Page 22 of The Wives

I watch as she sets the bags down and reaches up to pat her hair, something my grandmother used to do when she was nervous. I get a whiff of her perfume: Estée Lauder something or the other.

“We’re gossiping about you, Mom, were your ears burning?” She touches her ear, frowning.

“Where’s Seth?” she asks. “We haven’t seen him in weeks.”

My husband is being someone else’s husband tonight.

“He’s in Portland till Thursday.”

She knows this, I told her yesterday when she called, asking about his whereabouts. She likes to rub in the fact that he puts work before me. I take a sip of my drink, the bubbles fizzing close to my nose. In her mind, it is because I don’t wife hard enough. She once told me that the fact I had a job was probably driving Seth to be away more.

“How do you figure that?” I’d asked her.

“He feels like he needs to compete with you, work more. A woman’s place is in her home. And your father never let a business meeting keep him from being home for dinner on time,” she’d said.

My father doesn’t even know where the bottle opener is, I want to say to her. I think about the last dinner I made for Seth—hadn’t he opened the bottle of wine that was sitting on the table? Yes, and he knew in which drawer I kept the corkscrew.

“You should really think about joining a gym to keep yourself busy.” Ah, we’ve moved on to ridiculing my body. She rinses her hands under the faucet, glancing back to eye my thighs. I push up on my toes, lifting my thighs off the seat of the chair so they don’t look so wide.

“Seth is doing what a man should do,” my father chides my mother. “Working hard to build his future, to be a good provider.” My father—sticking up for me and promoting patriarchy all in one sentence. Bravo!

I smile at him gratefully, anyway. I have more mommy issues than daddy ones. It doesn’t matter that I have the trust fund and a stable job that pays the mortgage on our condo, Seth is the one working to provide for his family—three of them actually.

“Of course,” my mother says quickly. “It would just be nice if we could see him every once in a while. Michael was over here last weekend with your sister. He got a promotion and bought her a new BMW. They’re going to Greece for their three-year anniversary.” My mother announces all of this like it’s her who got the car and is going to Greece. This is my normal; I live in the shade of my sister’s great big life. If I’d had a baby first, she’d be living in mine, but alas, that was never in the cards for me.

“I have to get back to work. I’ll leave you two hens to your girl stuff.” He kisses my mother on the cheek before removing himself to his study.

“Girl stuff,” I say out loud. “Should we be fertilizing eggs or cooking them?”

She hears the disgust in my voice and immediately shushes me. “You know what he means.”

“Mom,” I sigh. “I actually do...that’s what upsets me.”

She looks at me sharply, the cat-eye glasses she’s wearing catching the light from the window.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” she says.

She’s right. I would never normally say things like this. Hannah has gotten into me...and Regina. Deep, deep, deep into me. I stare down at my half-empty glass of Diet Coke, tears stinging my eyes, then I reach up gingerly to touch my almost-healed ear. You could give your all to a man, every last thing, and you’d still end up with a bruised ear. Why had I sought out Seth’s other wives? I’ve ruined everything. But for whom? I ask myself. You or Seth? Now nothing seems fair, not even my parents’ marriage. I am falling apart, picking at my relationship like it’s a scab. I think of Regina’s messages to Will. I’ve poured through them over the last few days, reading them over and over till I have her writing style memorized. She is to the point but flirtatious, paying attention to the little things he says. Addicted to the details. Is that because Seth is too preoccupied with three relationships to notice the details? Regina, who placed herself on a dating website, who is eagerly writing messages to a man named Will just because he is saying all the right things. Am I next? Will I become so disillusioned by my marriage that I’ll seek relationships elsewhere? If only my baby hadn’t died. There would be no Hannah, Regina would be the distant, pizza-ordering wife and I would have all of Seth. I failed him in the most important way and he had to go to someone else to give him what I couldn’t.

My mother sets down a plate of salad in front of me, the cherry tomatoes from her garden an angry red among all the green. There is still a chance for me. I could expose Regina for what she is. Seth would see that I have his best interest at heart, that I am his true champion. He didn’t realize how much of a toll this lifestyle was taking on him: the angry outbursts were just one of the ways his stress was manifesting. It wouldn’t matter that I couldn’t give him children. I would leave Hannah to that. And besides, she would be preoccupied with their baby. Aren’t new mothers notorious for neglecting their men once they have a tiny person to take care of? I would step in where she failed.

My mind is made up. I know what I have to do. If I can’t beat Hannah, I will beat Regina. Take the nest from three to two.

Hi, Regina,

I love Tom Waits. Saw him in concert a few years ago. It was probably my favorite concert of all time. I’m sorry to hear about your marriage. My sister got a divorce last year and she’s still a mess about it. I’m glad you’re okay and ready to get back out there again! His loss is my gain. If you don’t mind me asking, what was the reason you decided to end things? Do you have any regrets about your marriage? As for me, I haven’t had a serious relationship in a while. I’ve thrown myself into my work these last few years. But I’m ready to settle down (I think). Will be visiting my sister in Montana this weekend—what are you doing?

Talk soon,

Will

THIRTEEN

Pathetic. I can’t even get having a fight with my husband right.

I replay our conversation over in my head, the one we had after I left my parents’ house. I’d called Seth as soon as I pulled out of their driveway. I wanted to tell him how great our time had been together, how much I enjoyed being with him the other night, but he sent me to voice mail. He called back twenty minutes later when I was walking into the elevator of our building.

“Hey,” he’d said. “I was on the phone...” His voice had cut out and as I held the phone closer to my ear I heard the word “...parents...”

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