I used to love our old house. Of course, that was back when it was “our” old house, when there was still an “us” to have a house together. Back before Gail had cheated, back before I’d divorced her, back before our lawyers wrangled over who got what. Months after the divorce, “our” house remained the sole shared marital asset, but not for too much longer.
If she hadn’t slept with her co-worker, I’d have called the settlement a fair one; people slip away from each other sometimes, and time and stress erode marriages as surely as they do bedrock. We had dug the chasm between us together, moment to neglectful moment and drip by indifferent drip.
For a time, I thought we might fill the gap in. People can grow back together, right? Instead, she’d dynamited the whole thing over the course of three brief liaisons with a slick salesman. After that, might-have-beens didn’t hold much attraction for me.
We’d lived–and still did, albeit in separate apartments–in Frisco, an affluent suburb of Dallas. It hadn’t always been so; back in my youth, Frisco’s population hovered around 5,000 for years. In the time between leaving the area for school and returning, post-college and bride in tow, it ballooned into the next big thing in the metroplex, with a huge mall, a growth-driven city council, and tons of new construction.
The starter home we purchased back then, the same one I stood before on this blustery January afternoon, was part of a subdivision bordered on three sides by farmland. I missed the green spaces that developers destroyed as they squeezed more and more subdivisions in; perhaps when this was all done and dusted, I’d move further out into the exurbs.
We never intended for this house to be our forever home back then; at just under two thousand square feet, the three-bedroom, two-bath wouldn’t long hold the large family Gail hoped for.
Plans change.
The house was about as stock as stock gets when we bought it, all white carpet and eggshell walls, with contractor appliances and fixtures. Not disposable, per se, not in the same way an apartment is, but a close cousin. The neutral sparseness of an apartment warns, “This is your home for as long as the lease lasts; look, but don’t touch, or you’ll lose your deposit.” A starter home instead welcomes, “I am your canvas for as long as you live here,” before quietly adding, “but still, maybe don’t get too attached. Treat me as an investment in your future. I won’t mind.”
Abigail and I took that advice to heart when we first moved in, making only minor enhancements with property value firmly in mind. However, once we knew that we’d be staying for longer than originally planned, we made it our own. The house I’d abandoned a year before was as far from a prefab beige box as its humble origins would allow, a testament to her taste and my love for our family. My love for her.
Now, though, there wasn’t an “us,” and soon, the house would no longer be ours. The realtor had nattered on about how styles change, and about how one should sell a starter home versus a larger home differed, and about all the other minutiae that would earn him his commission.
“What you built is lovely, but it won’t sell for anything like the amount you could get for it. With a very modest outlay, you could net maybe an extra 30-50K in this market.” He came highly recommended by friends and family, and we could afford to spend a little to gain a lot. Gail had ceded authority on this decision–for once–so I pulled the trigger.
“Mason?” The voice of the contractor I’d hired, a friend of a friend, shook me from my reminiscing.
“Hey, Don.”
“Is Mrs. Kincaid- I mean, ah, Ms., um…” He looked lost, trapped in his faux pas like a rabbit in a snare; last I’d heard, Gail still used my last name, but it had been a while. I’d thought about making it a sticking point in the divorce but ultimately let it drop. If I didn’t want to spend the latter portion of my days policing her sex life, why the hell would I bother with a name? There are millions of Kincaids in the world, and one more or less was no skin off my nose.
Still, I let the young man stew for a few seconds, figuring this was the kind of teachable moment a budding entrepreneur needs. In his late twenties at the most, he seemed anxious to begin. That’s not a great look for anyone, but especially not for someone waiting to have his work evaluated.
I knew this wasn’t his first gig running the show–I wouldn’t have hired him if it was, his ties to my hunting buddy notwithstanding–but he still had the lean, hungry energy of a fledgling business owner. I liked that, and I wanted him to succeed. Another man might think he had something to hide, but I read it as something to prove. However, not everyone would, and reining it in would do him a world of good.
After letting the moment stretch a little longer than necessary, I replied, “… Martin. Her maiden surname was Martin.” Then, shrugging, I answered the rest of his unasked question. “Yes, I expect Gail will be here soon.”
While Abigail had let me take the lead on the sale of the house, she wanted to be here for the final walkthrough before we put it on the market. I didn’t know why, and she hadn’t let me know until almost the last minute, either. Her request irritated me, since I took it as a lack of trust in my judgment–what a fucking laugh, considering the source–but I choked the frustration down. As long as it kept her from throwing a monkey wrench into the sale, I could accommodate on smaller matters.
Not that she had tried to sabotage the process so far, at least not after the divorce went through. Before that, though, Gail dragged her feet, trying to force us toward reconciliation. That was never going to happen, but she still threw up all the roadblocks she could.
