Wife 22 (16 page)

Some of my best memories as a kid are of being sick. I’d go from the bed to the couch, my pillow in hand. My mother would cover me with an afghan. First I’d watch back-to-back episodes of
Love, American Style
, then
The Lucy Show
, then
Mary Tyler Moore
, and finally
The Price Is
Right
. For lunch my mother would bring me toast with butter, ginger ale with no bubbles, and cold apple slices. In between shows I’d throw up in a pail my mother conveniently put beside the couch in case I couldn’t make it to the bathroom.

Thanks to modern medicine, a flu now usually passes in twenty-four hours, so when Peter wakes with a fever it’s like I’ve been granted a snow day. Just as we’re snuggling in on the couch, William wanders into the living room in his sweats.

“I don’t feel so good, either,” he says.

I sigh. “You can’t be sick, Pedro’s sick.”

“Which is probably why I’m sick.”

“Maybe you gave it to me,” says Peter.

I put my hand on Peter’s forehead. “You’re burning up.”

William grabs my other hand and puts it on his forehead.

“Ninety-nine degrees. One hundred, tops,” I say.

“If Dad’s sick does this mean we have to watch the cooking channel?” asks Peter.

“First one sick gets the clicker,” I say.

“I’m too sick to watch anyway,” says William. “I have vertigo. Wonder if it’s an inner-ear thing. I’m going to take a nap. Wake me when
Barefoot Contessa
comes on.”

I have a vision of the way the days will soon be passing. William sitting on the couch. Me thinking up reasons to leave the house without him, which all have something to do with lady parts. In desperate need of sanitary pads. Going for a Pap smear. Attending a lecture on bio-identical hormones.

“Could you bring me some toast in about half an hour?” William calls out as he’s walking up the stairs.

“Would you like some orange juice, too?” I yell, feeling guilty.

“That would be very nice,” comes the disembodied voice.

The Sixth Sense
is one of my absolute favorite movies. I don’t like horror movies, but I do love psychological thrillers. I am a big fan of the twist. Unfortunately, until this very moment there was nobody in my household who was willing to watch them with me. So when Peter was
in fourth grade and reading the Captain Underpants series for the eleventh time I started a mother-son short-story club, which was really in my mind a mother-groom-your-son-to-watch-creepy-thrillers-with-you club. First I had him read Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery
.
”

“ ‘The Lottery’ is about small-town politics,” I explained to William.

“It’s also about a mother getting stoned to death in front of her children,” said William.

“Let’s let Peter decide,” I said. “Reading is such a subjective experience.”

Peter read the last line of the story aloud—“and then they were upon her”—shrugged, and went back to
The Big, Bad Battle of Bionic Booger Boy
. That’s when I knew he had real potential. In fifth grade I had him read Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” and in sixth, Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” With each short story he grew a thicker skin and now, in the spring of his twelfth year, my son is finally ready for
The Sixth Sense
!

I begin downloading the movie from Netflix.

“You’ll love it. The kid is so creepy. And there’s this unbelievable twist at the end,” I say.

“It’s not a horror movie, right?”

“No, it’s what’s called a psychological thriller,” I tell him.

Half an hour later I say, “Isn’t that cool? He sees dead people.”

“I’m not sure I like this movie,” says Peter.

“Wait—it gets even better,” I tell him.

Forty-five minutes later Peter asks, “Why is that boy missing the back of his head?”

Twenty minutes later he says, “The mother is poisoning her daughter by putting floor wax into her soup. You told me this wasn’t a horror movie.”

“It isn’t. I promise. Besides, you read ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find.’ The misfit murders the family one by one. That was much worse than this.”

“That’s different. It’s a short story. There are no visuals or scary soundtracks. I don’t want to watch this anymore,” he says.

“You’ve made it this far. You have to watch the rest. Besides, you haven’t seen the twist yet. The twist redeems everything.”

Fifteen minutes later, after the big twist is revealed (with much clapping of my hands and exclamations of “Isn’t that incredible, do you get it? You don’t get it—let me explain it to you.
I see dead people
? Bruce Willis is actually dead and has been dead the entire time!”).

Peter says, “I can’t believe you forced me to watch that movie. I should report you.”

“To who?”

“To
whom
. Dad.”

It’s a very bad beginning to my mother-son short-story book club.

“I’m going to sleep on the couch,” says William that night. “I may be contagious. I don’t want you to get it.”

