Page 8 of The Wife
She started to tear through my very bad wrapping job. “Did you get me what I asked for?”
“You asked for a vibrator. No, I did not get you what you asked for.”
“The gift of pleasure, Jake. You shouldn’t mock it.”
She opened the lid on the box and slid out the Styrofoam. Then when she opened that, she gasped again.
Nestled inside was a beautiful silver scale. Two disks balanced on either side, and two containers with five silver disks in each. She set it up on the able and opened the silver disks. Holding one in her fingers.
“You’re always going on about your scale of one to ten…” I felt a little awkward. Because she wasn’t saying anything. Just looking at it thoughtfully, as if it were a puzzle to be solved instead of scale. “Figured now you had the actual physical representation of it.”
“I love it,” she said quietly. Then she turned to me. “You always give the best gifts.”
I nodded and waited for it. My hug. Every year I gave her a gift and every year she hugged me for it.
Not this year, apparently. Because instead of hugging me she was playing with the disks and putting them on the scale.
All ten on one side.
“Today,” she said.
That had to be enough, because it was all I was going to get.
“Good night, Jake.”
“Good night, Ellie. Happy Birthday.”
She got her water and went upstairs and I stood there like a statue for what was definitely too long, fighting off the disappointment that I didn’t get my hug.
Because it was all I would let myself have…I wanted it really badly.
Three
Ellie
June – Graduation day
Iwas not goingto be disappointed. He told me he would do absolutely everything he could do to be here today, but he couldn’t control when the foal was going to come. That’s right, I forgot to say—we were having a baby.
Well, not us. We weren’t having a baby because we weren’t having sex. No sex at all for us. No sirree Bob. I went to school and we worked really hard and we never ever considered having sex.
Jake didn’t, anyway. Me, not so much. I thought about it. A LOT!
A LOT!
Are you feeling me?
Anyway, Jake put Wyatt to stud on Isabella, who he’d bought just for that purpose, and now Isabella was due any moment. Javier and Gomez were back and living in the bunk house, but I knew Jake wanted to be there for the birth.
After all, this was his precious Wyatt who was about to become a father. Let’s face it. Jake was most definitely hoping for a boy that would one day fill Wyatt’s shoes when he was too old to carry Jake.
So I understood completely if he couldn’t make it to my graduation. It was a stupid thing anyway. Caps and gowns, long boring speeches, and then everyone having their name called out.
If he could make it, he was going to take me to dinner afterwards to celebrate and then we were going to go to Pete’s for drinks.
That’s right. I said we were going to Pete’s for drinks. It seemed as a high school graduate I was now mature enough to have a few beers.
If he couldn’t make it though, then plan B was to go out with Chrissy and her parents for dinner and then go with Chrissy to Pete’s.
