Enough

Dave Dearborn loathed his wife.

Since they had started working together, she had changed from the compliant housewife that she once was and considered herself above him, which was a joke. The bitch couldn’t sink a sale if a three-ton weight were attached to it.

He sat on the couch and considered the state of things as he scrolled through Netflix to find something to take his mind off of his crappy life. Pam was out shopping and sure as shit, she’d forget most of the things he’d asked her to pick up at the store. He knew this because the airhead had left the shopping list right there on the dining room table.

He looked at the stand the TV sat on and grew even more agitated. When was the last time you dusted this house, Pam? When he brought up her reduced standards for the house since she started working at his jewelry store fulltime, she had giggled a little and pointed out where she kept the Pledge and the rag she used with it under the kitchen sink and had lightly said, “It isn’t rocket science, sweetheart. If it bothers you, go ahead and tend to it,” and then kissed his nose playfully and bounced away to cook dinner.

Dave had followed her into the kitchen. “It’s woman’s work. I’m not doing it.”

She had giggled again and said, “Replacing the interior of the toilet when the gasket goes bad is technically men’s work,” using her hands to do air quotes with men’s work, “but I do it anyway when it needs to be done. Now, if you don’t mind, you’re in the way of me cooking dinner,” she chirped happily, making shooing motions as if it wasn’t his house too.

If it wasn’t for the fact that they were so tied up together financially, he’d leave. Definitely. But the bitch wouldn’t let him sell their house or the business and split the money so they could go their separate ways. And her spending habits kept them from saving much.

She came through the door happier than normal, chirping, "Hey, sweetheart," and that annoyed him too.

“Did you get my shampoo?” he asked, looking to take that stupid chirp of hers away. Surely she forgot something.

“I did,” she replied, walking past loaded down with those stupid reusable shopping bags she insisted on using. “Something great just happened,” she started, “it’s amazing, really. You’re going to be so happy!”

He doubted it. “Did you get bread? I put bread on the list.”

“Of course I did. Aren’t you curious about what happened?” she asked with a smile and her brows furrowed.

He wasn’t. Something stupid like the paper towels were on sale more than likely. “When’s dinner? I’m hungry.”

She giggled again. The sound annoyed him. Proof that she was doing her own thing in her own time these days. “Honey, I just walked through the door with groceries. Give a girl a chance to get settled.”

“I said I’m hungry.”

“A half hour, okay? It’s an easy dinner I have planned.” She grinned at him. “Since you won’t ask, I’ll tell you…”

“Just take care of the groceries and dinner,” he interrupted with a bark. “I said I’m hungry.” He saw her flinch and look hurt, and he took satisfaction from knocking her down a peg until the look passed and she smiled at him softly as if she loved him still, which he knew wasn’t true.

“You know how you’re always telling me that I shouldn’t waste money on the…”

“I SAID I’M HUNGRY.”

She nodded at him and went into the kitchen, thank goodness. He didn’t want to hear what she had to say.

A half hour later, she placed his steak and potato in front of him as well as his utensils. “Salt and pepper?” he asked, annoyed that she had forgotten it. His bad, he supposed for marrying such an airhead.

“Sure,” she chirped and got up to go get them. When she sat the two shakers in front of him and then sat down next to him, she started, “We…”

“Shut up, Pam. I’m watching TV.”

“It’s just Forged in Fire. I think it’s even a repeat. The tall dude wins and I think the final challenge is some medieval type sword,” she said, not chirping this time.

He was happy he knocked the chirp out of her. What was there to be happy about?

When he cut into the steak, it was too rare for him. “Cook this some more for me, will you?”

“Yeah. No worries. I guess I was running on how hungry you said you were and pushed it too fast,” she said as she got up and took both plates away.

After Dr. Pimple Popper, he shut the TV off and got up, gathering his water to take upstairs with him. As he walked up the stairs he looked down and Pam was looking at him but not looking at him, sort of staring his general direction blankly, disappointed and nodding a little bit. She finally noticed him looking at her and in a deflated tone of voice said, “Good night. I love you.”

Dave ignored it. She didn’t love him. If she did, she would step up her game for him.

He woke up to a different Pam. She sat at her computer as he walked past and said nothing. No chirped ‘Good morning’; no chirped ‘how did you sleep?’. Nothing but silence.

