THE BRILLIANT MORNING LIGHT slicing through the east-facing window leaves Annika feeling exposed. Christopher will continue to lie there on their king-sized bed in all his sweaty, naked glory, but Annika cannot. She grabs the cotton sheet from around her ankles and, with a flick of her wrist, tents it over her, allowing it to float down over her body. Then she pulls one, then another Kleenex from the box on her bedside table and tucks the tissues high between her thighs, wadding them into a ball to capture his stickiness into a wet plug.
A heavy sigh rumbles up from Christopher’s chest. Annika sometimes finds it hard to interpret her husband’s grunts and groans. Was that a release of sexual tension? His body relaxing into the mattress? Or an unconscious expression of his discontent? She wants to say something, to ask if he shares her weariness, her boredom, her feeling that something essential has been lost after ten years of marriage. But she can’t find the words, so she says nothing. She tips her face toward him, hoping that she’ll read the answer on his face.
Christopher grabs his cell phone from the side table, flips onto his side, his back to her, and taps out a text. Annika’s mood instantly shifts from melancholy to murderous. Who the hell does that? What is more important than sharing this quiet moment with her? His damn phone has replaced the post-coital cigarette. Both could kill a man – only the cell phone is more likely to make his death a homicide.
“You can use the bathroom first.” Christopher speaks to the wall, with one hand holding the phone and the fingers of the other scratching the stubble on his chin. His gaze is fixed on the glowing screen. Annika’s gaze is fixed on the smooth, slender fingers of the bass player she’d fallen in love with over a decade ago.
Her thoughts are interrupted when Christopher mutters. “I’m in no big rush this morning. The band doesn’t meet with our agent until ten.”
Annika closes her eyes, hoping for some insight to explain why she tolerates the slow erosion of their relationship. Is it because she’d promised Christopher, whose parents had divorced when he was young, that their son would grow up in a stable household? Is it because she believed things would get better? Or is she attached to all those long-ago memories of happier times? Like when they’d clung to that morning moment, not letting anyone or anything intrude. Those days when she’d nuzzled into his neck to inhale the salty, sweet smell of sleep. When they’d giggled their way into the morning, just lovesick teenagers, tenderly, gently, playfully, stretching and teasing out that erotic moment.
Annika runs her hand down Christopher’s long back and over his smooth ass. Christopher doesn’t react. Their love has become an illusion that lives in her memory. Once her morning delight, now there is no love in their lovemaking. It’s formulaic – an equation. Kiss this; stroke that. Push, pump, and pump some more. Just another job struck off Christopher’s morning to-do list.
The drying plug pulls on the skin between Annika’s thighs. She’s not sure why she lets this stuff get to her. This is what she signed up for: married to a nice man and living in a nice house on a nice street in a nice town. A mindless job at a downtown music store that blasts classic rock. But the bonus in this contract, the happy ending after two miscarriages, is their son, Max. He’s the image of his father – fair, slender and strong-willed, maybe a bit too willful some days. What right does she have to want more?
Perhaps this is a question she should ask her friends who gather every week or two for a late-night girl-gab on the back deck overlooking their newly landscaped backyard. That question would be a serious departure from the usual chatter about their brilliant children’s report cards or the quick food prep tips to make hectic evenings a bit less hectic. They rarely talk about their struggles as wives and mothers unless it’s after the fact, with all the messy details hidden or explained away and tied up with a pretty pink bow.
Maybe Leslie has found a way to quell marital unease. Last week, her friend drooled about the beefy high school football coach who’d moved in down the block. She’s first to fawn over any muscled specimen circulating in their orbit, despite her shameless claims that her husband could model for the cover of a romance novel. Perhaps Leslie has an active fantasy life, or maybe she’s found other ways to satisfy her needs. But how would Annika know? Leslie is more likely to spill her wine than spill the details of an extramarital dalliance.
