Because you won’t eat it.”

  “I will.”

  “You won’t.”

  “I will!” Tessa screams stamping her feet in tempest fury. Her face goes red, and saliva splutters from her mouth.

  Alex rolls his eyes at me and pulls the carton of chocolate milk out of the fridge anyway.

  “What are you doing?” I’m cutting basil leaves. I grip the knife tighter. My nails turn white. That hidden scream isn’t going to stay tame for much longer.

  “Just giving her a little bit,” Alex says, taking a glass out of the cupboard from above my head. His arm brushes against my shoulder. I have a sudden urge to elbow him in his side. I don’t.

  “How can you undermine me like that?” I ask, in a solid, low, civil tone, staring at the basil. I imagine picking up the chopping board and flinging it into Alex’s face.

  “What’s ‘undermine’ mean?” he asks with a smirk.

  I ignore the question and hand the half glass of chocolate milk to Tessa. She takes it and gulps it all down in one go.

  “Finished, then?” I ask, holding out my hand to take the glass.

  “Can I have a bit more?”

  I shake my head. Tessa looks to Alex for support. I glare at Alex as he smirks back at me. Tessa turns her pleading eyes on me, but I dare not look at her for fear I’ll give in. I narrow my glare on Alex. He finally shakes his head no. I reach for the glass, but she pulls it away.

  “I want some more!” she yells so high-pitched my ears buzz.

  Alex rubs his hands over his face and makes a move to leave the kitchen. I grab his arm to stop him. “Don’t you leave me to clean up your mess,” I scowl.

  “You can’t have anymore, now give me the glass.” I growl through gritted teeth. Tessa doesn’t move. She just stares at me. I grab her arm and try to pry the glass from her hand. In a heavy struggle the glass somehow goes flying across the room and smashes against the wall.

  “Oh for Christ’s sake, Tessa, why can’t you just do as you’re told?” I scream. It’s so loud, cavernous and irate that my head vibrates and face stings. Tessa’s bottom lip trembles as she involuntarily sucks in a tear mid-sob from her top lip.

  “What did you do that for?” Alex sneers. “Melody, what’s wrong with you?”

  My first thought is to give Tessa a big cuddle and apologize. I’m angry at Alex, not Tessa. But I can’t seem to move from the kitchen bench which I’m clutching behind my back in fear of breaking down into a blubbering mess. I’m dizzy and brimming with a rage that is still yet to escape since childhood. From all those years of keeping the peace around my mother. I don’t think I’ve ever had the chance to let it loose. I have twenty years of pent up anger, and nothing to let it out on. I release my grip and look at my hands. They’re red, dry and dented. Much like my heart.

  “Nothing,” I sigh with my eyes closed. “Nothing’s wrong with me. Tessa, honey, go put your pajamas on and brush your teeth.” I smile at her apologetically. She doesn’t move, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I bought you some of that purple sparkly toothpaste you wanted. I left it on your pillow.” Tessa wipes her eyes in an instant and exclaims, “Cool!” and runs to her bedroom repeating it over and over.

  Putting the chopped basil into the pot, I ask Alex to help Tessa get ready for bed, trying to ignore, or at least draw attention away from my outburst. He doesn’t answer.

  “At least help her with her pajamas,” I say, looking into the simmering sauce. “She always puts the zoo ones on inside out, for some odd reason.” But just as I feel calm teasing the edges of my psyche, the nag in me rears its grievous head and pushes calm aside. “It’s already Tessa’s bedtime,” I snap. “And she’s up late because of you anyway. This could’ve all been avoided if you’d picked her up from preschool like I asked. I told you I had a busy day ahead of me, and all I asked from you was one day. Just one day to pick Tessa up from preschool. Just. ONE. Day. But no. You were so hung up about our conversation this morning that you just had to leave everything up to me again. Out of spite. Right?” I throw the wooden spoon into the pot and a bit of sauce splashes onto my hand. It burns. Stings. But not as much as my impatience with Alex. All he does is stare. Arms folded in the doorway. Corner of his mouth hooked up in “he couldn’t give a shit-ness.”

  “Can’t you do anything around here? I’m practically doing everything in my sleep. I’m. Tired,” I hiss.

  “I’m sorry, Mel, but you deserved it,” Alex replies in a complacent tone.

  “I what? How many times have you done things to hurt me? Huh? How many?”

  “Should I have made a list?”

  “That’s not my point. My point is that I still sweep all your crap under the carpet and get on with things like a responsible adult. But what do you do? You play stupid manipulating games like a pubescent teenager. How dare you make me climb eight flights of stairs today with all those groceries. If I had done that to you I would never have heard the end of it.”

  “Sweep under the carpet? What’s that mean?” Alex scoffs.

  “Oh, for Chris
t’s sake, Alex.”

  Alex snickers, then huffs “fuck you,” and turns to exit the kitchen. But an unexpected wave of physical strength stimulates me like a shot of adrenaline and I hook my arm through Alex’s and swing him around to face me.

  “Why do you always swear at me? You always say that you won’t do that anymore and the next day you do it again. No matter how many conversations we have about anything, they make absolutely no difference. What’s the bloody point? What’s your fucking problem?” I growl under my breath in the hope that Tessa won’t be able to hear.

  “You’re my problem.” He snatches his arm away.

  “Yeah. That I know. You always say that. What I want to know is, what’s your problem with me?”

  “Everything.”

  “Argh! What are you? A broken record? Can’t you act like an adult, just this once? We have problems. We. Need. To. Stop. This.”

  “And. You. Need. To. Fuck. Off.”

  After I put Tessa to bed I sit at the end of our three-seater couch clutching my knees to my chest. Through the open balcony door I can hear a man yelling at some driver for double-parking and blocking his car. I lean my head on the armrest. Still in my blue dress. Sticky. Stinky. Too lazy to take a shower. I stare at the TV, which is off. I look at my reflection in the screen. Quite warped in a pretty, yet indistinct kind of way. Like an eighteenth-century portrait of my soul on canvas, in a gray hue as if painted in darkness. Like the darkness I live in my head. If only I could remain in that reflection, as a painting, on a canvas—motionless, flushed with gothic candor, a lost spirit, a drifter, in a place where I will never be judged; a place where I can be hung in a gallery and be praised for my unconventional individuality.