The Yes Dear Man

      She wouldn’t calm down. Since the kids came, I’d been paying less and less attention to her, and she was making sure I knew it. She also wanted to make sure I knew how to fix it. God, she always knew how I could fix everything.

      “Come on, babe, relax,” I finally said.

      “RELAX!” she yelled. Her screaming the word relax struck me as funny, and I might’ve chuckled.

      “Oh, me being upset is funny? Making me yell to get your attention with our children in the house is funny to you?”

      The kids were sleeping, or trying to. Our house wasn’t big; they were probably sitting up in bed listening. The way she talked, the neighbors were probably listening, and I’m sure they didn’t find it funny either.

      I was just about to do some yelling back.

      One of the late-show guys was on TV, but I couldn’t hear him. Looked like he was doing his monologue, walking back and forth, mouthing jokes. When she started getting louder, I turned the TV up. She grabbed the remote and threw it against the wall.

      “Hey! Are you listening to me?!”

      I pointed at myself. “You talking to me?”

      “I’ve had it,” she said.

      She got right down in my face.

      “I want you out.” A little spit hit me in the eye.

      “Alright,” was all I said, calm as could be.

      Well now, that did it. She called me a no-good sob and talked about how she could’ve married Charlie Barker and now she was stuck with a life-less turd who didn’t care about her. I wondered if Charlie Barker was still working the oil wells, but stayed quiet.

      Things didn’t end when we went to bed. She yelled, “I can’t believe you,” when I fell asleep. So I sat there saying nothing until she went quiet and then stared at the ceiling until I heard her snore. Then I fell asleep.

      In the morning, I poured the kids cereal and got coffee going. “I hope you slept all right,” is the first thing she said. When I nodded, she told me, “I wasn’t joking about last night either. And no more sleeping in the bed. Unh uh, no, sir. No more nothing.” I kept quiet, and her face turned red.

      I dropped the kids at school and went to work.

      We had four trucks to load that morning, and me and Denny got them done just before lunch. While we were eating, she texted me: You find a place to stay yet? I left it unread and tossed the phone on the table.

      “What’s wrong with you?” Denny asked.

      “Wife’s pissed I don’t pay enough attention to her.”

      “Chicks are always mad about something.”

      “Yeah. Seems like it,” I said, thinking. “Want to hear something funny?”

      “You know I do,” he said.

      “She got madder when I wouldn’t fight back.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “I just stayed calm and went along, and it made her madder.”

      “Huh.”

      If there’d been any doubt the kids heard the fighting, it got cleared up at dinner when she asked, “When are you leaving?” I didn’t answer.

      “Daddy, why is Mommy kicking you out?” my son said at bedtime.

      “Sometimes mommies and daddies can’t get along, and one of them has to leave,” I said.

      “Why you though? You could beat mommy up.”

      “That’s not how it works.”

      He rolled over. “Do I still get to be your son?”

      “Yeah. Nothing will change.”

      “You won’t be around as much.”

      My daughter felt she was too old to be tucked in, so I grabbed a blanket and settled on the couch. My wife followed me.

      “What are you doing there?”

      “My temporary bed.”

      “Oh no, you’re not taking over the living room.”

      I nodded. She seethed.

      The basement felt clammy. I found my old cot and put it right underneath our bedroom. She wouldn’t have liked that. Our basement was a big open room with a bunch of junk in it. Something scurried across the cement. I stared at the ceiling (floor?) and drifted off.

      In the morning, I made breakfast. Banana pancakes and bacon with orange juice. The kids were ready for school and eating when she got up and gave me the mean cat-eye look.

      “What you sucking up for? I ain’t letting you stay,” she told me.

      “Just making breakfast,” I said.

      “Who’s going to make pancakes when daddy leaves?” my son asked.

      “Mom,” my daughter answered. She smiled at my wife. My boy looked at me with soft eyes.

      If God had it in mind to kill me, he should’ve done it then.

