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23.

Reunited. A quiet night at Nott Cott, preparing dinner together.

December 2016.

Meg and I had discovered that we shared the same favorite food: roast chicken.

I didn’t know how to cook it, so that night she was teaching me.

I remember the warmth of the kitchen, the wonderful smells. Lemon wedges on the cutting

board, garlic and rosemary, gravy¹ bubbling in a saucepan.

I remember rubbing salt on the skin of the bird, then opening a bottle of wine.

Meg put on music. She was expanding my horizons, teaching me about folk music and soul,

James Taylor and Nina Simone.

It’s a new dawn. It’s a new day.

Maybe the wine went to my head. Maybe the weeks of battling the press had worn me down.

For some reason, when the conversation took an unexpected turn, I became touchy².

Then angry. Disproportionately, sloppily³ angry.

Meg said something I took the wrong way. It was partly a cultural difference, partly a language

barrier, but I was also just over-sensitive that night. I thought: Why’s she having a go at me?

I snapped at her, spoke⁴ to her harshly—cruelly. As the words left my mouth, I could feel

everything in the room come to a stop. The gravy stopped bubbling, the molecules⁵ of air stopped

orbiting. Even Nina Simone seemed to pause. Meg walked out of the room, disappearing for a full

fifteen minutes.

I went and found her upstairs. She was sitting in the bedroom. She was calm, but said in a

quiet, level tone that she would never stand for being spoken to like that.

I nodded.

She wanted to know where it came from.

I don’t know.

Where did you ever hear a man speak like that to a woman? Did you overhear adults speak

that way when you were growing up?

I cleared my throat, looked away. Yes.

She wasn’t going to tolerate that kind of partner. Or co-parent. That kind of life. She wasn’t

going to raise children in an atmosphere of anger or disrespect. She laid it all out, super-clear. We

both knew my anger hadn’t been caused by anything to do with our conversation. It came from

somewhere deep inside, somewhere that needed to be excavated⁶, and it was obvious that I could

use some help with the job.

I’ve tried therapy, I told her. Willy told me to go. Never found the right person. Didn’t work.

No, she said softly. Try again.

1 gravy   

n.肉汁；轻易得来的钱，外快

参考例句：

• You have spilled gravy on the tablecloth.你把肉汁泼到台布上了。
• The meat was swimming in gravy.肉泡在浓汁之中。

2 touchy   

adj.易怒的；棘手的

参考例句：

• Be careful what you say because he's touchy.你说话小心，因为他容易生气。
• He's a little touchy about his weight.他对自己的体重感到有点儿苦恼。

3 sloppily   

adv.马虎地，草率地

参考例句：

• Do things neatly, not sloppily. 办事要利落，不要拖泥带水。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Land market after behind-the-scenes plotting concern: how much land can act sloppily? 关注土地市场重重黑幕：有多少土地可以胡来？ 来自互联网

4 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

5 molecules   

分子( molecule的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The structure of molecules can be seen under an electron microscope. 分子的结构可在电子显微镜下观察到。
• Inside the reactor the large molecules are cracked into smaller molecules. 在反应堆里，大分子裂变为小分子。

6 excavated   

v.挖掘( excavate的过去式和过去分词 )；开凿；挖出；发掘

参考例句：

• The site has been excavated by archaeologists. 这个遗址已被考古学家发掘出来。
• The archaeologists excavated an ancient fortress. 考古学家们发掘出一个古堡。 来自《简明英汉词典》