The Wife Upstairs Quotes

A man who overestimates his intelligence is a man who can be easily manipulated.

This is another trick I’ve learned over the years—make people think they have the upper hand, and they trust you so much faster.

There's a trick to spinning lies. You have to embed the truth in there, just a glimmer of it. That's the part that will catch people, and it's what makes the rest of your lies sould like truth, too.

I’ve learned the hard way that wanting more is what fucks you in the end.

watch people’s eyes more than you listened to what they said. Mouths were good at lying, but eyes usually told the truth.

Gossip is tricky, slippery. Pretend to be too interested, and suddenly you look suspicious

Mouths were good at lying, but eyes usually told the truth.

Dutiful little wife,” he whispered. “I’m going to be a terrible influence on you. Why don’t you give me a kiss, and go upstairs for your bath? By the time you finish, I’ll be there with you.

My wife's dying upstairs and I can't do anything about it. I look in her face and I see the memories there. I see how I hurt her and how I said the wrong things and how I got angry and how I wasn't the man she hoped I'd be. I see that in her face and I see she's going to die with that. You think I'm not preoccupied?

I’ve been dodging men’s hands since I was twelve, so wishing a man would touch me is a novel experience.

She has never been a pretty crier. She sobbed the way she did everything else - with passion and excess. That she had managed to keep it inside her this long was astounding to James. He thought of pushing open the half-closed door and kneeling before his wife, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and helping her upstairs. He raised his hand, stroking the wood of the door, planning to say something to calm her. But what wisdom could he offer Gus, when he could not even heed it himself? James walked upstairs again, got into bed, covered his head with a pillow. And hours later, when Gus crept beneath the sheets, he tried to pretend that he did not feel the weight of her grief, lying between them like a fitful child, so solid that he could not reach past it to touch her.

Like the locked room upstairs? Listen. I’ve read Jane Eyre. That better be a red room of pain up there, and not your ex-wife.

Walls keep you from seeing things. They help make things less real. Sure, maybe you hear loud, sharp noises outside some nights. But it’s easy to tell yourself that those aren’t gunshots, that there’s no need to call the police, no need to even worry. It’s probably just a car backfiring. Sure. Or a kid with fireworks. There might be loud wailing or screams coming from the apartment upstairs, but you don’t know that the drunken neighbor is beating his wife with a rolling pin again. It’s not really any of your business, and they’re always fighting, and the man is scary, besides. Yeah, you know that there are cars coming and going at all hours from your neighbor’s place, and that the crowd there isn’t exactly the most upright-looking bunch, but you haven’t seen him dealing drugs. Not even to the kids you see going over there sometimes. It’s easier and safer to shut the door, be quiet, and turn up the TV. We’re ostriches and the whole world is sand.

How it was I don't understand, but we always seemed to be getting, with the best of motives, in one another's way. When I wanted to go up-stairs, there was my wife coming down; or when my wife wanted to go down, there was I coming up. That is married life, according to my experience of it.

Gossip is currency in this neighborhood, and she’s clearly about to make it rain.

even though the Methodists aren’t the Baptist’s, no one wants an open bar in front of Jesus.

I'm not yours. I'm free as a fucking bird.

I’ve gone so long trying not to be seen that there’s something intoxicating about letting him really see me.

ROSE: I been standing with you! I been right here with you, Troy. I got a life, too. I gave eighteen years of my life to stand in the same spot with you. Don't you think I ever wanted other things? Don't you think I had dreams and hopes? What about my life? What about me. Don't you think it ever crossed my mind to want to know other men? That I wanted to lay up somewhere and forget about my responsibilities? That I wanted someone to make me laugh so I could feel good? You not the only one who's got wants and needs. But I held on to you, Troy. I took all my feelings, my wants and needs, my dreams...and I buried them inside you. I planted a seed and watched and prayed over it. I planted myself inside you and waited to bloom. And it didn't take me not eighteen years to find out the soil was hard and rocky and it wasn't never gonna bloom. But I held on to you. I held you tighter. You was my husband. I owed you everything I had. Every part of me I could find to give you. And upstairs in that room...with the darkness falling in on me...I gave everything I had to try and erase the doubt that you wasn't the fines man in the world. And wherever you was going...I wanted to be there with you. Cause you was my husband. Cause that's the only way I was gonna survive as your wife. You always taking about what you give...and what you don't have to give. But you take too. You take...and you don't even know nobody's giving!

That's what you do when people threaten you, Jane. When they try to fuck you over. You don't give in to them, you don't give them what they want, you remind them that you're the one in charge, you're making the rules.

One thing growing up in the foster system taught me was to watch people’s eyes more than you listened to what they said. Mouths were good at lying, but eyes usually told the truth.

Had I brought this here? This sordidness, this violence? Did it cling to me like some kind of virus, infecting anyone who got close to me?

Tripp is so many ugly things—a drunk, a lech, a Republican—but murderer still doesn’t fit on him.

No one can be judged for the books they buy in airports.

There’s a trick to spinning lies. You have to embed the truth in there, just a glimmer of it. That’s the part that will catch people, and it’s what makes the rest of your lies sound like truth, too.

We keep so many things in our brains,” she’d said. “More than men do. They’re allowed to only worry about business, while we have to worry about business and our families. Our children. I bet if I were to ask a male CEO, ‘How much milk do you have in your fridge right this second?’ he’d have no idea. But all of you know.

Hem, you know I don't think that owner's wife where you live likes me. She wouldn't let me wait upstairs for you.' 'I'll tell her,' I said. 'Don't bother. I can always wait here. It's very pleasant in the sun now, isn't it?' 'It's fall now,' I said. 'I don't think you dress warmly enough.' 'It's only cool in the evening,' Evan said. 'I'll wear my coat.' 'Do you know where it is?' 'No. But it's somewhere safe.' 'How do you know?' 'Because I left the poem in it.

You're not a wallflower. But you have my permission to hide in corners, my sweet- so long as you take me with you. In fact, I'll insist on it. I warn you, I'm very badly behaved at such affairs- I'll probably debauch you in gazebos, on balconies, beneath staircases, and behind assorted potted plants. And if you complain, I'll simply remind you that you should have known better than to marry a conscienceless rake." Evie's throat arched slightly at the light stroke of his fingers. "I wouldn't complain." Sebastian smiled and nipped tenderly at the side of her neck. "Dutiful little wife," he whispered. "I'm going to be a terrible influence on you. Why don't you give me a kiss, and go upstairs for your bath? By the time you finish, I'll be there with you.

schadenfreude,

Plan some other charity function? Maybe a brunch to raise money for kids who don’t know how to yacht.

I wasn’t from the South, but I’d lived here long enough to learn that flirting was like a second language with these people, or a casual hobby.

It’s no fun to spill gossip if the recipient seems bored, so that’s why I keep my face completely neutral, no more interest than if we were talking about the weather.

immediate

I’d look back at that moment and wonder if I somehow knew what was going to happen. If everything in my life had been leading me to that one spot, to that one house. To him.

And lastly, thanks to every woman who ever got to the end of Jane Eyre and thought, “Honestly, Jane? You could do better.” You are my people, and I love you.

But I’ve been dodging men’s hands since I was twelve, so wishing a man would touch me is a novel experience.

There are always two deaths, the real one and the one people know about.

I was looking for something new. I was. Because I was running from something old.

There are always two deaths, the real one and the one people know about. —Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea

Because I think I still love him. In spite of it all.

He is at his best when he has someone to reflect off of, someone to be someone for.

Being a Lydia would not have been as bad as a Bertha.

Knowing that about you, imagining all that you must have gone through...It doesn't make me want you less. It makes me want you more.

What I have is, after all, like winning the fucking lottery, and I’ve learned the hard way that wanting more is what fucks you in the end.