      My wife took the kids to school, and I went straight to work. I didn’t want to go to work that day, but couldn’t take it off. There was a big shipment of product (that’s what our new boss called it) and I had to be there to load the trucks. Us guys just called them washing machines, except Denny, he called them warshing machines.

      Me and Denny buzzed around on our forklifts pulling pallets and didn’t get a chance to talk until we sat down for lunch.

      He sat down across from me. “So, how’d it go with your wife? You guys make up.”

      “No.”

      “How’s the zen thing working?”

      “I slept in the basement last night.”

      “Ouch. Least you’re still in the house.”

      A few people went to the bar out past the foundry after work. I was in no hurry to get home, and figured I’d earned a beer or two. We got a table in the back under the deer head, and the waitress brought us a pitcher. The draft tasted good, like cold bread. I hadn’t drank in a long time.

      Around 10, my wife texted: Where you at? I didn’t reply. The cot, and my new buddy the mouse, and that dank basement would have to wait for my company. By then I’d had more than a few beers, and Denny and the rest had gone home. It was just me and Molly left. She worked in the office with the supervisors. When she walked through the warehouse, she always said hi.

      She put her hand on my arm. “You’re such a good listener,” she said.

      “Yep.”

      She excused herself. When she came back from the bathroom, her blouse had a few more buttons undone.

      She was talking again when something brushed my calf.

      Molly didn’t break eye contact or even miss a word. She leaned over the table and caught me looking down. I kept drinking. Then my wife tried calling, but I sent her to voicemail.

      I wondered if my kids were still awake. Sometimes my son secretly waited up, and I’d whisper good night from his door, and he’d whisper it back from under his blanket. I waved my bottle at the waitress. “Don’t you two look cozy,” she said, and left.

      “What are you thinking about?” Molly asked.

      “I don’t know.”

      “Want some ideas?”

      The windows in that place faced the parking lot, and I saw headlights pull in and park. There were two drunks at the bar, our waitress, and an old woman bartender in a tank top leaning back against the glass. I heard a car door slam.

      Molly bit her lip. “Want to go to the bathroom?”

      We went to the bathroom. I’m a pillar of virtue.

      I saw the waitress roll her eyes when we thought we were being sneaky. The walk made the world spin, and I thought maybe I should pull back, but I didn’t.

      I locked the door. She felt warm and smelled like flowers and beer. We’d just started going good, when I heard glass crash and yelling.

      “Shit,” I said.

      “Don’t worry, I’m fixed.”

      “Not that.” I got my pants up and she pulled her skirt down from her waist and I went out.

      The mirror behind the bar was shattered. Glass everywhere. The bartender had the phone to her ear.

      “What happened?” I asked, tucking my shirt in.

      She put her hand over the receiver, looked me and Molly up and down, and then smiled.

      “Nothing. Just John’s wife came to get him, and he didn’t want to go,” she said and then looked only at me. “You got a wife?”

      I said nothing. I liked being quiet.

      The house was dark, and I turned the headlights off when I pulled in. I stumbled up the stairs and then headed to the basement when the lamp in the living room flicked on.

      “Where you been?” she said.

      “Just out with some people from work.”

      “Yeah?”

      “Yeah.”

      “We need to talk.”

      “I’m talked out.”

      She had her pajamas on, fuzzy ones, and one of my t-shirts. I could tell she’d been crying. Crying in the dark. God should’ve done it earlier.

      “I love you, you know that, right,” she said.

      “Okay.”

      “Shove your okay. That’s all you ever say. Okayokayokay.”

      “What do you want me to say?”

      “Something!”

      I thought maybe I should tell her about my night.

      “Well?” she asked.

      “That cot hurts my back, and I think there’s a mouse in the basement.”

      She laughed a little and put her face in her hands. Shook her head. Her curls bounced.

      “Did you get your hair done?”

      She looked up. “I did.”

      “Looks nice.”

      She smiled. “You’re still sleeping in the basement.”

      I nodded.