The story of a family on the edge... and how they got there.
For Madeline Illica, the love of her husband Ben is her blessing and curse. Brilliant and charming when he chose to be, Ben turns into a raging bull when crossed—and despite her training as a social worker Maddy is never sure what will cross him. She kept a fragile peace by vacillating between tiptoeing around him and asserting herself for the sake of their three children until a rainy drive to work when Ben’s temper gets the best of him and the consequences leave Maddy in the hospital, fighting for her life.
Exploring emotional abuse, traumatic injury, and children lost in the shuffle of recovery with unblinking honesty, Accidents of Marriage is an account of life inside of a marriage and how the unexpected gift of clarity can make the difference between living in hell and salvation.
Accidents of Marriage
By
Randy
Susan Meyers
CHAPTE R 1
Maddy
Maddy ran her
tongue over her
teeth,
imagining the bitter taste
of a crumbling tablet of Xanax.
After a gut-wrenching day at
the
hospital nothing tempted
her more than a chemical
vacation.
Nothing appealed to her less
than cooking supper. Churning stomach acid—courtesy of work—coupled with anxiety that Ben
might
come home as frenzied as
he’d left made a formidable appetite
killer.
She could bottle it and
make a fortune.
Each morning she spun the wheel
on the Ben chart,
hoping the arrow would hit happy husband, or at least neutral guy. Today his arrow landed
on total bastard, holding her personally responsible for Caleb’s
tantrum, which—oh, horror!—had
cost
Ben twenty minutes
of work.
She considered
taking a pill, but the rites
of family happiness demanded her attention. Gracie and
Caleb
sprawled on the rug, recovering from
their
day
at camp: seven-year-old
Caleb,
half asleep, rubbing his
cheek with his
thumb;
nine-year-old Gracie’s glazed
eyes fixed
on the television. Emma,
her oldest, a day camp counselor at
fourteen,
would be home soon.
Sluggish
inertia
kept Maddy stapled to the couch despite her
long
list of waiting tasks. Chop vegetables, pay the mortgage, and
catch up on
laundry before the kids
ran out of socks. Find a stamp somewhere in
the
mess she called her
desk
so she could mail the electric bill. Give her
children feelings
of self-worth.
Plus, since she and Ben
had fought that morning, he’d need
soothing. Fellatio
came to mind.
Indestructible fabric,
the sort bought by parents
with children prone to transferring their
sticky snacks to the upholstery, prickled against her bare
arms. She lusted for air-
conditioning as
she’d
once longed
for peace, justice, and her
husband. Each suffocating Boston
summer their badly wired Victorian became more hateful
and
Ben’s warnings about
global warming swayed
her less. According
to Ben, her environmental
ethics
turned situational with each
drop of perspiration.
Pressing the small
of her back didn’t ease the
permanent knot lodged
deep and
low, nor did shoving a small hard
pillow against it.
Her stomach growled despite her
lack
of desire for food.
Fish sticks would be easy,
but she couldn’t bear turning on the oven.
The back
door slammed. Emma banged her
backpack
on the table. Her daughter’s
way
of saying I’m
home.
“Emma?” “What?”
Maddy struggled
up from the couch
and headed toward the
kitchen. “Just making
sure it’s you.”
“Were you
expecting someone else?” she asked.
“It could have been Daddy.”
“Right.” What an all-purpose word right had
become in their family,
their
polite way of
saying,
I am
acknowledging
you have spoken, but am choosing not to engage
in any meaningful
way.
Lately, they used it all too
often.
Newspapers they’d
tried to read
at breakfast
covered half the table. Emma stared into
the refrigerator as
Maddy gathered the papers, unsure whether
to recycle them.
Had Ben finished reading the Boston Globe? The New York
Times?
“There’s nothing to eat,” Emma said. “In Caro’s
house—”
The sound of breaking
glass followed by Caleb’s
scream
interrupted before
Emma could specify just how superior a shopper Caro’s
mother
was.
“Mom! ” Gracie yelled. “Come here! ”
Emma followed as
Maddy
ran to the living room.
“Jesus, what
happened?” Maddy crouched next to
Caleb, her stomach dropping at the sight
of blood pouring from
his foot. Shards of glass surrounded
him, liquid droplets of milk clinging to the pieces, a
larger
white puddle pooling on the wooden floor. She grabbed a wadded-up
napkin to staunch the blood, crouching awkwardly to avoid
cutting
her knees.
