EDIT>>Insomniac1

Dr. Phil’s Top 10 Tips for Sleeping Through the Night

Madeleine’s brother, Jeremy Weeks, was a mess after his wife left him on their sixth anniversary- this happened in Lansing, in 2003. Just days before, in the converted rec room / basement of a friend, Jeremy paused to take a deep breath in between gulps of beer. It was an elusive, profoundly happy moment- one of the few he had stopped long enough to notice since college.
He actually convinced himself that he had outlasted the curse of the Weeks family- no marriage made it to ten years. In fact, few got beyond five.
“Just another statistic,” he moaned afterward.

In Michigan, he moved three times, each time imposing on a different friend, every time finding something unbearable about the places or the people. He was restless. He fantasized her return to him in extravagant detail:
There was candlelight. Barry White. Everyone’s shoes were off. The curtains billowed, yet the room remained quite warm. He held a woman- a beautiful, curvaceous woman. Behind them, she pleaded, begging him to take her back. "Remy," she whispered, falling into his arms as woman number one faded away.
He worked in international finance. At cocktail parties, Remy joked he was a headless horseman in the rush to spread capitalism abroad. “We provide the funds that make you a more efficient dictator.” For some reason, no one ever laughed. And it was in those awkward pauses- couples clustered, silently searching the area for alcohol- that he felt his wife’s disdain shower over him, crowding out the old surer parts.
Sheila’s mother died when she was twelve. When she was sixteen, her father went to jail for a string of liquor store hold-ups. Working two jobs for nearly ten years, she put herself through college and became the Eastern U.S. buyer for a major department store chain. On their second date- this happened 5 months before their wedding under a waterfall in Hawaii- she asked Remy what he wanted in a woman. Remy gave the standard response: passion, intelligence, humor. When he turned the question around on her, Sheila responded, “Perfection. I won’t settle for less. You shouldn’t either.”
Remy’s dad, a sometimes-alcoholic, had a saying. “One of the pitfalls of marriage is that it requires two.”~

She sat beside him on the flowered comforter he had hated silently each night. “This a long way from happiness. This is barely getting by.”
Downstairs, dishes and wine glasses littered the fireplace mantle, the dinner table. Cigarette smoke hung in the air alongside empty chatter. And a big pile of anniversary gifts- useless junk good for god knows what.
Her hand was on his knee. She had already removed her wedding band in a fit of annoyance earlier that evening. He shoved her away. “Does it bother you that this is a complete shock to me?”
She looked toward the door. The lab puppies yipped excitedly, pleading to be let outside. “What bothers me is that you would tell yourself this is all my fault.” Swathes of evening light poured in their room. She continued, “Don’t you see? You never once made me feel nice. Nice was all I wanted. So what I need to know is, when did you decide I wasn’t worth it? Or did you always think so?”
“This is happening and you’re doing it. You’re playing the card women have played for years. It’s too easy just to call the man the emotional cripple. Sign the divorce papers-” he started to yell. The urge to drown out her voice, her presence even, nearly floored him. “Sign the divorce papers and you throw away a life!” Stalking back and forth, he made half-circles around the bed. “What does an emotionally mature man look like, anyway? Dr. Phil?”
One of their Labrador puppies made his way across the room. In the dusk shadows, the dog mimicked Remy’s circles, trying to find a comfortable place to sleep.
“It’s funny,” his wife went on. “I feel like you could have been with any woman for all this time. Like it wouldn’t have made any difference. And if I’m totally honest, I guess I was happy with you most of the time. I didn’t need romance every night. For years I don’t think I needed it at all. You made me content, even if the reverse was never true. And I know you would never admit it. I know you would never admit things weren’t perfect. You should realize that was one of the things I loved. Called you my eternal optimist.” She kneeled beside the pup, stroking its fur in the twilight.
“Clueless is more like it.” In a low voice, he strung together expletives.
Another deep breath. Sheila said, “What I started to wonder was… is there such a thing as knowing yourself too well? Are there people so self-aware, people cursed with such self-knowledge, that they discover early on what their greatest happiness consists of? That might have been me. You might have been it, for a while.”~

Now, in what Dr. Phil would call “the post-divorce phase of life,” now, finally sick of his childishness, Remy resolved he would not move again. He was single- that was that. All this closure crap took place before the supermarket checkout girl came along.
In the express lane, Remy grouped his can foods from his perishables, separating out the coupons. After gathering the credit receipts, the girl handed him his bags and drawled, “Enjoy your day, now.”
