She, Myself & I

by Whitney Gaskell

  As though the image of my husband masturbating to naked sluts writhing on his computer screen would be comforting.

  Suddenly a small window popped up on the screen, announced by an electronic beep. At the top, in white type against a blue background, it read, Instant Message, and below, against the white background of the text box, were the words: Cherry: hi big boy. wanna play?

  “Who the hell is that?” I asked.

  Cora was silent. I took in her pale, pinched expression and her obvious mortification at tripping into another couple’s marital mess, and suddenly knew.

  “It’s a woman, isn’t it? Someone who knows Aidan,” I said, the nausea spreading outward into my limbs. My chest constricted, and dagger-sharp pains prickled down my arms. Was this what it felt like to have a heart attack? Wasn’t I too young for the chest-clenching symptoms normally reserved for fifty-year-old men with rolls of belly fat and a habit of washing their fillet-o-fish sandwiches down with beer?

  “I think I’m having a heart attack,” I said, and I leaned back against the wall.

  “No, you’re not. It’s just anxiety,” Cora said.

  “I’ve had panic attacks before. This is different,” I gasped.

  Cora fished around in her diaper bag and retrieved a brown prescription pill bottle. She spun open the top and tapped out a small white pill into the palm of her hand. “Here, take one of these.”

  “What is it?”

  “A Xanax.”

  “Can I take this while breastfeeding?” I asked, swallowing the pill before she could answer.

  “Well, technically, no, although it’s a pretty low dosage. But if you’re worried, just pump and dump your breast milk,” Cora said.

  The computer emitted another beep. Cora and I peered at the screen. Another message had popped up: Cherry: R U there? I’m hornee.

  “A slut who can’t spell ‘horny,’ ” Cora murmured.

  “Should we respond?” I asked.

  “Absolutely,” Cora said.

  She began typing: Who are you, and why are you sending whorish messages to my husband?

  When the message popped up in the dialogue box under Cherry’s two messages, the sender was listed as “12inches.”

  “At least he’s lying to her, too,” I quipped—How can I be making jokes at a time like this?—and Cora snorted.

  We waited a minute, and then a message popped up: Cherry: Who r u calling whore bitch? I’ll kick your bony little ass.

  “Obviously she doesn’t know me,” I said tightly. “Bony little ass. I wish.”

  “What should I say?” Cora asked. “Do you want information from her, or do you want to insult her?”

  What I wanted was to kick Aidan in the balls. Hard. A clichéd response to a husband’s infidelity, yes, but oh so satisfying. I looked down at my hands and noticed they were shaking, but I couldn’t figure out if it was from shock or rage. The first was starting to ebb, while the other leapt like a flame.

  “Insult her,” I said.

  Cora began to type, her long red fingernails rapping against the plastic keys. Ratta-tat-tat. She hit the Enter key, and her instant message appeared in the window.

  12inches: What else would I call the pathetic slut who has Internet sex with my husband? Are you really that desperate, you $3 hooker?

  We both leaned in, shoulders hunched and eyes riveted to the screen, while we waited for her reply.

  Cherry: Maybe if you kept your man happi he wouldn’t be loking for a women who could.

  “I’m going to get her now, the little bitch,” Cora said, and she began to type furiously.

  “No . . . don’t bother. She’s right, actually. Maybe if I hadn’t gotten so fat, Aidan wouldn’t have felt the need to seek out porn,” I said. I turned away and stared out the window at the view of our street—an uninspiring view of lifeless suburban homes—and wondered just when my life had turned to shit. When I was little, I always believed I was special and destined for great things, like Dorothy Hamill twirling on the ice or Carrie Fisher sassing her way through Star Wars. Never would I ever have imagined I’d end up here, a soft suburban mom stuck with a philandering asshole for a husband.

  “Fat? You just had a baby. His baby. If that asshole is turned off by the weight you put on while you were pregnant, then you’re really better off without him,” Cora fumed.

