Never a Hero

nodded. “She lost the baby six months later. Went into labor early and delivered, but the baby was dead.” He shook his head. “It was awful. Even then, I don’t think I loved your mother much, but I’d already learned to love that baby, and then to have it die, it was devastating, for both of us.”
    “I can’t imagine.”
    “I wish I could say things got better for us, but they didn’t. And a couple of years later, I had an affair.” He looked up at me, his eyes full of guilt. “With a man.”
    Just when I thought he couldn’t shock me more than he already had. “You’re gay?”
    “No.” He sighed and put his head in his hands. “I don’t know.”
    “How can you not know?”
    “It was different then. There was no such thing as ‘out and proud.’ Not in our town, at any rate.”
    “Did you love him?”
    “Maybe.”
    “Who was he?”
    He dropped his hands from his face, but he didn’t meet my eyes. He rubbed his thumb over a water stain on my tabletop. “The father of one of my students. He was married, too. It was wrong, no matter how you look at it. When your mom found out, she lost it. She was furious. I halfway hoped she’d want a divorce, but she cared more about our reputation than anything else.”
    “You could have left her.”
    “That’s probably how it seems, but that’s not how it felt. She threatened to out me, and to out him. He was a doctor.” He stopped to take a sip of his cocoa. “We would have both lost our jobs. We would have lost everything.”
    “What happened?”
    “I ended the affair, and I did my best to behave . . . well, the way she expected me to, if you know what I mean. To be a, umm—” he blushed “—an attentive husband. But I kept thinking about how miserable I was with her, wondering if I could leave her. If I could stand to leave town and go someplace new and start over on my own. But a few months later, your mom was pregnant again. With you.”
    “And you were trapped.”
    He shook his head, but I could see the truth in his eyes.
    “You must have hated me.”
    “No!” His tone was strong, and he finally met my gaze again. “I may have resented you a bit when you were still in her womb, but once you were born . . .” He smiled at me. “How could I do anything but love you? And especially when I saw the way your mom acted, the way she seemed to blame you for not being born perfect, I knew I had to stay. I had to protect you. I wanted to protect you. The thing is, I’m not sure I did a very good job.”
    “You know, up until today, I actually thought it was only me she was awful to.”
    He laughed. “Oh, it’s not just you, believe me. Your mom hates everything. She’s an angry, bitter woman. She always has been. I don’t know what happened to make her that way, but I know better than anybody. She seems to thrive on being miserable.”
    “I always thought I could fix it, like, if I get good grades, if I can just stop stuttering, if I only had both arms.”
    “You and me both. For me, it was, if I buy her a new dress, a new car, a new house. I wish I knew why. I wish I knew what happened to make her so angry. I know it wasn’t easy for her, growing up. Her parents fought a lot. Still, it’s hard to imagine how anybody can be so bitter all the time. But after thirty-five years of marriage, I’ve finally learned that she will never be happy, no matter what I do. Nothing’s ever good enough.” He’d been speaking cautiously before, but now, he was winding up, speaking faster and louder, giving voice to his anger for the first time. “She hated the old house, so I bought her a new one. But right away, she started complaining. It’s too hot upstairs, and too cold down. We can’t open the windows because it’ll aggravate her allergies, but the air conditioner gives her a headache. We have this great little breakfast nook, and I’d sit there in the morning and read the paper while I drank my coffee, and I’d watch the rabbits run around the backyard. But then she realized I was actually enjoying it, so she bought heavy drapes for that room, and I’m not allowed to open them because the wallpaper will fade. I don’t dress right. I don’t eat right. I don’t talk right. We haven’t slept in the same room for nearly ten years, and she still complains about my snoring. She hates every. Single. Thing. She got some kid fired from the grocery store last week because she didn’t like the way the poor girl bagged her groceries,