His hands shaking, he carried the bags to his car. Didn’t she look like Sheila? Was it her voice, the shape of her body- what? He sat in the backseat of his Acura until dark, trying to figure it out. The food beside him began to stink, and he felt a nausea well up inside. Overhead, the lot lights flicked on, one by one. He floated on the neon whirr.
Outside, a silver balloon breezed past attached to the arm of a blond child. The girl—pony-tailed and wearing lace—the girl reminded him of Olivia, his twin sister’s daughter. He missed her giggles. It had been ages since he last visited Madeleine in Pennsylvania.
I’ll go, he thought. “I’m going,” he said. Key in the ignition. “Where the hell is Pennsylvania?” Remy asked himself groggily. He struggled through the glove compartment in the darkness, rustling for a map. That little light had burned out ages ago. He kept forgetting to replace it…
For those unfamiliar with the territory, I-70something covers the expanse between Michigan and Pennsylvania in an unassuming bluish haze. Out in the world, on the graveyard shift anyway, there is a sublime calm attached to most everything. Newspaper delivery people go about their business with deep sleep crinkling the edges of their faces, refrigerated grocery trucks form a procession on the road- at times weaving slightly before correction occurs.
Now, map in hand, Remy set aside his almost overwhelming fatigue and tried to focus on his need for his twin. Consequently- or perhaps it rose up in opposition to these thoughts- he felt a dull dread bubble inside his saggy, yellowed abdomen. For him, it was a feeling, an inheritance more familiar than any Weeks family thing- he hated the uncertainty that accompanied setting out on any long trip. As a child, he had despised vacations to the family ranch in New Mexico. And as a spouse, he had hated the church Sheila insisted on attending because it was more than 50 minutes from their house. “You’re talking about Sunday morning traffic.” This is what he would say. “You’ve got to remember that.”
Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez. A voice from the radio insisted this was “good music to not fall asleep to.” Hearing that bit of Southern something in his voice, Remy braked hard and punched the radio until sound died. His right hand was a tangle of blood and skin so he pulled to the side of the road. As he tore a strip from the frayed edge of his undershirt, Remy had a sudden vision of the yellow dress.
They had known each other little more than a week. Sheila said she wanted to take him to her favorite place in the world. After milling in an all-night restaurant for an hour, they wound up at the door of a little bookshop in East Lansing.
“It’s closed.” He stared at her in the fine, misting rain. Her yellow dress lit like a soft halo from a car’s headlight somewhere down the block.
She leaned, whispered in his ear. “Look again.”
A glow floated in a barely visible back doorway of the shop. “What is it?” Remy asked, unsure if he cared yet, or not. All he knew was the smell of her perfume, the soft fabric of her dress as a damp breeze brushed it against his trembling hand.
“Come with me,” she said, disappearing around the corner of the shop.
He followed her into the wet hedges that grew along the side of the building. They both flattened their bodies against the wall. “Are we breaking in?” he asked.
A window in front of them, shade only partly drawn. They peered through it and into the backroom of the shop. On tiptoe, they watched a man write furiously in a ledger, his left hand all the time pulling at his shaggy graying hair. “He’s not dying it anymore.” Sheila giggled.
“Oh god.” Remy hated superficial men.
“That’s Tom Mackey,” she said. “He used to teach high-school English. He was a frustrated writer.”
“Aren’t they all?” He wanted to say that, of all people, he thought writers should at least go out of their way to avoid stereotyping themselves. Instead, he asked whether Mackey had taught her.
“Everyone said he kept dozens of unfinished novels in his desk drawers. He became more and more irate that he wasn’t able to see one of his plotlines through. Eventually, he couldn’t bear to be around books or teach classes anymore. There was some kind of incident… a manuscript bonfire in the gym one day. The school asked him to leave.”
The scent of her perfume in the night began to pull on him. His face only inches from hers, Remy imagined her taste.
Sheila stared through the tiny opening in the shade. Mackey stopped playing with his hair. He put away the ledger and the day’s receipts. The former teacher went across the room to his bookcase. Slowly, with much thoughtfulness, he scoured the titles, his back to the voyeurs at his window. Then, armed with the one that suited, he retreated to an over-stuffed recliner in the furtherest corner of the room. From this angle, only a length of arm and a right elbow was visible.
“I think he lives here.” Sheila turned away from the window. “Sometimes, I stay for more than an hour after he closes. He never leaves.”
“I don’t understand. You said he hated books.”
“An old friend of mine, her name was Darlene. We both had Mackey. Darlene’s younger sister said she’d heard rumors. For a few years he spent time in Belize, on the expat scene. No one knew what to make of it. But he came back and opened a bookstore. Now he spends some nights reading. Other nights, he has people over. They look like a poetry group of some kind. I think they critique each other’s work. It’s really quite amazing. It’s amazing what time can do.”
