Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 73013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
What had Mrs. Purdy said?
Amanda will be able to get something ready for you quickly. At 6:43 a good wife would almost have dinner on the table at the very least, wouldn’t she? In my house growing up, dinner would already be over by that time, but I took some comfort in knowing Rick liked to eat later.
But, my brain put in, that wasn’t the way you pictured it, was it?
I had pictured us cooking together, when we cooked, and, frankly, having takeout a lot of the time. I didn’t hate cooking, but I definitely didn’t have any skill at it, and I hadn’t planned to acquire any. I had babysat a good deal, and I could defrost a mean kids’ meal. I had assumed Rick and I would have frozen food and takeout until the children arrived, at which point we would all be eating mac and cheese for the next twenty years or so.
Really, a slightly different part of my brain said, you didn’t think this through, did you?
I looked back at the refrigerator, thinking again of Mrs. Purdy’s little speech. She hadn’t actually said cook, had she? As if she knew I couldn’t. And the freezer, she had told us, would be stocked, too.
I opened it, fighting the suction that held the door tightly closed and blinking at the wave of cold that swept outward and the mist that cleared to reveal an array of frozen food so complete and luxurious that it brought a little sob up from my chest. I could get Rick and me by for a week just on the stuff in here.
See, said a more forgiving voice inside my head, you can feed your husband the way he deserves.
Deserves. The sob became tears at the corners of my eyes. No, Rick deserves more, doesn’t he. Yes, I could feed him deluxe frozen dinners for the rest of his life, but that’s not how I want to live, or how I want my husband to live.
I closed the freezer and opened the refrigerator. I frowned at the intimidating sight of the contents… ingredients, all of them. Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I closed that compartment and let my hand fall to my side as I gazed blankly at the gleaming surface of the closed doors.
You didn’t think this through, did you?
Well… I had thought through a very different kind of marriage, hadn’t I? One with much more fast food and many fewer ingredients.
No, the voice insisted, you didn’t even think that through, did you? You didn’t really think about…
I heard Rick’s step behind me just as my face puckered at the memory of all the distressing things Mrs. Purdy had said about… I swallowed hard, forcing the word into my mind… intimacy.
Rick came close. I felt his arms go around me from behind. I tensed for a moment against his embrace, expecting that he would get the signal and step away, but to my surprise he kept holding me, until with a sob I yielded, relaxing and moving my own arms up to hold his—no, really, to cling to his strong upper arms, as if their strength could reach into my heart and mind and sort them out.
He nuzzled my ear, kissed my neck. To my dismay, my body responded without any conscious intention on my part. I felt myself practically jerk into him, rub my back and even my rear end against his muscular front.
“Let’s order pizza,” Rick said in my ear. “There’s a place that delivers.”
I gave a little sob, feeling utterly unable to express the many, many emotions his words stirred—far too many, I thought, for so very simple a thing.
“Okay,” was all I could say.
“Hey,” Rick said, holding me more tightly against him. “I know it’s a lot, and it’s happening fast, but… I mean… the house is pretty great, right?”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. The house itself didn’t frighten me—the things it meant, though…
“I’m not hungry right now, either,” he said.
Oh, no. I wasn’t sure exactly how I had picked up the implication in Rick’s words, and maybe it had happened entirely in my head. Something seemed deeper in his voice, or more gravelly…
I’m not hungry right now… Not for food, anyway. I didn’t think I imagined that my husband meant not just to say that we would order pizza later, but also to tell me that he had developed a different sort of hunger.
“But…” I said, my thoughts turning to my stomach in desperation, willing it to grumble so that when I said what I meant to say I wouldn’t be lying to my loving husband. I wasn’t hungry, though; the enormous, delicious burger and fries in the horrible Selecta lounge in Newark seemed likely to fuel me for at least the next twelve hours if not the next three days.