In Texas, those roadblocks turned out to be fairly limited in scope. Lawmakers had updated the statutes in the previous few years to streamline the process and make it fairer to both sides, meaning most of the outs she might have tried simply didn’t exist.
Her last ditch effort, forcing us into counseling, fell on deaf ears, since it’s rare in our state for the courts to mandate such a thing unless a couple still has children living at home. Beyond that, I’d gone with her to a few sessions of my own volition early in the process, not wanting to put our family through the heartache of a divorce. Between those two factors, the judge didn’t waste any time dismissing her request.
When all was said and done, we ended up with a 50/50 split anyway, just a split of less than we’d started with. Both of us still came out of it okay; years of frugal living, mostly at my insistence, ensured that.
Don and I looked at our watches. We’d arrived early, so I had little room to complain, but I felt inclined to do so regardless. He didn’t deserve that, though; Gail was his client, too, and he was already anxious. Besides, she actually did manage to arrive almost on time, only a few minutes past four in the afternoon, apologizing for the delay as she slammed her car door and approached.
“Sorry, I got caught in traffic on the way back from the office. Still getting used to the commute. It’s so different now, since…” Her words petered out, and she shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. I’m sorry.”
Gail looked great. Frustratingly so, if I’m honest. Even through her beige knee-length winter coat, the curves that attracted me to her during our freshman year of college–amplified, if somewhat softened by motherhood and age–still showed through. She’d let her dishwater blonde hair grow out past her shoulders, and the minimal makeup she sported highlighted cobalt blue eyes and accentuated high cheekbones.
The last time I’d seen her in person, at the final hearing before the judge, she hadn’t looked nearly as healthy. Spending most of a year of wrangling first with me, then lawyers, counselors, judges, and whoever else might prevent the dissolution of our marriage, had taken its toll. Abigail’s clothes had hung off her frame that day, she’d forgone makeup entirely, and her voice had a thin, haunted quality.
I enjoyed her suffering at the time but felt a little guilty about my glee later. Gail was still the mother of my children, and, for their sakes, I didn’t want her spiraling. Her apparent rebirth put paid to that worry, at least.
Don had a ready smile for her. “No problem at all. Are you two ready to see what we’ve done with the place?”
Not really. “Sure.”
Gail nodded, so I motioned for Don to unlock the front door. We both still had keys, but why steal his thunder? More importantly, I didn’t want to be the first one in. Even if I was ready to be shed of the place along with our marriage, I wondered how much its makeover would affect me.
Quite a lot, as it turned out.
I stood gawping at our home, somehow returned from the early 21st century. I mean, it looked almost exactly like it had the day we’d moved in. A few details differed–updated tile in the entryway, different blinds, no more popcorn ceiling–but otherwise, it felt like stepping into a time machine. My heart ached unexpectedly; if only I had that time machine to carry us back to the beginning, to a time when we were still those two newlyweds and we could have made different choices.
Gail gasped, telling me I wasn’t the only one forcibly subjected to a trip down memory lane. “It- it’s just like it was back when we moved in!”
Don, oblivious to anything but a job well done, crowed, “Yup! This kind of thing is cyclical, like your realtor told you, and this is what’s suggested now. A few years ago, I tell ya…”
He kept talking about his trade, but I only barely heard his words. Instead, my mind drifted back to the first time I’d seen the house like this.
—
“Stop!” Gail laughed as I carried her through the front door. “We need to finish unloading first!”
I’d carried Abigail across the threshold of our college apartment the day we married. She’d tried to argue that meant I didn’t need to carry her across the threshold here, too, but I ignored that complaint, instead shoving the door open with my foot while she wriggled in my grasp.
Her second argument, an insistence that we continue unloading the U-Haul, had no greater effect, precisely because of that ‘first’ in her sentence.
“First, huh? And what do you think we’ll do second?” I still held her in my arms, smirking at the implication.
Gail giggled, “You know exactly what we’ll do second.” I kissed her, tilting her barely resisting form up in one arm, our tongues dancing with each other. She wiggled against me again, but not to escape. The hands that had pushed me away now drew me in, one behind my head, fingers twining in my hair, and the other stroking my cheek.
I broke the kiss. “Yeah. Unpack.”
“Okay,” she panted, “unpack second.” I took one more step, kicked the door closed with a slam, and laid my blushing bride on the pristine carpet. Her hands worked furiously at my belt; mine pulled at her t-shirt so hard I accidentally ripped it. I didn’t notice at the time; if Abigail did, she didn’t care.
Her sports bra came off next, flung across the living room that seemed so spacious to two just barely post-college adults. I loved her tits, perfect C-cup globes tipped with tiny coral nubs that sent her through the roof when I sucked and bit at them.
“Please!” Gail begged. I sucked harder, thinking I understood what she wanted, but she grabbed one of my hands and moved it to her waist, then to mine. My belt came loose easily enough, but she couldn’t manage the button or zipper once my mouth distracted her. The chuckle that resonated through lips and teeth to hypersensitive nerves drove her to plaintively repeat, “Please! Please, Mace, I need you!”