The man was a liar, and all of us his victims. The bottom floor was for a new wife,

vitrine. Upstairs his wife runs a vacuum cleaner; he can

Bea had always believed that a man who overestimates his intelligence is a man who can be easily manipulated. Turns out, he’s also a man who can be really dangerous.

In life, things never go quite the way you want them to. But when you’re creating your own fictional world, you can make everything happen exactly how you want it to.

If a man wants a woman to basically be a wife, he needs to make her a wife.

I don’t tell him that it’s not even my real name, but the name of a dead girl I knew in a dead life. My real name is equally boring, but it’s one he might hear more often than Jane.

We were not a happy couple, and not a miserable couple. We were six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. How it was I don't understand, but we always seemed to be getting, with the best of motives, in one another's way. When I wanted to go upstairs, there was my wife coming down; or when my wife wanted to go down there was I coming up. That is married life, according to my experience of it.

Tripp is so many ugly things—a drunk, a lech, a Republican—but murderer still doesn’t fit on him. I’ve known violent men. I’ve been around too many of them, and I learned how to sniff them out early. I had to.

But I actually like the heat early in the morning, before the humidity sets in, the grass still wet and jewel-green as the sun climbs over the horizon. It feels good, the sweat running down my back, stinging my eyes behind my sunglasses.

They are always so quiet," he said, turning to Papa. "So quiet." "They are not like those loud children people are raising these days, with no home training and no fear of God," Papa said, and I was certain that it was pride that stretched Papa's lips and lightened his eyes. "Imagine what the Standard would be if we were all quiet." It was a joke. Ade Coker was laughing; so was his wife, Yewanda. But Papa did not laugh. Jaja and I turned and went back upstairs, silently.

When Augustus Townsend died in Georgia near the Florida line, he rose up above the barn where he had died, up above the trees and the crumbling smokehouse and the little family house nearby, and he walked away quick-like, toward Virginia. He discovered that when people were above it all they walked faster, as much as a hundred times faster than when they were confined to the earth. And so he reached Virginia in little or no time. He came to the house he had built for his family, for Mildred his wife and Henry his son, and he opened and went through the door. He thought she might be at the kitchen table, unable to sleep and drinking something to ease her mind. But he did not find his wife there. Augustus went upstairs and found Mildred sleeping in their bed. He looked at her for a long time, certainly as long as it would have taken him, walking up above it all, to walk to Canada and beyond. Then he went to the bed, leaned over and kissed her left breast. The kiss went through the breast, through skin and bone, and came to the cage that protected the heart. Now the kiss, like so many kisses, had all manner ofkeys, but it, like so many kisses, was forgetful, and it could not find the right key to the cage. So in the end, frustrated, desperate, the kiss squeezed through the bars and kissed Mildred’s heart. She woke immediately and she knew her husband was gone forever. All breath went and she was seized with such a pain that she had to come to her feet. But the room and the house were not big enough to contain her pain and she stumbled out ofthe room, out and down the stairs, out through the door that Augustus, as usual, had left open. The dog watched her from the hearth. Only in the yard could she begin to breathe again. And breath brought tears. She fell to her knees, out in the open yard, in her nightclothes, something Augustus would not have approved of. Augustus died on Wednesday.

The stressful part is always making the decision,” Bea used to remind her employee. “Once you’ve made it, it’s done, and you feel better.” That’s how it was with Blanch. Once Bea has decided that she has to die, it’s easy enough, and the rest of the steps fall into place.

There had been a time, once, when he had not lived like this, a .32 under his pillow, a lunatic in the back yard firing off a pistol for God knew what purpose, some other nut or perhaps the same one imposing a brain-print of his own shorted-out upstairs on an incredibly expensive and valued cephscope that everyone in the house, plus all their friends, loved and enjoyed. In former days Bob Arctor had run his affairs differently: there had been a wife much like other wives, two small daughters, a stable household that got swept and cleaned and emptied out daily, the dead newspapers not even opened carried from the front walk to the garbage pail, or even, sometimes, read. But then one day, while lifting out an electric corn popper from under the sink, Arctor had hit his head on the corner of a kitchen cabinet directly above him. The pain, the cut in his scalp, so unexpected and undeserved, had for some reason cleared away the cobwebs. It flashed on him instantly that he didn't hate the kitchen cabinet: he hated his wife, his two daughters, his whole house, the back yard with its power mower, the garage, the radiant heating system, the front yard, the fence, the whole fucking place and everyone in it. He wanted a divorce; he wanted to split. And so he had, very soon. And entered, by degrees, a new and somber life, lacking all of that. Probably he should have regretted his decision. He had not. That life had been one without excitement, with no adventure. It had been too safe. All the elements that made it up were right there before his eyes, and nothing new could ever be expected. It was like, he had once thought, a little plastic boat that would sail on forever, without incident, until it finally sank, which would be a secret relief to all. But in this dark world where he now dwelt, ugly things and surprising things and once in a long while a tiny wondrous thing spilled out at him constantly; he could count on nothing.

Eddie came in today. He kissed me, he took me to the bed, he fucked me, and after it was over, I thought about him going back downstairs, back to Jane, and I said the thing that has been sitting inside me for weeks now. “So is it hard, having a new girlfriend when you have a wife upstairs?

When Elisa arrives at McDonald’s, the manager unlocks the door and lets her in. Sometimes the husband-and-wife cleaning crew are just finishing up. More often, it’s just Elisa and the manager in the restaurant, surrounded by an empty parking lot. For the next hour or so, the two of them get everything ready. They turn on the ovens and grills. They go downstairs into the basement and get food and supplies for the morning shift. They get the paper cups, wrappers, cardboard containers, and packets of condiments. They step into the big freezer and get the frozen bacon, the frozen pancakes, and the frozen cinnamon rolls. They get the frozen hash browns, the frozen biscuits, the frozen McMuffins. They get the cartons of scrambled egg mix and orange juice mix. They bring the food upstairs and start preparing it before any customers appear, thawing some things in the microwave and cooking other things on the grill. They put the cooked food in special cabinets to keep it warm.

Scrambling to his feet, he saw Amber in her vampire gown rushing toward him. He felt her long nails rip down his cheek as he sidestepped and swung the bat with all his might. Her pale face exploded as the side of her head caved in from the blow. He saw the fury in her remaining eye as she struggled to her feet with her bloody claws groping. A vicious downward swipe took out the other eye, and she crumpled in a bloody heap at his feet. With his adrenalin flowing like a river through his sinews, he caught the first wolf in midair with a bone crushing upward thrust as the beast’s gnashing grisly teeth opened to grip his throat in a death lock. When he looked down at the wolf’s battered head, he saw the open eyes of his son Kyle staring up at him. The horror of the son’s face startled him awake. The forest and the monsters had disappeared. He found himself in the upstairs hall of his home on Loving Forest Court amid the twisted, battered remains of his wife and children still swinging the bloody, baseball bat.

I can’t say to him what I’m really thinking, which is that this house gives me the creeps. Maybe Victoria loved it here, but I don’t. And for that matter, his wife gives me the creeps too. There’s something about her and that blank expression that terrifies me. It’s an awful thing to say about a woman who has been through something horrible, but I can’t help it.

Feeling trapped, growing desperate, she finally declared that she would not live under the same roof with Joe, that it was him or her, that Joe had to move out if she were to stay in such a godforsaken place. Harry could not calm her down, and he could not abide the thought of losing a second wife, certainly not one as lovely as Thula. He went back upstairs and told his son he would have to move out of the house. Joe was ten.