“That’s very considerate of you,” I say.

William coughs. Coughs again. “Could be a cold, but could be something more.”

“Better to be safe,” I say.

“Which one are you reading?” he asks, pointing to the stack of books on my bedside table.

“All of them.”

“At once?”

I nod. “They’re my Ambien. I can’t afford to become a sleep-eater.”

I read one page of one book and fall asleep. I’m awakened a few hours later by Peter shaking my shoulder.

“Can I sleep in your bed? I’m scared,” he snuffles.

I switch on the light. “
I see alive people
,” I whisper.

“That’s not funny.” He’s near tears.

“Oh, sweetheart. I’m sorry.” I flip back the covers on William’s side of the bed, feeling surprisingly sad that he isn’t there. “Climb in.”

John Yossarian
changed his profile picture

John Yossarian
changed his profile picture

John Yossarian
added Relationship Status

It’s Complicated

John Yossarian
added Interests

Piña Coladas

You’re still being blurry, Researcher 101.

I thought you’d be pleased. I’m filling in my profile.

It’s complicated
is a given in any relationship.

Facebook only gives you so many options. I had to choose one, Wife 22.

If you could write your own Relationship Status, what would it be? I suggest you answer this question without thinking about it too much. I’ve found this kind of rapid-fire response results in the most honest answers.

Married, questioning, hopeful.

I knew you were married! And I believe all of those adjectives fall under the category
It’s Complicated.

If you could write your own Relationship Status, what would it be?

Married. Questioning.

Not hopeful?

Well, that’s the strange thing. I am hopeful. But I’m not sure the hope is directed toward my husband
.
For the moment, anyway.

What’s it directed toward?

I don’t know. It’s sort of a free-floating hope.

Ah—free-floating hope.

You’re not going to lecture me about redirecting my hope toward my husband?

Hope isn’t something you can redirect. It lands where it lands.

True. But it’s nice you feel hopeful about your marriage.

I didn’t say that, exactly.

What did you say?

I’m not sure.

What did you mean?

I meant that I’m hoping to have hope. Sometime in the future.

So you don’t have it now?

It’s a little up in the air.

I see. Up in the air like you in your profile photo?

I hope we can have more of these conversations.

I thought you didn’t like chatting.

I like chatting with
you
. And I’m getting used to it. My thoughts come faster, but at a price.

What’s that?

With speed comes disinhibition: i.e. see first sentence in previous comment.

And that worries you.

Well, yes.

With speed comes truth, as well.

A certain
sort
of truth.

You have a need to be very precise, don’t you, Researcher 101?

That is a researcher’s nature.

I don’t like to think of you as being a fan of sickly sweet frozen drinks.

A lost opportunity for you, Wife 22.

“I
s that Jude?” I ask.

“Where?”

“In the hair products aisle?”

“I doubt it,” says Zoe. “He doesn’t pay any attention to his hair. It’s part of his singer-songwriter vibe.”

Zoe and I are in Rite-Aid. Zoe needs pontoons and I’m trying to find this perfume I wore when I was a teenager. There’s a flirtatious undertone to my Researcher 101 chats that’s making me feel twenty years younger. I’ve been fantasizing about what he looks like. So far he’s a cross between a young Tommy Lee Jones and Colin Firth—in other words, a weathered, slightly banged-up, profane Colin Firth.

“Excuse me,” I say to a clerk who’s restocking a shelf. “Do you carry a perfume called Love’s Musky Jasmine?”

“We have Love’s Baby Soft,” she says. “Aisle seven.”

“No, I’m not looking for Baby Soft. I want Musky Jasmine.”

She shrugs. “We have Circus Fantasy.”

“What kind of an idiot would name a perfume Circus Fantasy?” asks Zoe. “Who would want to smell like peanuts and horse poop?”

“Britney Spears,” says the clerk.

“You shouldn’t wear that synthetic stuff anyway, Mom. It’s selfish. Air pollution. What about people with MCS? Have you given any thought to them?” says Zoe.

“I like that synthetic stuff, it reminds me of when I was in high school, but apparently they don’t make it anymore,” I say. “What’s MCS?”

“Multiple chemical sensitivity.”

I roll my eyes at Zoe.

“What? It’s a real affliction,” says Zoe.

“How about Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific?” I ask the clerk. “Do you carry that?”