Through some feminine magic, she pulled down her shorts and panties and kicked them away without injuring me, even though my body all but pinned hers to the floor. My hands were busy, too, finishing what she’d started with my pants and fishing my hard cock out, ready to claim my new bride in our new home for the first time. Another pleading whine from her, a small shifting of our bodies, and a sudden thrust was all it took.
“Oh God, Mace…” I loved the way her words trailed off when I first entered her each time, as though she’d lost the ability to form a coherent thought. I certainly did; from that point forward, we were all instinct and lust and need.
I grabbed her wrists and held them down. Gail wrapped her legs around my waist and fucked back up at me, wordlessly growling and moaning, the worn treads of her tennis shoes biting into my bare skin. Eventually, she came, and I did, too, adding a second load to the one I’d left before we’d started our drive up that morning.
Even at our gentlest, a raw hunger always lay at the core of our coupling, whether we made love for hours or engaged in quick, furtive fucks when one of us needed release. I’d never had a lover like her, and she said the same of me. Even near the end of our marriage, we still had incredible sex, although the last few times together were selfish, angry things, at least where I was concerned. She’d betrayed me, so I betrayed her in my own way, tainting one of the last few good things that existed between us.
Not that afternoon, though. Not the first time in our new house. Passionate and energetic our rutting might have been, but filled with love nonetheless. Afterwards, she laid in my arms, her head on my chest, each of us mostly naked, slightly rug burned, and thoroughly blissful. We cuddled and talked, planning our future together, just so, so in love.
When we eventually disentangled ourselves to return to packing, I couldn’t help but laugh. She peered at me quizzically. “What?”
I picked a bit of carpet lint out of her hair, then another, and another, and another, like a dime store magic trick, the two of us giggling louder with each bit of fuzz produced. “Oh, nothing.”
Gail bent over and ran fingers through her hair, shaking her head in a vain attempt to dislodge the rest. “Did I get them?”
“No,” I chortled. “No, not at all.” My hand, though, moved to her still-bare flank. The way she moved, bent over and displaying herself to me without meaning to, had caused me to stir once more.
“No!” She half-laughed, half-shrieked, trying to dance away from me. “Stay back, mister! I know what you really want!” Instead, though, she lost her balance and landed in my lap, still giggling.
“Oh, do you? I’m not so sure.” I pulled another bit of lint out of her hair and presented it to her. “You seem to be a bit… fuzzy on the matter.”
“Oh my God! You cornball! I–” I kissed her, and any resistance she might have put up disappeared for the next hour or so. Afterward, she had a new pet name: Fuzzy. Every time someone asked why I called her that, we made up a new reason; its real origin remained our little secret, all the way to the end.
—
“Are you sure you don’t want to keep it as a rental?” Don’s voice broke through my reminisce.
“I’m sorry?”
“A rental.” He gestured at his handiwork. “You could let a property management company handle it. Every month, they’d cut a check to each of you, and–”
I cut him off with just a little too vehemence. “No! No, I, ah, I don’t want that. I just want to sell it and move on.”
Gail’s voice, full of poorly hidden hope, suggested, “Mason, that’s not a bad–”
I glanced back at her. “I said, ‘No.’” She frowned at my dismissive tone; the two of us used to at least try to talk things out. We had lawyers for that now, though.
Turning back to Don, I plastered on an affable smile and said, “Let’s go take a look at the rest of the house.”
“Ah, sure. I’ll–” His phone rang. “Sorry, my wife. Give me a second?”
I nodded, making my way from the foyer into the living room to get a closer look at the work his crew had done. Truth be told, as long as it got the house in saleable shape and I didn’t see any obvious flaws, I planned to sign off on it. I mostly wanted to see if I should hire him for any work I might have around my new place, once I’d moved out of my apartment and into wherever the hell I ended up.
“It’s uncanny, isn’t it?” Gail asked.
“Yeah. It really is. I wonder…” My voice trailed off as I moved to the door leading to our bedroom. “Oh wow. Wow, same thing in here. Come look.”
Gail followed me into the room where we’d spent so much time; eight hours a night minimum, but averaging way, way more than that before the kids came along. As she moved close by, I smelled a whiff of my favorite perfume, drowned out in the next breath by the smell of off-gassing carpet and freshly dried paint. Her voice had a thoughtful, maybe slightly mournful tone. “I wonder if it’s all like this?”
Then, though, she made a dissatisfied noise, took a few steps forward, past me and toward the far wall, holding up her phone to snap pictures. I didn’t see why until she pointed it out: one section of baseboard, slightly loose due to a bent nail. It stuck out maybe a sixteenth of an inch at one end. Easily fixed–I could have done it myself if I’d had my tools with me–but worth finding nonetheless. I don’t know that I would have noticed it at all if I’d been on my own.
