Outspoken

Preppy had been out of town for about eight hours before I completely reverted to bachelorhood. I stayed up until three in the morning watching horror movies. I used every dish in the house and washed none of them. I sat on the porch smoking like a freight train and didn’t dump the ashtray until it actually caught on fire. I stopped shaving. I drank a lot. He was gone for a week. If he had been gone for two, I would have transformed into late-career Ernest Hemingway.

Preppy takes trips with his friends. They go to the beach, to the mountains, and various concerts performed by jam bands whose songs are each a half-hour long. I don’t begrudge these trips, because he works incredibly hard at a job that exists in normal society, where there are hours, and one is aware of when the work day is complete. I am a writer. I do not have hours, I have deadlines. I have no idea how long it will take to complete an assignment. That’s like asking someone how long their emotional breakdown is going to take. It’s just done when it’s done, man.

My husband doesn’t know he does this, but when he introduces a game-changing conversation, it invariably begins while I am preparing food. I have no idea why that’s his arena of choice. I have knives, right there. But he takes his position at the bar, and exhales deeply. It’s the equivalent of the podium in a briefing room.

If he’s coming directly from work, he will either change into his jammies before the official statement (big news, but not life-shattering, keep chopping), or he will enter and go directly to the bar while still in his business casual (big news causing possible breakdown, let’s put the knife down.)

On this night, he came straight to the bar.