F*ck Marriage(25)

“Can you put that in an email?”

“What?” She looks dazed at my interruption.

“An email,” I repeat. “I need everything documented for when I fire you for breaking your contract…”

She opens and closes her mouth and then looks hard over my shoulder at who I presume is Woods.

“Billie…” I hear him say my name very quietly from behind me.

“It’s Wendy,” I say this loud enough for everyone to hear.

“You can’t fire me.” Pearl’s voice is getting louder, more shrill.

She’s probably right, considering she’s shacked up with a shareholder. But right now I don’t care; all I want is to get out of this toxic sandwich I’m cornered in.

“Why not?”

She’s caused enough of a commotion that people are starting to listen.

I hear Woods say my name again, this time with more urgency. And then the unexpected happens: Pearl clutches her stomach just as red blossoms across her white pants. She screams at the same time I drop everything I’m holding to catch her.





Chapter Thirteen





The trip to the emergency room is one of the longest I’ve ever made. My cab gets stuck behind two accidents, and by the time I walk into the hospital, Pearl has lost her baby. Satcher texted to tell me. I find Satcher already in the waiting room seated next to a green-faced Woods. Woods is staring into a paper cup of cold coffee like he wishes he could drown himself in it. I take it from him and throw it in the trash, then I walk down to the cafeteria and get him a green tea. Woods isn’t a coffee drinker. As the healthier eater of the two of us, he was always trying to get me to make the switch from coffee to green tea. I put the paper cup of tea in his hand. He blinks at me hard like he’s trying not to cry. I can feel Satcher’s eyes on me, but I don’t look over. I’m embarrassed ... ashamed. I antagonized Pearl and she lost their baby. I am the worst person in the world.

“Thank you,” Woods says. He says it sincerely like he means it and I offer a weak smile.

I know he doesn’t blame me for what happened to Pearl, he’s not like that. In all the years I accused him of things, he never accused me back. I think that made me angrier—that while I ranted and bitched, he never lowered himself to my level of petty anger.

I take the seat next to him and stare at my hands.

“How is she?” I ask.

“They’re checking her now,” he says.

I want to ask why he isn’t in there with her, but I keep my mouth shut. Plenty of women are private about that sort of thing.

We sit like that for twenty minutes before the doctor comes out to get Woods. He looks at me before he stands up.

“Thank you,” he says. “For the love.”

I nod, tears burning my eyes. He follows the doctor down a hallway. That’s when I finally look at Satcher.

“For the love?” Satcher’s eyebrow is raised in question.

I squirm in my seat pressing my lips together. When we were still married and things were getting rough, we took the love language test at the suggestion of one of our friends. With a bottle of wine and an attitude of resolve, we settled on the couch with our laptops to take the quiz. It was a good idea, but a lazy half-assed attempt to improve our communication. We needed more than a quiz at that point. Woods got a tie between Acts of Service and Quality Time. I got Physical Touch.

“It’s self-defeating,” I’d said staring at our results. “I don’t have enough time to dedicate to what you need, and you don’t want to touch me unless we’re in a good place and I’m meeting your needs.”

“It doesn’t have to be that cut-and-dried,” he’d argued.

My brain couldn’t accept that. “Yes, it does. We’re too different to love each other in the right way.” I’d stood up, teetering sideways from the wine.

“We obviously had enough in common to get married,” he’d said. He was still sitting, his feet propped on the coffee table, laptop balanced on his lap. I remember staring down at him and thinking how clueless he was. Life just wasn’t that simple. People changed, their likes and dislikes evolving with time and experience. What we’d had in common wasn’t there anymore.

“I’m not asking you to give up your dreams…” He’d sounded frustrated and my walls went up right away. I was defensive ... wrong.

“Then what exactly are you asking for?” I’d snapped.

Woods looked hurt. I was the one yelling, while he was calmly sitting on the couch trying to talk things out.

“Interest, consideration—a relationship, Billie. That’s why you get married, to have a relationship with someone…”

“We have a damn relationship,” I’d argued.

“You don’t even know that I hate coffee, Billie. I don’t drink coffee anymore…”

“What the fuck are you even talking about, Woods?” He was being petty ... needy. I’d loomed over him, my voice and face wrought with anger.

“Green tea,” he’d said slowly. “I switched to green tea about six months ago…”

Guilt. So much, but instead of acknowledging what my husband had just said I acted like it was ridiculous.

“This is so stupid.”