“I love you too.”
Owen went into the playroom and started playing with Wyatt. Lucy could hear them laughing. She tied the chicken’s legs together with cooking twine and then used her elbow to turn on the faucet. She washed her hands. She slid the chicken into the oven and set the timer. She was getting a big bunch of elephant kale out of the refrigerator when it hit her.
He did it.
She knew it. She could feel it.
When?
That week? That day? That afternoon?
Where? Who?
Lucy felt faint. She leaned against the butcher-block island and took a few deep breaths. It’s not that she hadn’t thought he would do it—she was always pretty sure he was going to do something—but here, faced with the reality…she took another deep breath.
My husband is having sex with another woman. And I’m letting him! I told him he could! I said, “Go right ahead”! What is wrong with me? Have I lost my mind?
Then she washed the kale. She dried it with a paper towel. She placed it on the cutting board. She reached for a knife.
She felt an odd sense of calm descend on her while she went to work on the kale. The good thing about kale is it needs a lot of chopping. It was ideal for a situation like this. Chopping kale had become a certain kind of American housewife’s version of chopping wood, carrying water. Something you did, and then you did again, and then you did again. Chopping kale, for women like Lucy, never stopped.
How did she feel? Surprised, really. Surprised that this was her life. Surprised that something so fundamental had changed and yet it felt like nothing had changed. A little scared. Less curious than she’d thought she’d be. But still a little curious.
Can I handle this?
She heard Wyatt in the playroom telling Owen his knock-knock joke about the interrupting monkey.
Is this a bad idea?
Maybe. Who knows? This is crazy. What’s done is done.
Lucy kept chopping the kale.
“I’m pretty sure he’s done it.”
“Really?” said Sunny Bang. “What makes you say that?”
“Oh, he just seems happier. A little peppier. And he wants to spend all this time with Wyatt. He’ll play the beaver game for two hours on a Saturday morning without complaining. It’s like this thick fog he had over his head has finally lifted.”
“The beaver game?”
“Wyatt’s the beaver, Owen’s the zookeeper, and a bunch of imaginary kids come visit the zoo, including a character named Stinky who takes off his pants in the middle of the field trip and has to go sit alone on the bus as a punishment. Wyatt would play it all day if he could.”
“That’s very inventive,” said Sunny. “Tobias just plays Minecraft.”
“It’s the exact same script, every single time. If you try to change one word, Wyatt goes completely batshit.”
“A friend of mine once flew on a private jet with Bill Gates, and she said he had a blanket over his head and was rocking back and forth the whole time. Wyatt’s gonna be just fine.”
They both looked over at Wyatt. He was dangling on one of the swings, with his belly in the sling part, trailing his fingers meditatively in the sand.
“So, what do you think Owen is doing?”
“I don’t know. Maybe seeing an old girlfriend. Maybe he found someone online. It’s possible he tried it once, and it made him appreciate what he has. Or maybe it’s still going on. Either way, it’s like he’s seeing his life a little more. Even me.”
“Are you going to ask him about it?”
“I don’t want to know.”
“I’d be so curious,” said Sunny Bang. “I’d be tracking his every movement.”
“I thought I’d be jealous, or at least curious, but I feel this strange sort of calm. And, honestly, it’s nice to see him happy. I know that sounds weird, but it’s true.”
“What about you?”
“If something happens, it happens. I feel better just thinking that I could if I wanted to.”
“You should go on Facebook and message all of your old boyfriends. When they ask you how married life is, just type in ‘Eh, dot-dot-dot, you know, dot-dot-dot.’ That’s the code.”
“I don’t want to have sex with any of my old boyfriends.”
“There’s a website, you know. For married people who want to have affairs. You could try that. I’ll send you the link.”
“How do you know about it?”
“Everybody knows about it,” said Sunny. “It’s like Match.com for married people.”
“I don’t want to mess with someone else’s marriage. That just seems wrong.”
“Well, you have to do something.”
“Actually, I don’t think I do,” said Lucy. “Thinking I could feels like enough. Thinking I have the option feels like it’s enough. I feel like a completely different person already and nothing’s even happened.”
Sunny just looked at Lucy for a moment. She had an expression on her face like she was about to say something meaningful, something profound, something that might permanently alter the course of events. Then she started screaming. “THAT’S IT, TOBIAS! WE’RE GOING HOME RIGHT THIS SECOND! I TOLD YOU NOT TO THROW SAND! SAY YOU’RE SORRY TO HUDSON AND GET IN THE CAR!”
It was funny that Lucy realized Owen had actually gone through with it because of the kiss. The Marcella Hazan Chicken Kiss, is how she would forever think of it. It was a good kiss, a real one, one she felt all the way through her body. It had been a long time since she’d been kissed like that. A very long time. Marriage changes the kissing, Lucy found herself thinking later. Why is that? The kissing had almost stopped. And when it did happen, it felt different than it used to. It felt—well, weird wasn’t quite the right word, but it was the closest one Lucy could come up with. Kissing without all the fireworks that used to be there; it was a strange activity.
Marriage doesn’t hurt the cuddling or even change the sex all that much, but it does do something very bad to kissing, Lucy thought. It does. And it’s a shame.
Five
Too often, a harmonious relationship is like a beautiful yacht tied up alongside a dock. Everything looks dreamy, but eventually you have to sail out into the open ocean.
—Constance Waverly
The Beekman elementary school’s auditorium was filled to overflowing. Lucy was sitting up front, next to Claire, who always got to these things an hour early and saved seats for people she liked. Signs on the doors read PARENTS ONLY! and all but the nuttiest of the attachment-theory adherents had obeyed. Other than a four-year-old who was lolling long-limbed on his mother’s lap, breastfeeding out of sheer boredom, there wasn’t a kid in sight who was old enough to understand what was going on.