Tiger King [excerpt]

I was walking across the quad on a campus I didn’t recognize. Emma, a little girl again, was with me, dancing and playing in the grass. Hearing a large commotion behind me, I turned. A herd of animals had escaped from the zoo. They were charging onto the quad. Seeing that some of the animals were dangerous, I had to do something quick! As I looked for a path of retreat that would avoid the elephants and the giraffes, I spotted a tiger. Where is Emma? Turning in a panic, I saw her standing thirty feet away, looking very afraid. The tiger hadn’t seen her yet, but it was eyeing me, pacing, getting ready to charge. What should I do? If I sprinted in the opposite direction, I could draw the tiger away from Emma, but I would have to sacrifice myself. That would also leave her exposed to the other animals. If I made a running grab for her, I was pretty sure the tiger would catch us both. Without turning to look at her, I shouted, telling her what to do. “Emma, when I get the tiger to chase me, I want you to run for the building.” I drew the tiger’s attention and started running as fast as possible, hoping that Emma had run to safety.

Around 9:30 AM I picked up Emma from her father’s house. Half awake, sloughing off her winter gear, she shuffled her way into Bill's living room, where she took her usual place in the big stuffed chair. Charlie, our Yorkshire puppy, leapt to his place in her lap, as she opened her laptop and logged into biology class. Emma hated online school. After bringing her the blueberry smoothie I whipped up every morning, I settled onto the love seat. Grabbing my MacBook, I brought up the philosophy paper I had delivered last summer at the conference in Vienna. I was editing it for publication, but had lost all steam. As the weeks in isolation passed by, I got the sense it would never again see the light of day, along with my larger dissertation, from which the paper was taken. All the added tasks brought on by the pandemic left little time—ordering and sterilizing groceries, preparing three meals a day, with no option to eat out, and overseeing Emma’s online schooling. 

Emma had sunk into depression as many kids did. Given her ADHD, asking her to attend school online, was asking too much. It quickly became a nightmare. Every day she struggled to keep track of assignments and class times. Throwing off the laptop, she expressed frustration. "I can't do this! I can't calm my thoughts enough to focus--not when people are dying, Mom!"

After COVID had claimed the life of a sweet, elderly uncle on her father's side, I started silencing the radio whenever Emma came within hearing shot. I couldn't stand to see the panic seize her breath and freeze her face. The news only undermined her already fragile sense of security.

Worried, I wrote countless emails to teachers and her guidance counselors, trying to enlist their understanding. “Emma is having a hard time. She’s falling behind. I don’t want to press her too much or cause her more anxiety.” Most teachers were supportive, patient, and willing to work with her. 

Just after 5:00 PM Abe arrived to take her home. Abe is my previous husband. I met him in grad shcool. We divorced nine years ago. Each evening, as he stood by the door waiting for Emma to gather her belongings, I updated him on Emma’s progress, as if I was his secretary rather than her mother. I hid how it demoralized me. Ever since Emma went to live with her father, my parental role felt compromised. Closing the door behind them, I grabbed a glass of wine and retreated to my writing desk upstairs, at which point Bill, my current husband, would descend for his dinner.  

During the days I made large batches of soup, pizzas for Emma's lunch, salads, homemade spaghetti sauce, clam chowder, beef stew, and shepherd's pie. All through the lockdown, food prep was relentless. Tonight as Bill and I passed on the stairs, I recited the menu du jour, “There’s broiled salmon, sautéed spinach and pine nuts, and left over potato au-gratin. I hope you’re not too sick of it. Oh, I almost forgot, there's a salad in the back of the fridge.” 

“Thank you, Mar Mar. It sounds delicious.” I had to give Bill credit, he always thanked me. 

After Bill had finished his meal and returned upstairs to his study, I ate dinner alone as I contemplated the rest of my evening. I could work on my paper, stream something, or…read? Back in the living room, feeling exhausted, I pushed the laptop aside. Night after night, TV filled the vacancy left by Bill and Emma. In just under a month, I had finished all three seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale. I needed a new show to take its place—something insightful, cathartic, but less violent…anything to take my mind off things. I was hedging, constructing a protective barrier between me and my unbearable reality, as I searched for some strategy to get free of my marriage. I couldn’t imagine how I would overcome all the challenges that stopped me leaving Bill. I kept cycling around to the same place. 

I've lost my income, I have no resources, we're in the middle of a pandemic... maybe it’s best to stay put and wait it out. 

I scrolled through my options on the TV screen. Nothing leapt out at me. so I resumed watching the Tiger King, the reality TV series about big-game petting-zoos and their owners. Released during the early days of the pandemic, it quickly became a social media sensation, a kind of collective diversion from COVID’s escalating numbers. I admit, at first, I foundTiger King’s soap-opera theatrics entertaining, a form of comic relief, but I quickly noticed the misogyny on display, all the rivalry and scapegoating—why is this so alluring? It can’t be healthy. The blame-game tactics gave me the shivers… but that wasn’t the only reason—watching the pent-up tigers prowl around in cages made me anxious. Sooner or later, someone was bound to get hurt. I switched it off.

That night, I dreamt about the tiger.

In our next Zoom session with Stephanie, I recounted the dream. She waited for my interpretation. Sure enough, I started connecting dots that led from the present to the past.

“I remember something that happened thirteen years ago, when Emma was little, when I was married to Abe, Emma’s father. We had a terrible argument.” 

Unclenching my hands to brace the seat of my chair, I described it aloud for the first time.

***

Abe came home much later than planned. When I complained about being left alone to care for Emma without a break, he exploded. I should have know better,

Abe exploded. "I don't have to answer to you. I was working. What were you doing? Nothing of value, that's for sure."

Startled, I retreated to the bedroom. He followed me, picked up a bed pillow and gripped it in both hands. Terrified, I ran from the room, but Abe chased me down, the pillow held to his chest. Heading towards Emma's room, to grab her and escape, like I had done countless times before, I tripped and landed on all fours, just feet from the door where Emma was napping. 

Abe crouched down next to me and raised the pillow in the air, he slurred his speech.

“I'm so sick of you.”

I curled up as best I could, wrapping my arms over my head. Emma, nearly three years old, emerged from the bedroom, rubbing her eyes still groggy from sleep, she saw us, stopped and turned rigid. I tried to shield myself as Abe brought the pillow down over and over again, pounding the floor next to my head, while spewing a relentless stream of anger. 

"I'm sick of your complaints."   

He had been violent before, but this time, I knew Abe was might kill me in front of our daughter. Miraculously, he stopped, got up and started pacing the room like a big cat circling its prey. My one thought was to protect my daughter. I crawled to a nearby table, where I reached up, grabbed and muted my phone. Hiding my actions, I dialed 911. 

When Abe heard me speaking to the operator, I thought for sure Abe would come back to strangle me, but instead his large frame collapsed on the couch, still angry but visibly shrinking before my eyes. Abe reproached me in an angry, but hollow voice. 

“You shouldn't have done that. Do you know what this means?”

Crawling to Emma, I pulled the child close--shaking, sobbing, I remained on the phone with the operator. “Please don’t hang up, I’m afraid. Please tell them to come right away. My daughter's just a toddler, my daughter is with me.”  

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All characters and their particulars found in the book Pillow Talk are based in reality, but do not correspond with actual persons, places, or events.