He shook his head. Sentimentality… schmaltz- these were things right up there on his list with superficiality. “Expat scene you say?” As they spoke, Remy gently took her elbow and led her away from the window. “I’ll tell you what really happened. Down in Belize, Mr. English 101 got involved in the drug trade. That’s what enlightened his search for personal growth. Back here, these ‘writers’ you see him with are fellow criminals.” He grinned at her in the darkness. “They’re plotting the perfect crime. They plan to knock over the local library and steal two thousand dollars in dimes. And hundreds of tiny pencils with no erasers.”
“I wonder what book he picked to read tonight,” she murmured.
Remy asked, “Have you spoken to him?”
The many folds of her dress had crumpled against the moisture in the wall, and the wetness in the overall air. She tugged at it, making his whole body ache.
“You haven’t, have you?” he said, after a moment. “You haven’t talked to the man since 10th grade.” He chuckled. Grabbing both her hands, he pulled her into a hug.
“I called the store once, but I hung up…”
Still laughing, his face buried in her hair, Remy finally let go of the breath had been holding. This imperfection of hers- this strangeness- it so relieved him because before she had felt unreachable. ~

In the car, on the road from Michigan to Pennsylvania, Remy referred to himself as version 2.0 “Divorce upgrades and all,” he joked tiredly. After driving most of the night- after cutting his hand on the radio- at 11 a.m., craving sleep, he pulled into a roadside motel.
“Where the hell am I?” he yelled to the only other person in the parking lot.
A massive, trunk-like body spilled from the open hood of an old Mustang. Tools ran across the perimeter. “Earth,” the headless mass called out.
Sarcasm- that Remy understood.
Inside the Paradise Motel, the smell of urine floated in the air between fits of peeling wallpaper and shrunken rugs. The desk clerk- a pockmarked, heavy girl- gave him the last vacancy. He darted up the steps and down the corridor to his room. Twirling the key ring in his hand, he resolved to sleep on his coat, wanting never to touch so much as a thread of the sheets at the Paradise Motel.
“Maybe in my next life,” he mumbled.
Near the end of the hall, he passed an opened door. Room 311. A man and a woman were fighting. Undeterred, Remy kept going, wanting to ignore it. The fight, the voices in Room 311 seemed to magnify within his hearing. At the vending machine he stopped, teeth gritted.
“You’re impossibly naive. How could you ever think I’d leave my wife?”
Counting his change. Ten, twenty, twenty-five, thirty… His eyes were fixed on the pretzels.
“Why would you lie to me?” she pleaded through booming tears.
Remy frowned, without knowing it.
The man who thundered past looked like any other, save for an exceptionally red face. Right behind him was the woman. Long, dark hair. Short, some extra pounds, she was an exotic outcropping in the pale yellow corridor.
The man stopped at the steps. “Why on earth did you believe me?” He turned, and was gone before she could think of an answer.
Humming loudly, the vending machine surrendered its last bag of pretzels. Tearful woman spun round, and she saw Remy for the first time.
Keys, snack in hand, he disappeared into his room.~

Sunday mornings before they were married, Remy cooked breakfast. Each time, he tried to finish before Sheila awoke. He wanted to serve her in bed just once, but always, she was too quick for him.
Somewhere between garnishing the omelets and squeezing the orange juice, she materialized and slid into a chair at the table, wearing nothing but his black Ralph Lauren sweater. It was a game they played, and every week she found it- no matter where he hid it. (Already, Remy imagined tucking an engagement ring into the sweater sleeve…)
Eggs in Spanish sauce, buttermilk biscuits, pecan waffles—every week he tried a new recipe, thirsting for her hunger, eager to see her satisfied. Every week it made him crazy when she only ate a quarter or half of what he put in front of her.
“This is good?” he asked. It was late fall.
Across the table, she licked her fingers and stared at him. Silence. After several seconds she nodded, a lock of dark blonde hair falling across her face.
“Why don’t you ever finish?”
“Hmm.” Rolling an avocado crepe, she drenched it in sauce and wrapped her lips around it. She cradled the food in her mouth and smiled sloppily, wickedly. “It dalicious. Evryhing. Ahways.”
“Okay. I appreciate that,” he chuckled. “So how come you never finish?”
Sheila threw her napkin at him.
He got up, started clearing the table. “We don’t have to… I mean, if-” He hoped she somehow knew what he wanted to say.
