His Third Wife

Jamison didn’t respond. It was customary that he not do so for so many reasons.

“You coming back here to see about these girls? Compliments of the house,” Emmit asked as Jamison got up from his stool.

“No, big brother. I’m headed out to my car to sleep this off,” Jamison said.

“Suit yourself,” Emmit said. “And make sure you sleep in the passenger’s seat.”

“I got you.”

“Desperate Housewives”

Jamison woke up to sedans rolling past him filled with people on their way to church. The sun was up and bright, making everything outside of the front window of his car carry a white light around its edges. The inside of his car was warm and the pool of sweat that had been gathering on the leather beneath where he’d rested his head on the passenger’s seat would be dry in minutes once he was behind the wheel.

Most of the cars that had lined the street outside of Brother Renaldo’s house were gone, but some still remained. He checked to see if he could spot Scoot’s truck or Emmit’s Porsche, but neither was in sight. After looking at the time, he knew he’d missed a meeting and two church appearances. He didn’t have to look at his phone to see how many times Leaf and probably a few other people, including his mother, had called. He just turned on the car and drove home.

He walked into the kitchen, where Val was moving around trying hard not to look like she was waiting for him.

It was a little after 10 AM, but she was fully dressed. And not in church clothes. She’d started wearing these floral-print shorts and slacks with matching tank tops he’d seen some of the other women wearing in the neighborhood. Today the shorts were pink and white and green. The tank top was lime green. None of it looked good on Val. It was the kind of stuff Kerry might wear. Jamison figured Val was trying to fit in, maybe appear the way she thought she should look, being his wife—that’s what his publicist, Muriel, had instructed Val to do after suggesting she get a stylist. Val, of course, took offense to this and went about doing the work herself. She’d asked about having her auburn hair weave removed: “It doesn’t look like the mayor’s wife. Does it?” Jamison had just shrugged. He agreed but didn’t know what else she could do with her hair. If she even had any on her head. She was always wearing wigs and weaves.

“Leaf called you three times. He came by here like an hour ago,” Val said, removing the hot water kettle from the stove. Lorna was off on weekends. “Your mother called twice, too. I didn’t pick up though. Didn’t think she was trying to hear my voice.”

Jamison put his keys and cell phone on the counter where he always left them and continued walking toward the staircase to get upstairs.

“Jamison!” Val called, but it sounded more like shriek.

This little scene, short as it was, mirrored how most of their days had been together since the day at the courthouse a month ago. Val tried to pull Jamison into some exchange that was disguised as being casual, with no expectations. Jamison built an impenetrable fortress around himself that was meant to alienate, divide, evoke purposeful silence. The only time the husband and wife, mother and father, were engaged in anything that was decidedly communicative was when Val waved her white flag in the middle of the night and jumped on top of him to hear him breathe heavy sighs into her ear.

But more and more, Val was wondering why she was waving any flag. What she’d done to be losing so miserably at a war. Or what the war was. Well, she knew what the war was. But shouldn’t he be over that by now?

Jamison heard his name, so he stopped walking. He turned around. He was unbuttoning his shirt. He looked at Val but never asked why she’d called him.

The silence nearly humiliated Val, standing there in her lime green tank top and floral print pants.

“Did you hear me?”

Jamison frowned before he was forced to speak. “About what?”

Val pondered before she answered. “About anything? I’ve been talking to you—I keep talking to you. It’s like you don’t hear me.”

“About Leaf? My mother? I’ll call them both back when I get out of the shower.” Jamison was about to turn back around.

“It’s not just about that,” Val said. “It’s everything. You don’t hear me about anything.”

Jamison’s expression was as serious as a doctor’s when giving a grim diagnosis. “I ignore you,” he said.

Val wasn’t ready to hear what she knew.

“Why?” she asked.

“I don?

??t know. The sky is blue?” Jamison laughed wickedly.

“Don’t do that.”

“You won, Val. You got pregnant. You got married.”

“And you?”