Did you just spit on your hand before you patted down my hair?” he asked indignantly. “Oh, I did no such thing. Now be still. Of all the rude, impertinent accusations to make! Bend down lower. I will have you know that members of the aristocracy do not have ‘spit’ as you crudely refer to it, young man. We do not acknowledge saliva in any form. Straighten your collar. There, you look nearly presentable.” She grumbled in aggravation, “Do you even own a brush?” Grabbing his chin, she brusquely turned his face from side to side. “For heaven’s sake, Richard, what did you use to shave—a shovel?” “Leave now, Catherine, and I may spare your life.” There was a moment of quiet from behind the door. “Go, woman! I intend to begin ravishing my wife shortly; however, I will not even consider it before I see that little dwarflike body of yours waddling down this corridor! Away with you! Shoo!” “Oh, all right!” she finally capitulated. “By the way, mon chou, I should tell you that when you two finally get around to reconciling and retire upstairs, Amanda is occupying the large blue suite down the east corridor, not your usual bachelor room at the end of the west corridor.” She reached up to kiss his offered cheek then turned on her heels to leave. “You have finally earned an upgrade in accommodations, Richard. Well done, you.

Thursday 8 February [Halifax] Came upstairs at 11 a.m. Spent my time from then till 3, writing to M— very affectionately, more so than I remember to have done for long… Wrote the following crypt, ‘I can live upon hope, forget that we grow older, & love you as warmly as ever. Yes, Mary, you cannot doubt the love of one who has waited for you so long & patiently. You can give me all of happiness I care for &, prest to the heart which I believe my own, caressed & treasured there, I will indeed be constant & never, from that moment, feel a wish or thought for any other than my wife. You shall have every smile & every breath of tenderness. “One shall our union & our interests be” & every wish that love inspires & every kiss & every dear feeling of delight shall only make me more securely & entirely yours.’ Then, after hoping to see her in York next winter & at Steph’s2 before the end of the summer, I further wrote in crypt as follows, ‘I do not like to be too long estranged from you sometimes, for, Mary, there is a nameless tie in that soft intercourse which blends us into one & makes me feel that you are mine. There is no feeling like it. There is no pledge which gives such sweet possession.’ Monday 12 February [Halifax] Letter… from Anne Belcombe (Petergate, York)… nothing but news & concluded, ‘from your ever sincere, affectionate, Anne Belcombe.’ The seal, Cupid in a boat guided by a star. ‘Si je te perds, je suis perdu.’3 Such letters as these will keep up much love on my part. I shall not think much about her but get out of the scrape as well as I can, sorry & remorseful to have been in it at all. Heaven forgive me, & may M— never know it.

He went upstairs and opened the telegram; it was addressed to a department in the British Consulate, and the figures which followed had an ugly look like the lottery tickets that remained unsold on the last day of a draw. There was 2674 and then a string of five-figure numerals: 42811 79145 72312 59200 80947 62533 10605 and so on. It was his first telegram and he noticed that it was addressed from London. He was not even certain (so long ago his lesson seemed) that he could decode it, but he recognised a single group, 59200, which had an abrupt and monitory appearance as though Hawthorne that moment had come accusingly up the stairs. Gloomily he took down Lamb's 'Tales from Shakespeare' - how he had always detested Elia and the essay on Roast Pork. The first group of figures, he remembered, indicated the page, the line and the word with which the coding began. 'Dionysia, the wicked wife of Cleon,' he read, 'met with an end proportionable to her deserts'. He began to decode from 'deserts'. To his surprise something really did emerge. It was rather as though some strange inherited parrot had begun to speak.

On Monday morning, she called me into her bedroom. Her dark hair was tousled, her light robe very feminine against the soft blue of her bed. Her eyes were full of mischief. “Oh, Mr. West,” she whispered in her beguiling child’s voice. “I’ve gotten myself into something. Can you help me get out of it?” “What can I do?” I asked, wondering who was next in line to be fired. “I’ve invited someone to stay here,” she said, “but now we’ve changed our minds.” She cast a glance in the direction of the President’s bedroom. “Could you help us cook up something so we can get out of having her as a houseguest?” Without waiting for a reply, she rushed on, her request becoming a command in mid-breath. “Would you fix up the Queen’s Room and the Lincoln Room so that it looks like we’re still decorating them, and I’ll show her that our guest rooms are not available.” Her eyes twinkled, imagining the elaborate deception. “The guest rooms will be redecorated immediately,” I said, and almost clicked my heels. I called Bonner Arrington in the carpenter’s shop. “Bring drop-cloths up to the Queen’s Room and Lincoln Bedroom. Roll up the rugs and cover the draperies and chandeliers, and all the furniture,” I instructed. “Oh yes, and bring a stepladder.” I called the paint shop. “I need six paint buckets each for the Queen’s Room and the Lincoln Room. Two of the buckets in each room should be empty—off-white—and I need four or five dirty brushes.” I met the crews on the second floor. “Now proceed to make these two rooms look as if they’re being redecorated,” I directed. “You mean you don’t want us to paint?” said the painters. “No,” I said. “Just make it look as if you are.” The crew had a good time, even though they didn’t know what it was all about. As I brought in the finishing touches, ashtrays filled with cigarette butts, Bonner shook his head. “Mr. West, all I can say is that this place has finally got to you,” he said. That evening the President and Mrs. Kennedy entertained a Princess for dinner upstairs in the President’s Dining Room. Before dinner, though, President Kennedy strolled down to the East Hall with his wife’s guest. He pointed out the bedraped Queen’s Room. “… And you see, this is where you would have spent the night if Jackie hadn’t been redecorating again,” he told the unsuspecting lady. The next morning, Mrs. Kennedy phoned me. “Mr. West, you outdid yourself,” she exclaimed. “The President almost broke up when he saw those ashtrays.

I’m waiting in the living room, pretending and knowing that I will be caught and that I am not a widow, I’m just a weeping and annoyed wife. Brian will be gone from my life soon, although I don’t yet know how soon, and he’s also still a man with a cold. It’s a cold, not pleurisy, is what I think, even as I am tearing the fringe off a pillow at the thought of his not being upstairs any longer, not having a cold, not being a sick man than whom there is no one sicker, as I have said to him. One time, I said that I had friends with metastatic breast cancer who complained less about that than he did about his cold. And then he won’t be there for me to say it to him.

The President was silent for a long time, then he handed Acheson the receiver. “You must not let Harry do what he’s going to do,” Mrs. Truman told him. So Mr. Acheson said, “Perhaps you could help me, Mrs. Truman,” and, still holding the phone, began “repeating” to the President what Mrs. Truman was saying, although she, on the other end of the line, was saying nothing. “She says the press will tear you up,” Secretary Acheson said to Mr. Truman, “… that you’re acting too big for your breeches … that you don’t need that kind of criticism right now.” Finally, the President reached over and took the phone. “Well,” he said to his wife, “if you two gang up on me, I’m just lost.

Because part of me probably hasn’t given up wanting to turn back the clock. Or hasn’t quite accepted that I’ve moved on—if indeed I did move on. Perhaps all I truly want is to reconnect with the person I used to be and lost track of and simply turned my back on once I moved elsewhere. I may never want to be who I was in those days, but I do want to see him again, just for a minute or so to find out who this person is who hasn’t even left the wife he hasn’t met yet, and who is still so far from knowing he’ll be a father someday. The young man upstairs knows nothing of this, and part of me wants to bring him up-to-date and let him know I’m still alive, that I haven’t changed, and that I’m standing outside here right now—

When one has been as near to the reality of Life (which after all is Death) as I have been dearest, one only remembers the beautiful and tender moments and all the rest becomes a half veiled mist of unrealities. Try and remember me beloved as the flower you plucked and not the flower you tread upon . . . . Darling I love you—I love you—and had I loved you just a little less I might have remained with you—only after one has created a very beautiful blossom one does not drag it through the mire. The higher you set your ideal the lower it falls. I have loved you my darling as it is given to few men to be loved. I only beseech you that the tragedy which commenced in love should also end with it. . . . Ruttie Jinnah's last letter to Jinnah

At one stage in the heated intramural debate, ex-ACS president and longtime director Alton Ochsner took the floor and regaled his eminent colleagues with a tale intended to disarm those still unpersuaded by the proof against smoking. There was a certain Russian count, Ochsner told them, who, suspecting his attractive young wife of infidelity, advised her that he was leaving their home for an extended trip, but in fact posted himself at a nearby residence to spy on her. The very first night after his leave-taking, the count watched by moonlight as a sleigh pulled up to his house, a handsome lieutenant from the Czar's Guard bounded out, the count's wife greeted the hussar at the door and led him inside, and in a moment the couple was seen through an upstairs bedroom window in candlelit silhouette as they wildly embraced; after another moment the candle was blown out. "Proof! Proof!" said the anguished count, smiting himself on the brow. "If I only had the proof!

