more and more, terrified that if he tells the truth he will never find his way back to the only life he has ever known.
Today Daniel isn’t prepared. He is prepared for the usual attack, but is in no way prepared for Dr. Posner’s question.
“So how are things between you physically?” Dr. Posner crosses his legs and looks from husband to wife nonchalantly, as if he is asking how was their morning, rather than a question about one of the most intimate areas of their lives.
Daniel can’t look at Bee, he colors ever so slightly at the question and hears her snort, looks up to see her shaking her head derisively.
“Bee?” Dr. Posner says questioningly, seeing he has more hope of getting information out of Bee.
“Do you mean sex?” Bee’s voice is small, as Daniel continues to shrink into the other end of the leather sofa, his own legs crossed away from Bee, his arms folded protectively over his chest, his entire body language screaming that he would rather be anywhere other than here. “I don’t remember,” she says at last, looking over at Daniel. “When was the last time, Daniel? Nine months ago? Ten? Longer? I’ve given up counting.”
“Daniel?” Daniel is mortified to be even discussing this, but at least he sees there is no expression in Dr. Posner’s eyes, no hint of judgment.
“It’s true.” He shrugs, as if it doesn’t matter.
“And why is it that you haven’t had physical relations in nine or ten months?” He is asking Daniel, but Daniel can’t find the words so Bee answers for him, and the pain in her voice is palpable.
“He will say he’s too tired.” Her voice is almost a whisper. “He will fall asleep while I’m in the bathroom brushing my teeth, and if I try to initiate he will brush me off or say he’s too tired, or he has an important meeting in the morning and has to have an early night.”
“And who does initiate it?”
“Always me,” Bee says. “It always has been, but in the beginning it wasn’t a problem. I mean, I knew he didn’t have a huge libido. It was one of the things I liked, that he wasn’t constantly trying to grab me, that it wasn’t all about sex—but to never want it? To never initiate it? It makes me feel ugly.” Her eyes start to well. “I feel useless, and ugly, and incapable as a woman and as a wife. I feel rejected.”
There is a long silence, punctuated only by the soft sounds of Bee crying. Dr. Posner pushes a box of tissues over to her and looks at Daniel, waiting, while Daniel looks at the floor.
“How do you feel about this?” Dr. Posner asks eventually.
“Horrible,” Daniel says. But he can’t say more. Can’t say that he looks at his wife’s body and feels a shiver of revulsion, that when they do make love he is only able to perform by closing his eyes and losing himself in a fantasy. How could he possibly say these words out loud? How could he possibly say this in front of Bee when he knows it would destroy her?
Chapter Three
The door to Jessica’s bedroom, plastered with signs warning anyone over the age of thirteen to keep out, is open just a crack, and Daff fights her irritation as she glances over and sees Jessica’s unmade bed, three cereal bowls on the bedside table, and crumpled clothes all over the floor.
Last week, Daff announced that if Jess refused to pick up her dirty clothes and bring them to the laundry room, Daff would no longer wash them. She didn’t. For five days. And then she couldn’t bear walking past the closed door knowing that more and more clothes were piling up, and eventually she had given in with an exasperated sigh and gathered up the clothes, sorting them out into darks and whites as she fought her anger and frustration, and wondered what had happened to the sweet little girl who adored her mother and listened to everything she was told.
Daff had had a difficult adolescence herself, and had joked that it would be payback with Jessica, but she didn’t actually believe that, didn’t believe that her sweet, adorable little girl, who thought her mother was God, would ever become the truculent teenager that Daff had been.
Nowadays it seems that Daff can do no right, Jessica audibly snorting or grunting at her when Daff asks her how her day was, or pounding up the stairs, her