Page 15 of Such a Good Wife

“So when do I get to read it?” Collin asks.

“Read what?” I ask sharply, my face reddening. I fear, momentarily, that he is talking about Luke’s book, hidden away in my bedside table.

“This story of yours that’s got your head in the clouds,” he says, cheerfully.

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be...distracted with...”

“No. Babe. That wasn’t a complaint. I think I put that the wrong way. I love that you’re doing this. It’s actually...” he pulls me closer and whispers “...kinda sexy.”

I laugh playfully in response, pushing him away.

“I don’t know about that.” I stand and continue to gather the breakfast dishes into a pile at the edge of the table. He glances down at his phone, furrowing his brow. No doubt more news about their recent investment tanking. Ben runs up, dripping water everywhere, and grabs some watermelon. Collin stands to take a work call and steps away from the racket. The topic is officially behind us.

Ralph only moves when necessary, and he takes the opportunity to eat the piece of fruit dangling from Bennett’s hand under the table. Ben wails. He throws the rind at the dog, just missing him. Collin, now inside the sliding screen doors, gives an apologetic look, indicating that he can’t help because he’s on a call, and moves farther away from the noise. I hold Ben’s flailing hands and tell him it’s not okay to throw things at Ralph—that he’s just a little dog and it’s not fair to be mean to him.

He growls in frustration, pulls away from me and kicks over his chair. Rachel knows the drill and gets up to help. Ben kicks the chair over and over, screaming that it’s not fair. Rachel wheels her grandmother inside because now Claire is awake and the corners of her mouth twitch, her fingers grip the sides of her chair and her breathing quickens. She’s fragile, and this sort of chaos unsettles her in her confused state.

Collin has seen that it’s a bad one and comes out to help. Ben swings at me but hits Collin in the back. He’s small so Collin isn’t hurt, but it never gets easier to be hit by your son. For either of us. I have to remember each time that it’s not his fault. Each time I take a moment after it’s over to recite all of the reasons I love him and remind myself that he’s going through something inside that hurts him too, something I’ll never understand. I pray for patience. Each time.

I’ve studied the difference between a meltdown and a temper tantrum. If he’s melting down, he’s completely overwhelmed, and he can’t turn off the emotion. “Usually a tantrum will stop if the child gets what he wants,” I read in one of the dozens of books I bought when we learned Ben was on the spectrum. I admit that I don’t usually know if I’m getting played and he’s having a tantrum to get what he wants, or if it’s out of his control. I ask Collin to grab some more watermelon to test the theory this time. When I try to give it to Ben, he throws it and cries. I guess that means that we are in meltdown territory.

Ralph comes over to comfort Ben, but he gets up and moves to the other side of the deck. Collin gives me a gesture indicating that he’ll go deal with it. I go into the kitchen, scraping breakfast plates into the sink and watch them from the window. They’re sitting on the deck stairs, Ralph in between and Collin reaching behind to gently pat Ben’s back. I love them so much.

I wish that guilt was enough to erase it all. As soon as I dutifully bathe Claire or cuddle with Collin on the couch until he falls asleep and I slip the cell phone from his loose hand and cover him with a blanket—as soon as I make Rachel laugh about something silly before bed and she actually says “I love you, Mom,” and especially when Ben sits gleefully in front of his earned video game time, laughing, happy, that’s when it creeps back in. I feel like no one has been hurt and things are under control. It’s back to the way it was a couple weeks ago, as if nothing happened at all. Then I let myself think about him again. Sometimes late at night, and even though the damage I’ve caused is invisible, it’s there, like the wind.

The rise and fall of Collin’s sleeping chest next to me should be the only reason I need to shun all of this from my mind, but just sometimes, safely, in the dark, I let my thoughts wander to fantasies of Luke Ellison. And not always the sex either. Sometimes I have to wonder if that part was real. It feels so otherworldly.

