Hall Pass: Returning Home

Returning home was exactly what she needed.

I couldn’t believe it. I tried not to look at the other neighbors as the fourteen-year-old put the last mattress into the back of the truck.

“Thanks Dwayne,” my husband said without feeling embarrassed.

“Yeah, I saw you struggling there,” Dwayne laughed.

“Yeah, it was getting the better of me,” Lawrence smirked.

“We have to get going,” I insisted, stopping Lawrence from embarrassing us even more.

“Tell Chase I said goodbye,” Dwayne waved.

“We will,” Lawrence said.

I got into the passenger seat and buried my head.

“What’s wrong with you?” Lawrence asked as we pulled away.

“You!” I exclaimed.

My high school and college friends would be laughing at me. Here I was, Tiffany Hail, head cheerleader and the bane of most men, married to a man who couldn’t lift a twin mattress into the bed of a pickup truck.

I dated the middle linebacker in high school, and in college, there wasn’t a male on campus that I couldn’t get, including most of the male faculty members.

“What, not this again,” Lawrence rolled his eyes.

Since the kids had all left the roost, it was dawning on me how low I had settled.

I had been so caught up in being a mom, with after-school activities and baking events and all the other things, that I hadn’t noticed what a loser my husband truly was, from doing house chores to going out on dates to even talking with some other husbands in the neighborhood. I had the worst husband.

“It was a twin mattress,” I said. “I carried it down the stairs! By Myself!”

We were donating most of the kids’ stuff to charity and had just finished the last room.

“And I carried the chest and the computer table,” I said, looking in the back at everything. I named some things I had put into the truck’s bed.

“It’s called low testosterone,” Lawrence said. “It happens to many men; the doctor told us about it.”

“A mattress?” I sighed.

“Tiffany, is this going to be an ongoing thing?” Lawrence stared at me. “I can’t help what is happening to me. You think I like it?”

“No,” I shook my head.

I knew I shouldn’t blame Lawrence; it wasn’t his fault, but many other things were dawning on me outside his physical limitations.