Together Apart: Change is Never Easy (5 page)

“You haven’t been happy.”
 

He said it like a bomb. It wasn’t a question. It was something now on the table that she’d need to diffuse or allow to count down. It would be passive-aggressive if there were any ill-will behind it, but instead it was just kind of sad. Intertwined with Zach’s optimism was a cancerous sort of self-doubt — a certainty that although everything was supposed to work out, he was screwing it up on his end. Sam was the earner in their relationship; Sam kept the house; Sam did the grocery shopping and made the big decisions. Zach always seemed to worry that he wasn’t being good enough to her, and that certainty inside him seemed to war with a firm conviction that she deserved the best. At first, his tragic martyrdom was sweet, but after a few years it felt like a burden. It was only about Sam on the surface. Deeper down, it was about her needing to validate his worth as a husband and partner.
 

“It’s not just about me, Zach,” she said, eager to deflect and accept some of the blame before he could hog it all. “Since we’ve moved, you’ve been … well … ”
 

“Hey,” he said, stretching his lips into a smile. “We don’t have to love our jobs, right?”
 

“If you’d just spend some time in your studio after work … ”
 

“I do, Sam.”
 

“Barely.”
 

“Well, what am I supposed to do? Come home from work, then vanish in there until bedtime? I want to be with my beautiful wife.” This time, he did reach out and took her left hand in his right, her wedding ring glinting under the restaurant’s overhead bulbs.
 

“I don’t mind.”
 

“
I
do,” he said.
 

Sam wanted to scream. It was impossible to fight when she was arguing for his side and he was arguing for hers. It was like two siblings fighting over the last piece of cake, each demanding the other accept it. But that was Zach; he thought of her before himself, and thought it was more important to languish in front of the TV while she clacked along beside him on her laptop. She’d have rather had him in the other room, painting, knowing that when he returned she’d have everything. As it was now, she had plenty of time with an imitation of Zach instead of less with the man himself. She’d take the latter, but he counted minutes. She wanted to tell him to take his own advice and bliss out for a little. It made her feel guilty. She’d started spending extra time at work, stopping off at coffee shops for a few hours — anything to stay away from the apartment in the hopes that Zach would, in her absence, feel like it would be OK to go and make art. It was a bizarre catch-22: She wanted her husband happy, but had to stay away so it could happen.
 

“I worry about you,” Sam said. For some reason, with his gaze on her and her hand in his, she felt her eyes start to moisten in the corners. Must be the hormones kicking in.
 

“You don’t need to worry about me.”
 

“You used to love creating so much. It made you so happy.”
 

“Different things make me happy now.”
 

“Bullshit.”
 

“Well, what about you, Sam?”
 

“Different things make me happy now, too,” she said. And that, at least, was true, but saying it felt like a stab in the back. What used to make her happy were the simplest things they did together: evenings out in the temperate Portland air, stopping by the ice cream place just off UP’s campus and splitting something that was all chocolate and peanut butter. Getting a pizza and curling up with a movie on his filthy couch, lying with her head in his lap. Walking campus together, feeling as if summer were endless, smelling cut grass and lying under a tree to watch students throw Frisbees. Taking her car to the self-wash, spraying each other with the pressure nozzles and going home wet. Today, though, Sam’s friendships at work made her happy. Professional growth made her happy. That happiness was real, but none involved Zach.
 

He nodded. A sigh passed between them, each of them thinking the same things. There was a fog over the table, of doubt and nostalgia.
 

Zach gave her hand a firm, final, meaningful squeeze and sat back.
 

“Now we’ll have a baby to be happy about,” he said. “Together.”
 

She forced herself to smile. “Yeah, we will.”
 

“It’ll be like that time we took dance lessons,” he said. “Something to do together.”
 

“Like jogging.”
 

“Like building a birdhouse.”
 

“
Exactly
like building a birdhouse,” she said.
 

“If your vagina could build us a birdhouse while you’re at it, that would be great.”

“So my vagina’s building the baby?”
 

“I just like talking about your vagina.”
 

“You’re thinking about it right now, aren’t you? My vagina, I mean.”
 

“That plus a birdhouse.”
 

“And there’s a baby in there somewhere, too.”
 

“In the birdhouse? Or in your vagina?”
 

“One of the two,” said Sam, wanting to giggle.
 

“I can’t think about that baby right now,” said Zach. “I mean, I’m still excited and all, but you’ve distracted me with talk of your vagina.” His eyebrows drew together. “Have you ever noticed how if you say ‘vagina’ enough times, it starts to sound like a nonsense word? Vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina … ”
 

“Do you mind?” hissed the woman at the next table who’d given him the disapproving look earlier about his sparkling bottle of contraband non-alcoholic hooch.
 

Zach gave her an apologetic look. When she turned back to her table, he leaned forward and whispered, “She doesn’t like me talking about your vagina.”
 

The comment was so immature, so random, so very
Zach
that it surprised a snort out of Sam. She was finishing a mouthful of sparkling faux-champagne, and it dribbled from her lips, pooling on her bread plate.
 

“I’d like to get in on that a bit later, actually,” he said, now more serious.

“My vagina?”
 

“Oh yes. There’s a new party moving in there, and I’d like to get in a few more times.”
 

“You can have sex right up until the end,” she said. “That’s more than ‘a few more times.’ Saying it made her tingle. Their sex life hadn’t suffered much — they hit the sheets a time or two per week in a normal, friendly rhythm — but this was the most boyish he’d been about it since … well, since probably before they’d been married. Their sex now was mature and respectful and good, but back then it was awkward and playful and almost stupid. Zach cracked jokes during, threatening to break the mood with every step.
 

