The Wives

SEVEN

When Seth calls a few days later I am home, snuggled up under a blanket on the couch. I’ve been screening his calls for days, sending him to voice mail on the first ring. I’m mellow after two glasses of wine and so I answer. I’ve been going over what Hannah said, replaying her words over and over until I want to cry from frustration. He says hello first; his voice sounds tired but hopeful.

“Hi,” I breathe into the phone. I hold the device to my ear with one hand, and with the other I trace the patterns of a throw pillow on my lap.

“I’m sorry,” he says right away. “I’m so sorry.” He sounds it.

“I know...” My anger dissolving, I reach over for the remote and mute the mindless fodder I was watching. Reality TV is the ultimate distraction from a broken heart.

“I spoke to Hannah,” he says. “That’s Monday’s name.”

I hold my breath, pushing myself into a sitting position and tossing the pillow onto the floor. Did he really just tell me her name? It feels like a triumph, Seth trusting me with something he’s never shared. I am fairly certain neither of the other wives knows my name. And then it hits me: Hannah holds all the power. She is the pregnant wife. I suddenly feel claustrophobic, my prior softness replaced with nerves. If Hannah decided that it was important for Seth to stay with her instead of going on vacation with me, that’s exactly what he would do. I may be Seth’s legal wife, but this baby shifted me to the position of middle child, and everyone knows that the middle child is the forgotten one. I clear my throat, determined to act normal, despite what I am feeling.

“What did she say?” My heart is pounding and my nails find their way to my mouth where my teeth begin their ripping assault.

There’s a pause on his end. “I told her that it was important for me to take the trip,” he says. “You’re right. I can’t take time away from you. It isn’t fair.”

I should be nice, play the role of the good wife, but the words bubble from my lips before I can pull them back.

“I don’t want your charity. I want you to want to take a trip with me.”

“I do. I’m doing my best here, baby.”

“Don’t call me that, Seth.”

There’s a long pause on his end, followed by a sigh. “All right. What do you want me to say?”

Annoyance blooms in my chest.

What do I want him to say? That he chooses me? That he only wants me? That’s never going to happen. It’s not what I signed up for.

“I don’t want to fight,” he says. “I just called to tell you that I’m figuring it out. And I love you.”

I wonder if he made me the bad guy, told her I was kicking up a fuss. Why would I even care what Hannah thinks of me? But I do care what Hannah thinks, even if she doesn’t know who I am. Well, she does know, doesn’t she? I think. She just doesn’t know she knows, you fuck.

“I told her that it was important I go,” he tells me.

That sounds like Seth actually. Never wanting to be the bad guy. He needs to please and be pleased. He makes love to me in the same way, alternating between a tender reverence and wild grip of fingers and thrusts until I sound off like a porn star.

Suddenly, his voice changes and I press the phone closer to my ear. “I didn’t know if you still wanted me there...on Thursday...”

I swipe away the guilt I’m feeling for being so harsh and consider my feelings. Do I want him here? Am I ready to see him? I could just outright tell him what I did and ask for an explanation. But he could deny the whole thing, and then I’d never get to talk to Hannah again. He’d tell her who I was and she’d feel betrayed by what I’d done. There’s a huge chance that I am blowing all of this out of proportion, and then I’d look like a pathetic idiot to the only person in the world I am close to.

“You can come,” I say softly. Because if he doesn’t, he’ll go to one of them. I may be angry with him, but I am still a competitive woman.

“Okay,” is all he says in return.

We hang up with barely more than an I love you from Seth. Who I know genuinely does love me. But I don’t say it back. I want to make him suffer. He needs to know that there are no lies in a marriage—no matter how many women you’re married to—which makes the truth even more complicated. But still...