During a recent lunch with a close friend who is also the mother of two young children, Diana told of an incident which underlines not only the current state of her relationship with her husband but also the protective nature of her son William. She told her friend that the week that Buckingham Palace decided to announce the separation of the Duke and Duchess of York was understandably a trying time for her. She had lost an amicable companion and was acutely aware that the public spotlight would once again fall on her marriage. Yet her husband seemed unmoved by the furore surrounding the separation. He had spent a week touring various stately homes, gathering material for a book he is writing on gardening. When he returned to Kensington Palace he failed to see why his wife should feel strained and rather depressed. He airily dismissed the departure of the Duchess of York and launched, as usual, into a disapproving appraisal of Diana’s public works, especially her visit to see Mother Teresa in Rome. Even their staff, by now used to these altercations, were dismayed by this attitude and felt some sympathy when Diana told her husband that unless he changed his attitude towards her and the job she is doing she would have to reconsider her position. In tears, she went upstairs for a bath. While she was regaining her composure, Prince William pushed a handful of paper tissues underneath the bathroom door. “I hate to see you sad,” he said.

The Keoughs were wonderful neighbors,” he said. “It’s true that occasionally Don would mention that, unlike me, he had a job, but the relationship was terrific. One time my wife, Susie, went over and did the proverbial Midwestern bit of asking to borrow a cup of sugar, and Don’s wife, Mickie, gave her a whole sack. When I heard about that, I decided to go over to the Keoughs’ that night myself. I said to Don, ‘Why don’t you give me twenty-five thousand dollars for the partnership to invest?’ And the Keough family stiffened a little bit at that point, and I was rejected. “I came back sometime later and asked for the ten thousand dollars Clarke referred to and got a similar result. But I wasn’t proud. So I returned at a later time and asked for five thousand dollars. And at that point, I got rejected again. “So one night, in the summer of 1962, I started heading over to the Keough house. I don’t know whether I would have dropped it to twenty-five hundred dollars or not, but by the time I got to the Keough household, the whole place was dark, silent. There wasn’t a thing to see. But I knew what was going on. I knew that Don and Mickie were hiding upstairs, so I didn’t leave. “I rang that doorbell. I knocked. Nothing happened. But Don and Mickie were upstairs, and it was pitch-black. “Too dark to read, and too early to go to sleep. And I remember that day as if it were yesterday. That was June twenty-first, 1962. “Clarke, when were you born?” “March twenty-first, 1963.” “It’s little things like that that history turns on. So you should be glad they didn’t give me the ten thousand dollars.

Gareth?" "What is it, dearest?" She took a deep breath and reached up to touch his cheek. "I ... love you." "Oh, Juliet ..."  He actually blushed, so pleased was he by her long-overdue admission. "You couldn't have chosen a nicer time to tell me." "I should have told you ages ago, when I first knew. But I couldn't admit it then, not even to myself." "And when did you first know?" "When you took that bullet meant for the little boy. When you nearly died trying to save him — and all of us on that coach. I think I started to love you then. I think I've loved you ever since. I just ... haven't told you." "But — what about Charles?" She gave him a patient little smile. "I'll be honest, Gareth. Once, I was like everyone else in that I was always comparing the two of you. But as I've grown to know you, those comparisons have happened less and less, and when they do occur ... well, you always come out on top."  She leaned up to kiss the smile just breaking out on his face. "Lately, I've come to realize that Charles and I would never have been this happy together. We were too much alike. You, on the other hand ... well, I've never had as much fun with anyone as I have with you." "Oh, Juliet. I don't know what to say."  He was grinning fiercely. "But I will tell you this. I've always been sure." "Of what?" "That I love you." "Are you, now?" she asked, trying to muster a grin even as a tear leaked from one eye. She knuckled it away. Sniffled. Heavens, she was beginning to bawl like a baby. "Yes. And you know something else, my dear, darling little wife? I'm going to take you upstairs and prove it." Laughing,

Why did you come here tonight?” she asked. “Other than the fact that you’ve finally come to your senses and realize you love me.” Chuckling, Grey reached up and untied the ribbons that held her mask. The pretty silk fell away to reveal the beautiful face beneath. “I missed you,” he replied honestly. “And you were right-about everything. I’m tired of drifting through life. I want to live again-with you.” A lone tear trickled down her cheek. “I think that might be the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.” He grinned. “I have more.” She pressed her fingers to his lips. “I’m tired of talking.” She kissed him, teasing his lips with the ripe curves of hers, sliding her tongue inside to rub against his in a sensual rhythm that had him fisting his hands in her skirts. By the time they reached Mayfair, Grey’s hair was mussed, Rose’s skirts crushed, and he was harder than an oratory competition for mutes. “I can’t believe you came,” she told him as the entered the house, arms wrapped around each other. “I’m so proud of you.” “I wouldn’t have done it without you.” She shook her head. “You did it for yourself not for me.” Perhaps that was true, and perhaps it wasn’t. He had no interest in discussing it tonight. “It’s just the beginning,” he promised. “I’m going to go wherever you want to go from now on. Within reason.” She laughed. “Of course. We can’t have you attending a musicale just to please me, can we?” She gazed up at him. “You know, I think I’m going to want to spend plenty of evenings at home as well. That time I spent out of society had some very soothing moments.” “Of course,” he agreed, thinking about all the things they could do to one another at home. Alone. “There has to be moderation.” Upstairs in their bedroom, he undressed her, unbuttoning each tiny button one by one until she sighed in exasperation. “In a hurry?” he teased. His wife got her revenge, when clad only in her chemise and stockings, she turned those nimble fingers of hers to his cravat, working the knot so slowly he thought he might go mad. She worsened the torment by slowly rubbing her hips against his thigh. His cock was so rigid he could hang clothes on it, and the need to bury himself inside her consumed him. Still, a skilled lover knows when to have patience-and a man in love knows that his woman’s pleasure comes far, far before his own. So, as ready as he was, Grey was in no hurry to let this night end, not when it might prove to be the best of his new-found life. Wearing only his trousers, he took Rose’s hand and led her to their bed. He climbed onto the mattress and pulled her down beside him, lying so that they were face-to-face. Warm fingers came up to gently touch the scar that ran down his face. Odd, but he hadn’t thought of it at all that evening. In fact, he’d almost forgot about it. “I heard you that night,” he admitted. “When you told me you loved me.” Her head tilted. “I thought you were asleep.” “No.” He held her gaze as he raised his own hand to brush the softness of her cheek. “I should have said it then, but I love you too, Rose. So much.” Her smile was smug. “I know.” She kissed him again. “Make love to me.” His entire body pulsed. “I intend to, but there’s one thing I have to do first.” Rose frowned. “What’s that?” Grey pulled the brand-new copy of Voluptuous from beneath the pillow where he’d hidden it before going to the ball. “There’s a story in here that I want to read to you.