“I meant a few times right in a row. Like this.” He picked up a breadstick, made an O shape with his other hand, and slid the breadstick in and out. The woman from the other table looked back, then said something to her companions.

“So that’s how it works,” she said.
 

“Essentially. Except at the end, I’m going to want to unload some baggage right there on the living room floor.” He pointed across the table. “Here. Hand me that ranch dressing and I’ll show you.”
 

Sam slapped at his hand when he reached, then the grin returned to his face and she could feel an answering smile lighting hers. The people at the next table were whispering and staring, Zach was laughing and she was, too. It was like when they used to date, when they were two college kids with their lives spread before them.
 

It felt good. And why couldn’t it continue to feel good? Lives drifted; it was inevitable. She’d stopped being a journalism major and had become a journalist. Zach had stopped being a brooding collegiate art student (well, an artist first and a reluctant art
student
second; school was something from his parents’ and friends’ agendas) and had become a graphic designer and occasional art hobbyist. Graduation changed people, like new jobs, moves and marriages. They were different than they’d been, but it was okay. They simply had to course-correct.
 

The move was still new. In another six months — and certainly by the time the baby arrived — Zach would adjust to his job, and she could goad him into spending more time with his art. All she’d have to do was be honest. Right now, Zach thought he was doing right, sitting beside her. She had to help him see that the best way to make her happy was for him to create, and that the only way that would ever happen was if he spent some time alone. She could do that, and he would get it. He’d go back to creating, work his crap design job by day and be the artist he was meant to be by night. In a few years, who knew what might happen?
 

Any life had ups and downs, Sam had vowed to stick with her husband through both. Six months in a new city wasn’t enough time to judge. They’d equilibrate — not automatically, but with hard work — and finally, the nagging in her gut would go away.
 

Sam had been so nervous this morning. But sitting across from Zach with the people at the next table gawking, snorting and chuckling like they used to, she decided this was a good thing. It would be a cliché to believe a baby would save her marriage, so she kept the idea at arm’s length. Of course, a baby wouldn’t save her marriage. Not that her marriage needed saving. Sure they’d been fighting and sure things had been strange, but that was normal. Growing pains. The baby would act as a catalyst, focus them back where they should be focused. Give them a common goal. Something to work on together. Like the proverbial vaginal birdhouse.

Sam barked laughter, trying and failing to clap a hand over her mouth to stop it. This time, heads looked over all around the room.
 

“Sam?”
 

“I’m just thinking of how stupid you are,” she said.
 

“Thanks. I mean, a guy can never hear that enough.”
 

She gave him her sly, little smile, feeling a spark of the old beginning to pollute the troublesome new. Yes, things were going to be just fine.

CHAPTER FIVE

Present Day

“Fuck me,” she said.
 

Zach felt his stiff cock get stiffer. Sam wasn’t typically talkative or expressive during sex these days, hearing her say something so blatant was incredibly hot. As hot, in fact, as she looked in her green dress, clinging to all the right curves in all the right places. He knew she wasn’t wearing a bra; that became obvious when dinner conversation turned playful and her nipples started poking at the fabric. He wondered if she were wearing panties. He’d watched her walk to the bathroom but couldn’t tell. Weren’t panties like news? No news was supposed to be good news, so it seemed likely that no obvious panties might mean no panties. It was probably just his dick thinking; he’d never known Sam to be a no-panties girl. She could be dead sexy, but was seldom a minx. She’d make his head explode in the bedroom, but in most cases (and of course, there had been a few doozy exceptions), she kept her antics to the bedroom.
 

“Say it again.”
 

Instead of saying it again, Sam let Zach push her against the closet door. She mashed her lips into his as the cheap, hollow thing battered against its frame. Sam was a covert sex fiend. It was hard to rev her engine without direct fiddling, but when it happened, she burned hotter than hot. The way she was talking and instigating rough kisses meant this would be a hell of a ride.
 

Her hands went to his pants. For the occasion, Zach had worn a belt. She tried to get it by feel, but couldn’t manage. She looked down, and his mouth missed her. He waited for her to figure out the belt and return to kiss him while reaching down to stroke his cock, instead she slid down him like a fire pole, squatting in front of him as her hands pawed long lines on his chest. She went to her knees, turned Zach around, and pushed him back so he was against the closet door. She turned her blue eyes up. Her hands stroked lower, made broad movements over his slacks. He stiffened beneath them. Her long, delicate fingers opened his belt, then unclasped and unzipped his pants. She looked back up, and their eyes met. His black belt flapped open on each side of her elegantly-piled curls.
 

Her hand rubbed him through his boxers, cupping his bulge and gripping it hungrily.
 

“I love you,” he said.
 

“The moment seems to call for something dirtier,” she replied.
 

“I just wanted to say it. I love you.”
 

A strange look crossed her eyes. She blinked and said, “Well, I love you, too.” She stood, trancelike, and walked to the edge of the bed. Zach stood with his back to the closet door, cock raging in his pants, unsure what had just happened. At first he thought she might spread her legs and give him a show, then he realized her eyes were wet.
 

“What?”
 

“Nothing.”
 

“Sam,
what?”
 

“I’m just emotional. Hormones, I guess.”
 

He crossed to the bed, warring with a husband’s desire to comfort his wife and a man’s desire to have her back on her knees, taking his cock in her mouth. He sat and put an arm around her. His open pants mocked him.
 

“Usually, ‘I love you’ is a good thing,” he said.
 

“Of course it is. It’s beautiful.”
 

“Beautiful?”
That was his word, not hers.
 

Sam leaned sideways, wrapped her hands around his chest. “Yes, beautiful. I love you, Zach. You’re my world.”
 

“Um … ”
 

“I’m sorry.”