“Why must you men always confuse quantity and quality? What about enjoyment?”
“You’re right, you’re right.” He tossed the plates into the sink and began filling it with water. “Why do people wear watches, for that matter? All it does it help them keep track of hours they’ve wasted.”
Standing, she pulled at the sweater and enveloped herself in his aroma. “You can be such a girl sometimes.” Then, from behind, she wrapped her arms around his waist and whispered, “I want to say… thank you. All this is unnecessary, you know. I don’t need to be catered to. I’d come over here for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if I was starving and there wasn’t any food for a hundred miles.” She rested her cheek on his neck. “Let’s go back to bed.”
“I think I forgot some work I should take a look at today.” Turning, Remy kissed her firmly on the lips. “Why don’t you go upstairs?” He dried his hands on the dishtowel. “I’ll be there in a little while.”
“Hey, hey it’s Sunday.” Walking backward, moving slowly out of the room, she jutted her lower lip.
“I like my job,” he mumbled.
An hour later, he found her asleep in his bed. On TV, a news show featured the latest group of talking heads.
Her hair was a mess. Her body faced the doorway, bare legs beckoned him. Inside the sheet covers, next to her, Remy found a little bag of pretzels, the snack she never went anywhere without.
He knew she never ate them. Sheila just rolled them around in her mouth, using her tongue to extricate every last piece of salt.~

In the dream, he spins her on the dance floor. Faster and faster, their bodies move ahead of the sounds surrounding them. First, it is only a few seconds. Soon, however, they are strangely out of sync with the music. But he’s not worried about what others are thinking or feeling or saying. All he knows is this—like a child on some theme park ride for the very first time, the thought of letting go even for a moment terrifies him.
She is a specter. Her body is there, in his arms, moving along with him to the sluggish pace of the music. Her face- she smiles delicately at those around them. (Where are the other people? Who are they?)
He tugs her on the waist and offers her a smile. He whispers some loving comment, but even now—in the dream, experiencing it—it is as if he is watching it happen from some far off place. He cannot feel his feet moving. He cannot hear himself talk. Come to think of it, he cannot hear the song that is playing. He only sees the effect of the music on himself. Shuddering, he tugs on her again and pulls her close. She stumbles a bit in response and scowls at him. He’s messed up her footing.
As they slow down to regain themselves, he determines to make eye contact with another partygoer, someone who can explain what’s happening to him. A wolf is manning the first drink tray they pass. A British soldier in a black high-top hat guards the exit, expressionless…
His door at the Paradise Motel is shaking. The knob rattling. Remy rouses himself from sleep. Still curled in bed, after a few seconds, he props himself up with his elbows. “What is it?”
“Let me in.” The small, female voice drowned out the remainder of his dream. In the dissipating haze, he stumbled to the door and flung it open, expecting Sheila. In front of him stood the woman who earlier had been fighting with her married lover.
“What do you want?” Remy asked.
“Can I come in?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.
He stepped backward.
Sweeping past him into the room, she reached up to brush a lock of dark hair out of his eyes. “You need a trim,” she said.
“So what, do you make house calls?”
“I saw you watching us earlier.” Inside, she surveyed the room. Said her name was Celeste.
“You don’t look like a ‘Celeste.’”
“What do I look like?” she crossed her arms.
“A woman standing in a strange man’s hotel room? You look like someone who’d lie about her name. Why did you do that, anyway? Why did you tell me when I didn’t even ask your name?”
“I’ll have to watch that in the future. Normal people would have gotten around to asking names at some point.”
“This is what normal people do?” Remy sat down. This time in a chair next to the door.
“I saw you watching us today,” she repeated, leaning against the countertop.
“And you thought… what? That I needed, or deserved, or wanted an explanation?”
“I thought you seemed interested. I thought you seemed interesting.”
He pursed his lips, suddenly aware of his unmade bed. “You’re attractive. And I know you’ve had a rough day. But anymore, this just isn’t my speed.”
“I didn’t want to be alone tonight.”
He was silent as he considered the offer. The thought of spending another night by himself disgusted him. She stood there, crooked, looking more alone than he felt. “Did you love him?” Remy asked suddenly.
Celeste bit her lip. “What does that matter?”
“Would it make sense to you if I said there are about a hundred other people in this room with us right now?”
Fidgeting, she tugged at the edge of her skirt the same way Sheila used to. “How long ago did your marriage end?”
“She did that,” Remy said. “She always pulled at her clothing. Like nothing fit right or something. Like she wished she was somewhere else wearing anything else. I used to think it was sexy as hell like… like she couldn’t wait to jump in bed with me. Male ego- what can I say? Later, later it just became-”
“Discomfort,” Celeste said. “That’s what it always was. Discomfort.”