Around Christmas 2003, we visited Chris’s parents in Texas. I found myself exceptionally hungry, though I couldn’t figure out why. When we came back to California, I just felt something was off. Could I be…pregnant? Nah. I bought a pregnancy test just in case. Chris and I had always planned to have children, but we weren’t in a rush about it. In fact, we had only recently decided to be “a little less careful.” It was a compromise between our spontaneous impulses and our careful planning instincts, which we both shared. We figured, if it happens somewhere in the next year… I was upstairs in the house working when I decided to take a break and check things out. Wow. WOW!!! Chris happened to be home fiddling with something in the garage. I ran downstairs, holding the stick in my hand. When I got there, I held it up, waving. “Hey, babe,” he said, looking at me as if I were waving a sword. “Come here,” I said. “I have to show you something.” He came over. I showed him the stick. “Okay?” “Look!” “What is it?” “Look at this!” Obviously, he wasn’t familiar with home pregnancy tests. Maybe that’s a guy thing-given that the tests reveal either your worst nightmare or one of the most exciting events of your life. I’d wager every woman in America knows what they are and how they work. Slowly it dawned on him. “Oh my God,” he said, stunned. “Are you…?” “Yes!” We confirmed it at the doctor’s soon after. I know you’re supposed to wait something like twelve weeks before telling anyone-there’s so much that can go wrong-but we couldn’t keep that kind of secret to ourselves for more than a few days. We ended up sending packages with an ultrasound and baby booties-one pink, one blue-to our parents, telling them we had a late Christmas surprise and to call us so we could be on the phone when they opened them.

Sam’s the man who’s come to chop us up to bits. No wonder I kicked him out. No wonder I changed the locks. If he cannot stop death, what good is he? ‘Open the door. Please. I’m so tired,’ he says. I look at the night that absorbed my life. How am I supposed to know what’s love, what’s fear? ‘If you’re Sam who am I?’ ‘I know who you are.’ ‘You do?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Who?’ Don’t say wife, I think. Don’t say mother. I put my face to the glass, but it’s dark. I don’t reflect. Sam and I watch each other through the window of the kitchen door. He coughs some more. ‘I want to come home,’ he says. ‘I want us to be okay. That’s it. Simple. I want to come home and be a family.’ ‘But I am not simple.’ My body’s coursing with secret genes and hormones and proteins. My body made eyeballs and I have no idea how. There’s nothing simple about eyeballs. My body made food to feed those eyeballs. How? And how can I not know or understand the things that happen inside my body? That seems very dangerous. There’s nothing simple here. I’m ruled by elixirs and compounds. I am a chemistry project conducted by a wild child. I am potentially explosive. Maybe I love Sam because hormones say I need a man to kill the coyotes at night, to bring my babies meat. But I don’t want caveman love. I want love that lives outside the body. I want love that lives. ‘In what ways are you not simple?’ I think of the women I collected upstairs. They’re inside me. And they are only a small fraction of the catalog. I think of molds, of the sea, the biodiversity of plankton. I think of my dad when he was a boy, when he was a tree bud. ‘It’s complicated,’ I say, and then the things I don’t say yet. Words aren’t going to be the best way here. How to explain something that’s coming into existence? ‘I get that now.’ His shoulders tremble some. They jerk. He coughs. I have infected him. ‘Sam.’ We see each other through the glass. We witness each other. That’s something, to be seen by another human, to be seen over all the years. That’s something, too. Love plus time. Love that’s movable, invisible as a liquid or gas, love that finds a way in. Love that leaks. ‘Unlock the door,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to love you because I’m scared.’ ‘So you imagine bad things about me. You imagine me doing things I’ve never done to get rid of me. Kick me out so you won’t have to worry about me leaving?’ ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Right.’ And I’m glad he gets that. Sam cocks his head the same way a coyote might, a coyote who’s been temporarily confused by a question of biology versus mortality. What’s the difference between living and imagining? What’s the difference between love and security? Coyotes are not moral. ‘Unlock the door?’ he asks. This family is an experiment, the biggest I’ve ever been part of, an experiment called: How do you let someone in? ‘Unlock the door,’ he says again. ‘Please.’ I release the lock. I open the door. That’s the best definition of love. Sam comes inside. He turns to shut the door, then stops himself. He stares out into the darkness where he came from. What does he think is out there? What does he know? Or is he scared I’ll kick him out again? That is scary. ‘What if we just left the door open?’ he asks. ‘Open.’ And more, more things I don’ts say about the bodies of women. ‘Yeah.’ ‘What about skunks?’ I mean burglars, gangs, evil. We both peer out into the dark, looking for thees scary things. We watch a long while. The night does nothing. ‘We could let them in if they want in,’ he says, but seems uncertain still. ‘Really?’ He draws the door open wider and we leave it that way, looking out at what we can’t see. Unguarded, unafraid, love and loved. We keep the door open as if there are no doors, no walls, no skin, no houses, no difference between us and all the things we think of as the night.

There had been a time, once, when he had not lived like this, a .32 under his pillow, a lunatic in the back yard firing off a pistol for God knew what purpose, some other nut or perhaps the same one imposing a brain-print of his own shorted-out upstairs on an incredibly expensive and valued cephscope that everyone in the house, plus all their friends, loved and enjoyed. In former days Bob Arctor had run his affairs differently: there had been a wife much like other wives, two small daughters, a stable household that got swept and cleaned and emptied out daily, the dead newspapers not even opened carried from the front walk to the garbage pail, or even, sometimes, read. But then one day, while lifting out an electric corn popper from under the sink, Arctor had hit his head on the corner of a kitchen cabinet directly above him. The pain, the cut in his scalp, so unexpected and undeserved, had for some reason cleared away the cobwebs. It flashed on him instantly that he didn't hate the kitchen cabinet: he hated his wife, his two daughters, his whole house, the back yard with its power mower, the garage, the radiant heating system, the front yard, the fence, the whole fucking place and everyone in it. He wanted a divorce; he wanted to split. And so he had, very soon. And entered, by degrees, a new and somber life, lacking all of that. Probably he should have regretted his decision. He had not. That life had been one without excitement, with no adventure. It had been too safe. All the elements that made it up were right there before his eyes, and nothing new could ever be expected. It was like, he had once thought, a little plastic boat that would sail on forever, without incident, until it finally sank, which would be a secret relief to all. But in this dark world where he now dwelt, ugly things and surprising things and once in a long while a tiny wondrous thing spilled out at him constantly; he could count on nothing.

In the year after Chris died, a friend organized a trip for the kids and me to use the time-share at Disney World in Florida. I felt exceptionally lonely the night we arrived in our rental car, exhausted from our flight. Getting our suitcases out, I mentioned something along the lines of “I wish we had Dad here.” “Me, too,” said both of the kids. “But he’s still with us,” I told them, forcing myself to sound as optimistic as possible. “He’s always here.” It’s one thing to say that and another to feel it, and as we walked toward the building I didn’t feel that way at all. We went upstairs--our apartment was on the second floor--and went to the door. A tiny frog was sitting on the door handle. A frog, really? Talk about strange. Anyone who knows the history of the SEALs will realize they trace their history to World War II combat divers: “frogmen” specially trained to infiltrate and scout enemy beaches before invasions (among other duties). They’re very proud of that heritage, and they still occasionally refer to themselves as frogmen or frogs. SEALs often feature frogs in various tattoos and other art related to the brotherhood. As a matter of fact, Chris had a frog skeleton tattoo as a tribute to fallen SEALs. (The term frogman is thought to derive from the gear the combat divers wore, as well as their ability to work both on land and at sea.) But for some reason, I didn’t make the connection. I was just consumed by the weirdness--who finds a frog, even a tiny one, on a door handle? The kids gathered round. Call me squeamish, but I didn’t want to touch it. “Get it off, Bubba!” I said. “No way.” We hunted around and found a little tree branch on the grounds. I held it up to the doorknob, hoping it would hop on. It was reluctant at first, but finally it toddled over to the outside of the door jam. I left it to do whatever frogs do in the middle of the night. Inside the apartment, we got settled. I took out my cell phone and called my mom to say we’d arrived safely. “There was one strange thing,” I told her. “There was a frog on the door handle when we arrived.” “A…frog?” “Yes, it’s like a jungle down here, so hot and humid.” “A frog?” “Yeah.” “And you don’t think there’s anything interesting about that?” “Oh my God,” I said, suddenly realizing the connection. I know, I know: just a bizarre coincidence. Probably. I did sleep really well that night. The next morning I woke up before the kids and went into the living room. I could have sworn Chris was sitting on the couch waiting for me when I came out. I can’t keep seeing you everywhere. Maybe I’m crazy. I’m sorry. It’s too painful. I went and made myself a cup of coffee. I didn’t see him anymore that week.

