how I will leave you

I have started shrugging. I hear his voice but I am tuning it our entirely.

You are talking and I am washing everyone's dishes by hand. Yesterday the dishwasher broke, and today is Christmas. I am trying to decide how I will leave you inside the house, while I go out snowshoeing. You've become a little boy that needs to be tricked. If it wasn't Christmas I could tempt you with a snack and the beginning of some game on the TV. But it is Christmas and you've eaten more than your share of ham and polish stuffed cabbage.

Although I am blocking you out, I can hear the kids playing in front of the TV. Trains, I am not sure how we got to the point in which we do not buy our children toys with batteries, but we do let them play with handmade wooden trains in front of an alert television. I hope it's just background noise. I wonder if they are trying to tune you out as well.

" Hey Cass, next year why don't we just microwave the carrots, it was never a problem when my mom did it that way."

I think about responding. "Carrots get soggy that way. Unless, you cover them with butter and brown sugar they taste like thickened water. I like carrots to taste like carrots not candy. " But I don't say anything. I shrug and wipe that indistinguishable holiday grease off a plate, remembering what a good vegetarian I was before I met you.

"Cass, why don't we have the kids come in and do the dishes. You and I can go up stairs and pick out a movie on the TV."

Some may think that this would be my opportunity to leave him sitting in front of the television but there are three things you do not know about Kevin. He wants the children to be our maids and tries to take away all possible enjoyment from them whenever he can. He will whine if I get up in the middle of the movie. Even if it's just to use the bathroom. Watching a movie with Kevin is code for sex. It has been since we were in our early twenties. Kevin and I have not had sex in two months. Since before Halloween when he commented on the attractiveness of Lily, a neighbor, who is possibly thirteen, but my guess would be she’s eleven.

She was dressed as a nineteen fifties vampire vamp, and somehow it really came off as Bettie Page. I am sure Lily has no idea who Bettie Page even is. But Kevin does, and Kevin knows that Lily is young.

We had talked about her watching the kids and he's the one who said he wouldn't be comfortable with anything more than a mother's helper situation. I haven't been able to shake this thought. Kevin looking at Lily dressed like Bettie Page, his mouth opening and those words falling out. Kevin is not a pedophile; I know he would never come on to Lily. But it didn't matter; my boredom with him in my life and in my bed suddenly became general disgust with him as a human.

I shrug, wondering what I will do to get out of having sex with him tonight.

"Why don't we finish the dishes, and pick out a movie to watch with the kids. They’ll love it. I think “A Christmas Story” or “It’s a wonderful life” may still be on.

I know that K.J. our four year old has come in to ask for a glass of milk. K.J. has great hearing. K.J. heard what I said. There would be no getting out of watching a movie with the kids. I am compromising my children. I am using them as self-defense.

Snowshoeing could wait until morning.