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Banjo whines and raises his head from the floor next to the bed. My side, where he always sleeps.
“It’s okay, buddy, go back to sleep,” I whisper, reaching down and scratching between his furry little ears.
The car engine turns off, the door slams closed.
I grab the television remote and unmute the evening news.
A rush of adrenaline sweeps through my body.
The front door opens, pulling a waft of cold, autumn air through the bedroom window. The door closes.
Footsteps.
All the things I had planned to say suddenly vanish into thin air. It’s as if my brain short-circuits the second my husband steps into the doorway.
His stride breaks as our eyes meet. He didn’t expect me to be awake.
The light from the television, the only light in the room, dances across a puffy, flushed face. He’s drunk.
Again.
He shakes his head as if knowing what is about to come. Defeated, his shoulders slump as he crosses the room. He doesn’t address me.
I do this to him. My mere existence exasperates my husband of fifteen years, his contempt for me so overwhelming at times that it renders him speechless.
Shepherd walks into the closet, flicks on the light. His long, black shadow stretches across the worn hardwood floor, disappearing under the bed. I watch as he unbuttons his shirt then rips it off dramatically like the Incredible Hulk. He’s gearing up for a fight, and that’s just fine with me. Stumbling, he tosses the shirt into the dirty clothes and I don’t have to check to see that he missed. Shepherd is terrible at basketball, despite playing every Wednesday night for the last five years. The group of over-forties he meets at the local gym has been dubbed the “dad-bod squad.” A cruel (hysterical) moniker that I pretend to be offended by.
The light clicks off, he disappears into the bathroom.
The anger inside me begins to dissolve. Forget the hours I’ve spent stewing while waiting for my husband to come home. The hours I’ve spent imagining every horrific scenario possible as to why he is so late, and then plotting how I would react to each one. Despite all that, the fact that he is now here makes everything else seem suddenly… well, less. Shepherd is safe. He is home.
He is with me.
I hear the whir of the toothbrush, the toilet flush. The light clicks off. I can smell the liquor on his breath as he slides between the cold sheets. Ignoring me, Shepherd rolls onto his side, taking half the blanket with him. This is a constant argument between us. My husband hogs the blanket (and most of the bed) while I freeze, clinging onto the edge of the mattress for dear life.
I yank back the blanket.
“What?” he snaps, the emotional pot boiling over.
I say nothing.
Shepherd sighs heavily, dramatically, the scent so pungent it would ignite the room if a match were lit. He aggressively adjusts the pillow underneath him. “Can you turn off the television?”
“Can you get a job?” I snap back and instantly regret it. Like my husband, I too have had too much to drink.
“What did you just say to me?” Shepherd rolls onto his back, and looks at me, his mouth agape. The tattoo he once got for me, a heart just below his collarbone, stares up at me, now faded and ugly.
“Where have you been tonight? It’s after eleven o’clock. I’ve been worried sick. You didn’t answer my texts. You told me?—”
“I told you I went to play pool with the guys. The bar had a live band tonight. It was loud. Sorry.”
The bar he is referring to is named Last Call. It’s the only reputable bar in town. I know that it was busy tonight, just as I know that a band named Bjorn Again—a dreadful punk rock band comprised of the town doctor (newly divorced), the city librarian (his mistress), and an unorthodox Amish family of four—played there tonight. I know this because I checked the website. I also know this because I drove by—three times. My husband’s truck was in the parking lot at eight o’clock, but not at nine-thirty. As of this moment, we have two hours unaccounted for.
Shepherd sits up, furious now—or defensive?
“You have one hell of a nerve telling me to get a job, Ro. You know I’m trying. And meanwhile you seem to have no trouble spending half my severance package to pay off your car and get a new pair of running shoes.”
“Our car—it’s our car. You drive the Explorer as much as I do.” I turn toward him. “Shep, you were laid off eight months ago. You have had four job offers since then, and have rejected them all.”