Gracie’s mouth trembled. “I just got up, that’s all,
and
I knocked over
his milk glass. He got mad and
screamed,
then he stood up and kicked
the glass and it broke. He stepped on it. It
wasn’t
my
fault!”
“It’s okay, Gracie.” Blood
soaked through the napkin, dissolving the
paper as
she exerted pressure. “Emma,
get
me a
damp towel.”
This was preventable, Ben would say. This is
why
we have plastic glasses.
“Make it stop,
Mommy!” Tears cut
through
the
dirt on Caleb’s
cheeks.
She pressed harder. Gracie
mopped the spilled milk with
a dirty T-shirt from
her backpack.
“Here.” Emma
held
out a dripping kitchen towel.
“You need to wring it out, Emma. Never mind, just get a clean
one.”
Emma stomped out with
Gracie in her wake. Wet cloth
slapped in the sink.
“Give this to
Mom.” Emma’s voice from the kitchen was extra loud.
Using the hem of her
black
cotton
skirt, Maddy covered the napkin.
Gracie
returned with a new towel. Emma watched
from the doorway, twirling the bottom of her
long brown braid.
Maddy peeled away her
skirt
and replaced it with
the
towel, Caleb
whimpering. “Do I have to go to the doctor?” He squinted as peeked
under
the towel. “It doesn’t
look too deep, but it has to be cleaned,” she said. “I don’t think
we need a doctor.” Maddy’s pulse calmed.
She
stopped rushing ahead
in her mind: wrapping Caleb’s foot
safely enough to hold
in the bleeding until they got to
the emergency room,
packing the
kids in the car, calling Ben. She looked again—making sure her decision
was based on wisdom and not wishful thinking. It
wasn’t gaping. The bleeding had
slowed.
He tried
to pull his foot away. “No! No
cleaning. It’ll hurt.”
Emma squatted next to them. “You let
Mom wash out the cut and
I’ll play
Monopoly.” Caleb’s
smile came through
like
a sun shower.
“That’s sweet, honey.” Maddy should
appreciate Emma’s
goodness and stop losing patience with
her sulks and eye rolling. “Thank you.”
“Can I play?” Gracie asked.
“No,” said
Caleb. “Just me
and Emma.”
Gracie’s
lip quivered at
her brother’s words,
leaving Maddy torn between soothing and yelling Stop it,
especially when she saw Gracie
make the tiny sign
of the cross she’d picked up from Grandma Frances, Ben’s
mother,
a woman given to reflexive
ritual blessings. Gracie’s
gesture unsettled
Maddy. Next
thing she knew, her
daughter would be genuflecting at
Our Lady of the Virgins. Buying her a Jewish star or a Unitarian
flaming chalice, before Grandma Frances
hung
a crucifix over Gracie’s
bed, went on her to-do list. Mixed marriage only went
so far.
“Monopoly is better with
more people,
Caleb.” Pregnant
women should be required to take classes
in referee and negotiation skills along with breathing and
panting lessons.
“No. I only want
to play with Emma.”
Gracie pulled at her camp-grimy toes. “How about you and I make chocolate
sauce while they play?” Maddy suggested. “We could have
hot fudge sundaes
for supper.”
“Ice cream
for supper?” Gracie raised her chin
off
her knees.
“Why not?” She pushed
back her daughter’s sweaty black curls, the only visible part
of Maddy that Gracie had inherited. The kids divided their
parents’ parts
and shared few: Skinny Caleb
had
Ben’s thick brown hair, Maddy’s
long lashes and narrow
shoulders. Poor Gracie, like Ben, would have to fight a tendency toward getting thick in the middle. Emma, wiry like
Maddy, had
her father’s
sharp cheekbones.
Emma rolled
her eyes. “Healthy,
Mom.” “Shut up, Emma,” Caleb said.
“You shut up. Or
I won’t play with you.” “I’ll
play,” Gracie said.
“No. Emma picked me. Wash my cut,
Mommy.”
***
A child
leaned on either shoulder. With
feet
propped
on the coffee table, Maddy drifted in and out of sleep. Dirty bowls decorated with
blobs of hardened fudge littered
the room. After cresting to
a quick high of giggles over supper,
they’d slumped into queasy sugar comas.
They stirred
at the sound effects
of Ben’s nightly return: The car rolling on gravel.
Scrape of
heat-swollen door
opening.
Keys
dropping on the hall table. Briefcase thudding
to the floor. Sighs of relief or disgust
indicated his mood level. Despite their early- morning fight,
Ben
sounded audibly benign.
