My Lovely Wife

I walk around the house, checking all the doors and windows. I even go into the garage, looking for signs of rodents or bugs or water damage. I go out into the backyard and check the side gate. I do the same in the front yard, and then I go around the house again, relocking all the doors.

Millicent used to do this, especially after Rory was born. We were living in the run-down rental, and every night she walked around locking all the doors and windows. She would sit down for a few minutes, then get up and do it all over again.

“This isn’t a dangerous neighborhood,” I told her. “No one is going to break in.”

“I know.” She got up again.

Eventually, I decided to follow her. I fell in lockstep behind her and mimicked every move she made. First, I got the glare, the real one.

When I still didn’t stop, she slapped me.

“You’re not funny,” she said.

I was too stunned to speak. I had never been slapped by a woman. I hadn’t even been spanked, not even playfully. But since I had just mocked my wife, I threw up my hands and apologized.

“You’re only sorry because you got slapped,” Millicent said. She whipped around, went into the bedroom, and locked the door.

I spent the night thinking she was going to leave me. She was going to take my son and just go, because I had ruined everything. Extreme, yes. But Millicent does not put up with shit, period. Once, when we were dating, I said I would call her at a certain time, and I didn’t. She didn’t speak to me for more than a week. Wouldn’t even pick up the phone.

She came back to me that time. But I had no doubt that if I pissed Millicent off enough, she would just leave. And one time she did.

Rory was one and a half, Jenna was six months old, and Millicent and I spent all day, every day, juggling the kids and our jobs. One day, I woke up, exhausted again, and realized I was twenty-seven years old with a wife, two kids, and a brand-new mortgage.

All I wanted was a break. A temporary reprieve from all that responsibility. I went out with the guys, and I got so drunk they had to carry me into the house. When I woke up the next day, Millicent was gone.

She did not answer her phone. She was not at her office. Her parents said she was not with them. Millicent had only a few close friends, and none had heard from her. She had vanished, and she had taken my kids with her.

After three or four days, I was calling her phone every hour. I e-mailed, I texted, I became the most insane version of myself I had ever been. It wasn’t because I was worried about her. I knew she was fine, and I knew my children were fine. I went crazy because I thought she, they, were gone forever.

Eight days went by. Then she was back.

I had fallen asleep late, sprawled out on the unmade bed littered with pizza boxes and assorted plates, cups and random food packages. I woke up to a garbage-free bed and the smell of pancakes.

Millicent was in the kitchen, making breakfast. Rory was at the table, in his high chair, and Jenna was in her bassinet. Millicent turned to me and smiled. It was real.

“Perfect timing,” she said. “Breakfast is just about ready.”

I ran over to Rory and picked him up, holding him high in the air until he squealed. I kissed Jenna, who stared up at me with her dark eyes. I sat down at the table, afraid to speak. Afraid I was in a dream, and I didn’t want to wake up.

Millicent brought a full stack of pancakes over to the table. As she set them down, she leaned in close, so that her mouth was right next to my ear, and she whispered:

“We won’t come back a second time.”

I have spent our entire marriage with no choice but to believe her. Yet I still slept with Petra.

And the other one.

Eight

When I get home from work, Millicent and the kids are there. Rory is lying on the couch, playing a video game. Millicent is standing over him, hands on hips, her face hard-set. Behind her, Jenna is moving her phone back and forth, trying to take a selfie in front of the window. The TV screen casts a glow over all of them. For a second, they are frozen, a portrait of modern life.

Millicent’s glare shifts from Rory to me. Her eyes are the darkest of green.

“Do you know,” she says, “what our son did today?”

Rory’s baseball cap is pulled down low over his eyes and face. It doesn’t completely hide his smirk.

“What did our son do today?” I ask.

“Tell your father what you did.”

Jenna answers for him. “He cheated on a test with his phone.”

“Go to your room,” Millicent says.

My daughter walks out. She giggles all the way up the stairs and slams her bedroom door.

“Rory,” I say, “what happened?”

Silence.

“Answer your father.”

I do not like it when Millicent tells our son how to act toward me, but I say nothing.

Millicent snatches the game controller out of Rory’s hand. He sighs and finally speaks.

“It’s not like I’m going to be a botanist. If I ever need to know about photosynthesis, I’ll look it up, the same way I did today.” He looks at me, eyes wide, silently saying, “Right?”

I want to agree, because he is kind of right. But I’m the father.

“He’s been suspended for three days,” Millicent says. “He’s lucky he wasn’t kicked out.”

If they kicked him out of private school, he would be placed in a public school. I do not remind Millicent of this while she is doling out our son’s punishment.

“… no phone, no video games, no Internet. You come straight home after school, and, don’t worry, I’ll check.”

She whips around and clicks down the hall to the garage. She is wearing her flesh-colored heels.

After I hear her car start, I sit down next to my son. He has Millicent’s red hair, but his green eyes are lighter. Open.

“Why?”

He shrugs. “It was just easier.”

I get it. Sometimes it’s just easier to go along with things. It’s easier than breaking it all up and starting from scratch.

“You can’t cheat,” I say.

“But you do.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I hear you sneak out.”

He is right. I have been sneaking out in the night because I cannot sleep. “Sometimes I go for a drive.”

Rory snickers. “Do I look like a moron?”

“No.”

“Dad, I saw you sneak back into the house wearing a suit. Who puts on a suit to go out for a drive?”

I haven’t worn a suit since I was with Petra.

“You know I spend a lot of evenings at the club. Networking is part of the job.”

“Networking.” He says this with no small amount of irony.

“I am not cheating on your mother,” I say. And it’s almost true.

“You’re a liar.”

I start to tell Rory I’m not, but realize this is useless. I start to deny that I am cheating, but realize it’s also useless. My son is too smart.

I wish I could explain it to him, but I can’t. So I become the hypocrite.

“We aren’t talking about me,” I say.

He rolls his eyes, says nothing.

“And I never cheated in school. I mean, what if one day the zombie apocalypse arrives and you escape to an island to start a whole new civilization and you have to grow plants? Don’t you think photosynthesis would be a helpful thing to know?”