Chapter 24

Mr. Holton is here for back pain.

Back pain is the second most common chief complaint in primary care, the first being upper respiratory infection. It’s frustrating because there’s really very little we can usually do about either of those things. Really, most people are probably better off just Googling remedies. My job is to reassure Mr. Holton about his back pain and maybe prescribe him a medication or physical therapy. Of course, the fact that he’s eighty years old means that he might be stuck with his back pain.

“So how did your back pain start?” I ask Mr. Holton.

“Well…” He smiles at me with slightly yellowed teeth that are at least (mostly) still there. “This all started in… 1975?”

This man has had back pain since before I was born. My rule of thumb is that if a condition has been around more years than I’ve been alive, then it’s probably not something I’ll be able to fix .

“So my girl was messing around with this other guy, see?” he says. “He was more successful than I was and I guess she liked that. Anyway, I saw this other guy on the street and I knew he was the one who was messing around with my girl. So I said to him, ‘Hey!’ And then he didn’t even say nothing, like he didn’t even know who I was! So I said ‘Hey’ again. But he just kept pretending that he didn’t know who I was. Can you believe that?”

I clear my throat. “So… you injured your back then?”

“Wait, you didn’t let me finish ,” he complains. “So anyway, later that day, I went to the store to get some smokes, and…”

I tune out Mr. Holton’s story, confident that it will have absolutely no bearing in the diagnosis and treatment of his back pain. I’ve been distracted recently—since my trip to Reading. Ben returned home two days after we left him, as promised. But things have been subdued since then. I’m still peeved at him for not coming home with us, and he’s just… I don’t know. He seems preoccupied. I can’t say we’ve had one conversation in the week since he came home.

Maybe Ben’s having an affair. With a woman in Reading.

Nah, probably not.

While I haven’t been answering Ryan’s text messages, there’s part of me that can’t help but wonder what would have happened if I had taken a chance all those years back and waited for Ryan instead of ditching him for Ben. Yes, we’d just be starting our lives now, but that wouldn’t be so horrible. If only he’d taken that genetic test like I’d asked him to…

But then I wouldn’t have Leah.

“… And I said to Freddy, I’m never helping lift a piano for you again, buddy!” Mr. Holton bursts out.

It takes me a second to realize he’s expecting more of a response than my vacant nodding. “Oh!” I say. “So… that’s how you hurt your back?”

“Well, that got better, but that was how I hurt it the first time,” he says. “That’s what you asked right? How it all started?”

I suck in a breath. “I meant how did it start this time? This time, right now .”

“This time?” Mr. Holton says thoughtfully. “Well, three months ago, I was going to play golf with my buddy Norman…”

“So you hurt it playing golf?”

“ No . So what happened was that I was going to play golf with Norman, but then I got this phone call…”

I grit my teeth. Well, at least this story starts in the current century.

_____

When I get home with Leah tonight, Ben is in his usual spot on the couch, a tub of peanut butter by his side, staring at his laptop. He doesn’t bother to say hello or even lift his eyes from the screen.

The thought of cooking dinner tonight makes me physically ill. In my head, I tick off a list of local restaurants that deliver, and choose the one we’ve had least recently. “How about Chinese food tonight?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Ben!” I say sharply. He looks up, like he’s surprised I’m in the room. “How about Chinese food tonight?”

“From where?”

“Chow’s?” In the entire year we’ve lived here, we have never once gotten Chinese food from a place besides Chow’s.

Ben groans. “Yeah, okay. Fine.”

I go to the kitchen and start fishing around in the drawer where we keep the fifty-thousand menus that we’ve collected, despite the fact that we only order takeout from like four places. “What do you want from Chow’s?”

“Christ, I don’t know.”

“How about chicken lo mein? You like that.”

“Yeah,” he snorts. “From a decent Chinese restaurant. In Manhattan .”

I let the comment slide. I don’t feel like having the “all the food in Long Island sucks” conversation right now.

“Maybe I’ll get chicken with broccoli,” he says. “They can’t mess that up too badly, right? ”

“You know, Chow’s is actually not that bad,” I say. “I like their food.”

Ben shakes his head at me. “Sometimes I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

He says it like he’s kidding, but honestly, I wonder.

We eat the food with Dora on the television. Leah is eating her portion of the meal (white rice—that’s it… and God help us if a tiny droplet of sauce gets on her rice) while watching television. I’m sitting next to Leah, but I’m actually surfing the web with my phone. And Ben has his plate next to him and his laptop on his lap, killing all his sperm. Not that either of us have been interested in doing anything lately that would require the use of sperm.

I start typing an email on my phone, but I notice that the keyboard doesn’t automatically pop up. I switch windows and then go back to the email, but it’s still happening. Damn it.

I power down my phone and turn it on again, but it’s still not working right. That’s the only trick I know and now I’m out of ideas.

“Ben,” I say.

He doesn’t look up. “Yeah?”

“My phone is doing something weird.” I hold it up, even though he’s too far away to actually see the screen. “The keyboard won’t come up. I tried restarting it, but it’s still not working. ”

Ben’s eyes are still pinned at his own computer screen. “Okay.”

I raise my eyebrows at him. “Can you fix it for me?”

Now I’ve got his attention. He lifts his brown eyes from the screen—he looks tired. “And you can’t fix it yourself because…?”

“I don’t know how to fix this!”

“And I do?”

I glare at him. “Ben, you write apps for smartphones. That’s your job .”

