Chapter Fourteen
Hey you.” Someone clasps my arm.
Joy and I are at a farmers’ market. We’re buying produce and pie.
I turn around and see the woman I cheated on Ben with.
“Oh. Hi,” I say, startled to see her.
My heart starts racing. I didn’t mention her to Joy.
Joy is looking between the woman and me. She has a confused expression on her face.
“Wow, we must be magnets to each other.” The woman winks at me.
I feel my face heat up.
“Good to see you again.” She smiles as she pushes toward a booth selling local honey.
“Who was that?” Joy asks as we walk out of the crowd toward our car. We’re carrying a peach pie and a library-branded tote bag full of fruit and vegetables.
I stammer while I unlock the car. “Sh-she’s, uh. I don’t actually remember her name.”
“Why are you being weird right now?” she asks.
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. If I didn’t know better, I might think there was, like, something going on with you and that woman.”
“What? Don’t say that. Of course there isn’t,” I say.
We put the pie and tote bag in the trunk, then sit down in the car. I turn the air-conditioning up.
As we pull out of the parking lot, Joy says, “Okay. It weirdly kind of seemed like—”
“She’s someone I hooked up with,” I explain while trying to get out of the parking lot.
Joy puts a hand to her chest. “What?”
“No, not recently obviously, like when I was twenty-one,” I stammer. “It was a really long time ago.”
I glance at her. Her face looks sort of pale now. She says, “But the way she just interacted with you seems like you’ve spoken recently.”
“Yeah, I randomly ran into her at the library last week,” I say.
We’re finally out of the parking lot now. We’re on the road headed toward home.
“Why didn’t you mention that to me?”
Her voice is eerily calm. I can tell she’s mad.
“I don’t know, honey. You were away. I’m sorry. I—”
I glance at her. She’s furrowed her brow. “That is really weird of you, Darcy.”
“I’m sorry. You’re right. It is weird. I’ve felt off lately, like I’m wading through this brain fog. I—”
“Why didn’t you tell me about running into her?” Her voice is louder than usual.
“I should have told you,” I say.
“I know. Why didn’t you?”
I glance at her. Her face is red. “Because I was twenty-one when I hooked up with her. I didn’t think it mattered.”
“I don’t care how long ago it was, Darcy. If you interact with someone you’ve had sex with, you should tell me. I would tell you. We’re married. It’s weird.”
“No, no, I mean—like, I was twenty-one. I was dating Ben at the time. That’s why I didn’t tell you. I-I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“What? You were dating Ben when you hooked up with that woman?”
My throat feels tight. “Yeah.”
“Oh.” I can feel her eyes scanning my face as if she hasn’t seen me for a long time.
“You were at Sophie’s when I ran into her,” I babble. “I planned to text you about it, or mention it on the phone, but things got busy, and I’m all over the place. I—”
“Don’t make excuses. You could have told me. You didn’t want to tell me.”
“No, I—”
“Don’t lie,” she says. Now she’s looking out her window with her arms crossed. “You didn’t tell me because you didn’t want to tell me. I’m always honest with you.”
I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything. We drive silently the rest of the way home.
When we pull up to the house, Joy unbuckles her seat belt and asks, “Can you bring in the bags? I want to go upstairs to think about this for a bit. I need some time alone, okay?”
She always wants to be alone after we have an argument.
I frown. “Okay.”
There was this infomercial that used to play on TV when I was a kid, warning people not to smoke weed. It featured a woman sitting on a couch, deflated. She was a balloonish mannequin with no air in her body. The advertisement warned DO NOT SMOKE POT.
I can’t remember the last time I smoked weed, yet I feel like that deflated balloon woman. I’m sitting on the couch, limp. I wish I’d handled that conversation differently. I feel stupid.
I close my eyes. Once, when Ben and I got into a fight, he punched a hole in the wall. I can’t remember what he was mad about, but I think he’d been drinking. It was unlike him to get angry like that, though it happened a couple times.
It’s been almost three hours since Joy went upstairs. I can’t tell if she wants me to go talk to her or give her space, but it’s nine p.m. and we usually go to bed around nine thirty. Maybe she wants me to sleep on the couch.
I climb up the stairs and stand in the doorframe of our bedroom. Joy’s lying in our bed facing away from the door. She’s either asleep or ignoring me.
“Hey, I’m sorry,” I say quietly from the door. “Do you, uh, want me to sleep on the couch?”