I don’t know what to do. I grow sour with each day, like curdled milk left in the heat. When Thursday arrives, in an act of defiance I decide not to make dinner. I’m not going to cook for him, put on a show like everything is all right. It isn’t. I don’t do my hair or put one of my usually sexy dresses on, either. At the last minute I spray some perfume on my wrists and at the neckline of my shirt. That was for me, I tell myself. Not him. When Seth walks through the door, I am sitting on the couch in sweatpants, my hair rolled into a bun, eating ramen noodles and watching Bravo. He pauses in the doorway to the living room, surveying my state with a look of amusement. I have a noodle hanging out of my mouth, my lips cupped around it.

“Hi,” he says. He’s wearing a cardigan pushed up to his elbows and a light blue V-neck T-shirt. His hands are stuffed into his jean pockets like he doesn’t know what to do with them. Sheepish. How charming.

Normally, I’d be on my feet by now, rushing toward him so that I could be wrapped in his arms, so relieved that I could finally touch him. This time I stay seated, and the only acknowledgment I give him in greeting is a slight raise of my eyebrows as I suck the lone noodle into my mouth. It slaps my cheek on the way in and I feel a spray of the salty chicken water hit my eyeball.

I watch as he ambles into the living room and sits across from me on one of the floral chairs we chose together: deep emerald green with creamy gardenias floating across the fabric. “Almost like they’re caught on the wind,” he’d said when he first saw it in the store. I’d bought it just because of his description.

“There’s ramen in the pantry,” I say cheerfully. “Chicken and beef.” I wait for a startled reaction, but he doesn’t have one. This is the first Thursday in our marriage that I have not cooked an elaborate meal.

He nods, hands clasped between his knees now. I marvel at the change. All of a sudden, it’s like he doesn’t belong here and I do. He’s lost his power and I sort of like it. I lift the bowl of broth to my lips and drink it down, smacking my lips when I’m done. Delicious. I forgot how good a brick of noodles could be. Oh my God, I’m so lonely.

“So,” I say. I’m hoping to prompt Seth into saying whatever he’s holding behind his teeth. By the strained look on his face, he appears to be choking on all of his unsaid bits. I can’t believe I even entertained the thought that this man could rough up a woman. I study his face, his weak chin and too-pretty nose. It’s strange how perception is altered by bitterness. I’ve never thought his chin weak before, never considered his nose too pretty. The man whose face I’ve always loved and cradled between my palms suddenly looks weak and pathetic, transformed by my flip-flopping opinion of him.

I flip through the channels, not really seeing what’s on the screen. I don’t want to look at him for fear he will be able to see in my eyes the ugly things I’m feeling.

“I thought I’d be good at this,” he says. I spare him a glance before I keep flicking.

“Good at what?”

“Loving more than one woman.”

The laugh that bursts from between my lips is sharp and ugly.

Seth looks at me, chagrined, and I feel a stab of guilt.

“Who can be good at something like that?” I ask, shaking my head. “God, Seth. Marriage to one person is hard enough. You’re right about one thing,” I say, setting the remote down and turning my full attention on him. “I’m disappointed. I feel betrayed. I’m...jealous. Someone else is having your baby and it’s not me.”

The most I’ve said about our situation. I immediately want to reel the words back in, swallow them down. I sound so jaded. It’s not a side of myself I’ve ever let Seth see. Men prefer the purrings of a confident, secure woman—that’s what the books say. That’s what Seth said about me in the first months of our dating: “I like that you’re not threatened by anything. You’re you no matter who else is in the room...” It isn’t that way now, is it? Two other women are in the room, and I notice them every minute of every day. I look around my small living room, my eyes touching the knickknacks and art that Seth and I chose together: a painting of an English seaside, a driftwood bowl that we found in Port Townsend in our first year of marriage, a pile of coffee table books that I swore I needed but have never paged through. All the things that comprise our lives, and yet none are filled with memories, or represent a joining of lives, like a baby would. He shares that bond with someone else. I suddenly feel depressed. Our existence together is a shallow one. If not for children, what is there? Sex? Companionship? Is anything more important than bringing life into the world? I reach up absently to lay a hand on my womb. Forever empty.