My husband had his hands on our neighbor in the $24,600 pool I’d helped pay for. “Keep your mouth shut till she’s gone,” he said when I reached the steps. I picked up their clothes instead, and his face changed when he saw what was already hanging from my fingers.
He’d brought her through the kitchen where I’d left his lunch, eleven feet from where they stood together.
And somehow I was supposed to help her leave.
The water hit the steps again.
That was what I’d heard through the screen before either of them spoke.
I’d reached home at 3:18 with a grocery sack hooked against my hip and my keys caught around my fingers.
A pear had split the paper at the bottom.
I carried it separately because I didn’t want it bruised.
That stupid pear.
Outside, Sumiko leaped down from the fence while Dung jerked backward so fast Fiona grabbed the rail.
His hands had been underneath her elbows, pulling her toward him.
Now he held them out toward me.
“Marcy.”
Fiona climbed onto the upper step, her plum swim shirt clear of the water.
She kept looking past my shoulder at the screen door.
The door she’d used on five Mondays in a row because she’d supposedly run out of tea.
I’d given her a whole box after the last visit.
She’d brought the empty box back.
“Which kind was it again?” she’d asked, standing near enough to see the calendar beside our refrigerator.
Now her mouth kept opening without anything coming out.
Dung tried again.
“Can you just keep your mouth shut till she’s gone?”
I still had the pear.
I put it beside the griddle, against the pot of thyme he’d asked me to grow.
Then I looked at the bench.
His olive trousers lay underneath her striped overshirt, with a sleeve tucked through a belt loop.
His fitness band rested on her canvas shoe.
They’d taken their things off together.
Neither had bothered keeping them apart.
Her phone lit up beside his card case.
Six missed calls.
The contact picture showed her husband holding the cat I’d just seen on the fence.
Fiona reached toward the bench from the steps.
“Could you pass me that?”
She meant the PHONE.
I bent down before she could climb out and put it inside the overshirt’s pocket.
“Marcy, please,” Dung said.
I picked up his trousers.
His belt dragged across the paving, and I folded it over the bundle because I couldn’t stand that scraping noise.
Then I collected her shoes.
“You don’t need those,” she said.
I looked at her bare feet on my pool steps.
“Apparently neither did you.”
Dung moved closer to the edge, but I gathered his shirt before he reached it.
His card case slid sideways.
I caught it against my wrist.
I’d caught that thing for him in parking lots, beside restaurant tables, underneath seats.
He always put it somewhere stupid and expected me to keep track.
“Give me my trousers,” he said.
I held them higher.
Fiona tucked her arms against herself and turned toward the fence.
“Could we do this somewhere PRIVATE?”
“Our kitchen?” I said.
She shook her head before I finished.
Dung’s fingers hooked over the coping.
“Nobody needs to hear this.”
I had his shirt against my cheek by then, piled above everything else.
It smelled of the detergent he’d complained was too strong.
I almost moved it away.
Instead, I gripped the bundle until the buckle dug into my arm.
“You’ll stretch her sleeves,” he said.
That stopped me.
He looked at the fabric, then back at me.
“I mean, put it down and let’s talk.”
Fiona said, “We were going to get out.”
“When?”
She looked at him.
He rubbed water off his mouth with his palm.
“Don’t start asking questions you don’t want answered.”
My keys knocked against his card case.
Under them hung the alarm control, the little gray unit I’d started carrying after our yard gate stopped latching.
He looked straight at it.
“That’s not funny.”
I hadn’t laughed.
The system had cost $2,850, including the cameras and the monitored pool alarm.
He’d leaned near the installer and called it my expensive PANIC habit.
The installer had shown us how the portable control could trigger the siren and notify the monitoring desk.
Dung had walked away halfway through.
Now he lifted himself onto the upper step.
“Put that back in your pocket.”
I shifted the clothes to my other arm.
His attention followed my thumb.
“Nobody’s hurt,” he said.
Fiona reached across him toward the little control.
I stepped back.
“Don’t,” he said. “You’ll get people over here.”
I pressed it.