For the first time in a long time, I found myself glad of her presence. Between the two of us, Gail had always been the more perceptive.
—
“We’re going to be fine.” I said it almost like I meant it. Almost.
The two of us lay together in our bed, spooned together, my hand stroking her belly almost absentmindedly. Almost, but not quite.
She saw right through my optimistic facade. “Mace…”
“We will,” I insisted. “I know it’s more than we expected, but we’ll get through it. We’re going to be fine.”
“But Mace…” Abigail sighed, then continued in a voice suffused with worry. “Twins. Twins! We can’t afford twins. It’s just… it’s too much.”
We’d found out that morning at the first sonogram. The technician’s joyful tone quickly faded in the face of our overwhelmed expressions. We hadn’t planned for this pregnancy. We’d planned for a pregnancy, sure. Maybe multiple pregnancies, someday. Gail wanted a bunch of kids, enough to fill our eventual forever home, whereas I’d have been perfectly happy with one or two. Not now, though, regardless of what we eventually decided. Not yet. And certainly not two at a time.
We hadn’t even been married two years, and I was just getting established in my career. Between the dotcom bust and the general panic after 9/11, Gail almost lost her job, and she was still holding on there by the skin of her teeth. “A few years,” we’d told ourselves, “and then we can start our family.”
We were young, though, and we’d either never learned or had forgotten that some antibiotics interfere with birth control. Most of them don’t, but a select handful do; Gail’s allergy to penicillin, combined with a persistent stomach bug, meant her doctor had prescribed one. A few days later, she was right as rain, and the two of us made up for lost time.
The pregnancy test had caused a bit of low-level anxiety, but I’d managed to keep my calm and keep her calm, too. “Hey, we’ve got each other,” I said. “We’ll make a few adjustments, tighten our belts, and be right as rain.” She believed me then. I did, too, which made it easier to sell.
Now, though, her perceptive nature meant she’d caught me in a lie. The only thing to do was fess up. “Gail… Look, I’m not saying it won’t be hard. It will. We’re going to have to cut things right to the bone. Maybe I’ll have to hustle harder, try for a promotion, something. Get a loan from my folks if I have to.
“But hon, we will get through it. I love you so much, and I know you love me. It’s not what we intended, but it can still be great. As long as we face it together, it will be great. I promise.”
I snuggled closer, not meaning it as anything more than a small reassurance. “Mace…” The mother of my children turned her head towards mine. Turned reassurance into affection as she nuzzled against my cheek. “I love you. You really promise?”
“Of course. You and me, Fuzzy. Always.”
She smiled, really smiled, for the first time since that morning, and kissed me. “And our babies.”
“And our babies,” I agreed.
Gail laid her head on my arm again, facing away. “Twins,” she whispered with loving awe. Her hand went over mine, both of us touching her belly together. “You’re right. We’re going to be fine. We are.”
—
“Gail? Mason?” Don appeared in the doorway behind us, more frazzled than I’d ever seen him. “It’s- Her water broke. My wife’s, I mean.” Gail stifled a chuckle. Who else would he have been speaking of? Sheepishly, he added, “It’s- it’s our first.”
“Then what are you still doing here?” she asked.
“But–”
“Go,” I ordered. “We’ll take a look around. If there’s anything wrong, I can send you pictures.”
His relief was palpable. “Thank you. Thank you so much. If anything needs to be fixed, I’ll–”
“Go!” Gail echoed my command more forcefully. “Go be with your wife. And congratulations!”
He left us without another word, not quite running to the door and not quite slamming it behind him. The mother of my children looked at me, a knowing grin on her face. I couldn’t help but mirror it until both our smiles eventually slipped away into something more wistful.
“God, to be that young again,” she finally said. “He’s nice. I’m glad…” Her gaze trailed back to the room. “I wish we weren’t doing this at all, but I’m glad you picked someone like him.” I responded with a noncommittal, vaguely affirmative noise; she could take that how she wanted. Looking away from my former wife and wishing once more she’d left this task to me, I headed into the master bath.
Almost immediately, I wished I hadn’t. Gail trailed in behind me, already going through the place with a fine-toothed comb and picking at all the attendant nits. The narrow space between the counter and the outer wall didn’t give me much room to maneuver around her, so I had to listen to her “hrms” and “huhs” and various assorted other noises. That is, if I hadn’t tuned her out.
—
“I’m fine!”
Gail had said that plenty of times, but I’d never believed it. Now, with her sobbing it at me while hiding in the small nook that passed for our linen closet, I especially didn’t.
“Fuzz–”
“Please! Please, just… I’ll be fine. I will.”
