The Wives

TWO

On Friday morning, Seth leaves before I wake up. I tossed and turned until four and then must have fallen into a deep sleep, because I didn’t hear him when he left. Sometimes I feel like a girl who wakes up alone in bed after a one-night stand, him sneaking out before she can ask his name. I always lie in bed longer on Fridays and stare at the dent in his pillow until the sun shines right through the window and into my eyes. But the sun has yet to curl her fingers over the horizon, and I stare at that dent like it’s giving me life.

Mornings are hard. In a normal marriage, you wake up beside a person, validate your life with their sleep-soaked body. There are routines and schedules, and they get boring, but they are a comfort, as well. I do not have the comfort of normalcy: a snoring husband whom I kick during the night, or toothpaste glued to the sink that I scrub away in frustration. Seth can’t be felt in the fibers of this home, and most days that makes my heart heavy. He’s barely here and then he’s gone, off to another woman’s bed while mine grows cold.

I glance at my phone, apprehension making curlicues in my belly. I don’t like to text him. I imagine he is flooded with texts every day from the others, but this morning I have the urge to reach for my phone and text him: I miss you. He knows, surely he knows. When you don’t see your husband for five days out of the week he must know that you miss him. But I don’t reach for my phone, and I don’t text him. Resolutely, I throw my legs over the side of the bed and slide my feet into my slippers instead, my toes curling into the soft fleece inside. The slippers are part of my routine, my reach for normalcy. I walk to the kitchen, glancing out of the window at the city below. There is a snake of red brake lights down 99 as commuters wait their turn at the light. Wipers swish back and forth, clearing windshields of the mist-like rain. I wonder if Seth is among them, but no, he takes 5 away from here. Away from me.

I open the fridge and pull out a glass bottle of Coke, setting it on the counter. I dig around the silverware drawer for the bottle opener, cursing when a toothpick slides underneath my fingernail. I stick the finger in my mouth as I loosen the cap off the bottle with my free hand. I only keep one bottle of Coke in the fridge, and I hide the rest underneath the sink behind the watering can. Each time I drink the bottle, I replace it. That way, it looks like the same bottle of Coke has been sitting there forever. There is no one to fool but myself. And perhaps I don’t want Seth to know that I drink Coke for breakfast. He would tease me and I don’t mind his teasing, but soda for breakfast is not something you want people to know. When I was a little girl, I was the only one of my friends who liked to play with Barbie. At ten, they’d already moved on to makeup kits and MTV, asking their parents for clothes for Christmas instead of the new Barbie camper van. I was terribly ashamed of my love of Barbie dolls—especially after they made such a big deal out of it, calling me a baby. In one of the saddest moments of my young life, I packed away my Barbie dolls, retiring them to a box in my closet. I cried myself to sleep that night, not wanting to part with something I loved so much but knowing the teasing I’d take for it if I didn’t. When my mother found the box a few weeks later while packing laundry away, she’d questioned me about it. I tearfully told her the truth. I was too old for Barbie and it was time to move on.

You can play with them in secret. No one has to know. You don’t have to give up something you love just because other people disapprove, she said.

Secrets: I’m good at having them and keeping them.

I see that he made himself toast before he left. The remnants of bread crumbs litter the counter, and a knife lies in the sink, slick with butter. I chastise myself for not getting up early to make him something. Next week, I tell myself. Next week I’ll be better, I’ll feed my husband breakfast. I’ll be one of those wives who delivers sex and sustenance three times a day. Anxiety grips my stomach and I wonder if Monday and Tuesday get up to make him breakfast. Have I been slacking all this time? Does he think of me as neglectful because I stayed in bed? I clean up the crumbs, swiping them into my hand and then angrily shaking them into the sink, and then I carry my Coke to the living room. The bottle is cold in my palm and I sip, thinking of all the ways I could be better.

When I wake up, some time has gone by, the light has changed. I sit up and see the bottle of Coke turned on its side, a brown stain seeping into the carpet around it.

“Shit,” I say aloud, standing up. I must have dozed off holding the bottle. That’s what I get for lying awake all night, staring at the ceiling. I rush to grab a rag and stain solution to clean the carpet and drop to my knees, scrubbing furiously. The Coke has dried into the knotted beige rug, a sticky caramel. I am angry about something, I realize as tears roll down my face. The drips join the stain on the carpet and I scrub harder. When the carpet is clean, I fall back on my haunches and close my eyes. What has happened to me? How have I become this docile person, living for Thursdays and the love of a man who divides himself so thinly among three women? If you’d told nineteen-year-old me that this would be my life, she’d have laughed in your face.

