The Millionaire Claims His Wife

“That’s it,” she’d said, “take the spider’s side instead of mine!”

“Are you nuts? I’m not taking—”

“You just think how you’d feel, if you’d come in here, turned on the light and found that—that thing waiting for you!”

“It wasn’t ‘waiting’ for you. It was minding its own business.”

“It was waiting for me,” Annie had insisted, “tapping its eight trillion feet and waiting for—”

Chase had snorted. “Eight trillion feet?” he’d said, choking back his laughter, and suddenly Annie had started to laugh, too, and the next thing he’d known, his wife was in his arms.

“I know it’s dumb,” she’d said, laughing and crying at the same time, “but I’m scared of spiders. Especially big ones.”

“Big?” Chase had said, cupping her face in his hands and smiling into her eyes. “Hey, that thing was big enough to eat Chicago.” He’d stopped smiling then, and told her what was in his heart, that his anger had only been a cover-up for the fear he’d felt when he’d heard her scream, that if he ever lost her—that if he ever lost her, his life would have no meaning...

“Hi.”

He swung around. Annie was standing in the doorway, smiling, and only force of will kept him from going to her, taking her in his arms, and telling her that—telling her that...

“Sorry I took so long, but I lost track of the time.”

Chase expelled his breath and looked away from her.

“Were you gone long?” he said, with a casualness he didn’t feel. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“I walked through the woods.” Annie came closer, peered over his shoulder at the potatoes and onions and picked up a paring knife. “This is some beautiful place. I hate to think of it overrun with guys in three-piece suits.”

Chase forced a smile to his lips. “They won’t wear three-piece suits when they come here. They’ll wear plaid Bermudas, black socks and wing tips.”

Annie laughed, picked up a potato and began peeling it. “Same difference.” They worked in silence for a few minutes, and then she spoke again. “I saw an interesting spider on the deck.”

Chase looked up. “That’s strange. I was just thinking about... Did you say, ‘interesting’?”

“Uh-huh. It was...” She hesitated. “It was big. You know. Impressive.”

“Impressive, huh? And you didn’t scream? Seems to me I can remember the days when creepy crawlies weren’t exactly your favorite creatures.”

Annie blew an errant curl off her forehead. “They still aren’t. But I took this course last year...”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“It was about insects,” she said with dignity.

That did surprise him. “You? Taking a course about bugs?”

Annie flushed. “Well, why not? I figured it was stupid to be scared of things with more than four legs. I decided, maybe if I understood them better, I might not jump at the sight of an ant.”

“And?”

She shot him a sideways look and an embarrassed smile. “And, I learned to respect creepy crawlies like crazy. There are a heck of a lot more of them than there are of us, and they’ve been here longer.”

Chase nodded. “I can almost hear the ‘but’ that’s coming.”

She laughed and reached for another potato. “But, I’m still not in the mood for a one-to-one relationship with anything that needs eight legs to cross a room.”

Chase grinned. “It’s nice to know that some things never change.”

Annie’s smile dimmed. “Yes. Yes, it is.”

They worked in silence for a couple of minutes, Annie peeling potatoes, Chase slicing onions, and then Chase spoke.

“Annie?”

“Mmm?”

“I, ah, I wanted to tell you... I just hope you know...” He swallowed. “I didn’t mean what I said before. About you taking all those courses to take digs at me, I mean.”

Annie felt her cheeks redden. “That’s okay.”

“No. It’s not okay. I know you enjoy learning all that stuff. The poetry, the art... It’s just not my thing. Heck, if I’d had to take anything but the minimum liberal arts stuff to get my engineering degree, I’d never have managed. I’d probably still be digging ditches for a living.”

Annie smiled and shook her head. “You know that’s not true.” She glanced at him, then put all her concentration on the potato she was peeling. “Anyway, maybe—maybe there was some truth to what you said. I mean, I didn’t pick those things to study because I thought they’d, you know, be about stuff you wouldn’t enjoy. I do like poetry, and art, and all the rest.” She bent her head so that her hair fell around her face, shielding it from his view. “But I have to admit, when you looked puzzled about some eighteenth century poet, well, it made me feel good.” She looked up suddenly, her eyes bright and shiny. “Not because I felt smarter or anything but because—because it was a way of proving that I could hold my own, you know? That even though I was only a housewife, that didn’t mean I was—”