  “I know!” I agreed, deciding to put aside for the moment the small fact that Aidan hadn’t actually ever commented negatively on my weight gain. Besides, if he was attracted to me, why would he be having Internet sex with Cherry the Whore? And then an awful thought occurred to me. “Oh my God. What if this isn’t just dirty talk and a porn obsession? What if Aidan’s cheating on me? I mean for real, what if he’s actually meeting women in real life that he meets online?”

  “Don’t overreact. I’m sure it hasn’t come to that,” Cora said.

  “How can you be? For all I know, he meets Cherry the Whore on his lunch hour,” I said.

  “No, you would have noticed it on the credit card bill if he was charging hotels or expensive lunches,” Cora said.

  “I never look at the bill! Financial stuff stresses me out, so Aidan handles it all,” I wailed.

  Cora looked at me. I could see the pity plainly written there, alongside concern and relief. Seeing the messy innards of another person’s life always makes you feel better about your own warty existence.

  “You’d better talk to him,” Cora said.

  “Yeah. Unless I kill him first,” I said.

  I’d planned to have Ben in bed by the time Aidan came home from work. It was bad enough that Ben was going to be the child of a broken home, I didn’t want him to have to witness what was going to transpire between his parents that night.

  But Ben’s afternoon nap had worn on for hours. I went to bed, too, although I didn’t sleep. Instead, I lay on top of the bed, sinking into the fluffy down comforter, the Xanax making me feel unnaturally calm. By the time Ben finally did wake up, his left cheek red and creased from the sheet and his sleepy little body smelling sweetly of grape lollipop, he shrieked until I stumbled into the circus-themed nursery and rescued him. When Aidan arrived home an hour later, Ben was lying on his Gymini play mat, giggling at the stuffed animals dangling over him. He waved his arms, batting an elephant with a sparkly pink belly.

  “How’s my little guy? What did you and Mommy do today?” Aidan asked, playfully swooping Ben up into his arms and kissing him on his nearly bald, egg-shaped head.

  I sat in the red leather armchair, my body folded up, my arms wrapped around my knees, watching this happy domestic scene—a besotted father kissing his son. How sweet.

  Aidan glance at me. “Is everything okay, hon? How was your day?”

  I stared at him. The bile churned in my stomach, shocking me with just how much dislike I could feel for a man who only the night before had made love to me. And right now I was really wishing I hadn’t faked my orgasm just to give him the ego boost.

  “Soph? Honey, what’s wrong?” Aidan asked. He sat down at the ottoman by my feet, Ben perched on his knee.

  “What did I do today?” I repeated, ignoring his last question. “What did I do today. Let’s see. I took Ben for a walk, showered, we went to the grocery store to get dinner. Then Cora came over to help me make online reservations for a cruise—I was going to surprise you with the trip. But then we were interrupted when Cherry the Whore started to send you private messages about how horny and lonely she was. Oh, and we also uncovered your online porn stash. Let’s see: walk, shower, grocery store, Cherry the Whore, porn. Yup, that pretty much sums up my day.”

  Aidan’s expression did not change, although his skin turned gray.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “Please, you’re going to have to do better than that.”

  “You don’t know how to use the Internet. You probably just typed the wrong word into the search box and ended up on a porn website by mistake,” Aidan s
aid.

  “If you keep lying that way, lightning is going to come through that window and strike you down. And just because I’m not computer savvy doesn’t mean I’m stupid,” I said.

  “I didn’t say you were. I just don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about the porn sites that you’ve saved under your Favorites section on the computer. The ones featuring lesbians and teen cheerleaders. Freak.”

  “I don’t think you should talk like this in front of Ben,” Aidan said severely. It was so typical of him. As soon as he started to lose on the merits of the fight, he’d immediately start arguing about the form or manner in which we were fighting. It’s the same kind of sneaky lawyer thing that Paige does, and it’s always irritated me.

  “Okay. Then why don’t we talk about Cherry the Whore, and why exactly it is that a married man and father is exchanging raunchy e-mails with another woman,” I said, much more calmly than I felt.

  Aidan stood up and shifted Ben up into the crook of his arm.