Another lie she’d said for months. She’d always been the more observant of us, but also the less honest. I don’t know if she believed what she’d said or if she simply didn’t want to face the truth that she was not, and, without help, would not be okay. That didn’t matter, though. All that mattered was that the woman I loved hurt, so I took her in my arms and held her while she cried it out.
After the twins were born, our fortunes improved more quickly than I could have ever hoped for. The downturn in the economy didn’t quite reverse itself, but it did ease up enough that her job became more secure. Then, a new manager came in, an older woman who saw Gail’s potential, and moved her to a new role where she thrived. I got a promotion and a raise. Between the two of us, we’d gone from barely hanging on to socking money away into savings and college funds.
The twins remained a handful, even three years later, but we’d mostly put the sleepless nights behind us. Because we didn’t want too much of a gap in ages between the twins and their next sibling, we sat down, ran the numbers, and found that we could afford a bigger house and another mouth or two without any real strain.
So we tried for another little one.
And tried.
And tried.
At first, it was fun; we snuck in quickies while Hailey and Ethan napped, made love most nights, and even splurged on a weekend away while my parents watched the twins. Those were great times.
Except, of course, that each month her period came again.
After six months, we started to worry, so Gail got us a referral to a fertility specialist. My results came back fine. Hers didn’t. The doctor didn’t quite say, “It’s a miracle you had kids at all,” but he might as well have.
I was disappointed, but Gail? Gail was devastated. She didn’t bother to hide it at first, taking to our bedroom to cry into her pillow while I watched the kids. I tried to find a way to console her, but nothing worked.
And then, one day, it was like a switch flipped. Copious tears turned into “I’m fine” and a brave smile. It all seemed a little sudden to me; I wanted to believe, though, so I did. Every once in a while, she’d get gloomy, but so did I; grief for a possible future is still grief, after all. The difference, however, was that if she asked if I was okay, or if I wanted to talk about it, I opened up to her, while she’d throw on her mask and get about the day.
It wasn’t healthy. She knew it, and I knew it, but if you can’t admit that anything’s wrong in the first place, how is anyone supposed to help you? Since she wouldn’t let me help–hell, she wouldn’t even admit she had a problem–all I could do was hope that time would help her heal. We moved on with our lives, or at least we tried to.
Then it all came to a head with that stupid bitch, Sharon.
Gail wanted to throw a party. She’d made a couple of small updates to the house and wanted to show off. Nothing huge, just a little paint and some new drapes. When she’d suggested them, I figured, hey, if sprucing up the place makes her happy, let’s do it. I’ve never been a huge fan of socializing just to socialize, but Gail was, so, again, if a party would make her happy, a party we’d have.
We decided to go with a barbecue and, at first, everything went great. The house had never looked better, and Gail played the perfect hostess. I spent the afternoon grilling meat and shooting the shit with the guys out back, while the kids ran around like little maniacs and the wives gossiped and subtly one-upped each other.
Which, of course, is how I ended up holding my wife in a tiny nook in our bathroom as she finally broke down.
Gail’s face pressed into my chest, muffling her words. “She knew! She knew how hard we’d been trying and how- how much it hurt that we… that I can’t have any more kids. Why did she have to say that?”
“What did she say?”
“That… That at least we wouldn’t have to move now, since our house was plenty big for two kids!” The last word came out in a long, tortured wail.
All I could say, over and over again, was, “I’m sorry, Gail. I’m so sorry. It’s going to be okay. I love you.” She, in turn, could only hug me tighter and cry louder.
Things changed after that. They seemed to get better at first. Sharon didn’t get invited back to our house before she moved a few years later; that caused a little bit of a rift in the neighborhood wives, but not much of one. They all knew she’d stepped over the line. Hell, even she knew she’d stepped over the line.
After a while, though, Gail’s “occasional” updates to the house got more frequent. More elaborate, too. Like the frog in the proverbial boiling pot, I didn’t notice until too late; I was just happy to have my wife back.
For a while, at least.
—
“It looks good. His crew did a nice job.”
“Hrm?” Gail’s voice, now that it actually relayed information instead of vaguely thoughtful sounds, brought me back to the present. “Yeah. Seems like.” Since she’d squeezed past me to look at the linen closet, peering inside with the flashlight on her smartphone, I took the opportunity to move towards the door back to our bedroom. “You ready?”
Without waiting for an answer, I stepped through and out. Away, in truth. Away from her, and from the past, at least for the moment. If she was happy with the work, she was, and if she wasn’t, she wasn’t. She could catch up either way. Apparently, though, the workmanship met with her satisfaction, and her footsteps followed behind as I returned to the living room.
“Kitchen and dining room or kids’ rooms next?” I asked.
Gail unfastened her coat as she answered, “Your call.” The bulky fabric fell open, revealing a well-fitted white silk blouse and slightly too-tight black pencil skirt. She looked fantastic, having clearly sprung back from her malnourished state at the divorce hearing. Hell, she probably looked the best she had in years.