Thank
God. Maybe it would
be
a Swiss
night, with
the living room their first
neutral zone.
Ben entered
the
living room and surveyed their collapsed bodies
and
the scattered
Monopoly pieces. Gracie pulled
away and ran
to him, throwing her
hands
around his waist. He stroked
her
black
ringlets into a little bundle
at the back
of her
head
as she leaned into his slightly softening middle.
He
had the body of a forty-three-year-old
man
who fought gravity by playing handball twice a week, but who’d given up crunches. Not
bad, but unlike Maddy, who ran
and used free weights
and the rowing machine in their basement, his battle
against
time brought fewer
visible rewards.
“What happened?” he asked.
“It
looks like a war zone.”
“We had
some excitement. Our boy cut
himself.” Caleb held out his bandage- swathed
foot while still staring
at the television.
“You okay?” Ben asked. He gave Gracie
one last pat and went to the couch. “Hurt
much?”
Caleb shrugged. “I guess. A little.” He studied
Maddy as
though
seeking the
right
answer.
Ben laid
a hand on Caleb’s calf.
“Can you walk
on it?” “Sorta. I hop
on my heel on that side.”
“It’s on the ball of his foot. The
inside,” Maddy said.
“How’d
it happen?” Ben tugged on his chin—his poker
tell that steam could
build at any moment.
Maddy leaned over
Caleb
and kissed her husband,
hitting the side of
his mouth he offered.
“Forgetting anything?” she asked.
“Hello, Maddy? How are you?”
He exhaled. “Don’t
start. I’ve had a rough day.”
Kissing was starting? It is
when
you’re being sarcastic, she answered
herself,
using Ben’s lecture voice. “He fell asleep and
then got
up without remembering there was
a milk glass
next
to him. It was an accident.” She knew the
lie was barely plausible, but she also knew it was just enough for him to avoid being prosecutorial.
“Where was he sleeping? The recycle
bin?”
“Very funny. A glass broke.
End of story.” There. The truth snuck in.
“Why can’t the kids eat and
drink at the table like
they’re supposed to? Why weren’t they using plastic glasses?” He ran his hands through his hair. “Look
at this
place. It’s a mess.
No wonder everyone’s always having accidents.”
Caleb rubbed his thumb back
and forth across his knee. Gracie crossed
herself.
“Not now, okay? Please.” She sent
him a significant look.
Ben flexed
his shoulders, leaned back on the couch, and
stared at the ceiling.
He took a deep breath,
seeming to
remember the anger management sheet Maddy had forced on him
six months ago,
after
he’d thrown a shoe. At the wall, he
insisted each time
she mentioned the incident. Not at you. But
her message had landed. For once, she’d broken through
his endless rejections
of her careful observations
about his temper.
Good
thing. She’d gritted her
teeth through
his rages, but she’d be damned
if their house became a physical battleground. He’d
scared himself
when
he’d thrown the shoe— just as he had years before when he’d
thrown a bottle of
detergent against the wall. The difference was
this time he’d listened to her. He’d read
the sheet despite hating it when she supposedly social-worked him.
Save it for
your clients, he’d yell when she deconstructed him. The children. Their
marriage. You’re not
my shrink, you’re my wife.
If he didn’t want her
to social-work
him, then she sure wished he’d
learn
to manage his own moods. Maddy’s
sister insisted that one day it would
be too
late for anger prevention
sheets and other tricks. Vanessa had
no patience for Ben’s
rages,
but
Maddy blamed
herself for the antagonism her family felt toward
Ben. Maddy overshared.
Everything negative, anyway. When had
she last called
her sister to say things were
going great? To brag about Ben
taking an entire day to make sure Gracie could
ride her bike safely? How often
did she mention that Ben took
the kids to the movies while she
went for a massage?
At least her
mother pretended to love Ben. For which Maddy was grateful.
“We had
ice cream for
supper,” Caleb announced.
Emma’s shoulders squared. Gracie
pressed
into Maddy. Ben
turned
to Caleb.
“Ice cream?”
“With hot fudge,” Caleb added.
“Nice to
be rewarded for breaking a glass,
huh?”
Ben kicked off
his shoes. “Since
I haven’t fallen or broken anything, what do I get for supper?”
Emma jumped up. “Should I make you eggs, Dad?”
“Thank you,
honey.
That would be
terrific.” He leaned
back
and closed his eyes, pushing off his shoes with his
toes.
