No doubt about it, this was going to be great. Almost holy. With a little bread and red wine—body and blood of Christ—she might make up for years of not going to mass.
Either way, they’d go great with the meal.
She dug in the freezer for ground beef and ground pork, found both—of course; she was nothing if not thorough at keeping the kitchen well stocked. She unwrapped the meat. No need to thaw, she just tossed them right in with the cooking mirepoix and stirred, contemplating her life and how many meals she had prepared at this stove, and how many moods had accompanied them.
There were a few standouts—the ricotta she’d finally perfected after watching a ton of YouTube videos. She’d fucked up batch after batch (one burned, one was so thin she ended up with about a quarter cup of cheese curds, one—inexplicably—never set at all and just poured like milk right through the strainer), but finally it had come together, and she’d infused the finished product with garlic and sliced basil and eaten most of it herself before Calvin arrived home and declared it “too rich” and ate his salad without it or the dressing she’d made.
Why did she miss him?
She’d just spent two weeks without getting properly dressed, watching everything from The Sopranos to Chopped and eating through everything in the house from frozen and awful to good and laborious.
And why? Because a selfish, narcissistic jerk had left her life?
Well, kind of, yeah. It’s pretty insulting to be dumped by a jerk you fantasized about being without.
You’d think it’d be easier. Good riddance.
But it’s not. It’s just a different kind of pain.
Really makes you revisit your sense of self-worth. Was he with someone else?
Was he with his therapist?
That was the misery-wound she’d self-inflicted and chose to constantly agitate.
An insane theory that not only had he left her for another woman, but also that the woman was his therapist.
She always pictured her in glasses and tweed, like a She’s All That plus a PhD.
Did she lie in bed next to him every night now, waking every so often to his foghorn farts, her heart pounding so hard she couldn’t get back to sleep without an hour or a Benadryl because of the stress that she could not isolate an origin for?
Did he ask her every morning if the bald spot on the crown of his head was visible (it was) and if the generic Rogaine from Costco was working (it wasn’t)? Did she artfully squeeze around the question, like a gazelle in a china shop, reassuring him that he was handsome and charismatic and, apparently, everything a professional therapist could want in a married patient?
Margo stood dazed and lethargic over the stove, methodically turning the blocks of frozen meat over and scraped the cooked bits off, incorporating them into the chopped vegetables. She was getting the milk out of the refrigerator when the phone rang.
She glanced at it. Mom. She set the milk down and lowered the heat.
“Hey, there you are!”
“Yeah, here I am. Sorry, I’ve been busy.”
“What’s going on?”
“It was . . .” She scanned her mental file of lame lies, pushed aside dead fictional husband (Mom knew better), and instead came up with, “Pocket dial.”
“So you just never answered again?”
“I—I’ve been busy. I said. I’ve been busy.” She flipped a chunk of ground beef.
“Oh. Huh. I was kind of hoping you had some big news for me.”
“Big news?”
“Maybe little news is more like it.”
Margo’s brain felt like a stalled car. “I’m not following.”
“Baby news.”
Ugh. “Not at all,” she said. God forbid. When was the last time she and Calvin had had sex? She couldn’t even remember. There was no way she could be pregnant. She used to think she wanted kids, though. She had assumed it would happen someday, probably fairly soon.
She wondered if Robin, unfair symbol of Margo’s loss, wanted kids.
“Well, never mind,” her mom said, “how’s everything?”
“I’m just cooking.” She picked up the milk and took it to the stove, then poured a good slosh in with the meat.
“Oooh, another video for us?”
“Not this time.” Margo stirred the milk as it began to bubble in the hot pot. “How’s Sullivan’s Island treating you guys?”
“Wonderful, but lordy it gets hot.”
“That’s the south for you. It’s pretty hot here too.” At least it had been last she went outside.
An awkward moment passed, then her mother asked, “How is Calvin?”
Margo stirred the sauce. “He’s an asshole.”
“What?”
“Sorry. But he is.”
“What’s going on?”
She wanted to tell her. She wanted to blurt it all out and get the kind of comfort her mother used to be able to give her when she was a kid and had a nightmare. But she wasn’t a kid with a nightmare now, she was an adult with a problem that no one could solve for her.
“I can’t get into it right now. It’s just so much and I’m so tired. Suffice it to say he’s not a great guy.”
The only thing she could work up any interest in whatsoever was what was going on right in front of her. The Bolognese. Preparing it, following the tiny steps that moved this one, ultimately inconsequential, yet complete, accomplishment forward.
“I need wine,” Margo added, though more to herself than to her mother. Her voice was still strangled with emotion, but she hoped it didn’t show.
“Oh, honey, whatever is happening, I really don’t know that drinking is the answer. In a mood like this, it might just make you feel worse. You know you already feel worse at night than in the morning.”
That was true, though she didn’t know if it was real or the power of suggestion. Her mother always told her things would look better in the morning, no matter what was wrong. “I’m not drinking it, I’m making Bolognese.” Margo went to the refrigerator and looked for the flaccid bladder bag from a box of chardonnay she’d had a few weeks back.
“You’re making Bolognese? No wonder you said it wasn’t for June’s Cleaver.”
“Right? You might as well put a clothespin on Dad’s aorta.” Margo turned up the burner. “I’m making this for me.” She poured the wine into the Dutch oven and breathed in the bright, citrusy fumes as it sizzled and evaporated. “I’ve been hungry for years.”
“Name me a woman who hasn’t been. What we do for men is ridiculous.”
“I can’t help but feel like a good man wouldn’t want a woman to make that sacrifice for him.” A good man. Could she still find a good man? She was young, but she was so tired that the idea was overwhelming. “Also I don’t do everything I do for a man.”
“Don’t you?”
Margo balked. “Wow, Mom.”
“Well, for a man and everything that comes with a man.”
“So kids. Baby news.”
“Sure.”
“Why were you expecting that? You know I’m not sure if I even want them.”
Her mother laughed. “Getting a little late in the game, honey. You know they call it a geriatric pregnancy at this point.”