Serial Monogamy by Kate Taylor

it must take to care for such a ménage. Such a personage seemed very far removed from both her meagre theatrical engagements and her youth. “A boy?” she repeated.
    “A boy.” He looked at her fondly, and reaching up to her on the step behind him, he took her hand in his. “Your boy,” he said and leant toward her, craning his neck upwards to get his mouth level with hers.
    Her dawning horror must have shown plainly in her face for, before his lips reached any closer to hers, he stopped and recoiled with an expression of pain as shocked and pure as if she had just bit his hand.
    To make matters worse, someone was coming. They could hear heavy breathing and the rustle of skirts from below, and Mrs. Ternan’s head now appeared in view as she struggled her way up the stairs. Evidentially she was not best pleased with how far behind her sisters Nelly had fallen. As she saw the pair above her, she stopped only long enough to catch her breath before saying pointedly, “I hope there is no misunderstanding, Mr. Dickens.”
    “None at all. None at all,” he said as he turned from Nelly to resume his descent, but his face remained dark.
    On the way home, Fanny took her turn sitting with Mrs. Eliot and Mr. Dickens while Nelly and Maria rode back to town with her mother and Mr. Eliot in silence. By the time they reached their lodgings, it was the hour to change and get ready for their evening’s performances, for they still had several nights to run in their Doncasterengagement. At their door, Mrs. Ternan, as if to compensate for any lack of civility shown by their earlier encounter, thanked Mr. Dickens most warmly for his generosity in planning their outing and, not wishing to presume he would be attending the theatre again that night, asked whether he would be staying in Doncaster much longer before he returned to London.
    “Not long,” he replied. “I’m for the overnight train.”

“W here’s my blue shirt?”
    “Which blue shirt?”
    “The striped one, the one I always wear when I present a paper.”
    “I have no idea.”
    That was how one of our worst arguments began, inconsequentially, over an unlaundered shirt, although I suppose it was about bigger things. The girls were small, three or so, and we still had a nanny in those days; we kept her until the girls started kindergarten. As I recall she usually took the bag of Al’s shirts to the cleaner’s after he or I asked her to, but that was not how Al understood the matter.
    “Sharon. I have to leave early tomorrow. Where the fuck’s the shirt?”
    I stared at him, uncomprehendingly. Did he really think this was my problem?
    “Maybe it’s in the laundry bag still,” I said, takingthe bag off the closet door. It was large and stuffed. Apparently, the shirts had not walked themselves to the cleaner’s. I opened it up, rummaged around and found the one in question. “I guess…”
    “Can’t you keep things organized around here? I mean, you have help…”
    “I don’t quite understand why this is my fault.”
    “Well, whose fault is it?”
    “It’s your shirt.”
    “I don’t believe you. You know how hard I have to work; you’re at home all day.”
    “I work at home.”
    “Okay, sure. But the book’s finished. I mean, if you don’t have time to run the shirts to the laundry, the least you could do is warn me…”
    “Why are you obsessed with this one shirt? Wear a different one already.”
    And so it went on like this, this ridiculous argument over who should take responsibility for his laundry; he was at his worst, haughty and dismissive, and I wouldn’t back down because I thought he was in the wrong and I’m stubborn. He eventually accused me of failing to support him in his career, which I pointed out was completely untrue, and we wound up lying in bed in the dark in a sulky silence unable to apologize until exhaustion finally overtook us and we fell into an uneasy sleep. And the next day, in the manner of many married couples, we