The siren started above our screen door, and Fiona ducked as if something had fallen toward her.
Dung put his palms over his ears.
Then he took them away to point at me.
“TURN THAT THING OFF.”
Dogs answered from the adjoining yards.
Beyond the fence, a garage door rattled upward before the siren finished its next cycle.
Yolanda appeared on her back step with the hose still running against her shoe.
She looked at my armful of clothes.
Then she looked past me at Dung.
Dung reached toward my keys again.
I backed along the bench and kept the control where he couldn’t get it.
“You’re making this everybody’s business,” he said.
“Then get out.”
He glanced at Fiona before he moved.
She caught his wrist.
That little movement happened right in front of Yolanda.
Opposite our house, Hattie and Arturo stood by their gate with their napkins still tucked into their collars.
Jayla braked her scooter beside Trevon, and both turned toward the noise.
Cody stopped his delivery trolley at our drive.
I wanted them all gone.
I wanted them to keep looking.
Fiona folded her hands across her mouth while her gaze stayed on the passage leading to the front gate.
Dung tried to pull the trousers from my arm.
“Enough,” he said. “You’ve had your little SHOW.”
The buckle caught between my fingers.
He let go before I did.
My phone buzzed inside my back pocket, hard against my hip.
I worked it free without setting down their things.
The monitoring service had received the alert.
A security patrol was on its way.
Below that came a notification from our residents’ group in Trotwood.
Our address appeared beside a pool-alarm warning.
Dung leaned forward to read it.
“Cancel it.”
I turned the screen toward him so he could see the time.
“Tell them it was an ACCIDENT,” he said.
Fiona lowered her hands.
“Please don’t put anything in that group.”
Her own phone started vibrating inside the overshirt.
She reached for it again.
I pulled the bundle back, and something hard pressed through the trousers against my wrist.
His vehicle key.
He’d paid $61,400 for that crossover and wouldn’t let me put groceries on its seats without a mat.
I worked the fob out of the pocket.
“That’s MINE,” he said.
I raised it beside my face.
His hand came up, palm toward me, the way he’d greeted me when I’d found them.
“Marcy. Be sensible.”
I opened my fingers over the deeper water.
The fob hit with a small splash.
He lunged toward the edge, too late, and stayed there with his arm extended.
Then a vehicle door banged shut outside.
Fiona turned so quickly her elbow struck the rail.
Through the side passage, a burgundy estate car stood against the curb, its driver’s door open.
Dung looked from the car to her.
She said, “Keegan.”
Our Yard Gate
Keegan came through the gate alone, still holding his car keys.
“Fiona?”
She lifted one hand. Dung moved away from her, although there wasn’t much distance left to invent.
Keegan stopped beside me.
“Is someone hurt?”
“No,” I said.
I set the clothes on the bench. My arm had a red line across it from the buckle.
My phone rang again. I answered the monitoring desk, gave the details they needed, and told them exactly what I’d done.
“I pressed it deliberately. Nobody’s in danger. Cancel the patrol if you can.”
Dung held his hand out for the phone.
I turned my back on him.
The woman confirmed the cancellation and talked me through stopping the siren. I stayed on the call until the noise ended.
The dogs took longer. They hadn’t received the cancellation.
Arturo sent Jayla and Trevon along the pavement. Cody pulled his trolley toward the next house. Hattie came through our gate and stopped beside Keegan.
Dung pointed at the kitchen.
“Marcy, go get her a towel.”
I looked at him.
“She’s cold,” he said.
Fiona put both feet on the paving. She wore swimming shorts beneath the shirt. Nobody was stranded without clothes. They were simply wet and no longer enjoying it.
“The towels are inside,” I said.
“I know where they are.”
“Then get one.”
He climbed out, took his trousers from the bench, and held them in front of himself.
Keegan’s eyes went from the trousers to Fiona’s shoes.
“Why didn’t you answer?”
“My phone was over there.”
“I called six times.”
“I know.”
Hattie touched my elbow.
“Do you want me here?”
“Yes.”
Dung turned toward us.
“We don’t need an audience.”
Keegan stayed beside the bench.