HE DO THE POLICE IN DIFFERENT VOICES: Part I THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD First we had a couple of feelers down at Tom's place, There was old Tom, boiled to the eyes, blind, (Don't you remember that time after a dance, Top hats and all, we and Silk Hat Harry, And old Tom took us behind, brought out a bottle of fizz, With old Jane, Tom's wife; and we got Joe to sing 'I'm proud of all the Irish blood that's in me, 'There's not a man can say a word agin me'). Then we had dinner in good form, and a couple of Bengal lights. When we got into the show, up in Row A, I tried to put my foot in the drum, and didn't the girl squeal, She never did take to me, a nice guy - but rough; The next thing we were out in the street, Oh it was cold! When will you be good? Blew in to the Opera Exchange, Sopped up some gin, sat in to the cork game, Mr. Fay was there, singing 'The Maid of the Mill'; Then we thought we'd breeze along and take a walk. Then we lost Steve. ('I turned up an hour later down at Myrtle's place. What d'y' mean, she says, at two o'clock in the morning, I'm not in business here for guys like you; We've only had a raid last week, I've been warned twice. Sergeant, I said, I've kept a decent house for twenty years, she says, There's three gents from the Buckingham Club upstairs now, I'm going to retire and live on a farm, she says, There's no money in it now, what with the damage don, And the reputation the place gets, on account off of a few bar-flies, I've kept a clean house for twenty years, she says, And the gents from the Buckingham Club know they're safe here; You was well introduced, but this is the last of you. Get me a woman, I said; you're too drunk, she said, But she gave me a bed, and a bath, and ham and eggs, And now you go get a shave, she said; I had a good laugh, couple of laughs (?) Myrtle was always a good sport'). treated me white. We'd just gone up the alley, a fly cop came along, Looking for trouble; committing a nuisance, he said, You come on to the station. I'm sorry, I said, It's no use being sorry, he said; let me get my hat, I said. Well by a stroke of luck who came by but Mr. Donovan. What's this, officer. You're new on this beat, aint you? I thought so. You know who I am? Yes, I do, Said the fresh cop, very peevish. Then let it alone, These gents are particular friends of mine. - Wasn't it luck? Then we went to the German Club, Us We and Mr. Donovan and his friend Joe Leahy, Heinie Gus Krutzsch Found it shut. I want to get home, said the cabman, We all go the same way home, said Mr. Donovan, Cheer up, Trixie and Stella; and put his foot through the window. The next I know the old cab was hauled up on the avenue, And the cabman and little Ben Levin the tailor, The one who read George Meredith, Were running a hundred yards on a bet, And Mr. Donovan holding the watch. So I got out to see the sunrise, and walked home. * * * * April is the cruellest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land....

Do we need to talk about my kissing you a year ago? I’ve behaved myself for two weeks, Ellen, and hope by action I have reassured you where words would not.” Silence or the summer evening equivalent of it, with crickets chirping, the occasional squeal of a passing bat, and the breeze riffling through the woods nearby. “Ellen?” Val withdrew his hand, which Ellen had been holding for some minutes, and slid his arm around her waist, urging her closer. “A woman gone silent unnerves a man. Talk to me, sweetheart. I would not offend you, but neither will I fare well continuing the pretense we are strangers.” He felt the tension in her, the stiffness against his side, and regretted it. In the past two weeks, he’d all but convinced himself he was recalling a dream of her not a real kiss, and then he’d catch her smiling at Day and Phil or joking with Darius, and the clench in his vitals would assure him that kiss had been very, very real. At least for him. For him, that kiss had been a work of sheer art. “My husband seldom used my name. I was my dear, or my lady, or occasionally, dear wife. I was not Ellen, and I was most assuredly not his sweetheart. And to you I am the next thing to a stranger.” Val’s left hand, the one she’d just held for such long, lovely moments between her own, drifted up to trace slow patterns on her back. “We’re strangers who kissed. Passionately, if memory serves.” “But on only one occasion and that nearly a year ago.” “Should I have written? I did not think to see you again, nor you me, I’m guessing.” Now he wished he’d written, though it would hardly have been proper, even to a widow. That hand Valentine considered so damaged continued its easy caresses on Ellen’s back, intent on stealing the starch from her spine and the resolve from her best intentions. And she must have liked his touch, because the longer he stroked his hand over her back, the more she relaxed and leaned against him. “I did not think to see you again,” Ellen admitted. “It would have been much easier had you kept to your place in my memory and imagination. But here you are.” “Here we are.” Haunting a woman’s imagination had to be a good thing for a man whose own dreams had turned to nightmares. “Sitting on the porch in the moonlight, trying to sort out a single kiss from months ago.” “I shouldn’t have kissed you,” Ellen said, her head coming to rest on Val’s shoulder as if the weight of truth were a wearying thing. “But I’m lonely and sometimes a little desperate, and it seemed safe, to steal a kiss from a handsome stranger.” “It was safe,” Val assured her, seeing the matter from her perspective. In the year since he’d seen Ellen FitzEngle, he’d hardly been celibate. He wasn’t a profligate Philistine, but neither was he a monk. There had been an older maid in Nick’s household, some professional ladies up in York, the rare trip upstairs at David’s brothel, and the frequent occasion of self-gratification. But he surmised Ellen, despite the privileges of widowhood, had not been kissed or cuddled or swived or flirted with in all those days and weeks and months. “And now?” Ellen pressed. “You show up on my porch after dark and think perhaps it’s still safe, and here I am, doing not one thing to dissuade you.” “You are safe with me, Ellen.” He punctuated the sentiment with a kiss to her temple then rested his cheek where his lips had been. “I am a gentleman, if nothing else. I might try to steal a kiss, but you can stop me with a word from even that at any time. The question is, how safe do you want to be?” “Shame

