Free Little Known Facts: A Novel by Christine Sneed

thirty years ago today that we said ‘I do.’ ” I know that I’m being ridiculous, that Billy will find this fact and the occasion I have made of it ironic and possibly perverse, but nothing’s right with him tonight.
    “Wow. Alert the media.”
    “Oh, Billy.”
    “What? Congratulations to you and Dad. Many happy returns.”
    “Can we talk a little about what happened with you and Danielle?”
    He shakes his head. “No. I’d rather not.”
    “Maybe you’ll feel better if you do.”
    “I feel fine.”
    “Let’s go to dinner,” I say. When I stand up, the sofa groans in a voice that sounds almost human.
    Billy exhales. “Mom, I don’t want to go out.”
    “Should we order in?”
    “I told you that I already ate.”
    “It doesn’t look like it. How much weight have you lost since I saw you at Halloween?”
    “I don’t know. A couple of pounds maybe.”
    “Are you doing a lot of running? I saw several pairs of shoes on my way in.”
    “I’m training for a marathon.”
    I look at him, wondering if he really means this, if he will see this project through to some favorable outcome. “Good, but you need to eat if you’re going for long runs.”
    “Jesus. You sound like Danielle.”
    I don’t say anything. I know that I should leave him alone, that my visit hasn’t done anything but upset him. But I go ahead and make it worse. “I’m going to order you a subscription to
Gourmet
and
Bon Appétit,”
I say. “Why don’t you learn how to cook? You have the time.”
    He stares at me, and then he laughs. “Why don’t I learn how to cook? Why don’t I learn how to fly too while I’m at it? And why don’t I learn how to drag race? When I’m done with that, I’ll find the cure for cancer and bring you to the White House with me when the president throws a banquet in my honor.”
    I can feel my face burning. “I’m not sure about those other things, but cooking can sometimes be a meaningful experience.”
    “How do you know? You don’t cook.”
    “Yes, I do. A lot more than I used to.”
    “Then why didn’t you go home after work and cook yourself an anniversary dinner instead of coming over here?”
    “All right,” I say. “I’ll leave. You can starve yourself some more if you don’t want to have dinner with me. Try running a marathon on an empty stomach and see how that goes.”
    “God, Mom, don’t be so fucking melodramatic.” He says these words with such derision that I almost slap him, something I haven’t done in at least ten years. He knows I’m angry too. He gives me a look that I remember well from his adolescence, one somewhere between condescension and defiance.
How pathetic you are,
his eyes would say.
How above all of this I am. You and Dad are the ones acting like children, not me.
    At the door, we make only glancing eye contact and don’t embrace. Before I have taken more than a step into the corridor, he shuts the door firmly behind me.
    By the time I get into the elevator, furious and chagrined, all of the old resentments that used to plague me have resurfaced. Most of them, I eventually realized, were directed more toward Renn than at our children, no matter how badly Anna and Billy were frustrating or infuriating me. For at least a year after Renn left, I hated him. It was a corrosive, implacable hatred, the kind that leads tyrants to burn down enemies’ villages, to maim and destroy. I said some very stupid things about him in front of our children, things that I’m pretty sure they remember. One of the ironies of the whole ugly show, however, was that by the time he left me to marry Melinda Byers, a woman whose life, as far as I can tell, has amounted to very little, I didn’t want to be married to him anymore, but I also knew that not being married to him was likely to feel worse.
    In the empty elevator, I let out a small scream. Then I let out a second that leads to a third, and when the door opens on the first floor, the three people waiting to step on