His cell phone was on the table. Picking it up, he began to turn it over and over in his hand.
“Sometimes I miss her voice,” he said. “I can’t call, because she would recognize the number. When I dial from someone else’s phone, when she picks up, when she says hello, she only ever says it once. Then, she waits and just breathes. I always hang up before she says-”
“She knows it’s you. I’m… I do that too, I mean.”
“A long time ago, I swore never to psychoanalyze anyone. At least not to their faces. The only time I ever broke that promise was with my wife, and you see where that got me. Before that, everything was golden. But I guess how we console ourselves isn’t anybody’s business, is it?”
“No, I don’t suppose so,” said Celeste.
Crossing the room, Remy crouched down in front of her. She smelled strongly of burned coffee and faint cigarettes. “Why did you come here?” he asked her again. Then, without waiting for an answer, he pressed his mouth against hers.
It was a wholly unromantic moment. Neither touched the other with anything but pursed lips. Hers were chapped, his, strangely cold. When they separated, Remy felt the sudden urge for a drink.
“Not up to your usual standards then?” she asked in a loud whisper.
“I wanted to see what it was like. Men are curious creatures.”
She tapped her fingers on the table as she licked her lips.
“We’re a pair, aren’t we? Dr. Phil was my wife’s other lover. So I know this- if a woman gravitates toward attached or vulnerable men, she has some serious psychological issues to sort out.” He made his way back to his side of the room.
“Enlighten me. I can’t stand that man.”
“Something must have been wrong with your daddy.”
“I never knew my father. There are a lot of people in that situation and they grow up fine. I hate diagnosis. No one has the same body, the same mind, the same soul. How can a guy with a white lab coat think he knows what’s going on inside of someone else?”
Remy laughed. “Why take any medicine at all?”
“Maybe I don’t have time for relationships. Maybe I prefer working, or reading, or writing, or drawing. Maybe I like my time to be my own.”
“That’s a lot of maybes.” Remy opened the small, bedside refrigerator and pulled out a six-pack. “Beer?” Celeste nodded, so he took a step closer and tossed it to her.
He flicked the aluminum pull-tab and opened his over the trashcan. He watched it fizz onto the lid before he lifted it to his lips, to suck the carbonation off. And the taste of her. After a moment, he said, “I don’t think I’m ready for a woman.”
“I can see that. So what was it? Why did she kick you out? I have to know. It may help with my little drama that you saw play out in the hallway, earlier.”
“I said I wouldn’t analyze you. And I can promise that I won’t… again.” Remy smiled and sat in a chair on the other side of the window. Both stared ahead at the door. “Don’t wait by the phone for this guy to call. Don’t do that. He wasn’t even yours to begin with.”
“That doesn’t sound very enlightened. He wasn’t ‘mine’—by whose standards? Look, I enjoyed the sex, occasionally. Sure, I cried. I think a lot of women cried when they were with him.”
Remy rested his elbows on his knees. Leaning forward, he massaged his face with his hands. “All kidding aside- you really shouldn’t.”
“The married guy? Thank you for your concern. You probably shouldn’t have done whatever it was you did. So? We can’t help who we are.”
“These past few weeks, it has become the defining hope of my life that we can.”
“You want her back,” Celeste said.
“I’m warning you not to be pathetic. I’m telling you to have some dignity. Am I ignoring my own advice?”
“I don’t care about your warnings. If he ever called me, if he said he loved me and he was finished with his wife, if I didn’t think that her money was pretty damn important to him- I would be with him.”
“I don’t get it,” he said.
“The love… where it’s real… where it’s unashamed… the love is not the bad part. The love is not what I should be sorry for. He was married. Maybe that meant it was doomed from the start- that I should have known better. But I will never be ashamed of love. Or that I told him. His reaction doesn’t make my feelings any less good or less pure. I’m still me and I’ll still wake up tomorrow morning and have to live with myself.”
“There are single men out there.”
“Why do you think they’re single?” Finishing the beer, Celeste broke off the tab and dropped it inside the can. When Remy looked at her curiously, she shrugged and said, “I remember my father doing that.”
“Nothing is as easy as they tell us it will be. Hell, I’ve stopped sleeping at night.”
“That’s nothing. That’s normal. Earlier, I had no tissues, no compact, no nothing. I was a wreck, covered in tears. I couldn’t find anything else, so I actually cried into a maxi pad. Talk about your pathetic displays… And the sicker thing is that I haven’t thrown it out, yet.”
