Page 3 of On Dry Land

“Say something,” he requests.

“I’m not sure what you’d like me to say,” I admit. And it’s true. I have been living with a stranger, apparently. A stranger who thinks marriage vows are gentle guidelines instead of hard rules. A stranger I can’t trust.

“Say you forgive me.”

I reach for the wine bottle and pour another measure in my glass. Dylan’s glass is shattered on the floor where it was the unfortunate victim of the rage portion of his emotional hurricane. I consider getting up for a broom and dustpan but decide I simply cannot be bothered. I would rather get drunk.

“I do not forgive you,” I reply, and Dylan makes a choked sobbing noise that grates like sandpaper on my heart. Logic, not emotions, my dad’s voice reminds me. Facts. “I take my promises seriously. I made a vow of monogamy. The same vow, incidentally, that you made. This is not a misunderstanding, Dylan. We said the same words, and, until now, I had been under the impression that we meant them the same way.”

“People have open marriages, Dryden! Polyamory!” He swipes a hand across his tearstained face, holding the word up like a shield.

“People do,” I confirm. “We didn’t. I do not want an open marriage. I do not want my husband to sleep with other people. I did not agree to it.”

Dylan stands up, heels of his palms pressed hard into his eyes, and takes a step around the coffee table, narrowly missing the glass. I take a sip of wine. It would appear round two of anger is in order.

“I hate it when you’re like this,” he snaps. I wait, unsurprised by this turn of events. I knew this would end up being my fault eventually. It’s possible it was always my fault, right from the beginning. “I can’t talk to you.”

“Did you try?” I ask, genuinely curious.

“Everyone does this, Denny.” I grimace at the nickname but don’t interrupt. “Everyone. Don’t pretend you don’t know about the things Eric and Matt get up to. Hell, what about Cynthia, huh? She doesn’t even hide it! She just goes out with other men! In broad fucking daylight!”

I watch him as he paces in front of the television. What a strange argument to make. Other people cheat, so I cheated as well?

“I’m not married to any of those people, and neither are you,” I point out. “The morals of our friends don’t concern me. Other people’s marriages do not concern me.”

“You always work late!” he replies, spinning to face me, hands on his hips. I nod, having wondered when we’d get here. “I thought…I thought you were fucking your secretary like every other man in the world.”

“My secretary is a woman.” I tip the wine into my mouth. I’ve got quite a pleasant buzz right now.

“You know what I mean,” he snaps back. I sigh.

“Yes, I do. I have a tremendous workload, Dylan. I work hard. You know this. You reap the benefits of how hard I work. And again, you have never before complained about the hours I spend at the office. If you really did suspect I was cheating on you, would you not have brought it up?”

“Of course not! Because everyone fucking does it!”

“Not if they love each other,” I murmur, spinning the wineglass on my knee. Dylan snorts.

“Don’t pretend like you love me.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I frown at him.

“Forget it. You win. I’m the villain. Marriage counseling, then? Seems to be all the rage these days.”

“Do you imagine that would fix the problem? Can you even admit there is a problem?”

“Tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it,” he replies, responding to neither question and in doing so answering both. Leaning forward, I set my glass on the coffee table.

“I’d like a divorce,” I say, and am proud of myself when my voice doesn’t waver.

“No, you don’t,” Dylan says immediately. “You like being married.”

I tilt my head to the side, finding that choice of words oddly accusatory. You like being married. Well, he’s right. I do. He’s also right in that I would not like a divorce. I do not want to lose the man in front of me. The man who glowed warm in the sun, tennis whites bright, on the day I met him; the man who used to sit next to me at family dinners and mock everyone, voice low and private and for me alone. The man who once snorted Coca-Cola from his nose, laughing as he took a drink.

“I do like being married,” I agree softly. Boy, do I ever. “And I do love you. But it’s not about love. It’s about trust. I am capable of forgiving a lot of things, Dylan, but this isn’t one of them.”

I don’t like people with two faces. People who are too weak to tell the truth and hide behind pretty, easy lies. I don’t like people who break promises, and I do not like learning that my husband is any of these things. All of them. Worse, I hate that I didn’t figure it out prior to peeing in a damn cup.

Standing, I cross the room, broken wineglass crunching under the soles of the loafers I haven’t gotten around to taking off since I got home. Stopping at the wall of glass that overlooks our yard and the bay, I stare at the calm evening. The sun is going down, and, as always, the view from here is stunning. The boat Dylan bought on a whim and hasn’t yet taken out on the water sits quietly, tethered to the dock. He’d meant to buy a pleasure boat, bought a fishing vessel by accident, and found enough joy in telling the ridiculous story that he kept it. I stare at it, finding beauty, as I always do, in the sleek lines of her. The ocean, beautiful and deadly and unknown, has always fascinated me. I wonder if the first person to build a boat felt magic when they put it in the water.