After she slid her arms out of the sleeves, Gail looked around the empty room and laughed quietly to herself, then more openly at my curious glance, holding the folded coat up as if in answer.
“Ah, nowhere to hang it?” I guessed. “Whatever, just put it on the floor. Or the kitchen counter, if you’re worried about getting it dirty.”
“After I spent years telling the twins to stop leaving their hoodies everywhere?” She casually tossed her coat down with a snort. “What a hypocrite am I.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell them.”
My ex-wife looked at me for a few seconds, then opened her mouth for another few, only to close it once more. Finally, with a shake of her head, she looked out the window.
“What?” I asked.
“I…” She glanced at me, then back away. “I know you wouldn’t. You didn’t when… Well, you know. When it actually mattered.”
“No, because I didn’t want them to…” I paused, unwilling to lie, at least on this. A big part of me had wanted the kids to think badly of her. But, “You’re their mother. They shouldn’t have had to square the way they loved you with what you did. I kept quiet for them, not for you.”
Gail reluctantly nodded. “I know that. Still, ‘we drifted apart’ is much kinder than I deserved, even if you didn’t do it for my sake.”
“So why…”
I knew that asking the question was a bad idea, which is why I stopped. If we just finished evaluating the house, got in our cars, and went our separate ways, I’d be happier. But since I’d made the mistake of uttering the first two words, she completed the sentence. “… did I tell them?”
“… Yeah.”
“Because you didn’t deserve it, either. ‘We drifted apart’ is something men having their mid-life crises say, and since you were… less obviously broken up about everything, I guess… when we told them, they figured that you were the reason for the divorce.” She exhaled, something between a laugh and a sigh. “Which is true in its own way, but I know you don’t see it that way.
“Anyways, while they were consoling me a few months later, Tyler brought up the possibility that maybe you’d cheated on me, and Hailey got in his face about it, and you didn’t deserve that. They didn’t either. So, I came clean about my… mistakes to them.”
That fit with what I’d heard when Hailey–and later, much more sheepishly, Tyler–called me to commiserate. It was good to hear it in Gail’s own words, though. Even better to hear it from her now, after the divorce, when she wasn’t angling to keep us together. Before, I would have suspected her motives.
Suspected them more, rather. I still didn’t understand why she’d come here today. She knew I was competent enough to handle this, since I’d handled most of the renovations myself that she’d asked for over the years. Maybe she was still angling for us to get back together; she’d certainly picked one of my favorite looks for her, the conservative-but-sexy office worker outfit. That didn’t make much more sense, though, for a host of reasons.
Instead of trying to reason out her motives, I decided the best course of action was to push on through. “Let’s hit the kitchen and dining room next. Leave the kids’ rooms for last.”
“Lead on.”
Don had barely touched the kitchen; no matter how much potential buyers might have wanted a blank slate, they’d be nuts to turn down granite countertops and brand new stainless steel finish appliances. Even the paint remained the same; his crew had only laid on a fresh coat of the existing color.
“Hah!” Gail’s laugh drew my gaze, which then followed to where she looked. “He switched out the can lights. Remember, we were always trying to get to that–”
“Yeah,” I growled. “I know. ‘Next time.’”
—
“Look, I told you I’d get to it when I’m able.”
Gail sighed with irritation. “Just like you were going to get to it the last time. And the time before that. And the time before–”
“Well, maybe if you didn’t want to update the whole damned–”
“Dad said a bad word!” Hailey chimed in from the living room, her ears as sharp as any twelve-year-old when it came to their parents’ slip-ups.
“Yes,” I grumbled over one shoulder, “Dad said a bad word. Sorry, kiddo.” Turning back to Gail, I lowered my voice. “If you didn’t have me updating something almost every… darn weekend, maybe I would get to it.”
Truth be told, I probably wouldn’t. There was nothing wrong with the lights; they fit the space fine. Beyond that, I tended to avoid working on projects that required me to turn off the breaker or the main water to the house. Anything that might start a fire or a flood, in other words. A man needs to know his limitations.
More to the point, I was sick of the constant reworking of our home. She hadn’t quite reached Sarah Winchester levels yet–no corridors leading to doors that wouldn’t open or random cupolas added to the roof–but then, she only had one carpenter working for her. Except for the matter of scale, my wife and Mrs. Winchester had both spent years trying to outrun their ghosts the same way.
“Then let’s get someone else in to do the work! If we’re not moving–”
There it was. If we’re not moving, we can spend the money. Followed by my always-ready counterargument, “We don’t need to do the work right now! Our house is lovely, and we’re here for the long haul. We’ll get to it eventually, but I’m frankly tired of running myself ragged updating sh… stuff that doesn’t need to be updated.”
“Running yourself ragged?” The sneer hadn’t fully entered her voice by this point in our marriage, but it had its foot in the door. “Is that what you call going hunting every other weekend?”