“A token of your undying affection?” Remy joked. He thought of his own father, a man who trafficked joyously in hackneyed turns of phrase. That explains a lot- that explains everything- there’s the final chapter- the end is in sight!
Love. Love explains a lot.
Her eyes were misshapen pools of blue. “I’ve been through this before. What’s going to get you,” she said, “I mean really get you, is that no matter what you expect, no matter how in control you feel- even well past the time when all goodbyes are said- the loss of this person will just keep flooring you.”
Remy started to cry. Almost as quickly, he pictured his mother. A formidable woman, Jane Weeks had a braid of steel gray hair that was never askew. As a child, when he wrapped his small arms around her neck in an attempted embrace, he was always overwhelmed by her earthen scent.
Taking deep breaths now, Remy tried to compose himself by focusing on the stretches he learned from her long ago. (She hated weak men and had told him this over and over again on their many walks at the New Mexico ranch). The control stretches were: fingers, arms, back, and legs. He willed himself to concentrate on these movements- all the while digging at furious tears.
A few seconds passed. Celeste hugged him. He clutched her shoulders in his palms and lost himself.
Later, Remy said, “On the day of our anniversary party, she told me that it died. That we died.”
“And I bet you were worried about your guests.”
“No, it happened after. What do you mean?”
“Love is constant.” She took a deep breath.
“It goes on? What are you saying? It’ll survive, and we’ll wind up together in the end?” He rolled his eyes.
“No, nothing like that. I’m saying love is constant.”
Outside, someone was banging on a nearby door. Celeste rushed across the room and ran into the hallway of the Paradise Motel. It was her mystery man, from earlier.
She turned, smiled at Remy, and she was gone.~

The morning of Remy’s birthday—he and Sheila have been married five years…
“I miss you. Our bed is so empty. At least until my girlfriends get back in. Seriously, I’m 35 today and I’ve realized how damn lucky I am. A promotion on the horizon. And what about you? Work’s going so well that they’ve got you out there courting new accounts. I don’t think I can wait until tomorrow to see you. Call me when you get this.”
One o’clock…
“Alan arranged for us to take the clients on a tour of the bay area. I loved your message, by the way. The part about missing me, I mean… I’m glad to hear that the rumors about your promotion are proving true. Wouldn’t it be an unbelievable present if they offered you the job today? Think of how hard you’ve worked. No one deserves it more than you, baby.”
Three-fifty p.m.…
“Sheila, he’s on a conference call with Asia. He’s asked me to tell you that he’ll call you back as soon as he can. Looks as though he’ll be tied up for awhile. Did you know Mr. O’Malley gave him the news at lunch today? I’m thrilled for him… We all are. It honestly could not have happened to a better guy.”
Seven-ten p.m.…
“Baby, Grace gave you my message, right? I realize it’s been a hectic day for you. I got in from San Fran about forty minutes ago. Alan said it was fine that I fly out early. I’m here at The Dancing Fish, right by the airport. It’s mobbed. I’m starving. I’ve missed you. Please call.”
Seven fifty-eight …
“The last meeting ran late, now traffic is crazy. There must be an accident backing up the expressway because I’m sitting here in bumper-to-bumper. Sorry, but I can’t move any faster than I am.”
Eight thirty-two…
“Surprise,” she whispered softly. “Didn’t really work out the way I’d hoped it would.”
He chuckled. “A sushi bar? You’ve got some sense of humor to think that I would want to spend my birthday here.”
She dipped an egg roll in sauce. Took a bite.
“It’s good you’re back,” he said.~

When Jeremy and Madeleine were young, people said it was impossible to tell them apart. Dark-haired, dark-skinned, similar builds. For fraternal twins of opposite sex, this comment caused the two children endless consternation. Remy worked hard at his job and Madeleine, in turn, worked even harder at her appearance.
Their parents had believed in little to no delineation between the genders, instead, they hoped to endow their kids with sensitivities foreign among their counterparts. And, as Madeleine mocked Mother, “Our girl can grow up to be a scientist, a doctor, even a lawyer (god forbid!) never feeling undue pressure because of her breasts in an all-penis all-the-time world.”
When Madeleine married Ted- a conservative banker from Georgia- she became a homemaker. Mother’s disgust was a constant topic of conversation. Soon after, she stopped asking her to visit. And from the day of their daughter’s birth, Madeleine and Ted kept young Olivia knee deep in frilly, curly, girlie things.
Remy barely made it onto their well-lit Pennsylvania porch before the child threw open the door in excitement. “You’re here, you’re here!” The five-year old jumped into her uncle’s arms.
