Page 30 of The Wife
Jake
October
Iwas hurting Ellie. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Me seeing Carol was supposed to help things. But it wasn’t until after the package fight I realized it. She was angry and she wanted to hurt me. The only reason Ellie would do that is if I was hurting her.
She didn’t like me seeing Carol. Hell, I hadn’t even done anything with Carol yet. I wasn’t lying when I told Carol I wanted to go slow. We’d had lunch. That was it. I was taking her out to dinner tonight. Nothing else.
But in the two weeks since that fight over the dildo, things had changed. It had been subtle at first. Ellie stopped watching TV with me at night. Said TV was a waste of time and she wanted to spend more time reading. Which was horseshit, because Ellie loved TV. Except now she didn’t. And because the TV distracted her, she did her reading in her room.
I didn’t think too much about it at first. In fact it was probably a good thing we didn’t hang out as much as we used to.
Then she stopped eating with me. Breakfast and lunch we were on our own. However, we always ate dinner together. Then she started finding excuses to cook in the middle of the day, leaving a plate for me in the fridge with a note.
Or if I was cooking, she usually picked those nights to head into town to see her friends.
Except I had no idea who she was seeing because Karen, Chrissy and Lisa, who I knew were her best friends, were all at different colleges around the state. Which led me back to this guy she might or might not be dating who she was planning to fuck (her words.) Not that I could ask about that.
Still, I made sure to cook for both of us and leave her a plate. Sure enough the next morning she would have eaten it, cleaned the plate and put it away.
During the day, forget about it. All her tasks were getting done but I never saw her. If I was moving cattle she was back at the house. If she was moving cattle I was fixing fence line.
I could have forced the issue. I could have said we needed two people to push the cows to different grazing areas.
I didn’t because it was obvious she didn’t want to see me.
That had to change. I was doing this thing with Carol to help us, not to hurt her. And I had absolutely no plans on getting the silent treatment from her for the next three years.
Which was why I was waiting in the kitchen this morning for her to come down. I had shit I needed to do, but I was done playing this game.
I was on my second cup of coffee when I heard her coming downstairs. When she came into the kitchen and saw me, I knew she was startled.
“You’re usually gone by now.”
Yep. Nogood morning Jake. No smile. God how long had it been since I had seen her smile?
“I wanted to talk.”
“About what?”
“I’m not going to be home for dinner tonight. I’m taking Carol out.”
I watched her face, but it was carefully blank. Too blank. She was hiding something.
“You waited around the house to tell me you had a date with your girlfriend? Seriously?”
I balked at the word. “She’s hardly my girlfriend. We’ve hung out a few times and had lunch.”
“I don’t need a recap.”
“Look, this thing with Carol… this is not going anywhere. She’s only in town for a couple of weeks at best.”
“So?”
“Well, if you’re worried that this is going to turn into something, that we will be back in the same position we were with Janet, I want to make it clear that’s not the case. You’re pissed at me. You’ve made yourself as loud and clear as possible by being absolutely silent. What I’m trying to find out is why?”
“First, you don’t know where this is going with Carol. People start dating and plans can change.”
“Trust me. I know what she does for her job. She’s not settling down anytime soon. This is just…”