Gracie tapped
his forehead. He
blinked and gave her
a tired smile. “What is
it, cupcake?”
“Want me to
cut up carrots for you?”
Maddy grabbed
the
laundry basket from
where she’d dropped it in
the
corner of the living room and hurried out before she
had to witness the girls wait on Ben. It
drove her crazy watching them being trained in the fine art
of placating an
angry man, but try explaining that one.
What,
a child couldn’t feed a hungry father?
After throwing in a white
wash and rummaging through the crowded
shelves for fabric softener, she dragged
over a small dusty step stool and
climbed
up, stretching to reach behind the jumble of cleaning supplies. She pulled out a
dusty baggie that held
a few tablets, took out a yellow one,
bit off half, and swallowed it dry. Sometimes
she wondered if she could remember
all
of her caches. Keeping them
scattered around the house gave her
a convoluted sense of
peace and
safety.
She
might reach for one pill in
a week; she might reach
in every day. Either way, knowing that they were never more than a
few steps away comforted
her.
***
Back in the kitchen,
remnants
of Ben’s eggs and
carrots
littered the countertop.
She cleared the debris to one side to make sandwiches
for the kids’ lunch boxes. Trying
to spread cold peanut butter made her hate Ben’s mother.
Frances had
spent the past forty-six years appeasing
Ben’s father’s neuroses by keeping a spotless house and refrigerating peanut butter, on constant guard against
food poisoning, bacteria, and
dust.
Because of Frances, they ate
hard peanut butter.
The bread
tore. She folded
it around the wad
of Skippy and shoved it in
her mouth. Then she got a fresh slice and began making the sandwiches again: grape jelly for
Caleb, blueberry for Gracie, and
for
Emma, Maddy’s mother’s
homemade orange
preserves.
Anger exhausted
her. She waited for
the kiss of Xanax to kick in,
Prince
Charming bearing a sheath
for her nerves.
Ben hadn’t
cared
if they ate hot mayonnaise and
slept on typhus-encrusted sheets when
they’d met, not while they burned off
the searing heat
of their early years. He’d been
exciting, her
Ben, a public defense lawyer
demanding the world give his
wrecked clients
a break—a little justice,
a fair shot. She could
barely breathe around him,
some part of her always
needing to
touch
some part of him.
Her
hand on his shoulder.
An ankle casually leaning against his calf.
Ben dwarfed
everyone, racing through
life
with exclamation points
coming out all sides. Poverty to the right? Boom! Racism? Pow. Dirty landlords? Gotcha!
Who knew all that passion and rage could
be directed at a late
car
payment? A
missing button.
Her.
About Randy
I was born in Brooklyn, New York, where I quickly moved from playing with dolls to incessantly reading, spending most of my time at the Kensington Branch Library. Early on I developed a penchant for books rooted in social issues, my early favorites being Karen and The Family Nobody Wanted. Shortly I moved onto Jubilee and The Diary of Anne Frank.
My dreams of justice simmered at the fantastically broadminded Camp Mikan, where I went from camper to counselor, culminating in a high point when (with the help of my strongly Brooklyn-accented singing voice), I landed the role of Adelaide in the staff production of Guys and Dolls.
Soon I was ready to change the world, starting with my protests at Tilden High and City College of New York . . .
. . . until I left to pursue the dream in Berkeley, California, where I supported myself by selling candy, nuts, and ice cream in Bartons of San Francisco. Then, world weary at too tender an age, I returned to New York, married, and traded demonstrations for diapers.
While raising two daughters, I tended bar, co-authored a nonfiction book on parenting, ran a summer camp, and (in my all-time favorite job, other than writing) helped resurrect and run a community center.
Once my girls left for college, I threw myself deeper into social service and education by working with batterers and victims of domestic violence. I’m certain my novels are imbued with all the above, as well as my journey from obsessing over bad boys to loving a good man.
Many things can save your life—children who warm your heart, the love of a good man, a circle of wonderful friends, and a great sister. After a tumultuous start in life, I’m lucky enough to now have all these things. I live in Boston with my husband, where I live by these words:“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”—GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
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So compelling, and heartbreaking ACCIDENTS OF MARRIAGE captures marriage in a honest way, the scarier side, one that is not spoken of nearly enough. Randy Susan Meyer's creates a story that sparks emotion in the reader. With various perspectives shared the reader gets pulled deeper into the story. How can what was once so appealing turn into something scary and life changing? Dive into ACCIDENTS OF MARRIAGE to find out!!!
4.5 stars
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