"HOUSEKEEPING FOR A SECOND WIFE"
by Martin Brick
The coffeemaker can go. It was a gift from Lindsay, and I thought free of emotional residue. Then, one morning it up and died. I proposed to Kimberly that afternoon. Why, she thought, pop the question on an ordinary Tuesday in March. Because the coffeemaker died.
The golf clubs, perhaps into the rented storage garage. We promised each Saturday to one another, one hundred percent, no exceptions for the first year. I’ve been through this before. You love each other, say the words, leave the notes, make love nightly, share your dreams, share your fears, share your boring stories from work, share a shower, share a single pair of pajamas. Time away becomes a welcome change of pace ~ round of golf, or cards with the boys, shopping with the girls, an old college roommate. But you never see the moment the change occurs. The change of pace becomes an escape without you ever noticing. I’m afraid this second time around that will happen all too quickly.
The copy of Kerouac can go, though it feels like betrayal. You were the Bible of my youth, but I am no longer young. I read you when I was Kimberly’s age. It’s not that I renounce you now, but I’m afraid I might read you again. Though it is I who has changed, when I read it will seem like you have undergone the metamorphosis. I once saw a picture of Jack in his 40’s ~ fat, bloated, dirty, pathetic. I won’t sacrifice your writing like that. I won’t read you with middle-aged eyes and deflate your transcendental, trans-continental journey down to immature, self-aggrandizing pulp. No, I’ll let you live on in myth as the Buddha-saint I’ve found you to be.
Speaking of myth, the bundle of letters and photos must stay. I must find a clever hiding space. Kimberly is a poet and writes me verses, but they are not the same. She is so young, just twenty-five, and so I can’t believe her words. Not that I think she lies, but because I know things will change. They already have. I’ve seen her wearing her thirteen-year-old terrycloth robe. I’ve seen her plucking her eyebrows. I’ve seen her maintain a two-day silence after I’ve said something dumb. The letters are few, but long and passioned, and full of youthful nonsense. A girl from college, pre-Lindsay even, who believed everything I believed. We had a brief fling, a summer apart to yield the letters, and then we lost each other. So we never had to share an apartment and fight over the phone bill, to do each other’s laundry and to see the filthy, un-sexy reality of our clothing. We never voted for opposing candidates. We never had to lie about liking a new haircut. In myth, she’s my perfect wife, so I must keep those letters.
My underwear can be sorted, and judged, and the older pairs culled. Let’s let that patina of complete attraction linger between us for a little while.
The cognac can go. We’ll drink it on the honeymoon. Kimberly has sophisticated tastes for such a young woman. No more treating myself to expensive luxuries. Not that it’s a financial concern, but when you’re single, especially divorced single, you feel the need to indulge yourself. Now it will be her duty. My birthday, anniversaries, etc.
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Martin Brick wrote "Housekeeping For a Second Wife" as part of a series of interrelated shorts. Other pieces from this project have appeared in Sou'Wester, The Beloit Fiction Journal, and upcoming in The Circle Magazine.
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