The day he found me was five years ago, next week. I was studying in a coffee shop, my final nursing exam looming ahead of me, a wall I didn’t feel ready to climb. I’d not slept in two days, and I was at the point where I was drinking coffee like it was water just to stay awake. Half-delirious, I swayed in my armchair as Seth sat down next to me. I remember being irritated by his presence. There were five open armchairs to choose from; why take the one right next to me? He was handsome: glossy black hair and turquoise eyes, well-slept, well-groomed and well-spoken. He’d asked if I was studying to be a nurse and I’d snapped my answer, only to apologize a moment later for my rudeness. He’d waved away my apology and asked if he could quiz me.

A laugh burst from between my lips until I realized he was serious. “You want to spend your Friday night quizzing a half-dead nursing student?” I’d asked him.

“Sure,” he’d said, eyes glowing with humor. “I figure if I get in your good graces, you won’t say no when I ask you to have dinner with me.”

I remember frowning at him, wondering if it was a joke. Like his buddies had sent him over to humiliate the sad girl in the corner. He was too handsome. His type never bothered with girls like me. While I certainly wasn’t ugly, I was on the plain side. My mother always said I got the brains and my sister, Torrence, got the beauty.

“Are you being serious?” I’d asked. I suddenly felt self-conscious about my limp ponytail and lack of mascara.

“Only if you like Mexican,” he’d said. “I can’t fall for a girl who doesn’t like Mexican.”

“I don’t like Mexican,” I told him, and he’d grabbed at his heart like he was in pain. I’d laughed at the sight of him—a too-handsome man pretending to have a heart attack in a coffee shop.

“Just kidding. What sort of messed-up human doesn’t like Mexican?”

Against my better judgment and despite my insanely busy schedule, I’d agreed to meet him for dinner the following week. A girl had to eat, after all. When I pulled up to the restaurant in my beat-up little Ford, I’d half expected him not to be there. But as soon as I stepped out of the car, I spotted him waiting by the entrance, just out of reach of the rain, droplets spotting the shoulders of his trench coat.

He’d been charming through the first course, asking me questions about school, my family and what I planned to do after. I’d dipped chips in salsa, trying to remember the last time a person had taken this much interest in me. Wholly taken with him, I’d answered every single one of his questions with enthusiasm, and by the time dinner was finished, I realized I knew nothing about him.

“We’ll save that for dinner next week,” he’d said when I brought it up.

“How do you know there will be a next week?” I asked him.

He just smiled at me, and I knew right then that I was in trouble.

I shower and dress for the day, only pausing to check my phone as I’m on my way out the door. Since Seth is gone for five days of the week, I volunteer to take the late shifts that no one else wants. It’s unbearable to be sitting home all night alone, thinking about him being with the others. I prefer to keep my mind busy at all times, keep my focus. Fridays, I go to the gym and then the market. Sometimes I grab lunch with a girlfriend, but lately everyone seems to be too busy to meet up. Most of my friends are either newly married or newly mothered, our lives all having forked off into jobs and families.

My phone says that Seth has texted me. Miss you already. Can’t wait for next week.

I smile stiffly as I hit the button for the elevator. It’s so easy for him to express the missing when he always has someone by his side. I shouldn’t think like that. I know he loves each of us, misses each of us when he’s away.

Should we have pizza for dinner when I see you next? My attempt at a joke.

He texts back immediately, sending the laugh/cry emoji. What did people do before emojis? It seems like the only reasonable way to lighten a loaded sentence.

I tuck my phone back into my purse as I step into the elevator, a small smile on my lips. Even on my hardest days, a little text from Seth makes everything all right. And there are plenty of hard days, days where I feel inadequate or insecure about my role in his life.

I love you all differently but equally.

I wanted to know what that meant, the specifics. Was it sexual? Emotional? And if he had to choose, if he had a gun to his head, would he pick me?

When Seth first told me about his wife, we were at an Italian restaurant called La Spiga on Capitol Hill. It was our fourth date. The awkwardness of two people getting to know each other had rolled away, and a more comfortable phase had taken its place. We were holding hands by then...kissing. He’d said he had something to talk to me about and I’d planned for perhaps a conversation about where our relationship was going. As soon as the word wife was out of his mouth, I’d set my fork down, wiped any pasta sauce from my lips, picked up my purse and left. He’d chased me down the street just as I was hailing a taxi, and then our server had chased him down, demanding to be paid for our partially eaten meal. We’d all stood on the sidewalk awkwardly until Seth pleaded with me to come back inside. I’d done so hesitantly, but part of me wanted to hear what he had to say. And how was there anything to say? How could a man justify something like that?

“I know how it sounds, trust me.” He’d taken an extralong swig of wine before continuing. “It’s not about sex. I don’t have an addiction, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

It was exactly what I was thinking actually. I’d folded my arms across my chest and waited. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw our server lingering nearby. I wondered if he was waiting for us to make another run out of the restaurant and abandon the check.