“Then you should’ve answered the phone.”
Our Kitchen Threshold
Dung went inside for towels. I followed him as far as our kitchen threshold because my keys were still in my hand, and I didn’t trust him near anything with a lock.
Fiona stayed on the patio with Keegan.
My grocery sack leaned against the counter. His lunch sat beside it under the plate I’d used as a cover.
He picked up the plate.
“For heaven’s sake,” I said. “Leave the sandwich alone.”
“I haven’t eaten.”
I nearly offered him the pear. Habit is a humiliating little servant.
On the refrigerator, Monday afternoon was marked in my handwriting. Hattie, three o’clock. I’d been taking her to the indoor pool while Arturo had an appointment of his own. That afternoon her swimming session had been canceled.
Dung knew the arrangement. Fiona could read it from the doorway.
Five Mondays.
He opened the cupboard where we kept the towels and pulled out mine.
“Use the others.”
“It’s a towel, Marcy.”
“Then you’ll manage with another.”
He put it back.
The previous Monday, Fiona had stood in that same doorway with the tea box. Hattie was waiting for me outside.
“You’ve got a pool here,” Fiona had said. “Why drive somewhere else?”
“She likes lanes,” Dung had said before I could answer.
Hattie had said, “I like being invited.”
He’d laughed and reached around Fiona for a mug.
I hadn’t laughed. I had, however, gone on finding the tea.
Now he wiped his face with a towel and held the other against his stomach.
“Let me get her home. Then we can talk.”
“Keegan can get her home.”
“He’s upset.”
That was an interesting qualification. Apparently upset people were allowed transport, but only certain upset people were allowed to speak.
Yolanda came in through the screen door. Her shoe squeaked where the hose had soaked it.
“Maybe give everybody ten minutes,” she said.
Dung nodded at her.
“Thank you.”
I wanted Yolanda to tell him not to thank her. Instead, she put her hand on my arm.
“Just come over to mine.”
He took a step aside, making room for me to leave my kitchen.
On the patio, Fiona said something too low for me to hear. Keegan answered loudly enough.
“That’s not what you told me.”
Dung stopped drying his face.
“Please,” he said to me. “Don’t make it worse.”
His untouched lunch was still between us.
I put the plate back over it.
“Start with what she told him.”
The Bench
Dung carried the towels outside without answering me.
I followed. Yolanda came behind us, and Hattie moved from the gate to the bench. Keegan hadn’t touched Fiona. She stood near enough to him to try.
“Tell him,” she said to Dung.
Dung handed her a towel.
“Let’s get dressed first.”
“Tell me what?” I said.
He put his fitness band into his trouser pocket. Even then, he couldn’t put his own belongings together without looking around for the card case.
It was on the bench beside his shirt.
I left it there.
Keegan faced me.
“Fiona said things between you two were finished.”
I looked at Dung.
He bent to pick up a shoe.
“Finished,” I said.
“Don’t do that,” he said.
“Do what?”
“Repeat one word like that.”
Fiona pulled the towel around her.
“You said she’d agreed.”
Dung straightened.
“I said we were dealing with things.”
I could have picked up the clothes again. I could have thrown them in after the key. My fingers opened and closed beside my legs.
Hattie moved closer, but she didn’t touch me.
Keegan said, “I’ve been trying to get hold of her since I came home. Then that warning came through.”
“She comes here for tea,” I said.
Fiona looked down at her shoes.
“I didn’t know what else to say.”
“You could have said you had tea.”
Dung pushed one foot into his trousers. The fabric stuck to his leg, and he hopped once to free it.
For months he’d corrected the way I folded those trousers. There he was, wrestling them in front of three neighboring gardens. I wanted that to feel better than it did.
“We’ve had problems,” he said.
“Yes.”
“So don’t stand there pretending everything was wonderful.”
“I left you lunch.”
He pulled up the trousers.
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
I turned toward the kitchen, then back. The eleven feet seemed longer with everyone looking.
Keegan rubbed his forehead.
“Fiona, were you going to tell me today?”
She drew the towel tighter.
