Free Promise Me A Rainbow by Cheryl Reavi

the garbage can under the sink.
    “Do you know?” Catherine persisted.
    “No. She just does. She started it when she was about five. Look, are you going to tell me what she said to you or am I wasting my time?”
    “She said she calls you Joe so you won’t die.”
    He gave her a stricken look, and Catherine was certain now. He was not nearly so unaffected by the problems in his life as he wanted her to think. His lips pursed, as if he were going to say something, but he didn’t say it. He walked across to the double windows instead, looking down at the traffic below.
    Catherine waited, watching him draw a deep breath.
    “Before we moved here,” he said finally, “Fritz’s grandmother—Lisa’s mother—lived with us for a while I . . . always assumed she did it because that’s what she heard her grandmother call me all the time.” He looked around at her. “But you don’t think that, do you?”
    “No.”
    “What are you, some kind of expert on kids?”
    “I’ve worked with a lot of children and—”
    “Worked with,” he said, interrupting. “But you don’t have any of your own.”
    He remembered her argument with Jonathan. What had she said? “Until you made my having a baby a condition of the marriage?” She must be one of those career women, then, who didn’t give a damn about having children. She was crazy if she thought she was going to tell him what he should be doing with his.
    They stared at each other across the room.
    “No, Mr. D’Amaro,” she said quietly. “I don’t have children of my own. You know, this is the second time I’ve had this same conversation today, and I’m getting tired of it. I am not a mother, but I know a lot about children and I think Fritz—”
    “Maybe I don’t want to hear what you think, Ms. Holben. I don’t need your criticism about the way I raise my kids. And just what makes you such an authority?”
    “I’m not an authority. Nobody is. And this has gone far enough. I don’t like to be jerked around, Mr. D’Amaro. Particularly in my own home. You came to me . You asked me about Fritz, and I’m trying to tell you. I don’t know what it is about this situation that makes you so defensive. I really don’t care. But whatever it is that’s giving you all this guilt, you’re not taking it out on me.”
    “You think I’m guilty? Great! It’s not enough for you to psychoanalyze Fritz—you want to take a stab at me, too. What is it with you? You don’t even know me.”
    She looked him directly in the eye. “I know you’re making a big effort to find out what’s bothering your child—on the surface. But you don’t really want to know. You’re worried about her, but you want to hear me say all little girls go around calling their father’s by their first name so they won’t die. You want the status quo because anything else is inconvenient. Life is full of inconveniences, Mr. D’Amaro, and I’m sure Fritz would have gotten around to telling you she’s scared you’re going to die like her mother did—instead of telling a total stranger. Oh, but I forgot. You’re not home much, and Della’s only interested in parties and clothes, and Charlie stays glued to the computer.”
    “I don’t have time for this,” he said impatiently, heading toward the front door. “Don’t think I don’t appreciate it, Ms. Holben.”
    He caught a glimpse of the gnomes on the coffee table as he passed through the living room, and the great weight around his heart grew heavier still.
    Jesus, Lisa! Why did you leave me with this?
    He jerked the door open and let it slam after him, but he knew before he reached the bottom of the stairs what he was going to have to do. He stood in the foyer by the mailboxes, trying to put his anger aside. He was always angry these days. It was stupid and he knew it, but he still let it overwhelm him.
    He started to go back up the stairs, but the old woman behind the screen door stood watching. He went out the front doors