“Yeah, yeah, I know, and each kiss an inspiration. Jesus, Kim, what’re you trying to tell me? I should get some tats and buy a Harley? Start diddling divorcées and slap you around if you complain? Get to the point, assuming you’ve got one.”
“Phil, please! You’re not making it any easier!” No shit. I had no desire to make it easier. She was pushing me closer and closer to calling her out. “This is serious. I’m talking about us, about our life, what it’s become, maybe even what’s to become of it.” She stopped, waiting for me to comment, but I wasn’t about to play her game. I waited to hear what she was trying so hard to put off saying.
“My life is too constricting, Phil. It’s smothering me. I’ve got more to offer than just being a good housewife and mother. My life’s ambition certainly isn’t to be the best soccer mom in Seaside.” Another pause. I still didn’t respond. Just as she drew breath to continue her non-confession, a couple of tornados burst through the doorway.
“When’s dinner? We’re hungry!” Thanks a lot, Mark. Inevitably, there was an echo.
“Yeah, we’re hungry!” You, too, Jason.
So her bombshell wasn’t a confession of infidelity, just a bunch of whining about her lot in life. She fixed a gourmet dinner of maccheroni e formaggio con wurstel that delighted the Tornado Twins while Kim and I ate in frosty silence at the other end of the table. After an hour of television and the boys’ bedtime routines, we spent one more hour not speaking while we ignored another program and the news. After our own nighttime routines, we slid into bed. No goodnight kiss, no pillow talk, no cuddles.
Valentine’s day sucked from start to finish.
“I googled ‘evolve or die’ and like I said, Darwin didn’t say that. A bunch of hack writers and a few phony philosophers did, but good old Charlie Darwin never said any such thing.” You’d think that someday I’d learn not to be so fucking smug.
“As usual, you’ve completely missed the point, Phil.” She kept repeating my name, a real bad sign. “I’ve changed in the years we’ve known each other, mostly in good ways. I’ve been a good mother, stayed in shape, tried to keep up with the music and movies the kids like, changed my hair and clothes to keep current, made some new friends, got active in a few important social and political causes…” She was on a roll, voice rising, gesturing to make her points like she was standing in front of a cheering crowd.
“You still have the same job, wear the same clothes, comb your hair the same way, have the same friends, play the same games…You listen to oldies stations and read the sports pages and watch your John Wayne and Alfred Hitchcock mov—
“And work my ass off at that same job I don’t like any more, open doors for you, carry in the heaviest bags of groceries, take out the garbage, do all the outside chores, take care of both cars, give you foot rubs, coach the boys’ soccer teams, go to their school events when I don’t have to work, take them out for dinner or to the park once a week or so to give you some time off, cook dinner every Friday, make sure you get off befo—”
“Godammit, Phil, listen to yourself!” That got my attention. Kim never swears. “You’ve been doing those things ever since we got married. They’re just swell—” She didn’t put air quotes around ‘swell’, but I could almost see the acid dripping off her tongue. “Don’t you think it’s time you upped your game, learned some of the new ways to carry your share of our partnership?” She paused a beat. “I do.”
“Like what, Kim? Help me here, I’m just a guy and don’t have your keen insight into modern partnerships.” I tried to drench my words in the same acid but, like I said, I’m just a guy. She was dancing around what I knew she had to be avoiding—her cheating. I was curious to hear how she’d try to justify it, but I wasn’t ready to force the issue, at least not yet.
“We’re just playing out our gender roles here, Philip.” Oh shit. Now I’m Philip. I can’t remember the last time she used my full name. “Men resist change because they’ve always had the power and don’t want to give it up. Women welcome change, because anything would be better than the historic, out-of-balance power structure of women vis-á-vis men.”
“I call bullsh—” I needed to clean up my debate style. Lose your temper, lose the argument. Reset time. “I don’t agree, Kim. Yes, men ran things for centuries, but it’s changing. Maybe not fast enough for you, but that’s what things like affirmative action and Title IX are all about. And who’s got the power in divorces, for Christ’s sake? Unless she’s caught banging the Chicago Bears defensive line in the living room while the kids watch, eat popcorn, and hold up score cards—” She tried to interrupt but I plowed on.