“We need to talk at home.”
“Here will do.”
Dung stepped between their lines of sight.
“Nobody’s going to sort out two marriages beside a pool.”
Two marriages. He could say that in public. My asking a question required an evacuation.
“How long?” I said.
Fiona pressed her lips together.
Dung picked up his shirt.
“This is exactly why I wanted her gone before we talked.”
“Because she’d hear your answers?”
“Because you’re angry.”
“Yes.”
He waited. I had nothing to add to that.
Yolanda said, “Marcy, let them go home. You’ll get more sense out of him without everyone here.”
“I haven’t had any yet.”
“You won’t get it this way.”
She said it kindly. That made it worse. She was using the voice people use when they’re trying to coax a dog away from somebody’s picnic.
Dung nodded again.
“Listen to Yolanda.”
I looked at her hand, still damp from the hose. We’d stood at that fence on evenings when I couldn’t bear to go inside yet.
She knew what he sounded like when nobody else was around.
“Tell him what I told you,” I said.
Yolanda’s face changed.
“Marcy.”
“About the way he speaks to me.”
“Not here.”
Dung stopped buttoning his shirt.
“What did you tell her?”
I wanted Yolanda to say it before I had to ask again. I stood there waiting for my friend.
She looked at Keegan instead.
“She did tell me she wanted to leave.”
Yolanda’s Wet Shoe
Dung put his hand flat against his chest.
“There,” he said.
I turned to Yolanda.
“Finish it.”
She shook her head.
“Please don’t pull me into this.”
“You’ve stepped in.”
“I meant that you haven’t been happy.”
“What did I actually say?”
Dung lifted a hand toward Keegan.
“You see what we’re dealing with. Whatever anyone says, it won’t be the right thing.”
Hattie stood up from the bench.
“Let her answer.”
Yolanda’s shoe made another squeak. She shifted her weight off it as though the noise had betrayed her.
“You said sometimes you wanted to leave,” she said.
“And?”
“You said you couldn’t afford to start again.”
The words landed in front of Fiona.
I’d said them beside the fence after Dung spent an evening telling me I’d ruined a family visit by correcting a story he was telling about me. I’d gone outside to pull weeds I couldn’t see.
Yolanda had brought me a torch.
Now she wouldn’t look at me.
Dung spread his hands.
“So we agree.”
“No,” I said.
“You just heard her.”
“I said sometimes I wanted to leave. I didn’t tell you to bring Fiona near my pool.”
“Our pool.”
He was fast with that one.
Fiona sat down. The bench dipped beneath her, and Hattie stepped away from it.
Keegan pointed at Fiona’s phone.
“Unlock it.”
“Don’t start that.”
“You said you were helping Marcy.”
I looked at her.
She rubbed the towel over her hands.
“I was trying to explain why I was here.”
“To him or to yourself?” I said.
Dung moved closer to me.
“Enough. You’re enjoying humiliating her.”
My eyes started watering, which annoyed me more than anything he’d said in the previous minute. I hadn’t planned to cry in front of a woman wearing my husband’s towel.
I wiped my face with the heel of my hand.
“Look at me when you say that.”
He glanced toward the fence.
“Dung.”
“What?”
“Look at me.”
He did, for half a second.
Keegan took Fiona’s phone when she held it out, but he didn’t open anything. He gave it back.
“I don’t want to do this out here.”
Dung nodded.
“Exactly.”
That small agreement gave him room. He took it.
“Marcy and I have been discussing a separation. It hasn’t been easy. She’s upset, and I understand that.”
“We haven’t discussed one,” I said.
“We’ve discussed being unhappy.”
“That’s a different conversation.”
“You can call it whatever you like.”
Hattie reached for my hand. I pulled mine away before she touched it.
I wanted her help. I couldn’t bear kindness right then. One kind touch and I’d have folded against her in front of them.
She let her hand drop and stayed.
Yolanda said, “Nobody thinks you’re wrong to be upset.”
“Then stop helping him explain it.”
Her mouth opened. She closed it.
