Lights Out

After He Said Cancer | A Memoir

“I am fed up with them,” he said, quickening his pace. He looked straight ahead, eyes narrowed, and face tense.

He hadn’t set such a brisk walking speed in a long time. He was recovering from chemotherapy, but this surge in speed was fueled more by an ongoing irritation with our daughters than a sudden return to health.

“Me too,” I echoed and sped up to keep abreast.

If you saw us on the street, you would see a couple walking a rambunctious yellow labrador, zigzagging from lawn to lawn. That was merely a cover.

Venting and plotting — in secret — was what we were actually doing. This was our time to vent to one another about the many maddening issues that arise from parenting teens. We needed a united front, and this was our time to get on the same page.

We wanted to decompress and strategize how to address issues like mood swings, excessive screen time, messy rooms, unhealthy food choices, and an increasing (healthy) desire for independence.

“Their bathroom has been a pigsty for weeks,” I said, verbalizing what I knew he was thinking. My tolerance for a messy environment was higher than my husband’s. But even for me, they had gone too far.

Clothes were left crumpled on the floor. Sinks clogged with hair. The bathtub drain had a pinkish hue. The garbage can near the toilet was overflowing…The dog had torn out their garbage a few times that week and had eaten God knows what.

We had tried a hands-off approach for a while. How long would it take for them to become disgusted with the state of their bathroom and clean it up? Surely, I thought, they couldn’t go more than a week or two with it looking like this.

I was spectacularly wrong. Not only had they not cleaned it up, but they had moved to other cleaner bathrooms to shower and get ready. Now, these bathrooms were becoming stained with makeup and cluttered with toiletries. Even the drain in the guest bathroom sink was starting to back up – likely cluttered with one daughter’s chestnut brown, near waist-length hair.

Oh, yes. I was furious, too. Our first plan of doing nothing and letting the filth accumulate had failed. The question was, what would be our second course of action?

My husband stopped walking abruptly. He stood quietly for a moment, looking out at the horizon, then took two steps and stopped again. He turned toward me in one smooth motion.