  “I’m not going to talk about this with you now in front of Ben. Why don’t we wait until he goes to bed and you calm down,” he said, turning to leave the room.

  His cool reaction was stunningly insulting. I’d caught him with his pants down—almost literally—and he was yet again insinuating that I was out of line. There goes Sophie again, overreacting. Ever since she had the baby, she’s been so irrational. Must be the hormones, must be the lack of sleep.

  If he hadn’t been holding our child in his arms, I would have picked up the ugly crystal candy dish his alcoholic aunt had given us as a wedding gift and chucked it at his head.

  “Get out,” I hissed.

  Aidan stopped and turned around. His eyes were dark and angry, and his mouth flattened into a severe line. If I really gave a shit how he was feeling, I might have been worried.

  “Sophie, I really don’t think you should act like this in front of Ben,” he said.

  “Give me Ben. And then go upstairs, pack a bag, and get out,” I said.

  Aidan stared at me as the impact of my words hit him. Perhaps in the past I had been overly emotional and hormonal, going back to the beginning of my pregnancy. Once I had a screaming fit when it took him two weeks to get around to setting up the crib after we bought it, even though Ben wasn’t due for another two months. I’d started to cry in the middle of the grocery store when I found out that they’d run out of Dove bars on a night when nothing else would do. And when he’d interrupted a romantic—and rare—dinner out to take a cell phone call from one of his annoying friends, I might have been guilty of grabbing his phone and turning it off in the middle of the call. But I’d never before, even during one of my hormonal rages or sob-fests, asked him to leave.

  “Just go,” I said again.

  “No,” he said softly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Fine. Then we will,” I said wearily.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  By the time I parked my Tahoe in my mother’s driveway, it was already dark out. The lights of Austin reflected off the low clouds in the sky, casting a greenish glow over the city. It was such a cozy time of night—children were doing their homework at the kitchen table while marinara sauce bubbled on the stove, couples were reuniting over glasses of red wine, the comforting deep voices of the news anchors were calmly running down the various conflicts and traumas in the world.

  And I had left my husband and my home. This realization hit me in waves, and I leaned forward, resting my head against the steering wheel, waiting for the sour sickness to pass. Why hadn’t I asked Cora for an extra Xanax or twelve? It was the one upside to playing the role of the scorned wife—the ability to indulge guilt-free in pharmaceutical crutches.

  My dad’s Passat wasn’t in the driveway, but for all I knew he’d gotten garage privileges back, so when I rang the doorbell I braced myself for another meeting with the happy couple. I had thought of going to Paige’s just to avoid this, but if Zack was there—as he always seemed to be these days—I would have to act sanely in front of him. And right now, I just wanted to let it all hang out, in the messy, slobbering way you reserve for your family.

  The door swung open.

  “Sophie. What’s wrong?” my mom asked, taking in the baby in my arms and the overnight bag and folded-up Pack ’n Play at my feet.

  “I’ve left Aidan,” I said.

  “You what? Why? What happened?”

  “Well . . . God, I don’t want to go through it all right now,” I said. I suddenly felt exhausted, like I could sleep for a week. “Can I stay here for a few days?”

  “You don’t have to ask,” Mom said, and she opened the screen door for me and drew me in. “Here, let me take Ben. Has he had his bath yet? No, I’ll do it. You go sit down, pour yourself a glass of wine, and we’ll talk once the baby’s down. It’s good to see you, honey, I’ve missed you.”

  When she kissed me, her lips felt like paper against my cheek, and then she took Ben out of my arms and whisked him upstairs. I lugged the Pack ’n Play up after her, and while Ben splashed around in the tub, I set it up in Mickey’s room, which looked pretty much exactly as it had when she was in high school. There were posters of Sugar Ray and Lenny Kravitz tacked to the wall, and the plastic horses she had loved so much when she was a kid stood head to tail along the built-in bookshelves. A cheap felt pendant featuring a lion, her school mascot, was tacked to a corkboard, surrounded by photos of her and her friends at track meets, in their prom dresses, standing in lines with their arms around each other’s necks. A faded pink bedspread, nubby from use, was draped over the narrow twin bed.