Dung picked up his card case and slid it into his pocket. A small ordinary act. He was getting himself ready to leave this scene with his shirt on and his version intact.
My arm still carried the mark from his belt.
He looked at Keegan.
“Take her home. I’ll handle this.”
Keegan reached for Fiona’s overshirt.
And Yolanda moved aside to let them pass.
The Open Gate
I stepped toward Keegan.
“Don’t leave thinking I knew.”
Dung came around the bench.
“Nobody said you knew every detail.”
“Don’t touch me.”
His hand stopped short of my elbow.
Keegan held the overshirt out to Fiona. She pushed her arms through the sleeves without looking at me.
“Whatever was happening here,” he said, “we’ll deal with our part.”
“Your part happened in my house.”
“I can see that.”
“Then hear me. We weren’t separated.”
Fiona pulled one cuff straight.
Dung gave a laugh with no pleasure in it.
“Ask her where my things are. Ask her whether I sleep here.”
Keegan turned toward him.
Dung pointed at the kitchen.
“They’re all here. We haven’t sorted that part out. That’s what I’m saying.”
He could take a fact out of my mouth, polish it, and hand it back as his own proof. I’d spent years answering the next question instead of going back to the one he’d dodged.
I wanted to drag Keegan inside and show him our bedroom. My nightdress beside Dung’s things. His slippers under my side of the bed because he’d kicked them there.
I nearly offered to show a neighbor where I slept.
Instead, I gripped the bench.
Fiona said, “You told me she’d be gone.”
The yard went quiet.
Dung looked at her.
“Not now.”
“You said Monday.”
I stared at the calendar through the screen door.
Monday afternoon. Hattie, three o’clock.
“Swimming,” I said. “I was supposed to be at swimming.”
Fiona looked away.
Dung said, “Don’t put words in her mouth.”
I wanted to shake him. I wanted him to be unable to say another word until he took back the last dozen.
He reached toward the alarm control again.
“Give me those. You aren’t thinking clearly.”
I put the keys in my trouser pocket.
“You threw my car key in the pool,” he said. “You set off an emergency alarm. There’s a record of that.”
“I told them I did it.”
“You think that helps?”
“No. I think it tells them what happened.”
Hattie stepped between us.
“Back up.”
He looked down at her, then at Arturo in the passage.
Arturo came no farther. He stayed where he could keep the gate open.
Dung took a step away from me.
“She could stay with you tonight,” he said to Hattie. “Let things settle down.”
“No,” Hattie said.
“I meant Marcy. I’m not asking you to take Fiona.”
“I understood.”
His shirt was drying in patches. He smoothed it over his stomach.
“Fine. Then Yolanda’s.”
I looked at Yolanda. She shook her head at him, but too late for the thing I’d needed from her.
Dung faced me again.
“We cannot talk while you’re like this. Go somewhere for one night. I’ll get everything straight, and you can come back tomorrow.”
Come back.
To the house where my groceries were waiting to be put away.
Fiona moved into the passage. Keegan followed, carrying neither guilt nor an explanation from my husband. Dung stayed by the bench as though the yard was his to clear.
I had given them the siren. The key in the water. My tears. He’d gathered the whole lot and made a picture of a wife who needed to be removed.
My knees bent, and I sat on the end of the bench.
Nobody spoke.
Dung took that for agreement.
“I’ll get your bag,” he said.
His Card Case
He reached the screen door before I stood.
“Leave my bag.”
He turned.
“Marcy.”
I picked his fitness band out of the fold of the towel where he’d put it while dressing. I held the band out.
He came back and took it.
Then I picked up the canvas shoe Fiona had left beneath the bench.
“Fiona. Your other shoe.”
She stopped in the passage.
Keegan stepped aside while she came back for it.
I put it on the paving. She slipped her foot inside.
For the first time since I’d come through the screen, I wasn’t holding anything that belonged to either of them.
Dung rubbed the back of his neck.
“Can we please talk now?”
“You said we were finished.”
“I said things were difficult.”
“Then go with her.”
Fiona stopped adjusting her overshirt.
Keegan looked at Dung.
I pointed toward the passage.
