The Sky Beneath My Feet - By Lisa Samson Page 0,17

on the men who entered her life. Those who don’t know are always quickest with their advice.

“Maybe. Then again, he’s being pretty hard on me.”

The silent treatment. Rick’s at the kitchen table, not even acknowledging the fact that I’ve entered the room. He sits crouched over a spiral notepad, scratching out some kind of note. I put the empty coffee cup I’ve been carrying around on the drying rack. No, wait. I pick it up, fill it three quarters of the way full, and stir in some half-and-half before setting the cup at his elbow. He glances at the coffee, not at me. On the pad in front of him, he’s written down a supply list.

Utz crab chips (3)

Bottled water (3 cases)

Snickers minis (4 bags)

Juice boxes, apple (3)

Bread (2)

Peanut butter

Nutella

Tuna (10)

Mayo (1)

“What is this?” I ask. “Are you going to the grocery store?”

“I’m trying to make a list of everything I’m going to need.”

“Maybe you should fast instead. That’s how it’s supposed to work.”

He puts the pen down heavily. “Listen, Beth. I don’t expect you to understand. I’m not even asking you to. This . . . It could be the most important decision I make.”

Resting my hand on his shoulder, I slide into the chair beside him, trying hard to bottle up what I’m feeling and appear sympathetic. He tenses, lowering deeper into his crouch, his head halfway to the tabletop like he’s bracing for whatever’s about to fall on him.

“Don’t you think this is an important decision for both of us?” I ask. “Instead of cutting yourself off from the rest of the world, from your family, from me, maybe we need to work through this together.”

“If I could explain what I’m thinking, I would, but clearly I can’t.”

“We need this time together, Rick. We need it. You and me. I can’t put it any plainer than that.”

“I heard what you said out there. My psychotic break.”

“You’re not listening,” I say. “We need time together, away from everything. We need to work on us before we make any other decisions.”

He scoots his chair away from me, pulling his shoulder free. “You can’t make this about the relationship, okay? This is more than that. Deeper. It’s not about us.”

“It’s about you.”

“No, Beth, it’s not about me. It’s about him. Don’t you get that? What I need from you is support and you’re just cutting away at me, all these little slices until I’m bleeding to death. What’s wrong with you? You know I’m committed to my ministry. You know what my life has to be. You’ve always known, right from the start. And I thought you believed in it.”

“So if I don’t go along with this craziness, it’s because I don’t believe? That’s my problem—really? You really think that because I don’t want you to spend your vacation living off crab chips and Snickers and bottled water that I must not have faith? Maybe I don’t, not in this. I mean, if you put some locusts and honey on your list, I could at least take you a little more seriously.”

He gets up again and walks out. He has this way of doing it too, like he’s wasted all the time he can spare on my issues and needs to get back to what really matters. Used to be, we’d have a spat like this and I’d break down, waiting tearfully for him to come back and apologize. Then I learned that Rick never comes back. Not because he’s still angry. He’s simply put the whole business out of his mind, filed it away with all the other minutia.

Fine. I rip the page off the top of his spiral pad, delighting for a moment in the jagged spine of paper left behind in the rings. I grab the car keys and my wallet. If my husband wants to live off crab chips and candy bars, fine. Either he’ll choke on his Nutella or he’ll come crawling back in from the shed, hungry for real food, and admit he was wrong the whole time. With any luck, he will break on Day One and we can leave for Florida as planned.

“Honey,” I call with caustic sweetness, “I’m running to the Giant. Don’t forget about your son’s bicycle tire. And he’s got a birthday next week too, in case it slipped your mind.”

The Rent-a-Mob is back at the corner. Trapped by the red light at the opposite intersection, I gaze at them with something akin to longing. Chas Worthing straddles a