The Stuff That Never Happened by Maddie Dawson

texting like mad, and when that makes him laugh, I do a monologue in her voice where she’s dissing Clark for liking The Beatles, a group I pretend she’s never heard of.
    He pats my shoulder. “Sorry I called you silly.”
    “Just don’t ever do it again, buster. Because I’ll show you silly. And I would also appreciate it if you could manage not to insult my work when we’re in public.”
    “Did I insult your work?”
    “You always do. You think it’s stupid for me to illustrate children’s books—”
    “Annabelle. How many times do we have to go over this? This is a compliment to you. I think your illustrations are very sweet, but I just know you’re capable of so much more than drawing a squirrel named Bobo, no matter how significant he might be.”
    I look out the window.
    “I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m proud of your work. Really.”
    “All right,” I say grudgingly. “Apology accepted. I guess.”
    “Can I make it up to you? What if we stop and get some politically incorrect dessert? I’m starving after eating that rabbit food. Do you want to?”
    “You know I do.”
    “Yeah, I know you do.” He turns into a Friendly’s, and we have sundaes piled high with whipped cream and nuts, and on the way home, we have to unfasten the top button of our pants so that we can continue to breathe. This is the good side of being married so long. It is so nice to be married, to let my stomach poke out.
    “She’s wicked, making fun of Clark,” he says.
    “She’s just young. Do you realize she’s only a little older than Sophie?”
    He laughs a little. “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if she becomes another one of your waifs and strays. You just watch. A few months from now, I’m going to come home and you’ll be telling me that Padgett is running away from a terrible childhood and that she’s starting some environmental-slash-children’s book illustrators’ group, and you and she are going to cochair a conference where you make hummus together out of organic chickpeas that you grow in the backyard.”
    “No, you forget she’s going to travel the world.”
    “Well, otherwise, she’s a perfect candidate for the Annabelle McKay Waif and Stray Project.” I have this reputation in the family—unearned, I think—for always trying to fix people’s lives, to put them in touch with the people they need to know, to get them to dress better, or stand up straighter. It’s really that I’m the only one in the family who likes listening to other people.
    “You wouldn’t ever do that, would you?” I say, teasing.
    “Do what?”
    “You know, leave me for some student who wears only politically correct clothes and thinks she knows everything.”
    I am not serious; I would just like him to turn and look at me, to join me in playing at being smugly married for just one tiny moment before we walk back into the house. Don’t I have a right to that, at least? For him to hold my hand as we go in through the garage, and perhaps give me even the pretense of suspense that maybe we’re going to get inside and start up some kissing ourselves, maybe unwrap some of the layers we’re bundled in, and—what the hell?—take a Wednesday night sex romp.
    But he says in a low voice, “Don’t be ridiculous. You know you never have to worry about that. We have our pact.”
    “I’m sure Mary Lou thought she and Clark had a pact, too. Isn’t that what wedding vows are?” I say, and I move closer to him and interlace his fingers with mine.
    “I don’t mean that pact. I mean our other pact,” he says, which is as close as he ever comes to mentioning the unmentionable. He doesn’t look at me; he opens his car door and gets out slowly, and then I get out, too, and he walks in front of me through the kitchen door. It’s dark and cold inside the house, which is exactly how I’m feeling inside. He snaps on the light over the sink, and I feel that old awful tugging inside me, that