“You’ve got your clothes. You’ve got your card case. Go.”
Dung stared at me.
“I’m not leaving you in this state.”
“Hattie’s here.”
“That’s not the point.”
“What’s the point?”
He looked toward Keegan.
“This isn’t something you can just decide in front of other people.”
“You were deciding where I’d sleep.”
Fiona took a step toward Dung.
“Is that what you want?”
He didn’t answer her.
She took another step.
“Dung.”
He turned back to me.
“We need to discuss our house.”
I had expected those words to frighten me. They did. There was no sudden courage that made the mortgage disappear.
I would have to pay for the groceries without his share. There would be rooms to empty, and I couldn’t yet picture which ones.
“Tomorrow,” I said.
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“Go with Fiona.”
She reached for his arm.
He pulled it away.
The Pool Steps
Fiona’s hand stayed where his sleeve had been.
“Don’t do that,” she said.
Dung shook his head at her.
“Can you give me a minute?”
“You’ve had all afternoon.”
Keegan came back from the passage. Arturo moved beside Hattie, and Yolanda stayed at our kitchen threshold.
Nobody needed another invitation.
Dung looked at me.
“Do you really want this? After everything we’ve put into this house?”
“You said we were finished.”
“Stop saying that.”
Fiona stepped in front of him.
“Then tell her we’re going.”
He tried to look past her.
“We aren’t going anywhere together.”
She moved back.
Keegan put his keys in his pocket.
Dung saw it. He began talking faster.
“Look, this got out of hand. I shouldn’t have let her come over. I know how it looks. Marcy came home early, and instead of letting me explain, she grabbed everything and started pressing buttons.”
Fiona pulled the towel off her shoulders.
“You let me come over?”
“Don’t make it worse.”
“You asked me.”
“Fiona.”
“You called this morning. You said she’d be gone until five.”
I kept my hand on the bench.
Keegan said, “And you knew where she was going?”
Fiona looked at him, then at me.
“Yes.”
“Swimming,” he said.
She nodded.
Dung threw his hands apart.
“So now we’re going to stand here and pick through every word. That’s useful. Nobody’s ever said anything they shouldn’t have said.”
Keegan took a step toward him.
“Did Marcy agree to any of this?”
Dung looked at me.
“This is between me and my wife.”
“Then answer your wife.”
I waited.
He rubbed his mouth.
“No.”
Fiona’s towel hit the bench.
“No, what?” Keegan said.
“No, she didn’t agree. Are you satisfied?”
I wasn’t. He could have said it louder and it still wouldn’t have put that afternoon back.
Yolanda came away from our kitchen threshold.
“What I said about Marcy wanting to leave,” she said. “You don’t get to use that.”
Dung turned toward her.
“You said it.”
“I did. And I should’ve kept my mouth shut until I could tell it properly.”
“Please don’t start.”
“She wanted you to stop speaking to her like this.”
I looked down. That was the sentence I’d needed. Late, but there.
Dung faced me again.
“Marcy, come inside. Please. We can sort this out without them.”
Fiona pushed between us.
“What about me?”
He looked at her as though she’d walked into the wrong house.
“We’ll talk later.”
“No. You said there was nothing left between you.”
“Can’t you see what you’re doing?”
“Say it to her.”
His eyes went to Keegan.
Keegan didn’t move.
Fiona stood squarely in front of Dung.
“Tell her you want to be with me.”
Dung’s mouth opened.
She waited.
He looked at me.
“I want my wife.”
Fiona slapped the folded towel off the bench. It landed beside her shoe.
“You didn’t say that when I came through your kitchen.”
I wanted to hurt him. A sentence rose up so quickly I could taste it, something about his age and his wet trousers and the audience he hadn’t ordered.
I let it go.
“You’ve got your answer,” I said to her.
She turned toward Keegan.
He stepped away before she reached him.
“I’ll take you home,” he said. “Then I’ll get my things.”
“We need to talk.”
“We will. You won’t like it.”
She picked up her phone. Dung held out the towel to her, and she left it in his hand.
At the passage, Keegan stopped beside me.
