Girls by Nic Kelman Page B

return to bed, as you get back in bed and pull the covers up over yourself, you will look down at her and you will wonder what she didn’t tell you. You will wonder what other problems you will have to deal with sometime soon, which parts of the things that were supposed to make you happy, which parts of the things that were supposed to fulfill you have gone wrong now. You will wonder what else you will have to deal with on top of the problem that hasn’t let you sleep.
    And it will occur to you, as you look down at your wonderful, caring, understanding wife, that if she is ever going to really talk at all, if at any point she is ever going to tell you about her life as she once did so long ago (but how long really — ten, fifteen years?), if she’s ever going to talk to you as she once talked to you about her classes or her love of sailing or her desire to join the Peace Corps, if she is ever going to talk to you like that again, she will have to talk to you about those responsibilities that she didn’t want to talk to you about when you came home tonight. Because they have become her life. Her whole life is now the responsibilities you have made for yourself outside your job. Her whole life is now the world that used to be your dream, the world you have been doing the work to create, the world that has become a burden, the world you now can’t bear to face.
    And so perhaps looking down at her, something that not so long ago used to fill your face with amazement, sheer disbelief that you were lying naked next to a woman like this, perhaps looking down at her you will suddenly feel sick. Perhaps looking down at her you will suddenly understand why sometimes when you come home and she opens the door with a smile on her face you can’t stand the sight of her, why sometimes when that door opens it feels like you’ve stepped off one unpleasant ride at an amusement park and right onto another one. And perhaps, just perhaps, just for a split second, you will think about how easy it would be to strangle her in her sleep. And then you will wonder where that thought came from.
    For no reason at all you run your fingers over the hand-carved wooden dash. You find yourself wondering why British sports cars are so small. Italian and German sports cars are a decent size, why do the British make everything so small, you wonder.
    You look at the house again. Then you start the car and go round the circle and out the driveway, hoping no one heard the crunching of the gravel as you went past the front door. You will go for a drink, just one quick drink before you go home.
    As you drive, you find yourself wondering if that is why some men never want to marry. Because they are smart enough to know that no matter how well you get along, no matter how well you understand each other, once you start sharing lives completely, wholeheartedly, you must arrive at this point eventually. You wonder if they never want to marry because they are smart enough to know you can only forget about your life in the company of people who are not part of your life.
    And as you drive you wonder if it would make a difference if she worked too, if she had a job as stressful as yours, if she too couldn’t sleep at night. If perhaps then there’d be some sense of camaraderie, some sense of the two of you battling together against the world. You wonder if things would be better somehow if she worked too. But you doubt it. If she worked too it seems like then, in addition to reminding you of all the responsibilities you have somehow accumulated outside your work, she would also remind you of all the responsibilities you have fought for inside your work. And it also seems like then, if she worked too, when she came home she’d want to talk to you as little as you wanted to talk to her.
    You drive past a fast-food restaurant, some place that serves tacos or burgers, some place with a “drive-thru.” You realize you haven’t eaten all day. You pull in behind a