“My father...” he started. I rolled my eyes. Half the known world could start an excuse with “my father.” Nevertheless, I waited for him to continue. I was a woman of my word.

The words glided over me: “My parents...polygamists...four mothers.”

I stared at him in shock. It was like being halfway down a guy’s pants when he told you he was really a woman. At first I thought he was lying, making a bad joke, but I’d seen something in his eyes. He’d given me a tender spot of information and he was waiting to be judged. I didn’t know what to say. What response was appropriate? You saw that sort of thing on television, but in real life...?

“I grew up in Utah,” he continued. “I left as soon as I turned eighteen. I swore I was against everything they believed in.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. And I didn’t. I was tense, my hands clenched under the table, nails digging into my palms.

He’d run a hand across his face, suddenly looking ten years older.

“My wife doesn’t want children,” he told me. “I’m not that guy, the one who pressures a woman to be something she’s not.”

I’d seen him with a different set of eyes then—a dad with one kid on his shoulders and another at his feet. Ice cream sundaes and T-ball games. He had the same dreams that I did, that most of us did.

“So, where do I come in? You’re looking for a breeder and I fit your type?” I was being antagonistic, but it was an easy stab. Why had he chosen me, and who said I even wanted children?

He looked stung by my accusation, but I didn’t feel bad about saying it. Men like him made me sick. But I had come back to the table to hear him out, and I would. At the time, it was the most absurd thing I’d ever heard. He had a wife, but wanted a new one. To start a family. Who the hell did he think he was? It was sick and I told him so.

“I understand,” he’d said, downtrodden. “I completely understand.” After that, he paid the bill and we went our separate ways, me giving him a chilly goodbye. He told me later that he’d never expected to hear from me again, but I’d gone home and tossed and turned in bed all night, unable to sleep.

But I liked him. I really, really liked him. There was something about him—a charisma, maybe, or a perceptiveness. Either way, he never made me feel less when I was with him. Not like the boys I’d dated in college, who looked at their own reflection in your eyes, and considered you a “right now” relationship. When I was with Seth, I felt like the only one. I’d shoved all of those feelings aside to grieve the end of what I had thought was the promising start of a new relationship. I’d even gone on a few dates, one with a fireman from Bellevue and another with a small-business owner in Seattle. Both dates ended miserably for me, as I only compared the men to Seth. And then, about a month later, after grieving more deeply than I should for a man I barely knew, I worked up the nerve to call him.

“I miss you,” I said as soon as he picked up. “I don’t want to miss you but I do.”

And then I’d asked if his wife knew if he was looking for someone new to have his babies. There was a long pause on Seth’s end, longer than I would have liked. I was about to tell him to forget I even asked when he replied with a breathy, “Yes.”

“Wait,” I said, pressing the phone closer to my ear. “Did you say yes?”

“We agreed on this together,” he said with more confidence. “That I needed to be with someone who wanted the same things as I do.”

“You told her?” I asked again.

“After our first date, I thought we had something and I told her that. I knew it was a risk, but we had something. A connection.”

“And she was just okay with it?”

“No... Yes. I mean, it’s hard. She said it was time to look at our options. That she loved me but understood.”

I was quiet on my end of the phone, digesting everything he was saying.

“Can I see you?” he’d asked. “Just for a drink or a coffee. Something simple.”

I wanted to say no, to be the type of strong, resolved woman who didn’t budge. But instead, I found myself making plans to meet him at a local coffee shop the following week. When I hung up, I had to remind myself that I’d been the one to call him and he hadn’t manipulated me into anything. You’re in control, I told myself. You’ll be his legal wife. I was so, so wrong.

THREE

I arrive home Saturday morning after my shift and immediately fall into bed. It had been a long night, the kind that stretches you into mental and emotional exhaustion. There was a ten-car pileup on 5 that brought a dozen people into the emergency room, and then a domestic disturbance sent a husband into the ER with three gunshot wounds in his abdomen. His wife had run in ten minutes later with a toddler on her hip, blood soaking through her yellow shirt. She was screaming that it was all a mistake. Every night in the ER was a horror movie: open wounds, crying, pain. By the end of the night, the floors were sticky with blood, slicked over with vomit. I wear black scrubs so the mess doesn’t show.

