Me You Us Novel – The legs of his chair made an awful scratching sound as Christopher Watson pushed back from the table, rocked the chair onto two legs, settled it back down, and then stared hard at his wife. Resting her elbows on the table, Melissa glanced at her husband and then stared at the lines and patterns in the wood table. He started laughing and slapped his leg, which brought her attention to him. “You know today is April second, right? You had me though. Smart, waiting an extra day.” He stood and walked past her, heading toward the fridge. “April Fool’s.” He chuckled again. She reached out and caught his arm, sadness turning down the edges of her mouth. “I waited until today so you wouldn’t think it was a joke. I’m pregnant, Christopher.” He tugged his arm free and turned his gaze away. Striding to the fridge, he pulled a beverage from the door, and then leaned his hip into the island. “I’ve had a vasectomy.” The words came slowly, deliberately.
“I know. But things like this happen sometimes,” she said. “I’ve had a vasectomy since Emily was born. Remember? You didn’t let me live it down for two years that you were nursing an infant, sore from giving birth, and had to wait on me hand and foot for two weeks because I overdid it the day after my procedure.” His eyes squinted at her, and his words came low, angry. “It’s been fifteen years. Almost sixteen,” she said. She rested her elbows on the table again and propped her chin against one fist. “I’ll be in my shop.” His boots landed heavily against the hardwood floor as he walked toward the back door. No heavier than normal, each thud reminded Melissa that he was walking away from this unexpected news. Every step she heard him take was like an announcement that she was pregnant, alone, with their third child. Every thump illuminated the great divide that had grown between them over the years. She listened for the door and jerked when he slammed it.
The dinner is ready. Melissa found Christopher coming back. A good meal always cheered him up, so she just offered a sweet smile to him and continued sweeping the kitchen. “I’m going to get a room.” His tone was low and determined and he walked past her toward the stairs. Climbing them two at a time, he disappeared from her sight. Melissa abandoned her pile of dust and followed him, although she moved up the stairs slower than he did. “A room? What are you talking about?” She closed their bedroom door behind her. “A room. Like at a hotel.” “Why?” “Because I don’t want to look at you and I cannot lay next to a woman who’s cheating on me. You could have done this a million other ways, Melissa. But to start with a baby announcement? That’s low, even for you.” He knew the words were hostile, and while a warning went off in his mind not to say things he couldn’t take back, he ignored it. “Even for me?” Her face contorted in confusion and frustration.
“I didn’t cheat on you. Your vasectomy failed. How do you get to go get a room when we,” she gestured between them, “when we are expecting a baby that we didn’t plan for? What about how I feel?” “What about how you feel?” He was incredulous. He shoved clothes into his duffel bag. “I guess you should have considered how you would feel before you found a lover and ruined our entire family. Have you told Dylan and Emily?” “I thought we would tell them together,” Melissa said. “I don’t want to tell people about your baby and how it got there. That’s on you.” He slung his bag over his shoulder and disappeared into their bathroom. Melissa paced the floor. The thick, cream-colored carpet absorbed the sound of her footfall and for a moment, it was quiet around her. Her thoughts were a mess, and she was at a loss for what to say to convince Christopher that the baby growing in her womb was their child together. “You know what makes me the angriest?”
He leaned in the bathroom doorway, holding his shower bag in one hand. Disgust drew deep lines around his eyes and mouth as he looked at her like she was a stranger, a filthy, stinky stranger on the street. “I’ve been good to you, Melissa. You’ve had everything you could ever want. I’ve always worked hard. I’ve invested wisely. I’ve listened to you and your opinion. I’ve been a good husband. I didn’t deserve this. And after all these years, too. Dylan and Emily are almost grown. I don’t know what you were thinking but I hope it was worth it.” He pushed off the door frame, averted his eyes from her, and disappeared from the bedroom. She thought about going after him, but she felt rooted to the floor, and she didn’t know what she would say. As with every argument they’d had over the last nineteen years, she would know what she wanted to say an hour after it was all over with.
