Left for Garbage

mention having to act as a referee between her and Keith, and then, of course, I used to spend most of my free time, what little I had of it, taking care of Deeley.
    Now it’s just me and Keith , and with me not working anymore, he hasn’t had to pretend to have a job either, and that’s made him a more relaxed, fun-loving person. Keith says the same is true of me, and I suppose it is true.
    When he said that , I was able to tamp down my initial instinct to bite off his head for saying it, and to point out that if he’d just once managed not to screw the pooch, job or money-wise, I wouldn’t have had to carry everything on my shoulders, but I truly must be more relaxed because all I said was, “Thanks, Keith, I’m trying.”
    Right up until Gutierrez’s office, Keith and I were starting to e stablish a nice little rhythm. We shared the work on selling and overseeing rights to Deeley’s image, and licensing her name, and, of course, the book contract is in both Keith and my names, though I’m not sure how fair that is. After all, I picked out the title, ‘The Grandparents’ Story’, and I’m the one doing all the writing, but still the publisher is looking for a happy ending on this book, and that means Keith and me together, walking off into the sunset.
    It’s not all mad e up; we might do just that. Not now, of course. Right now, Liar Gutierrez has put a wedge between us, one I tried to overcome by sitting Keith down and speaking reasonably to him.
    I said, “Now, Keith, I know it’s very upsetting to be branded a child rapist and to be accused of covering up Deeley’s death, but I really believe that Mr. Gutierrez is doing this to save our daughter from the death penalty. If he didn’t think she was going to lose the case and be put to death, he wouldn’t have to tell such a desperate story, and surely, Keith, you don’t want Denise to be killed, do you?”
    Sometimes I cannot deal with Keith at all because I’m the type of person who expects a simple answer to a simple question, thank you very mu ch, and what I got instead was, “Let me get this straight, Margaret. You want me tell the world I’ve been molesting my daughter, and possibly our granddaughter, for years, and then, as a coup de grâce, that I pulled out Deeley’s body, and, who knows, maybe I’m the one who put her in the pool too, is that …?”
    I had to stop him before he got himself too worked up. “Now, Keith, no one is saying you have to confess to any of this. As a matter of fact, it might be best if you didn’t. I don’t know what will happen if you do that. They might be able to arrest you, and that would be a terrible thing. All I’m doing is trying to point out that you are taking this awfully personally and …“
    “Taking it personally ? You don’t think I should take being called a pedophile and a criminal personally , Margaret?”
    Well , let me tell you this, I didn’t even dignify his question with an answer. Keith getting himself all hysterical again, and making this whole situation about him, merely reminded me of why I’ve spent the last thirty years trying to figure out what it was I saw in him in the first place. As a matter of fact, I told him he’d better sleep in one of the empty rooms for a few days until he figured out how to calm down and apologize to me.
    Typically, even my calming advice only made him flare up worse. “Empty rooms, Margaret, empty rooms? Which one of the empty rooms do you want me to bunk down in? Surely not in either of your little shrine rooms to Denise and Deeley… We wouldn’t want either of them to be messed up in case anybody, anybody at all with a camera and a fucking checkbook, stops by wanting a picture … Maybe I should go sleep in our son’s old room. Oops! Can’t do that, it’s a fucking box room and has been since the day Deeley was born, when you couldn’t get rid of Seeley, our son, fast enough, could you? You self-absorbed, unnatural piece of…”
    Well , I stopped him right there before he had a chance to say something which would force me to send him out of the house on a permanent basis, as I might have wished to.
    This is the sort of thing I mean about pressure. I am simply not allowed to act naturally anymore. Everything I do ends up on TV and is debated endlessly , and up until recently I’ve been made to look like a conniving evil witch to the point where our publisher had to inform me my image could affect book sales.
    So , instead of