her power now that she had lost the hair. So when the bride had finished drinking, and would have got upon Falada again, the maid said, "I shall ride upon Falada, and you may have my horse instead;" so she was forced to give up her horse, and soon afterwards to take off her royal clothes, and put on her maid's shabby ones. At last, as they drew near the end of the journey, this treacherous servant threatened to kill her mistress if she ever told anyone what had happened. But Falada saw it all, and marked it well. Then the waiting-maid got upon Falada, and the real bride was set upon the other horse, and they went on in this way till at last they came to the royal court. There was great joy at their coming, and the prince hurried to meet them, and lifted the maid from her horse, thinking she was the one who was to be his wife; and she was led upstairs to the royal chamber, but the true princess was told to stay in the court below. However, the old king happened to be looking out of the window, and saw her in the yard below; and as she looked very pretty, and too delicate for a waiting-maid, he went into the royal chamber to ask the bride whom it was she had brought with her, that was thus left standing in the court below. "I brought her with me for the sake of her company on the road," said she. "Pray give the girl some work to do, that she may not be idle." The old king could not for some time think of any work for her, but at last he said, "I have a lad who takes care of my geese; she may go and help him." Now the name of this lad, that the real bride was to help in watching the king's geese, was Curdken. Soon after, the false bride said to the prince, "Dear husband, pray do me one piece of kindness." "That I will," said the prince. "Then tell one of your slaughterers to cut off the head of the horse I rode upon, for it was very unruly, and plagued me sadly on the road." But the truth was, she was very much afraid lest Falada should speak, and tell all she had done to the princess. She carried her point, and the faithful Falada was killed; but when the true princess heard of it she wept, and begged the man to nail up Falada's head against a large dark gate in the city through which she had to pass every morning and evening, that there she might still see him sometimes. Then the slaughterer said he would do as she wished, so he cut off the head and nailed it fast under the dark gate. Early the next morning, as the princess and Curdken went out through the gate, she said sorrowfully— "Falada, Falada, there thou art hanging!" and the head answered— "Bride, bride, there thou are ganging! Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it, Sadly, sadly her heart would rue it." Then they went out of the city, driving the geese. And when they came to the meadow, the princess sat down upon a bank there and let down her waving locks of hair, which were all of pure gold; and when Curdken saw it glitter in the sun, he ran up, and would have pulled some of the locks out; but she cried— "Blow, breezes, blow! Let Curdken's hat go! Blow breezes, blow! Let him after it go! "O'er hills, dales, and rocks, Away be it whirl'd, Till the golden locks Are all comb'd and curl'd!" Then there came a wind, so strong that it blew off Curdken's hat, and away it flew over the hills, and he after it; till, by the time he came back, she had done combing and curling her hair, and put it up again safely. Then he was very angry and sulky, and would not speak to her at all; but they watched the geese until it grew dark in the evening, and then drove them homewards. The next morning, as they were going through the dark gate, the poor girl looked up at Falada's head, and cried— "Falada, Falada, there thou art hanging!" and it answered— "Bride, bride, there thou are ganging! Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it, Sadly, sadly her heart would rue it." Then she drove on the geese and sat down again in the meadow, and began to comb

He found himself in the upstairs hall of his home on Loving Forest Court amid the twisted, battered remains of his wife and children still swinging the bloody, baseball bat.

Every night after dinner Harry took off for the local watering hole. He would spend the whole evening there and arrive home drunk around midnight. He usually had trouble getting his key to fit the keyhole and couldn’t get the door open. His wife would go to the door and let him in, and then proceed to yell and scream at him for his behavior and constant drunkenness. One day, the distraught wife was talking to a friend about her husband’s nocturnal activities. The friend listened sympathetically and said, “Why don’t you treat him a little differently when he comes home? Instead of berating him, why don’t you welcome him home with some loving words and a kiss? Then, he might change his ways.” The wife, willing to try anything, agreed that this might be a good idea. That night, Harry took off again after dinner. And at about midnight, he arrived home in his usual condition. His wife heard him at the door, quickly opened it, and let Harry in. Instead of berating him as she had always done, she took his arm and led him into the living room. She sat him down in an easy chair, put his feet up on the footstool, and took his shoes off. Then, she sat on his lap and cuddled him a little. After a while, she whispered, “Honey, it’s pretty late. I think we should go upstairs to bed now.” “Hell, I guess we might as well,” Harry replied. “I’ll get in trouble when I get home anyway!

This empty kitchen's where I'd while away the hours Just next to my old chair You'd usually have some flowers The shelves of books Even the picture hooks Everything is gone But my heart is hanging on If this old neighborhood Survived us both alright Don't know that it withstood All the things that took our light You on the stair I can see you there Everything is gone But my heart is hanging on Once there was a little girl Used to wonder what she would be Went out into the big wide world Now she's just a memory There used to be a little school here Where I learned to write my name But time has been a little cruel here Time has no shame It's just a place where We used to live It's just a place where We used to live Now in another town You lead another life And now upstairs and down You're someone else's wife Here in the dust There's not a trace of us Everything is gone But my heart is hanging on It's just a place where We used to live It's just a place where We used to live.

Kristen had dreamed of having children since she was herself a child and had always thought that she would love motherhood as much as she would love her babies. “I know that being a mom will be demanding,” she told me once. “But I don’t think it will change me much. I’ll still have my life, and our baby will be part of it.” She envisioned long walks through the neighborhood with Emily. She envisioned herself mastering the endlessly repeating three-hour cycle of playing, feeding, sleeping, and diaper changing. Most of all, she envisioned a full parenting partnership, in which I’d help whenever I was home—morning, nighttime, and weekends. Of course, I didn’t know any of this until she told me, which she did after Emily was born. At first, the newness of parenthood made it seem as though everything was going according to our expectations. We’ll be up all day and all night for a few weeks, but then we’ll hit our stride and our lives will go back to normal, plus one baby. Kristen took a few months off from work to focus all of her attention on Emily, knowing that it would be hard to juggle the contradicting demands of an infant and a career. She was determined to own motherhood. “We’re still in that tough transition,” Kristen would tell me, trying to console Emily at four A.M. “Pretty soon, we’ll find our routine. I hope.” But things didn’t go as we had planned. There were complications with breast-feeding. Emily wasn’t gaining weight; she wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t sleep, wouldn’t play. She was born in December, when it was far too cold to go for walks outdoors. While I was at work, Kristen would sit on the floor with Emily in the dark—all the lights off, all the shades closed—and cry. She’d think about her friends, all of whom had made motherhood look so easy with their own babies. “Mary had no problem breast-feeding,” she’d tell me. “Jenny said that these first few months had been her favorite. Why can’t I get the hang of this?” I didn’t have any answers, but still I offered solutions, none of which she wanted to hear: “Talk to a lactation consultant about the feeding issues.” “Establish a routine and stick to it.” Eventually, she stopped talking altogether. While Kristen struggled, I watched from the sidelines, unaware that she needed help. I excused myself from the nighttime and morning responsibilities, as the interruptions to my daily schedule became too much for me to handle. We didn’t know this was because of a developmental disorder; I just looked incredibly selfish. I contributed, but not fully. I’d return from work, and Kristen would go upstairs to sleep for a few hours while I’d carry Emily from room to room, gently bouncing her as I walked, trying to keep her from crying. But eventually eleven o’clock would roll around and I’d go to bed, and Kristen would be awake the rest of the night with her. The next morning, I would wake up and leave for work, while Kristen stared down the barrel of another day alone. To my surprise, I grew increasingly disappointed in her: She wanted to have children. Why is she miserable all the time? What’s her problem? I also resented what I had come to recognize as our failing marriage. I’d expected our marriage to be happy, fulfilling, overflowing with constant affection. My wife was supposed to be able to handle things like motherhood with aplomb. Kristen loved me, and she loved Emily, but that wasn’t enough for me. In my version of a happy marriage, my wife would also love the difficulties of being my wife and being a mom. It hadn’t occurred to me that I’d have to earn the happiness, the fulfillment, the affection. Nor had it occurred to me that she might have her own perspective on marriage and motherhood.