  “Here he is. He loves taking baths, doesn’t he?” my mother said, appearing with Ben wrapped in a towel. He looked happy, but his eyes were rimmed with red, which meant sleep was not far off. I pulled diapering supplies from my overnight bag, and we kitted Ben up into his nightclothes, and then I kissed him on the cheek before laying him in the Pack ’n Play.

  “I love you,” I breathed into his fine wisping hair.

  And only then did I—the woman who had been known to become weepy at McDonald’s commercials—begin to shed tears for my marriage.

  My mother was fantastic. For the next few days, she took care of both Ben and me, cooking all of my favorite foods—risotto, brownies, lasagna—and watching over Ben in the afternoons while I napped. Months of exhaustion seeped through me, and no matter how much I now slept, I was still achingly tired. When I told Mom what Aidan had done, she was properly outraged. So much so that when he called her house periodically, wanting to speak with me, she put him off and told him that I’d get in touch with him when I was ready to talk.

  “But you are going to have to talk to him eventually. He wants to see you and the baby. You can’t hide from him forever,” Mom said, as she hung up the phone.

  “If Ben and I are so important to him, why is he screwing around?” I asked, my lip curling indignantly.

  “Does what he did really count as screwing around? Not that I’m taking his side, but I thought that when people had Internet sex, they just typed things out to one another while masturbating. Am I wrong?”

  “Ew! I don’t want to think about it. And I certainly don’t want to talk about it with my mother,” I said.

  But mostly, returning to the nostalgic comforts of my mom’s house meant that I was able to put Aidan, and Cherry the Whore, and all thoughts of my broken marriage aside. I didn’t even mind it so much when Dad came over and we popped popcorn and watched the first Harry Potter movie on HBO.

  “Isn’t it weird being around them?” Paige asked one night while we were talking on the phone.

  “No, it’s really not. I’m sort of getting used to them being together again. Although Dad stayed over last night, and that was a little weird at first. It’s been so long since I woke up in the same house as him. But then Mom made scrambled eggs, and they worked on the crossword puzzle together, and it was actually sort of nice,” I said.


  “Oh no, they’ve gotten to you. You’ve been brainwashed.”

  “I have not. It’s actually been cathartic. The last time I lived at home, it was so chaotic here. All of the fighting and turmoil. But now it’s kind of nice how sweet they are with one another. It’s like I wish it had been when we were growing up,” I tried to explain.

  “But doesn’t that piss you off? That they’re capable of being kind and loving to one another, and yet they didn’t do that when we were younger?”

  “It did before, but I think I’ve gotten over it. And it’s good for Ben to have his grandparents together. I guess that’s probably it—it’s more important to me that he’s able to experience that, than it is for me to be angry with them about the past. Oh! I totally forgot! What ever happened? Did you get your period?”

  “No.”

  “Did you take a home pregnancy test?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “And?”

  “And I’m pregnant.”

  “What! Oh my God! That’s so exciting! It is good news, right? It’s what you wanted?”

  “Well, now that the shock has started to wear off, I am getting excited. And Zack is thrilled. Although he’s getting on my nerves. I agreed to let him move in for a trial period, and he’s overdoing the protective male routine. He keeps trying to stop me from running, or working late,” Paige complained.

  The thought of Zack attempting to stop Paige from doing anything made me smile. He might as well go bang his head against a wall.

  “But other than that, how is cohabitating?” I asked.

  “I have to admit, I kind of like it. And Zack was already over here all the time, so it hasn’t been a huge change. He keeps talking about marriage, though, and that freaks me out,” Paige said.

  “Yeah, I bet. But you don’t have to decide that now.”

  “I know. But the house he’s building is going to be ready in a few months. He wants us to get married, sell this place, and move in there to have the baby. In fact, he has this whole picture in his mind of Pottery Barn meets Norman Rockwell,” Paige said.