“Yeah, but you act like I know everything there is to know about these phones,” he says. “I don’t. How am I supposed to know how to solve every single problem with your phone?”

“Well, you could look it up.”

“Why can’t you look it up?”

“Because you’re better at looking it up than me.”

Ben gives me a look. “Come on, Jane. It’s not like you’re helpless. I’m just tired of you running to me every time something goes wrong with your phone or computer without even trying to fix it yourself.”

Fine, he’s right. I do go straight to Ben every time something goes wrong with my phone or computer. But there was a time when he was happy to help me. There was a time when if I had an issue with my computer, he’d grab it from me and fix it before I even had to ask. He used to love helping me .

When we were dating for about six months, I accidentally clicked on one of those email links that downloaded a nasty virus onto my computer. I was freaking out. Ben lived a subway ride away from me, but when I texted him about it at eleven o’clock at night, he came over immediately. He spent over an hour getting rid of that damn virus, all the while teasing me about not downloading so much porn.

Finally, Ben says, “Try a hard reset.”

“A hard reset?”

He sighs. “Hold down both buttons at once.”

I do the “hard reset” on the phone. And sure enough, after that, the problem seems to be fixed.

I wonder where the hard reset button is on our marriage.

_____

Leah goes to bed without too much difficulty tonight, but by the time I get out of her room, my brain feels fried. All I want to do is veg out with Ben on the couch and maybe watch an Iron Chef or something. That would be nice.

Except when I get down to the living room, Ben doesn’t have the television on. He’s sitting on the couch, staring straight ahead, a grim expression on his face. Oh my God, did somebody die ? He really looks like somebody might have died.

“Ben…” I venture. “Is… is everything okay? ”

He responds by rubbing his face with his hand. “Not really.”

Somebody died. I knew it.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“I just…” He looks down at his lap. “Honestly? I feel like I barely know you anymore.”

I shouldn’t be surprised by this statement. All the fights lately, that party in Ronkonkoma, him not returning with us from Reading… it was pretty clear he was unhappy. Yet the statement still hits me like a sucker punch in the gut. “ What ?”

“We never talk anymore,” he says. “Ever. Our only interaction is you assigning me chores. And then not being happy about how I do them.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Well, maybe that wouldn’t be the case if you did chores without my having to ask. And didn’t forget half of what I tell you.”

“Right,” he says. “This is exactly what I’m talking about.”

“Well, what do you expect?” I fold my arms across my chest. “You’re home all day , and somehow you can’t even manage to wash one dish. You can’t even manage to change the toilet paper roll!”

“Fuck the toilet paper roll!” Ben stands up now, his arms in angry straight lines at his sides. “I’m talking about us , Jane. Our marriage is… I don’t even know what it is anymore. I feel like I can’t even talk to you anymore. All we do is fight. I just don’t feel close to you anymore.”

I glare at him. I can’t believe he’s bringing up all this bullshit when I’m exhausted from working all day. Of course, he’s got tons of energy to fight—he just sits around all day. “We talk all the time!”

“Yeah, about what?” he shoots back. “How much you hate Leah’s teacher? About potty training , which you refuse to even do the right way? I don’t care about any of that. That’s not what I want to talk about with you.”

I nod at the television. “We talk about Iron Chef .”

“Great,” he mutters. “A television show. That’s all I have in common with my wife.” He shakes his head at me. “Those couple days without you at my mother’s house? It was like… a relief. I enjoyed being alone.”

“Everyone likes being alone sometimes,” I say weakly.

“No.” His lips set into a grim line. “It’s more than that.”

I’m starting to realize this isn’t another one of our silly fights. This is something more. This is what’s been building over the last several years, and getting even worse over the last several months.

He’s quiet for a minute, just staring at me. Finally, he lowers his brown eyes. “I’m not happy, Jane. I’m not happy with my life out here. And I’m not happy with… us. ”

“What are you saying?” I manage.

Ben is quiet. He bites his lip.

I take a deep breath. “Are you… are you saying you want to leave?”

Please say no. Please say no.

After what seems like an eternity, he says, “Yeah. Maybe.”

I want to hit him. Whatever happened to “we love each other too much for that to happen”? It turns out that was bullshit, like everything else in our marriage.

“I’m going out,” he says.

“Where are you going?” I ask in a tiny voice.

“Where can I go?” he mutters. “This is fucking Long Island .”

It’s got to be below freezing out, but Ben tugs on his heavy winter coat and pulls on his hat. He’ll probably end up in his car at some point, because otherwise he’ll end up freezing to death. And while part of me feels like I don’t give a shit what happens to him at this point, the part of me that doesn’t want my husband to die hands him a scarf.

“Thanks,” he says quietly as he accepts the scarf.

“Are you coming back?” I ask in a voice so tiny, it’s almost a whisper.

“I think…” He heaves a sigh. “I think I’m going to stay at a hotel tonight. ”

I watch him walk through the front door, slamming it decisively behind him. It’s only when he’s gone that I sink down onto the couch. My hands are trembling and my heart is pounding. I can’t even believe that just happened. Yes, I knew we’d been fighting a lot—okay, more than a lot. But I didn’t think we were getting to the point where Ben was thinking about leaving our family.

But it’s not like this is my fault. He’s the one who isn’t pulling his weight around here. And now he’s pissed off when I ask him to pitch in? He’s upset because I wanted him to go to a stupid party? What the hell is wrong with him?

If he wants to leave, let him leave. It’s not like he helps me with anything anyway. I managed just fine without him when he was in Reading. And right now, I’m not even sure I want him around.