“The television is ruining us,” I said to Big A last week.
Big A travels a lot for work, selling the reputation of a large Boston-based financial services company. One week he’s off to San Antonio, Texas, for a golf tournament, and the next he’s hanging out in the officer’s club at Miramar in San Diego, California.
I often imagine his luxurious lifestyle on the road: fancy hotels, long dinners with cocktails and red wine, stimulating adult conversations and upgrades to first class plane seats.
But, in reality, he spends less than six hours each night in the hotel room – never long enough to enjoy that firm mattress with the fluffy down comforter. He eats hotel conference food, which is usually overcooked chicken and limp green beans, served with cheap wine that guarantees an instant hangover. His flights never seem to take off or land when they are supposed to.
When I hear the front stairs creak under his Johnston & Murphys upon return, I am expecting Big A to open the front door refreshed from his brief sojourn. I imagine him taking me into his arms and delivering a dramatic, Breakfast at Tiffany's-style kiss.
Instead, he drops his bags in the front hall and collapses into the worn leather armchair in front of the television in the living room.
H runs across the apartment in his footie pajamas to jump into his lap, drooling kisses over his five-o’clock shadowed face. When I lean in to kiss him, I can smell a day’s worth of rushing to get someplace on time.
Once H is tucked into crib, we dish out some dinner and head to the living room to zone out while we eat. Other than an occasional chuckle from a Seinfeld episode we’ve already watched at least twice before, forks and knifes scraping along our plates are the only audible sounds.
After we clean up, carefully loading the dishwasher without too much clinking – the kitchen is precariously situated outside H’s bedroom – Big A heads back to the TV. He clicks through the channels, switching from docu-dramas about stranded loggers or crab fishermen with sailor mouths. While his eyes stare at the screen, I can tell his worries are flashing beneath his surface.
Since Harrison was born – and I turned in the security of a weekly paycheck – Big A has shouldered most of our financial burdens. My freelance writing business covers the food shopping, electric, heating, phone and cable bills. His paycheck is heading straight to rent, paying down credit card debts and savings for a house we’d like to own someday – preferably before we add any more children to the fold.
In the last month, nearly 100 employees were laid off from his company. The dream job he accepted in February was eliminated, but his boss finagled him another position. No one has defined his new role yet, or what his salary will look like. He’s leaving behind the client relationships he’s built over the weeks away from home in the last nine months. And now, he will be hitting the road again to forge new relationships.
I watch from the couch as Big A’s concerns churn while he clicks through the channels. I want him to talk to me so I can carry a bag or two of his worries. But, he doesn’t realize I am staring at him, pleading with my eyes for him to speak.
So last week, I demanded he shut the TV off. He pressed mute.
I understand the need to unwind and be brainless after working all day. But we have to do a better job of re-connecting when the day is over. That clicker and screen are stifling our conversations.
After a minute of silence, he said, “Tomorrow, dinner at the kitchen table.”
Agreed. And I shuffled over to my laptop, as he turned up the volume on a woodworking show.
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