Good, he thought.

At work, she was the same. He’d issue the daily commands and she just nodded and walked off to do her work, stopping occasionally to help a customer when it was needed.

“Did you order the parts for the jobs we have in the box?”

Her normal response of late was to roll her eyes and then good-naturedly say, “I’m not THAT big of an airhead. Of course I did.” Instead, she looked at him, nodded, and went back to reading her Kindle.

To the customers, she was completely normal: Chatting them up, joking with them, being Pam. The same with Ernesto, their jeweler. When she’d walk back, she’d chat amiably in Spanish with him, and they would both laugh.

He was good with that. She talked too much, and it was always things that he had no interest in hearing—the ideas in some Malcolm Gladwell book or some other such shit.

When they both got home, she went upstairs and then came back down a few minutes later dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. “You’ll have to order out tonight for dinner. I’m going to the beach and then to Robin’s to see him and Kendall. Have a nice night.” Her voice sounded flat and emotionless.

“We can’t afford take-out. You need to cook before you go.”

She shook her head sadly. “Kendall invited me over for dinner.”

“What’s wrong with you, Pam?” Dave asked, suddenly concerned.

“You. You’re what’s wrong with me. There is no good day you won’t turn to shit for me. You’re like a fucking vampire, sucking all the life out of me. I’ve had enough,” she said and then walked out the door.

And apparently she had. She didn’t come home that night or the night after. She’d come to work, follow his commands of what he expected her to do, help customers, and then leave without so much as a ‘I’m leaving’.

On the third day, she said the first thing since leaving to go to their son’s house. “There’s someone here for you.”

“Tell them I’m busy.”

“I can’t. He needs to talk to you.”

Dave got up. There were those customers who wanted to deal with him, not Pam and they were the ones who were the big sales. He walked into the showroom and gave his best salesman smile and said, “How can I help you?”

“Dave Dearborn?”

“Yes?”

The tall man with black hair handed him a large manilla envelope. “You’ve been served. Have a nice day, sir.”

When he opened the envelope, he screamed out, “WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT?”

He heard Pam sigh from her office and then saw her in the doorway of his office. “I believe it’s all self-explanatory.”

“Why didn’t you talk to me about this?” he said indignantly, waving the divorce papers around. She didn't answer him.

A few minutes passed and she came back with a check made out to him for $500,000. “It’s well over half of the equity we have in the house and well over half of what the store is worth. Don’t come in tomorrow and I want you out of my house in 60 days.” Again, she was flat and emotionless and then added, “Between that and the 100K in the business account, you should be able to go anywhere you want.”

“How can you afford this?” Dave asked, confused.

“I got a loan.” she said then walked out the door of the store.

It didn’t matter, he finally considered. Between the house bills, the store bills, and whatever loan she had taken out, she’d find him and come to him, tail between her legs, begging him to take her back when the bank seized their house. She couldn’t make it without him. The store would fail. She couldn’t make a sale to save her life or her precious San Diego lifestyle.

He looked at the check and smiled and spent the rest of his downtime looking for properties in Texas and Arizona. Shit, with 600K, he could retire now without the expense of San Diego and Pam spending every spare dime they had.

***

She wouldn’t answer his texts or return his phone calls.

He needed her. Between dinners out, property taxes, utilities, and hiring a cleaning service to keep his house up, he had $50,000 left.

After getting his bag from baggage claim at the airport, he made the familiar drive to their house, got out of his rented Corvette, silver, not black like his own, walked up the walkway and knocked on the door. The house was completely different—a dark blue instead of the light grey it had always been, the yard no longer had grass, and he rolled his eyes seeing the solar panels on the roof. He had told her not to do that but of course the bitch wouldn’t listen to him. He wondered where her Outback was and then remembered without his Corvette, she would have room to park in the garage.

Robin answered the door and embraced him. “Hey Dad. It’s good to see you.”

It figures, he thought. Robin was definitely his mother’s son and had to move back home.

“Come on in,” Robin said.

“DAVE! Hi!” Kendall said, looking excited and very, very pregnant as she waddled over to him to give him a hug.

After pleasantries were over and he accepted Kendall’s invitation to stay for dinner, he looked around at all the changes. “Where’s your mom?”

“Living in Encinitas now. She gave us the house.”

