The wife and the husband have been separated for three weeks. This week the wife is at work in California. She has had this job for almost ten years, the longest she’s had any job. The wife loves the work, loves the ten days she spends there every six months. These ten days are a little different. She’s grateful to be among friends and working, a purposeful distraction. But there are no nightly check-ins with the husband this time. She talks to him only once or twice while she’s away, both times about the dog. There are no I miss you texts, no nothing. They have barely spoken over the last three weeks. Prior to this, they’ve never had so much as a fight where they stopped speaking for an hour. She maybe left the room to take a few deep breaths one time. Late afternoon or after dinner, she thinks, This is when I’d be calling him.
The wife looks at their checking balance to make sure there’s enough for a withdrawal and finds a bank charge that indicates he’s taken the client to the movies. She knows the husband and the client are exploring. There have been no previous such expenditures, and it’s only thirty bucks, but her response is as epic as though she has just discovered an affair, as though she has just discovered the piles of receipts for hotel rooms and weekends away and lingerie and jewels that weren’t given to her. She picks up the phone.
Did you take her to the movies?
Yeah.
We don’t have a budget for dating.
Oh. I guess I hadn’t thought about that. Sorry.
Please don’t do it again. Go Dutch or let her fucking pay. She’s got money.
They hang up and she has a good sob, pulls herself together to show up for a faculty party. It’s right downstairs. She wants to skip it, but there’s a colleague she loves who she doesn’t get to see often. She doesn’t want to cry at the party. But she should eat. She sits down with some of her work buddies, relays what has just happened. Heads shake. Her friends make her laugh while she’s crying into her pasta. A party guest asks if she can take the empty seat at the table across from them. Of course, she says.
There’s no use pretending she hasn’t been crying. Hi we met at breakfast this morning, my husband and I just separated!
Been there, the party guest says.