The Crooked Branch

“She’s only three weeks old,” I say. “You weren’t even supposed to go back to work until she was one month, that’s what we agreed. You have such a good team there now. You need to trust them more.” “But I have an even better team at home,” Leo says. “You guys are doing great!” Great? The sensitive, articulate, successful man I married . . . is he s

I don’t want to become a woman who hangs up on her husband, but there are lots of things I didn’t want to become. I’ll just add this to the list.

But despite these hopeful words, a look of desperate resignation passed between the two men. They knew the absentee landlords over in London didn’t care about the natives, so long as their plum Irish land continued to yield hearty profits, so long as the grains and cattle they extorted from Ireland continued to fetch their English fortunes.

“Mom, PLEASE, stop lecturing me,” I say, in the horrible, ungrateful bitch tone that I reserve only for her, a tone that’s inevitable, but steeped in immediate regret.

“And they have jobs.” “You still have a job, you just have to do your job.” “Ouch,” I say. “I’m not rushing you,” he says. “But don’t complain about it when it’s your own choice.”

What would the light be like there, among the tall ships in the harbor, the teeming city streets? In

When he’s home I don’t even remember the deserted panic of these empty afternoons. It’s like I have revolving brains, each one amnesiac of the other.

Ginny caught herself recoiling in horror, but she forced herself to stay, to draw closer, even. She squeezed the poor woman’s fingers.

After all, it’s hard enough in therapy, being honest with the woman I’m paying to be the receptacle of my deepest fears; how am I supposed to be honest with the woman who’s the harbinger of them?