“What?”

Robin smiled and shrugged. “I know, right. I was surprised too. I guess she won the lotto after you two divorced. She gave the store to Ernesto and his son is running it.”

The excitement she had that night before she turned on him. Fuck. She had found out she won that night and was trying to tell him that. She couldn’t get away with that. It was half his money, California being a community property state. “Call her. She won’t answer for me,” he demanded.

Robin nodded and pulled his phone out. “Mom? Dad wants to talk to you.”

Dave grabbed the phone away from him, “Look. Half that money is mine.”

Again, the flat voice she used at the end there. “No it isn’t. I didn’t claim it until our divorce was finalized.” And then the line went dead.

“Call her back,” he demanded as he handed the phone back to Robin and he shook his head no.

“I don’t think she wants to talk to you.”

“Is she okay?”

“She seems happy but that’s Mom, right? She’s always happy,” Robin replied.

“Is she married again?” Dave couldn’t imagine that she wouldn’t be. She might be an airhead, but she had excelled at being a housewife. And she was a handsome woman, not the gorgeous girl he had married, no. That had given way to regal and handsome in her mid-40s.

Kendall shook her head no. “She isn’t married or dating anyone as far we know.”

“Did she buy a big house somewhere with her winnings?” It would be just like her to spend everything she'd won.

Robin laughed. “She gave us this one because she said it was too much space to take care of. She bought a lot in Encinitas with a beach view and one of those weird tiny homes. It’s kind of cool, the way she had it outfitted.”

“How much did she win?” Dave asked.

“She won’t answer that question with anything more than, ‘enough’.”

Robin’s phone rang and Dave watched him answer it and then hand it to him. “It’s Mom. She wants to talk to you.”

In that same flat voice, she asked, “How much money do you need?”

“What makes you think I need money?” he replied defensively.

“Because I can’t think of any other reason you’d show up unannounced at our old house five years after leaving it behind.”

“It’s not as cheap in Texas as I thought it would be,” Dave admitted.

“I’ll text you my address. Come on over when you’re done visiting with Robin and I’ll write you a check. I won’t help out anymore, though, so you’re going to have to get a job or find a woman with a fat wallet.”

“Half of that lottery win is mine,” Dave asserted.

“It would have been if Forged in Fire and Dr. Pimple Popper hadn’t been more interesting than listening to me for a change. But it didn’t go that…”

“It’s half mine,” he said angrily. “You won that before we divorced.”

“Good luck proving it.”

“The date…”

“I’ll just say I didn’t check the ticket until I saw the news report that there was an unclaimed lotto ticket out there that was purchased where I purchased mine.”

“I’ll them you told me.”

“You’d be lying under oath, and I’ll testify to that. Either come and get your check or don’t. I don’t give a shit what you choose.”

He heard the text notification and sighed. After dinner, he followed the sat-nav instructions and ended up at Pam’s place. He knew it was hers from the shitty, old Outback. He wondered why she didn’t buy something more appropriate for her, winning the lottery and being a spendthrift like she was.

She was already outside with a check in her hand. Silently, she handed it to him, nodded, and walked back inside her home.

He looked at the check. Two-hundred thousand dollars. Fuck, Pam. How much did you win?  

He knocked on her door and saw her flanked by a big dog. She had wanted a dog, had begged him for one through the years and he always said no; she wasn’t a good enough housekeeper to keep on the mess a dog would make.

“You going to stand there wasting my time or are you going to say something?” she asked in the same flat tone she’d been using with him since before the divorce papers were served.

“I’m not happy,” Dave started, “I’m miserable without you.”

She nodded and then shrugged. “You were miserable with me as well. Have you considered that it’s not me you hated at the end there, that it’s you? That you don’t have the capacity for happiness?” With that, she looked at him sadly, nodded again and closed the door.

He knocked on the door again and she didn’t answer it. He stood there and waited, and his phone dinged. “Get off my property or I’ll call the police.”

He texted back, “How much did you win?”

“Enough.” came back.

And he understood what she meant by that simple word. Enough. Enough to live comfortably with an ocean view. Enough to get herself a dog. Enough to not need him. Enough to not have to put up with him anymore. Enough to give him what he’d been asking for—his freedom to leave San Diego.

Dave Dearborn loathed his life.