Sharing her marital discontent would require a degree of honesty Annika is afraid to risk. Not after what happened with Judy. A few months back, her dearest friend had collapsed into a puddle of tears at the girls-gab, recounting how she’d awoken the previous morning to discover her husband of eleven years had left her and their two kids – his closet empty, his suitcase gone. Vanished without a note or a single word of explanation. Judy wept. She wailed. She wondered what she had done to deserve a cold-hearted dismissal when she had fulfilled her husband’s every need at the expense of her own.
Annika and her friends watched Judy as she left early to pick up her kids from baseball practice. Her forlorn face, her limp shoulders. Leslie was the first to speak. Her spine straight, her glass slopping red wine over her hand. “Maybe Judy didn’t get the memo. These are supposed to be fun nights. Drink. Laugh. Relax.”
Annika stuttered to find words to defend her friend. “Judy is doing the best she can.”
Leslie, more than a bit tipsy, cut her off. “For the love of God.” She gulped the last swallow of wine and reached for an unopened bottle. “We’ve all got stuff. You have to learn to handle the curveballs, quicksand, and bad hair days. Judy is too blind to see that she wrote her own story. She had to know it would end like this.” Leslie’s harsh words rang true. Annika had watched Judy shapeshift from a vibrant, capable woman who demanded space in this world into someone as bland as the unseasoned tofu they used to eat during their university days.
Annika wasn’t sure if the silent nods and averted eyes were a vote of support for Leslie’s no-nonsense, no-looking-in-the-rearview-mirror approach to life. Or perhaps, like Annika, they feared the loss of their friend group when their own marriages ended in the dumpster. Either way, Leslie’s message was clear. Drink wine and don’t whine.
Annika remained sympathetic over the following days and weeks, supplying Judy with homemade chicken pot pie and chauffeuring her kids to their sports. It was hard to listen to Judy’s separation stories, to watch her wail and flail. Over time, Annika realized she’d separated from Judy, too.
Christopher startles Annika back to the room when he plants a loud kiss on her bare shoulder. “You okay, babe?”
She withdraws her shoulder – more a reflex than by intent. “Just thinking.” She grabs another Kleenex, scoops the sticky plug from between her thighs into a tight ball, and discreetly carries it and her discontent into the bathroom.
“Scrambled eggs and toast okay for breakfast? Max would like that.” Annika summons her usual cheery morning voice. She wonders if Christopher cares enough to notice how hard she works to give him a comfortable life and conceal her growing despair and resentment. She pauses in the doorway with her back to the bedroom, waiting for a response that doesn’t come. Her fingers whiten as she squeezes the bathroom doorknob, pushes the door closed, and clicks the lock into place.
Hot water bursts from the showerhead, and steam fogs the mirror over the sink. Annika doesn’t see her brow wrinkle when Max’s voice echoes down the hall and penetrates the solitude she seeks.
“Mom! Where are my comfy pants?”
She doesn’t see the frown spreading across her face when Max’s impatience escalates. “I can’t find my comfy pants!”
Annika waits for Christopher to
answer. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. Finally, “Hold on, big guy. Your mom’s in the shower.”
Fury heats her naked body. Annika inhales deeply to calm herself and swipes the fog from the mirror. For a moment, she recognizes Judy’s forlorn face and limp shoulders in her reflection. In her everyday battle between repressed rage and restraint, restraint always wins.
But not today. A bold voice rises over the water blasting from the showerhead. “Christopher! For God’s sake. Help Max find his goddamn comfy pants.” Before she steps into the shower, Annika clicks the controls on her waterproof Bluetooth speakers and searches for Mick Jaggar’s iconic anthem about love and disillusionment. “You can’t always get what you want,” she sings, then squeezes a gush of citrus shower gel onto a loofah. She scrubs her tender skin until it’s angry red and watches her foaming discontent swirl down the drain.
Diana L. Gustafson is a Canadian author with roots from sea to sea. She was born in a small farming community on the prairies, published dozens of articles (and three books) during her twenty years as a professor and women’s health researcher at an east coast university, and completed her MFA in creative writing at the University of British Columbia. She lives in Toronto and is an active member of three writing collectives.