She doesn’t say anything, but I can tell by how she’s rustling that she’s awake.
I inhale. “I’m really sorry, Joy. I didn’t want you to think of me as someone who’s cheated on someone before.
You’ve said that you think people who cheat will always be cheaters, and I didn’t want you to put me in that category.
I know that’s unreasonable of me, and you have the right to know the truth, to decide how you think for yourself.
I’m sorry. This was obviously a stupid way to handle this.
It makes me seem even more dishonest. I’m sorry.
I have this constant worry that you might realize I’m a bad partner.
I was an awful girlfriend to Ben. And I don’t think that’s just because I’m gay.
I think I’m selfish. And I know it’s complicated because he was way too old for me and he had issues too, but I think if we put all that aside, I’d still come out as someone who was in the wrong a lot.
I think I made a mess of that relationship, and I’ve always tried to be a better partner to you, but I’m worried it’s, like, something that can’t be fixed.
Especially now. I’m worried I might just be a shitty partner. ”
She doesn’t say anything.
“Am I?” I ask.
She rolls over and looks at me. “Sometimes.”
I frown.
She exhales. “But not always.”
“That means I am shitty,” I say. “You can’t sometimes be a good partner. You’re either a good one or a bad one—”
“No,” she says. “Not everything is so clear-cut. You aren’t a good partner or a bad one. You aren’t a good or bad person either. You’re a person. There’s this gray area.”
We look at each other.
She sighs. “I don’t care that you cheated on Ben. I’m upset that you kept something from me.”
I frown. “You really don’t care?”
“Well, I mean. I don’t think that’s very nice, but he wasn’t very nice.”
“Don’t say that.” I wince. I don’t want her to talk badly about him.
“I know you have complicated feelings about him, and I’m sorry you’re still dealing with that. I think maybe you’re still a little brainwashed when it comes to him, though.”
“No, you don’t understand. It wasn’t like he was this awful person—”
“I know,” she says. “I get it. You have a lot of sympathy for him. But I have more sympathy for you. I’m going to forgive you for lying to me because I know you’re sorry, and I understand that people make mistakes, but I’m upset, and I want you to be more considerate and thoughtful in the future.”
Both cats stroll past me into the bedroom. They rub their bodies against my legs as they pass. They jump on the bed and lie down on my side.
Joy breathes air out of her nose. “But I guess you’re sleeping on the couch regardless. The girls have claimed your spot.”
I walk into the room and lie at the end of the bed the way a dog might. “Can I sleep here, Lou and Toulouse?”
“Hm. They don’t look impressed,” Joy says. “I think they want you to sleep on the floor.”
I snort. “Jesus, girls. Be reasonable.”
I lie there pathetically for a moment, then say, “I get why this upset you. I really am sorry. I’ll be more considerate and thoughtful from here on out. Thanks for telling me how you feel.”
“No problem,” she says while she puts her feet on me like I’m a footrest.
I wake up, reach my arm out to the spot where Joy should be, and find it’s empty. The bed feels cool. I open my eyes and sit up. Where is she?
Is she still mad at me?
I climb out of bed and amble down the stairs.
Did she leave?
I walk into the living room, panicked. I spot her in a robe. She’s putting our books back on the shelves.
“There you are,” I say. My heart is racing. “What are you doing?”
“Oh, good morning. I’m just helping,” she says.
She has her arms full of books. “I’ve made these sections.
What do you think? This area here is poetry, and I’ve organized by period.
So, this shelf is contemporary. Renaissance is over here.
Neoclassical. And over here we have children’s lit.
Lit fic is over here. Nonfiction books are on these shelves.
This row here is gender studies. This is feminist literature.
I’ve organized everything into these groupings, but I didn’t order alphabetically by author.
So things are where they should be generally, but in no specific order.
I thought maybe it would be a good compromise.
Everything has a place, but there’s still a little chaos. What do you think?”
I look at her.
“Do you like it?” she asks.
Her hair is gathered in a claw clip on top of her head.
“Yes,” I say.
“I know you prefer things to be perfectly organized, but—”
“A little disorder is okay,” I say.
She smiles at me. “Exactly.”
I told Dr. Jeong about Joy, the woman at the farmers’ market, and the fight we had.
She says, “We’ve talked a lot about your relationship with Ben, but you haven’t shared much about your relationship with your wife. Would you be open to telling me a bit more about her?”
“Sure,” I say. “What would you like to know?”
“How did you two meet?”