“I should’ve listened.”
“Yes.”
He nodded once.
Fiona went through the gate ahead of him. She didn’t look back at Dung.
The car door closed.
Dung waited for the engine before he spoke again.
“Now can everybody please go?”
“No,” I said.
He turned.
“Hattie stays. You pack.”
“You can’t throw me out of our house.”
“I’m asking you to leave tonight. You can refuse. Then you can explain that to everyone standing here, too.”
His eyes moved from Hattie to Arturo. Yolanda folded her arms.
“I’ll stay somewhere for a few nights,” he said. “But don’t turn this into something it doesn’t have to be.”
He went inside.
I stayed by the pool till he came back carrying his overnight bag.
At our gate, he stopped.
“You’re really going to let me walk out?”
I took my keys from my pocket.
“You know the way.”
The Pear
Dung returned on Thursday afternoon for more clothes. Hattie was with me, folding towels on the bench.
He set the spare house key beside my hand.
“I’ll call before I come,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And we need to talk about what happens with the house.”
“We do.”
He stood there waiting for the conversation to become another conversation.
I kept folding.
The ruined vehicle fob was in a bowl by our kitchen threshold. Arturo had retrieved it with the pool net after everyone left on Monday.
The replacement cost $386.42. Dung brought the receipt, and I transferred the money while he stood beside me.
I wasn’t giving him that key to carry around forever as proof that he’d married a madwoman.
He checked his phone.
“You didn’t have to do it immediately.”
“I wanted it done.”
He put the receipt in his pocket.
“I miss you.”
Hattie took the towels inside. She left the screen door open.
Dung moved closer to the bench.
“I mean it.”
“You told her we were finished.”
“I was stupid.”
“You were clear enough with her.”
He sat down without asking.
“I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Then stand up. I’m using that towel.”
He stood.
I picked it up and folded it.
We spoke about the house on Saturday, with numbers written on paper and no lunch waiting under a plate. He agreed to stay elsewhere while we worked out the split.
I didn’t give him a date to come home.
The following Monday, Hattie arrived at three with her swimming bag. Arturo carried two folding chairs through our gate.
Yolanda came behind them with the latch she’d offered to fit.
She stopped beside me.
“I should’ve stood with you.”
“Yes.”
“I won’t ask you to make me feel better about it.”
“Good. That would be a busy afternoon.”
She put the latch down and held out her arms.
I stepped into them.
Then Arturo took the old latch off our gate, and Yolanda held the new one while he fastened it. They tested it twice.
Hattie stood at the pool steps.
“Coming?”
I’d helped choose that pool. I’d held samples against the kitchen wall and written checks and cleaned leaves out of the skimmer. I could stand in the shallow end. Beyond that, I generally found something useful to do on land.
Dung used to say there was no point heating it for someone who wouldn’t get in.
Hattie put a foot on the first step.
“We’ll stay where you can stand.”
I went inside to change.
My towel was still in its place. I took it, and nobody needed me to fetch another.
On my way out, I picked up a pear from the fruit bowl.
The first one had gone soft beside the thyme on Monday. I’d thrown it away that night, after holding it in my hand for longer than a pear requires.
This one came outside with me.
I set it on the bench beside my towel and went down the steps.
The water reached my waist. Hattie stood one step below me, with her hands out.
“Just to me,” she said.
I gripped the rail.
“You understand I expect a refund if this goes badly.”
“You haven’t paid me.”
“Then we’re off to a good start.”
She laughed, and I let go.
My feet left the step. Water went up my nose. I made a noise no swimming teacher would put in a brochure.
Hattie held my hands until my feet found the bottom.
From beside the gate, Yolanda clapped once.
“Don’t start,” I said.
She put both hands in her pockets.
Hattie moved half a step back.
“Again?”
I pushed toward her.
Send this to the friend who would bring a towel and stay.
For more family drama and unexpected proof, see the story of a wife left hungry after her father-in-law took $16,800 and the woman who found her coat in a donation bag. There’s also a daughter who charged her mother rent for a spare room – with a twist she never saw coming.