I’m just dozing off when I hear the front door open and close, followed by the sound of a train whistle. The whistle part of our security system notifies me every time the front door opens. I bolt upright in bed, my eyes wide. Did I dream that or did it just happen? Seth is in Portland; he texted me last night and never mentioned coming home. I wait, completely still, ears pricked—ready to shoot out of bed and—

My head swivels left and right as I look for a weapon, my heart pounding. The gun my father gave me for my twenty-first birthday is stashed somewhere in my closet. I try to recall where but I’m trembling from fear. Another weapon, then... My bedroom is a collection of soft, feminine things; there are no weapons on hand. I throw off blankets, struggling to my feet. I’m a stupid, defenseless girl who has a gun and doesn’t know where it is or how to use it. Did I forget to lock the door? I’d been half-asleep when I got home, stumbling around, kicking off shoes... And then I hear my mother’s voice from the foyer, calling my name. My panic recedes, but my heart is still pounding. I hold a hand over it, closing my eyes. A jingle—when my mother moves, she jingles. I relax, my shoulders slumping into a normal, relaxed position. That’s right. She was coming over today to have lunch. How had I forgotten? You’re tired, you need to sleep, I tell myself. I straighten my hair in the dresser mirror and scrub the sleep from my eyes before stepping out of the bedroom and into the hall. I arrange my face into something cheerful.

“Mom, hi,” I say, stepping forward to give her a quick hug. “I just got home. Sorry, I haven’t had time to shower.”

My mother steps out of my embrace to look me over; her perfectly coiffed hair catches the light from the window and I see she has fresh highlights.

“You look fantastic,” I say. It’s what I’m supposed to say, but she really does.

“You look tired,” she tsks. “Why don’t you shower and I’ll make lunch for us here instead of going out.” Just like that, I’m dismissed in my own home. It’s uncanny how she can still make me feel like a teenager.

I nod, feeling a rush of gratitude, despite her tone. After the night I had, the thought of getting dressed to go out is unbearable.

I take a quick shower, and when I come out wrapped in my robe, my mother has whipped up chicken salad on a croissant. A tall mimosa sits next to my plate. I slide into my chair, grateful. My freshly stocked fridge hadn’t disappointed her. I learned to cook by watching her, and if there was one thing she emphasized, it was to always keep your fridge stocked for that surprise meal you’ll have to cook.

“How’s Seth?” is her first question as she takes her seat across from me. My mother: always to the point, always on time, always organized. She is the perfect homemaker and wife.

“He was tired on Thursday when he was here. We didn’t have a chance to talk very much.” The truth. I’m afraid my voice has betrayed more, but when I glance up at her face, she’s preoccupied with her food.

“That poor man,” she says, cutting into her croissant with determination. The undersides of her arms flap as she saws at the roll, her mouth pinched in disapproval. “All of that commuting back and forth. I know it was the right decision for both of you, but it’s still very hard.” The only reason she’s saying it was the right decision is to not upset me. She’d told me in no uncertain terms that my duty was to be with Seth, and that I should give up my job to be wherever he was. She used to nag about marrying him, and now she’s transitioned comfortably into the topic of a baby.

I nod. I have no desire to have this discussion with my mother. She always finds a way to make me feel like a failure at being Seth’s wife. Mostly, it’s about giving him a child. She’s convinced he’ll stop loving me if my uterus doesn’t woman-up. I could silence her by telling her that he already has another wife, two actually, who fill the spaces where I fail. That one of them is growing his baby as we speak.

“You could always rent this place out and join him in Oregon,” she offers. “It’s not so bad. We lived there for a year when you were two, in Grandma’s house. You’ve always loved that house so much.” She says this like I don’t know, as if I haven’t heard the stories before.

“Can’t,” I tell her through a mouthful. “He has to be in the Seattle office two days a week. We’d have to have a place here, anyway. And besides, I don’t want to leave. My life is here, my friends are here and I love my job.” True, true, not true. I’ve never liked Portland; I thought of it as the poor man’s Seattle: same scenery, similar weather, grubbier city. My grandparents lived and died there, never once leaving the state. Aside from their main house, they had a vacation home in the south, near California. The thought of Portland makes me feel claustrophobic.

My mother looks at me disapprovingly, a fleck of mayonnaise smeared across a pearly pink fingernail. She’s old-school that way. In her mind, you went wherever your man went or he became susceptible to cheating. If only she knew.

“This was the agreement we made and it makes the most sense,” I say firmly. And then I add, “For now,” to appease her. And it is true. Seth is a builder. He recently opened up an office in Portland, and while his business partner, Alex, oversees the Seattle branch, Seth has to spend most of his week in the Portland office overseeing his projects there.

Monday and Tuesday are there, living in the city. They get to see the most of him and it makes me sick with jealousy. He often has lunch with one of them during the day, a luxury I don’t have, since he spends most of Thursday traveling back to Seattle to see me. On Fridays, he spends the day in the Seattle office, and then sometimes meets me for dinner before heading back to Portland on Saturday. The rotating day the wives share is spent on travel for the time being, but with two of his wives living in Oregon, I’ve begun to think it will be permanent. It’s hard being part of something so unusual and not having anyone to talk to about it. None of my friends know, though I’ve almost blurted the truth to my best friend, Anna, half a dozen times.