Apples Never Fall

Stan said, “Our girls are athletes, and they grew up with brothers. They’d never put up with it.”

“I don’t think it works like that,” said Joy. “It starts out small. You put up with little things in a relationship and then … the little things gradually get bigger.”

He didn’t answer, and her words floated for too long above their bed. You put up with little things … and then the little things gradually get bigger.

“Like the frog getting boiled to death,” said Stan.

“What?” Joy heard herself sound a little screechy.

Stan kept looking at his book. He flipped a page in the wrong direction and for a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer her, but then he said, his eyes on the page, “You know that theory: if you put a frog in warm water and keep slowly turning up the heat, it doesn’t jump out because it doesn’t realize it’s slowly being boiled to death.”

“I’m sure that’s an urban myth. I’ll google it.” She reached for her phone and glasses.

“Google it quietly,” said Stan. “I need to focus. This bloke just spent three pages yabbering on about his memory of someone’s smile.”

“Let me read it,” said Joy. “I’ll summarize it. Give you the gist.”

“That’s cheating,” said Stan.

“It’s not a test,” sighed Joy, but Stan seemed to think it was a test, set by Amy, to prove his love. There had been a lot of tests set by Amy over the years to prove their love.

Joy didn’t bother to google the poor boiling frog. She flicked through her text messages and thought about texting one or all of the children to let them know that a stray girl had turned up on their doorstep, but she had a feeling this news might be met with disapproval or even dismay. Since they’d sold the tennis school, their children had become increasingly vocal about how they thought Joy and Stan should be leading their lives. They dropped suggestions about package holidays, retirement villages, cruises, multivitamins, and sudoku. Joy tolerated this intervention while never once mentioning the conspicuous lack of grandchildren in her life.

There was one new text from Caro sent earlier in the night: Have you done your homework? She meant the memoir-writing course homework. They had to do an “elevator pitch” where they wrote their life story in just a few paragraphs. She would have to do it, even though she wasn’t going to complete the course. She didn’t want to hurt that peppy little teacher’s peppy little feelings.

No point answering Caro now; she’d be asleep. Savannah would never have chosen Caro’s house as a safe haven, because all the lights went off reliably at nine p.m. each night.

Instead, Joy clicked on an article that her phone predicted would “interest her”: “Forty Sweet Father/Son Moments between Prince William and Prince George.”

She was on the seventh sweet moment between Prince William and Prince George when Stan gave up on the book with a heavy sigh and picked up his iPad, which Troy had given him as a birthday present a few months back. Everyone assumed Stan wouldn’t use it on principle, because wasn’t an iPad pretty close to an iPhone? But apparently not. Stan loved the iPad as much as he loved his laminator. He read the news on his iPad every day because he could make the font nice and big, which he couldn’t do with a newspaper. Troy was inordinately pleased by the success of his present. It was important to him to always win the competition for best gift.

Joy looked over Stan’s shoulder to see what he was reading and scrolled through the same news site on her phone, so she would have read the same articles and would be prepared to set him straight if he attempted to set her straight on a particular issue.

“Stop mansplaining, Dad,” Amy once said at a family dinner.

“He’s Stan-splaining,” Joy had said, and that got a good laugh.

Her thumb stopped.

That specific combination of letters was so familiar it jumped out from the screen as if were her own name: Harry Haddad.

She waited. It took ages. She wondered if he was going to miss it. But then, finally, his body went still.

“You see this?” He held up the iPad. “About Harry?”

“Yes,” said Joy. She kept her tone neutral. It was important to maintain the pretense that their former star student, Harry Haddad, was not a touchy subject, not at all, and that she wasn’t trying to change the subject or, God forbid, offer comfort or sympathy. “Just saw it then.”

“I knew it,” said Stan. “I knew this day would come. I knew he wasn’t done.”

“Did you?” If this were true, which Joy doubted, he’d never once mentioned it, but she didn’t say that. “Huh. Well. That’s going to be very … interesting.”

She waited a moment and then carefully placed her phone facedown on her bedside table, next to her headphones. Her glittery metallic phone case, also a gift from Troy, shimmered like a disco ball under the bedside lamp.

She yawned. It started out fake and ended up genuine. She stretched her arms above her head. Stan turned off his iPad and took off his glasses.

“I wonder what time Savannah will wake up,” she said as she switched off her light and turned on her side. Thank God this poor young girl had chosen to knock on their door, tonight of all nights. She would be a distraction from Harry bloody Haddad. “Did she seem like a morning person to you?”

Stan said nothing. He put down his iPad, switched off his lamp, and rolled onto his side, taking the covers with him as usual. She wrenched them back as usual. His back was warm and comforting against hers, but she could feel the tension that gripped him.