“Calm down.” Madeleine appeared and took her daughter gently by the shoulders. She guided her back into the house. “Your uncle has plenty of time for that. You should go to bed now.”
Panicked, she pleaded, “Can I stay up? Please?”
Her father scooped her into his arms. Slowly, he carted the excited child up the steps. Olivia chattered the entire time, Ted responded with murmured “yeses” and tired “we’ll see’s.”
Madeleine smoothed the fabric of her skirt as she watched her husband and daughter disappear. “He’ll have a terrible time getting her down.” Hugging Remy, she said, “We’re so glad to see you.”
Remy motioned upstairs. “Who usually puts her to bed?”
“He works a lot. Phone calls with clients that last all weekend. Tax season is unbearable… Mind you, caring for Olivia is no cakewalk. He can take a turn while you are here.”
Remy frowned. “Her therapies cost a lot, don’t they?” The child had a form of retardation that mirrored Downs Syndrome in layers of severity, though her cognitive functions tested higher than normal. Doctors expressed constant uncertainty as to what they were dealing with. A new recommendation always on the horizon, new therapists and tutors always invading the home.
In the kitchen, Madeleine dug through the cupboards for her stash of instant coffee. “He says he cannot sleep with the smell when I brew late.”
“It’s only nine-thirty.”
“Is the couch adequate?” his sister asked. “If you can give me a few minutes, I’ll make up the guest bedroom.”
Remy said, “I’ve gotten used to going to bed with Charlie Rose. Is that all right? I’ll keep the volume low.”
Madeleine stared at him. She asked about Sheila. “Honestly, are you all right?”
He avoided her eyes and started pacing around the kitchen. “She had an overbite. It was subtle, but it was there. She was a prude in bed. Completely unaffectionate in public. She had too many freckles on her body and not enough on her face. Her skin was way too pale. Either that, or she washed herself out with all the makeup. I don’t know which it was.” He sighed. “I don’t know.”
“I always thought that what you two needed to take care of Olivia for a weekend. You had planned on kids at some point?”
“Are you saying I wouldn’t be sitting here if we’d done that? You know I was never over-confident on the subject of marriage.”
Madeleine shook her head. “You did not want this. A child would have made it more difficult for Sheila to walk away.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m a bad person because I didn’t want to bring a kid into an unhappy marriage?”
“I think that you were selfish. Most women want kids.”
“Tell me something. Is it a wedding band… or a disease?”~

Remy sat next to Olivia on the carpet. “How do you stop an elephant from charging?”
The girl muted the television. “How?” she asked, looking up at him even as Big Bird pranced around a garbage can with his hairy cohorts.
“You buy his shoes a size too small.”
Olivia giggled, rocking back and forth. Her breath escaped in short gasps of air. Watching her made him ache for a child of his own.
On TV, the big, yellow creature started talking about dental hygiene. The irony seemed lost on the little girl so, after a few more seconds, Remy quietly exited the room.
In the kitchen, his sister sorted recipes. “How are you feeling today?” Madeleine put on some water for tea and turned down the oven temperature. “Veal. This is his favorite.”
In his bathrobe- his uniform, really- Remy studied her. He realized she had lightened her hair. The dress, too, looked new. “What’s the occasion?” he asked.
Madeleine kicked her heels off and slid them under the kitchen table. “Would you dress for dinner tonight?”
“If it’s Teddy’s birthday, just give me the word. O-liv and I will disappear.”
She shook her head and said they would all eat together at six.
“I’ve got you scared, haven’t I?” Remy thumbed through a pile of recipes. “This Donna Reed act of yours is for Ted. So he’ll be more eager to leave his 20 year-old assistant and get home to you on time.”
“I am fine. Ted and I are fine. What about you? You still don’t sleep,” she said. “You cannot keep moping around. You have all this extra time. What are your plans for forever, Remy?”
"Do you remember when we were kids? Midnight thunderstorms scared us and we stayed up until it was time for school, fighting about stupid things."
(A few feet away, Olivia howled at the puppet antics of Public TV dollars.)
"Do something constructive with your time, would you? Clean my house. Teach my daughter to recite Shakespeare. It would be a welcome change from Barney.”
"Maybe I should write a one-man-show. I could be Dr. Stu, a justice seeking marriage counselor who travels the countryside in search of hacks. I’ll call it ‘Jagged little Phil.’"
"Dr. Phil is not your problem, Remy, you are.” Madeleine turned off the burner and poured their tea.

