My Neighbor's Husband

“Okay,” I say in a harsh voice. “You’re no longer Mrs. Jones.”

Amelia rolls her eyes.

“I was never Mrs. Jones,” she says in a haughty voice. “You know I never changed my name legally and have always professionally been referred to as Ms. Tinsley.”

I nod.

“Your maiden name suits you. And it suits me just fine too.”

She rolls her eyes.

“I have no idea what that even means, Dane. Don’t make this harder than it has to be. After all, you have your goals and I have mine. They’re no longer compatible, and this is for the best. I realize you didn’t want to be divorced at age thirty, but trust me, neither did I. Life sometimes just leads us in different directions.”

I stare at her. Does she even hear herself? I did so much to support this woman, including working overtime while she got her Ph.D., and putting food on the table as she went onto a years-long postdoc. In fact, she only just got this job at the community college, and it’s the first real job she’s ever had. Her lack of appreciation astonishes me.

Yet, as crazy as it sounds, I was willing to overlook all that if she would give me a child. That’s the straw that broke the camel’s back in our relationship. When I brought up the idea of starting a family, Amelia drew back in horror.

“What?” she sputtered as we sat at the kitchen table. “You can’t be serious.” This was during her post-doc, so we were living a frugal student lifestyle in a cramped apartment with linoleum counters and hand-me-down furniture.

“I am serious,” I said in a tight voice, gesturing to our living room. “I know we don’t have much right now, but we could put the baby’s crib in that corner,” I said, pointing to a space by the couch. “And in the beginning, he or she could even sleep in our bed.”

Amelia squinted, her mouth open, as she stared at me.

“Dane, you can’t be serious. I’m still studying,” she said.

“No, you’re done studying,” I said, my voice firm. “You’re doing your post-doc now, so there aren’t classes, so to say. You’re doing research and in charge of your own schedule. You can schedule a baby in there.”

“Yes, but it would be difficult!” she gasped, her blonde hair held back in a severe ponytail. “I mean, I work a ton of hours on my research, and you work a ton of hours too at your job. Even if we had money, how would we raise a child? What kind of support would we provide for a baby?”

I grimaced.

“Although it may shock you to hear this, plenty of people with less have children. People at the border, who are undocumented immigrants, manage to have children. People in Syria, who live in a war zone, manage to have large families in fact. So it can be done, with a little spit and shoeshine.”

But Amelia just throws me a disgusted look.

“Dane you’re out of your mind. You’re literally comparing us to war zone refugees and undocumented immigrants. Do you hear yourself? They can’t provide for their kids, and their children will likely be stuck in poverty their entire lives. Is that what you’d want for a baby?”

This time, I roll my eyes.

“No, of course not. I’m just saying that we’re not them. We both have college degrees, and I have a full-time job. Soon, you will too so we’ll have two solid salaries. It’s enough to raise a child with. Plus, we’re getting older Amelia. We’re fucking thirty years old now! How much longer are we going to wait? Until your eggs dry up?”

She shot me a frigid smile then.

“My eggs are nowhere near drying up, I assure you,” she said in a cold tone.

But that’s where I begged to differ.

“Female fertility peaks at age twenty-three,” I said in an equally cold tone. “You’re already seven years past that, and frankly, I’m getting tired of waiting. Why are you so hesitant? There’s never a “right” time to have a baby. You’ll never be “fully prepared.” So why not now?”

Amelia merely shut her book with a loud bang and stood up.

“I’m not talking with you about this anymore,” she said in a clipped tone. “I’m not ready to have a baby and that’s that.”

I sat there at the kitchen counter, stunned, as she stalked out and locked herself in our bedroom. Was my wife serious? Was she refusing to talk, as if her decision was the end all-be all? There are two people in this relationship, and I wasn’t going to let her get the last word in just like that.

But Amelia eventually got the final laugh. That encounter was two years ago, and our relationship only went downhill from there. My attempts to bring up the topic were shut down immediately, and pretty soon we didn’t kiss or hold hands anymore. We didn’t talk about anything really, and were basically two ships passing in the night between our two very different schedules.