Rinse Only

The garage door is already open as I pull in. Through the windshield, I see Shelly reaching into the shelves above the workbench, shifting things aside, her ponytail swinging with each movement. She's still in running shorts and a tank top, hair damp at the neck from her evening run. I cut the engine and sit for a second. The engine ticks as it cools. Headlights shine flat against her back, then click off, and the garage goes dim and gray.

“Do you know where the grill lighter went, Joe?” she calls out, not turning around. “I want to make sure it works before we need it tomorrow. Your mom said they’d get in around four, and I told your dad we’d have the grill going by five so nobody’s standing around starving.”

“Did you check the junk drawer?” I say, getting out, my bag over my shoulder.

“Yes. Not there.”

"Huh." I close the car door behind me, the latch echoing in the enclosed space. "Maybe it's in the dining room."

“Jake’s bus gets to the mall at ten,” she says. “You need a haircut, by the way.”

I go inside, drop my bag on the table, and check the drawer anyway. Clementine is curled on the oak sill in the breakfast nook, a motionless orange loaf sunning herself in the last bit of the evening light. Her yellow eyes glance at me with complete disinterest before going back to sleep. 

The drawer slides open to reveal the usual stuff from our life: used batteries, dried-up rubber bands, folded Chinese food menus. I move things around, and there, sitting behind a roll of Scotch tape, I feel the long silver neck of the lighter. I pull it out, set it on the counter, and turn toward the garage, already about to say, "Found it," when I hear it.

ZZZZZZip.

My golf bag zipper, yanked hard and fast. No hesitation in it at all. Not the sound of someone casually looking for a lighter.

The words don't make it out of my mouth. My whole body goes numb, like I've just fallen through a frozen lake.

Shelly comes in holding the small black flip phone out in front of her. I can't quite read her expression, something calm, maybe a hint of sarcasm underneath it. Almost pleasant. I've seen her angry before, angry enough to slam cabinet doors for an hour. This isn't that. This is quieter, and it's worse.

"What's this?" she asks. Her voice is almost conversational, like she's holding up something she found in the driveway.

I open my mouth, and nothing comes out. I've never had to come up with a lie this big while she's standing right in front of me, three feet away, looking directly at me.

“It’s nothing,” I say. “It’s, God, this is embarrassing.”

“Joe.”

My mouth is dry, and I struggle to swallow. I can’t look at her.

“The guys at work joked about phone-sex lines,” I say, “so I tried one. Then I kept doing it. It’s never the same woman twice. I’ve never met any of them. It doesn’t mean anything. I don’t even remember most of their voices.”

She can't find out about him. Not like this. Not the night before my parents drive in from Maryland and Jake gets home from camp.

She now holds the phone in both hands, still not opening it. Her knuckles are pale around it, but her hands don’t shake. That’s the part that scares me most: that she isn’t shaking.

Did I delete everything last time? Is his number still in there?

“How long?” she asks.

“A while. I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“You’ve never met any of them.”

“No. Never.”

“Okay.”

She sighs, the same sigh she gives when a recipe doesn't turn out, or when Jake forgets his textbook at school. Somewhere in the back of the house, the dryer buzzes, loud and sudden, and I flinch hard, embarrassed at how on edge I already am. Then it's quiet again. Quiet enough that I can hear the faint whistle of her breath through her nose. I don't know when I stopped breathing.

That’s it. She asks no more questions.

She crosses to the dishwasher without another word and pulls the door down. It's mostly empty from last night, nothing left in the racks but a couple of mugs and some things in the utensil basket. She sets the phone down carefully on the top rack, like she's putting away a water goblet.

“Shelly, what are you doing?” My voice comes out higher than I expected.

She doesn't answer. Her finger presses down on the control panel, one motion, no hesitation. She closes the door. A latch clicks into place, and the motor kicks on, a low hum, then the first hard hiss of water moving through the lines. No soap. No pod. Just water.

“Shelly.” I can hear myself getting louder. “Can we just talk about this? I don’t understand what you’re doing right now.”

She won't answer. She steps back from the dishwasher until her shoulders are nearly against the fridge, arms folded, watching me. Waiting for something.

“Shelly. Say something. Please.”

She doesn't. She tilts her head slightly and steps aside. I look down. Just over her shoulder, stuck under the same chip-clip magnet that's held grocery lists and school forms for years, is a large piece of yellow paper torn from a legal pad.

One word and a smiley face written like a text message, in thick, red Sharpie.

The grocery list is underneath it: ice, buns, charcoal, written in her neat handwriting.

She watches me see it. Then she reaches back without looking away from me and pulls the paper down. The magnet clatters against the tile. She folds the paper in half, then again, and crushes it slowly into her fist.

She walks to the trash can, steps on the pedal, and drops the balled-up paper into this morning's coffee grounds. Clementine hops down from the sill and winds around her ankles, then heads for her food bowl like nothing has happened.

I stand there with the lighter still on the counter, and for the first time in fifteen years, I have no idea what my wife is thinking. Behind her, the dishwasher keeps hissing.

She looks me dead in the eyes, and I blink hard. “So,” she says. “Where should we go for dinner? I’ve been craving Thai.”