That night, he joined her in the backyard. She had a sunset ritual of re-filling all the bird feeders.
"Tell me why," she asked him.
"I don’t know. I guess it wasn’t fun anymore.”
Madeleine shifted the bag of birdseed from one hip to the other. "There is something you’re meant to do now.” She surveyed her yard in the fading light.
"Like what?" he asked. "Don't tell me to clean your house.”
She grinned, tossed some seed at him.~


Monday the 8th, he woke her at 3:37 a.m. Asked her where she kept the ‘Smores. Madeleine growled. Ted rolled over in the bed and lightly shoved her out. Remy was a force of nature.
They dug into the stash of junk food in a back corner of the kitchen. Sitting on the floor in front of the sink, a garbage can between them, they gossiped about old classmates until the newspaper slammed loudly against the front door.
Tuesday the 9th, Madeleine got the wake-up call just after two. On all fours on the kitchen floor, Remy showed his sister how he had completely cleaned the space under and around the refrigerator. She gave him the plunger and told him to get started on the toilets.
On the 10th, in the middle of an especially bad week, Remy insisted it was his destiny to save the world through science. His sister reminded him that he flunked freshmen biology.
The 11th, 12th, and 13th he tried singing. No one slept, and Olivia took to covering both ears with her hands whenever her uncle walked into a room.
By Sunday, he considered seminary, saying it would be great to only work one day a week.
The following Monday, brother and sister sat toe-to-toe on the living room sofa, a Humphrey Bogart movie muted on the television in front of them.
"What is it you think of at night?” Madeleine, who was two minutes older, asked her baby brother. “Is it the grandiose, or is it General Hospital?"
"When it’s cold, I go outside and smoke. And I listen."
"Listen to what? Birds?”
Remy took off his slippers (Ted’s). "I don’t know.”
“I think you are lucky, do you know that?” Madeleine asked. “I have no idea where I stand half the time because he will not even talk to me. He is always tired. He works so damn hard. There are people… there are people who go their entire lives without ever finding the type of passion that you and Sheila had for a while. God, you skulk around here like these emotions you are feeling are some banner of shame for a man. It is just the opposite, Remy. So many people spend their lives afraid of feeling. You were like that. Dad was. Everyone in our family, more or less. But you woke up.”
“Post-divorce, Version 2.0. Dr. Phil Seal of Approval?” he grinned.
She twisted her silver watch around and around. The skin on her arm was like a moist leaf. “Maybe the real problem is that we measure time wrong.”
“What?” He touched her hand.
“Everyone speaks of units of measurement, quantity. Hours and minutes until the next appointment. Quality of life is lost in the equation.”
“I think you may be right,” Remy said. “Something ends—that doesn’t make it a mistake. That doesn’t mean it never should have begun.”~

The next day, as Remy tossed his bag into the trunk of his Acura, another fine, misting rain began to fall. The neighborhood was quiet. A school day, a regular weekday. Parents and children alike wedged into their desks, hidden away in their cubicles, suckling workbooks and computer screens until the glorious bell.
Olivia and the tutor had gone to the aquarium. As there was a dinner party coming on the weekend, Madeleine was at the store buying bulk doilies and coasters.
Locking his car, Remy walked back around the side of the house. As he approached the porch, he stopped and ducked into a row of high shrubs.
There, on Olivia’s swing set, a young woman helped a small boy onto the sliding board. Remy did not recognize either of them. H continued watching, unsure of what to do. Was he a special needs child- a friend of Olivia’s from some playgroup?
The boy looked tired. Although the day was cool, and a light rain continued to fall, he wore only a long-sleeved, bright blue shirt and gray shorts. As the woman picked him up from the grass in front of the slide, his head drooped several times.
Carrying him to the swing, she strapped him in the seat and brushed the hair out of his face. Leaning down, the woman gently roused him and he perked right up. She began to speak louder, telling jokes in Spanish—one-liners Remy could only discern bits and pieces of. The boy giggled and threw his hands in the air. She pushed him higher on the swing. Delighted shrieks perforated the stillness.
Remy glanced over his shoulder, then across the yard. In the back, near the alleyway where Madeleine and Ted parked their cars, a child’s large toy car was laying on its side. In the grass next to it, two garbage bags.
The young woman plucked the boy off the swing. The garden fountain caught their attention and they ran to it.
It was then Remy noticed she had a cut down her lower lip and a bruise that spanned the right side of her face. She had two shirts tied around her waist. Remy fought the urge to tell her to wrap one around her son for the day, and its promise to come, was still cool.
He glanced up, at least… at last thankful that the rain had stopped.