“I can only hunt during the hunting season. And this one’s a big deal! You know that. Hailey and Ethan are getting out there with me now, and–”
She crossed her arms. “Yeah, which I’m still not happy about.”
Gail had never enjoyed camping, hunting, or fishing. She’d accompanied me a few times early in our marriage, trying to spend more time together, but she spent almost the whole trip complaining or poking fun. Eventually, I put her out of both our misery, telling her to stay home.
However, the kids loved camping, especially Hailey. Partly, they loved nature, but it also was a time when the three of us could relax and enjoy ourselves together. Mom kept them busy with a dizzying array of afterschool activities, but Dad let them go out and explore. I think Gail resented that the twins took to my outdoor hobbies without any prodding, whereas only Ethan engaged with most of the ones she planned out for them.
“I don’t want to argue about that again, okay?” I gestured at the recessed housings above us. “Or this, either. It’s on the list. If you want it to reach the front of the list, stop adding things to it.”
She never did, though, or at least not until everything blew up. After that, I couldn’t give one-tenth of one fuck about what she wanted.
—
Gail at least had the decency to look embarrassed. Part of me enjoyed that, but the voice in the back of my head could only mutter, ‘Too little, too late.’
“Mace, I didn’t mean…”
I held a hand up. “You know what? It’s getting dark, I’m tired, and I don’t want to spend another fucking minute in this house that I don’t have to. So, let’s split up. I’m gonna go check out the backyard and make sure the landscaping looks good. Why don’t you finish here, then go take a look at the dining room? I’m sure you can find something to complain about in there.”
“Please, Mason, don’t–” but I was already past her and out the sliding glass door.
For the first couple of minutes in the backyard, I looked around without really looking. Irritation, both at her for… well, for being her, and at me for so easily showing my irritation this close to the finish line. A few lungfuls of cold air later–interspersed with assorted muttered curses–I could finally focus on the yard.
Not that I needed to; I’d come out here purely to get away from my ex-wife. There was nothing to check, since I’d taken Don’s suggestion to leave the landscaping as-is. Even in the dead of winter, it still looked great. This was always Gail’s domain; while I loved the great outdoors, they didn’t love me back, at least as far as tending to gardens went. Even though she favored perennials and hardy local strains, I’d still managed to kill off a couple seasons’ worth of plants before she playfully banned me from “helping” in her horticultural efforts.
Except for the tree. That died all on its own.
—
Ethan grinned at me. “Too tired to keep up, old man?”
“Yes.” I sat down on the lush, green grass of our backyard. “You go on ahead.”
My son laughed, returning to the task Gail had set for both of us. There was a hint of mockery in his manner, but I couldn’t fault him for that; a seventeen-year-old boy is almost required to give his father a little gentle ribbing about his age and fitness.
I watched him work for a time, proud of the young man Ethan had grown into. Tall and lean like me, he’d stripped off his shirt to work in the early fall sun. To keep the blisters away, he’d borrowed an old pair of my work gloves for the afternoon. It didn’t entirely work, much to his later chagrin, but hey: he could have taken a break alongside me. Maybe don’t talk smack next time, kiddo.
Besides, I’d earned my rest. Long before he’d come out to help me dig, I’d spent the morning hard at work with a chainsaw.
When construction began on the house back in the late 90s, Bradford pears were all the rage in landscaping. Fast growing and drought tolerant, they shot up into tall, round trees, the kind a first-grade kid might add to a drawing of his house. In the spring, they burst into bloom with white blossoms that released a unique smell, sweet to some and unpleasant to others.
I’d always liked the old tree and the plentiful shade it provided, but it had to go. The fast growth came at a cost: a short life and weak branches. There’s a reason they were no longer all the rage. When the last storm came through, a big chunk of the tree gave way, just barely missing the house. The old girl might have had a few more years left in her, but we weren’t going to take the risk.
It had taken most of the morning to cut down the tree and section it, after which the entire family had pitched in to carry the pieces to a rented trailer. The whole affair had a strangely somber tone to it; it almost felt like putting down a beloved family pet, especially early on when we removed the kids’ old tire swing from it.
Hailey and her mom left after lunch to haul it all away to the city’s yard waste disposal center, then return the trailer to the hardware store. While they did that, Ethan and I grabbed a couple of shovels and got to work digging up the roots, which we’d later mulch for Gail’s compost pile. The girls had been gone a suspiciously long time, but I couldn’t really blame them; I’d have skipped out on this part, too, if I could have. Luckily, I had a mini-me to unwittingly do my bidding.
“My boys!” Gail announced her presence not long after I sat, carrying a pitcher of lemonade and a pair of glasses. “Take a break, and…” A broad smile appeared on her face, playful, but lacking any of the poorly concealed disdain that had snuck in so often over the past few years. “Ah, I see one of you already is.” She was in a good mood. Why shouldn’t she be? I’d done the heavy lifting.
