Read Online She, Myself & I by Whitney Gaskell - Free Book Online

it, but it immediately made me feel like I was about twelve years old and in trouble for mouthing off.
    “What? I didn’t do anything.”
    “You shouldn’t be upsetting your sister. You know how emotional she is right now,” Mom said. “This pregnancy has been very difficult on her.”
    “It’s been difficult on all of us,” I pointed out.
    “I know she’s been a little hard to deal with. But that’s normal. You’ll be the same way when you have a baby,” my mother said, returning to her usual spot on the end of the striped sofa. She sat down, tucking one foot beneath her, and took a sip of coffee.
    “This coffee’s cold,” she added. “If I make another pot, will you have some?”
    I shook my head, and concentrated on pushing back the tears that had started burning in my eyes at my mom’s “when you have a baby” comment. I hadn’t told my family about my miscarriage. It had happened just a few months before Scott made his big announcement. At first I was hopeful that I’d get pregnant again quickly, since although the pregnancy hadn’t been planned, losing the baby was devastating. But then Scott had moved out, and it seemed strange to tell them then after having waited for so long.
    “Paige? What’s wrong? You look like you’re about to cry,” Mom said, her voice sharp with worry.
    I shook my head again and took a few deep breaths. This wasn’t like me at all. I’ve never been a crier. And I thought I’d put the miscarriage behind me, so to feel the loss and pain bubble back up after all this time was disconcerting. When I was sure I could speak safely, without melting down, I said, “I’m fine, just a little PMS-y.”
    “God help me, I’m surrounded by hormonal daughters,” my mother muttered as she picked the crossword back up.
    My father wandered into the living room. He was wearing a bleach-stained green polo shirt, khaki shorts that were grubby with potting soil, and garden clogs, and as he walked across the taupe Berber carpet, he left behind a trail of dirty footprints.
    “For heaven’s sake, Stephen, look at what you’re doing. You’re tracking mud everywhere,” my mother said, laughing.
    I just stared, first at my mother, who was giggling like a teenage girl (in complete contrast to how she surely would have responded to my father’s soiling the carpet when my parents were married, which would have been to point and screech, like Donald Sutherland at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers ), and then at my father, who was standing in the living room of my childhood home as though he belonged there, as though he and my mother hadn’t bloodied the entire family with their messy divorce a decade earlier.
    I wondered if I were going crazy, but then remembered the advice of my old therapist, Elise, who said that if you think you’re having a breakdown, you’re probably not. Her reasoning was that if you were alert and rational enough to question your own sanity, then chances were you were fine. Of course, this logic would also suggest that then when you feel perfectly fine, you might actually be falling apart without being aware of it, but I didn’t like to dwell on that possibility.
    “Hi, sweetie,” he said to me. “How’s work going?”
    “Um, fine. You know, the usual. So why are you here, Dad?” I asked.
    “I’ve been helping your mother out with the garden. I just cleared the summer annuals out of the window boxes and replaced them with pansies. I told her she has to fire the lawn care company she uses, because they’re ripping her off. How hard is it for them to remember to water the flowers once a week? Forget about it,” he said, as if this were a reasonable explanation for his presence.
    “You’re helping Mom,” I repeated.
    He nodded, and my mother beamed at him. “Can I get you some coffee, Stephen?” she asked him.
    “Are you having some? Then, yes, please,” he said.
    My head swiveled back and forth, as though I were watching a tennis match.