What would a life with Luke look like? A month in Italy writing a book. I see us there together, ordering mimosas from room service, making love in the morning, and spending sunny days on the veranda overlooking the sea. I know how stupid it is. It sounds obnoxious, naive even to say out loud. Does anyone really have that life? It looks like he does. He did exactly the opposite of what I did. He kept after the pipe dream. He didn’t marry, buy a house and have kids like the rest of the world. He valued good red wine, world travel and artistic pursuits over the minutiae of the domestic day-to-day.

To him, my world looks like snippets of television commercials. A couple enjoying their new elaborate deck extension behind their town house with friends while the kids play on a jungle gym their father built. Where the ladies wear khaki capris and blouses and carry out bowls of fruit salad and shrimp cocktail while the men stand around a propane grill, holding cans of Budweiser and poking at meat patties on the grill. To him, it’s probably a sad cliché.

Maybe that’s why he did it. It’s a life so foreign and far away from his own—why not sleep with a married woman? There are no consequences for him. I feel a sharp prick of anger at this realization. All of those sickly sweet compliments and longing looks. It was likely nothing more than his version of a one-liner, not a real connection.

Collin shifts and drapes a heavy arm sleepily over my hip. I lace his fingers between mine and kiss the top of his hand. The fantasy fades as the remorse resurfaces. How long will this go on?

In the morning, I busy myself with mundane tasks. I empty the dishwasher, fold a basket of laundry and make a fresh pot of coffee. The kids have been back in school a week, and sudden freedom during the day is ill-timed. There are no distractions. Claire is sitting in the sunroom with an afghan. God knows why. It’s ninety-four degrees outside, but she likes to stay covered. As I sit at the counter writing a grocery list and thinking about what Collin would like for dinner, I notice Claire looking at me, staring, actually. I am probably mistaken, but it looks like she’s glaring at me. I smile at her. The corners of her mouth turn up in something resembling a smile, and then she looks away. It makes me uneasy. Being in the house is suffocating, so I ask her if she needs anything before heading out, and I hurry out of the house for air.

Driving around town feels dangerous. It’s so small that it’s very possible I might run into Luke, unless of course he’s already flitted off abroad to write his romance novel. I stop at the bank, the cleaners, then sit at a café to eat some lunch. A café dangerously close to the bar we had drinks at only a few weeks ago. Am I looking for him?

I’m sitting outside midday in this heat, so I must be. I must be ill, acting like this—almost involuntarily wanting more. Beads of sweat collect across my shoulders and drip down my back; my dress is becoming translucent with sweat. I feel like a character in one of his books. A housewife, a heaving, sweaty housewife, out on the prowl for hot, anonymous sex. But it wasn’t anonymous, was it? We shared laughter, life goals, fears and even family. I ended up telling him about my sweet Ben. It was as intimate as it could possibly be.

And what has he been doing all these weeks? Was I that disposable to him? I can’t help but wonder if he never contacted me again because I said never to text or call my number, or if he was just having fun, passing through, and it was just a steamy one-night thing to him and that’s all. I should be elated if it’s the latter. But I find, instead, that I’m resentful.

I have my trusty notebook open. I try to sort some of this out on paper. It’s dangerous, maybe, but I’m just writing fiction. I mean, that’s what I’d say if it were ever read, which it won’t be. I’m jotting down scattered entries to string together later. It’s just fiction, no harm in that. I try to find a way to articulate the anger and guilt and how one could reconcile that with ongoing desire, but my confusion crowds my thoughts. I close my eyes a moment and fan myself with a cocktail menu. Then, I’m startled by my name being spoken.

“Melanie Hale. Hi!” a perky voice says. “Look at you working away.”

It’s Vanessa from the writing group. She’s wearing black skinny jeans and an overabundance of eyeliner, neither of which she’s sweating through.

“Oh, hi. No. Just a grocery list. How are you?” I turn my notebook over.

“I’m good. Just going to work.” She nods toward the Tipsy Cow Pub. I thank God Luke and I hadn’t gone there instead that night.

“We’ve missed you at the group. Your story.” She stops, hand to chest and takes an overdramatic breath. “My goodness, wasn’t that something. You’re coming back, I hope.”

“Oh yeah. I want to. Things just got busy with school starting and all that.”

“You’re in school?” she asks, matter-of-factly.

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