Melissa was surprised to see Christopher’s car in the driveway when she returned from grocery shopping. She parked next to it and turned off her engine. She should have waited until a night Dylan didn’t have practice to get groceries, but the cupboards were empty again. She forgot how exhausting pregnancy was and it was taking everything she had to keep up with their basic needs. She reached the island with her arms loaded and sweat beading along her forehead. She wanted to call out for Christopher to come help, but that spark of hope had dimmed and anger started to rise in her chest. He had no business abandoning her for weeks on end because he had some ridiculous idea in his head. She marched back out the door to get more bags.
On the second trip in, she found him in the kitchen, rummaging through the sacks. “Did you get any beef jerky?” he asked, not bothering to look at her. “No.” She knew her voice was flat, and she didn’t mean to sound so cold, but she didn’t have the energy to coddle him along in his wrongly hurt feelings. She went out for the last of the groceries. “Did you get my cheese?” he asked as she set the last of the bags down. This time he did look at her. He thought of days past when he looked at her with adoration, when he was proud of the wife and mother she was, when he felt like they were a team building a life together. But now, when he looked at her, he saw his greatest disappointment and biggest heartbreak. He knew it would be messy, but they should just end it quickly and get on with their lives. “Nope. Didn’t know when we’d see you again.” She turned away from him to shove a gallon of milk into the fridge. “Don’t give me that. I’ve got to sort out my head.
Walk a mile in my shoes before you give me an attitude.” He wondered how she would react if he came in one day and told her he was sleeping with a woman from the job site. “A mile in your shoes?” She scoffed. Grabbing the bag of green apples, she dumped them in the drawer in the bottom of the fridge and then slammed the fridge door shut. “How about a mile in my shoes? You’ve been gone for a month. Haven’t checked in on us, haven’t called, stopped by, nothing.” “It’s not like you need me anymore. I’ve called Dylan and Emily, but I’m sure they didn’t bother to tell you. What would you do if I came in and said oh, by the way, you know Sara, in accounting? We’ve been having an affair.” He braced his palms against the island and locked his elbows, staring her down. She thought about calling him names and throwing eggs at him, but her dad’s voice crossed her mind before she acted on those thoughts. Cooler heads prevail. While it didn’t feel that way right now, her dad was always right.
“I didn’t sit you down and tell you I was having an affair, Christopher. I told you that I’m pregnant with our baby. Because your procedure failed.” “Vasectomies don’t fail after that many years. If they are going to fail, it’s early on. After so many years clipped, there isn’t even any semen in a man’s body.” Did she think he was stupid? Or that he couldn’t look up anything on the internet? “Your procedure failed.” Her back ached already and the thought of the remaining months of this pregnancy made her want to give up. And here Christopher was, with all his misguided anger. “Are you coming home anytime soon?” “Only if you aren’t here,” he snapped. Should he tell her now that he wanted the house? Or should he let her stay here with the kids until Dylan and Emily moved off to college? She would have to start working. He was not going to pay for her to be a stay-at-home mom to someone else’s baby. “What’s it going to take to change your mind?” her voice was level, but her heart was thumping faster in her chest. “A DNA test, I guess. After that kid of yours gets here,” he said, staring her down.
“A DNA test? Why not just get a semen count now and get it over with?” “My vasectomy worked for fifteen years. You can’t honestly tell me you think it failed now? They fail within the first five years, if they fail at all. I just told you that.” “Not always.” “I’m going back to the hotel. I just wanted to wash some clothes and I knew you’d be gone today.” He backed away from the island, started to turn away, then stopped. “Melissa. I want the house. But I don’t want to disrupt Dylan and Emily’s last few years of school. So, I’ll let you stay here until they head off to college.” She pressed her palms against the cool marble and leaned forward, focusing her gaze on him. “Hear me out. I won’t say this again. You don’t get to go off and act like a single man, leaving me here to raise our two big kids and grow our baby alone, only to come home like nothing is wrong after the DNA test gives you the answer you don’t trust me for.
Either you come home now, and we work through this and do this together, or…” she trailed off, but held her gaze. “Or what, Melissa?” he challenged. “I just told you, I want the house. Like, when we get the divorce.” She couldn’t hold her gaze any longer and she couldn’t believe her ears. Was he really talking like their marriage was over? She yanked a sack from the island and carried it to the pantry. She closed her eyes when she heard the loud thump of his boots across the hardwood floor. The steps quieted when he reached the carpet, and then she heard the front door handle click, then the door slammed, shaking the walls.