I took the proffered drink and kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, Fuzzy.” She grinned and gave me another quick peck.
Ethan groaned, “Grooosss,” drawing it out and adding some gagging noises as his mom planted a much more affectionate kiss on my lips.
That had been a good day, one of the last few so late in our marriage. A good night, too, when my wife rewarded her husband’s hard work with gusto after the twins went to bed.
—
I still missed the good days every once in a while. I’d missed them for a long time, since not long after the kids left for school and left us to our own devices. Missing the good days rarely hurt the way it used to.
A Japanese maple now stood where the old tree had, not even a quarter the height of its predecessor. Gail had picked the new tree for its longevity and gorgeous autumn foliage. “We can watch it grow old alongside us,” she’d half-joked, before adding, “and our grandkids can play in the leaves at Thanksgiving.”
Maybe someone’s grandkids would, but not ours.
“Why are you letting her get to you?” I mumbled to myself. That wasn’t the right question, though, so I followed it up with, “Why are you assuming she’s trying to get under your skin in the first place?”
Gail was just being Gail. Once upon a time, the teasing wouldn’t have bothered me. I thought I’d gotten back to that point, but being back here, in the old house, had gotten us… me… back into old patterns, the same ones that ultimately contributed to the end of our marriage.
“Man up,” I admonished myself, before adding, “And stop talking to yourself. You sound like a lunatic.”
Once back inside, I couldn’t see Gail, nor did I hear her. I’d spent enough time brooding in the backyard that she could probably already have finished inspecting the entire house, had she been so inclined. She hadn’t seemed to be, though, so I headed back into the kitchen to catch up.
A brief montage of the two of us cooking through the years flashed into my head. Always together at the beginning of our marriage, then, once the twins were born, more often taking turns. She preferred healthy Italian and Asian dishes, prepared to the sounds of classical music; I made hearty American and Mexican fare, real artery-clogging offerings of joy, rocking out to classic rock or alternative. After the kids moved out, we slowly moved from taking turns to cooking for ourselves and eating alone.
I didn’t have long to dwell on that, though. Gail clearly wasn’t there, so I moved on to search for her in the dining room.
Crossing through the doorway, I understood why I’d gotten tetchier and tetchier as we moved this way.
—
Gail had cooked a lavish dinner that Friday night, a decided shift from the months before. Years before, even. The empty nest era hadn’t been kind to us or to our marriage. By the time the kids returned the second Christmas after they’d left for college, even they could see the cracks.
Sure, we tried to find things to do together at first, hoping to rekindle the flame that burned so bright when we were young, but that went nowhere fast. Untethered by our children, we hadn’t so much drifted apart as motored away at speed. I swam to stay fit; she bicycled. I spent the weekends hunting and fishing; she joined a book club. I reconnected with old friends that had fallen by the wayside during the years we’d all been raising our kids; she made new friends.
One new friend, in particular.
“So. Who is he?”
Gail’s voice trembled just the tiniest bit, putting the lie to her smile. “Mason, I don’t–”
I slammed one hand down on the table to silence her. “For God’s sake, Gail! I’m not blind. Not stupid, either. You’ve been dressing sexier when you go into work, started locking your phone and carrying it everywhere with you, and working late when you never had before.”
“Mace, I told you that–”
With a snarl, I bulled on through her feeble attempts at denial. “And even if I were blind, I have friends who aren’t, friends who work in the same area as you. Friends who have lunch–” It’s amazing how much menace I could imbue a single word with. “–at the same places the two of you did.
“And now, this.” My hand gestured wide to encompass this Potemkin village of a romantic evening she’d laid out for me. “Why? Because you were grateful to me for being such a sucker? Just trying to keep me sweet? Make sure your idiot husband doesn’t suspect you spreading your whore legs for–”
“Stop!” my wife screamed at me, then half-sobbed, “It’s because I love you!”
“Clearly.”
She swallowed, looking away from the man she’d pledged her life to, unshed tears shimmering in her eyes. “Liam. His name’s Liam. I… I’m sorry. I never meant to…” Unable to continue, she instead bowed her head.
“Want to try finishing that sentence? Here, I’ll help. To ‘fuck another guy?’ To ‘cuckold your husband?’ To ‘shit all over… all over…’” The anger I‘d stored up for weeks deserted me when I needed it most, replaced with a cold, unfeeling contempt. “Whatever. Go fuck yourself, ‘Fuzzy.’”
The way her sorrow turned to anguish when I spoke that pet name with such contempt, the in-joke between two loving newlyweds whose origins we’d kept as a sweetly naughty secret for so long, should have destroyed me. Ten years ago, it would have.
With nothing else to say and no wish to hear any words that might come from her lips, I stood, threw my napkin onto my plate, and stalked off to pack an overnight bag.