What is an operating system, really? What did Cutler’s team wish to create? Picture a wealthy English household in the early 1900s. Think of a computer—the hardware—as a big house, the family’s residence. The house consists of plumbing and lighting, bricks and mortar, windows and doors—all manner of physical things and processes. Next, imagine computer software as the people in the house. The household staff, living downstairs, provide a whole range of services at once. The butler stands by the door, the driver washes the car, the housekeeper presses the linen, the cook provides meals and bakes cakes, the gardener rakes the leaves from the lawn. And this activity, which seemingly happens of its own accord, is coordinated by the head of the household staff. Such is the life of the downstairs dwellers, who in a certain sense exist in the background. Then consider the people upstairs. They are the whole reason for the toil of the people downstairs. The husband desires a driver not simply for peace of mind but because he wishes to travel. The wife employs a cook, so her family can eat well. The children benefit from the work of the gardener, who clears the yard of debris, enabling them to play outdoors safely. The picture of the family upstairs and their faithful downstairs servants neatly illustrates the great divide in the world of software. The people upstairs are the applications: the word-processing, electronic ledger, database, publishing and numerous other programs that satisfy human needs and wants. The people downstairs collectively perform the functions of an operating system. Theirs is a realm of services, some automatic, some requiring a special request. These services lay the basis for the good stuff of life. Cutler

Farren was terrified of basements now; she didn’t like how you couldn’t really hear anything that goes on upstairs. She was done with basements

Moments later, a particularly harsh scream came from above, followed by the thin, lusty wail of a child.  Charles dropped his glass and bolted for the stairs, taking them three at a time as he sprinted to his wife's aid. In his wake, Gareth and Lucien merely exchanged amused glances. "A girl," said Gareth.  "I'll bet you ten pounds on it." "No, no, Gareth.  It will be a boy.  It has to be a boy.  I hope to God it's a boy, since it seems that the next heir to Blackheath is going to have to come down through Charles, not me." "Come now, Luce, you have plenty of time to marry and get an heir of your own." Lucien arched a brow.  "What, and put myself through the hell that you two go through every time you become a father?  I think not . . ." Upstairs, Charles was running headlong down the corridor toward the closed door of Amy's room.  Nerissa stood just outside, arms folded, barring his way.  She saw his panicked face, his wild eyes, as from behind the door, the baby's wailing intensified.  "Really, Charles.  Are you all right?" "Never mind me, are they all right?!" His sister smiled with infuriating sweetness.  "Why don't you go in and see for yourself?" He lunged for the door. Nerissa grabbed the handle, laughing.  "Ah!  Sedately, brother dear!"  He willed himself to calm down, his hands, his body, his very nerves, shaking.  His throat felt dry and he feared his knees were going to give out and he had to take several gulping breaths to get himself under control. Nerissa, smiling, opened the door. And there was Amy, propped up on pillows, her face pale, wan, exhausted — radiant.  Juliet stood beside the bed, sponging her brow and grinning as the midwife wrapped the tiny, squalling bundle in a blanket and placed it on Amy's chest.  The old woman raised her head as she saw the lord of Lynmouth standing there, looking as though the gods had just struck him to stone with a bolt of lightning. "Congratulations, m'lord.  You 'ave a little girl." Charles

You’re going to what?” It wasn’t anything Sean hadn’t asked himself every five minutes or so since getting sucked into Emma’s plan, but it sounded different when his cousin said it. Or maybe it was Kevin’s subsequent pointing and laughing his ass off that changed the tone. “It’s only a month,” Sean said, maybe a little defensively. The shorter, dark-haired waitress—Darcy, he thought her name was—put a beer in front of him and he took a long pull. He’d been looking forward to it all day. Kevin looked skeptical. “A month of living with a total stranger, pretending you’re so madly in love with her you’re going to marry her? For real?” “No, not for real, moron. For pretend. That’s the point.” His cousin laughed some more, then pulled out his cell phone and started texting. Sean craned his neck, but couldn’t see the screen. “What the hell are you doing?” Kevin chuckled. “Telling my wife.” “You could have waited until I went upstairs.” “No, I really couldn’t.” Kevin shut his phone, but it was only a few seconds before it chimed. He looked at the screen, chuckled, then was texting again. Sean pulled out his phone and opened a new message to Kevin. I’m still here, asshole. Send. A couple minutes later, Kevin grinned and slid his phone back in his pocket. “Beth wants to know the sleeping arrangements since there’s no way even a grandmother will buy a separate-bedrooms story.” “Beth wants to know, huh?” “Trust me, by now the whole family wants to know.” Sean was tempted to bang his head against the bar, but he wouldn’t be able to knock himself out, so he didn’t waste the effort. “There’s a sofa in the bedroom. She’ll sleep on it and I get the bed.” “Chivalrous.” “I’m too tall for a sofa.” “I don’t know Emma well, but I seem to recall she’s not exactly short.” Kevin gave him a knowing look. “Not exactly hard on the eyes, either.” That she wasn’t.

Burglars are getting very clever these days.   Last night, my wife woke me up, “Darling! Darling! There's a burglar downstairs!!”   So I go down, check every room and don't find anyone. Then I realized I don't have a wife and when I went back upstairs my bed and TV were gone.

Lillian’s slender fingers played absently in his hair as she commented, “It’s been a long time since Mr. Swift went to find Daisy. And it’s too quiet. Aren’t you going to go up there and check on them?” “Not for all the hemp in China,” Marcus said, repeating one of Daisy’s new favorite phrases. “God knows what I might be interrupting.” “Good God.” Lillian sounded appalled. “You don’t think they’re…” “I wouldn’t be surprised.” Marcus paused deliberately before adding, “Remember how we used to be.” As he had intended, the remark diverted her instantly. “We’re still that way,” Lillian protested. “We haven’t made love since before the baby was born.” Marcus sat up, filling his gaze with the sight of his dark-haired young wife in the firelight. She was, and would always be, the most tempting woman he had ever known. Unspent passion roughened his voice as he asked, “How much longer must I wait?” Propping her elbow on the back of the sofa, Lillian leaned her head on her hand and smiled apologetically. “The doctor said at least another fortnight. I’m sorry.” She laughed as she saw his expression. “Very sorry. Let’s go upstairs.” “If we’re not going to bed together, I fail to see the point,” Marcus grumbled. “I’ll help you with your bath. I’ll even scrub your back.” He was sufficiently intrigued by the offer to ask, “Only my back?” “I’m open to negotiation,” Lillian said provocatively. “As always.” Marcus reached out to gather her against his chest and sighed. “At this point I’ll take whatever I can get.” “You poor man.” Still smiling, Lillian turned her face to kiss him. “Just remember…some things are worth waiting for.

Little Waldo was still an “it” to his father, who might show him off to visitors and speculate on the lessons of parenthood, but would never have to feed the baby or change his infant dresses. Lidian was upstairs in bed, unable to sit up, daunted by the prospect, at thirty-four, of caring for a second very real “him” along with a large household always open to her husband’s friends. If Waldo had the ability to make his intellectual companions “feel free,” he seemed to have the opposite effect on his new wife. She would recover from this birth and bear three more children in the next eight years, but increasingly Lidian sought refuge in illness and, when well, in an obsessive attention to the details of housekeeping,

And neither did she

over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy. “So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round up 1,000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside of a large, clear plastic container right here . . . next to my gear. Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away. “I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight. “Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure if I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time. “It was nice to meet you, Tom. I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band.” You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work on the next club newsletter. Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. “C’mon honey, I’m taking you and the kids to breakfast.” “What brought this on?” she asked with a smile.“Oh, nothing special, it’s just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. Hey, can we stop at a toy store while we’re out? I need to buy some marbles.

Cousin Bette is an inimitable character, a villainess of the worst kind: mean-spirited, vengeful, small-minded. And yet what a joy she is. Bette’s desire for revenge stems from her obsession with her cousin. Adeline is more beautiful and charismatic than Bette. And she has “stolen” the man Bette should have married. Bette seems to conveniently ignore the fact that the man Adeline has married—Baron Hulot—is not someone anyone would want to be married to. The seed of resentment is sown early on, then, and Bette schemes to bring down Baron Hulot, his wife, and their entire family. Because if she can’t be happy, then no one can. She enlists Valérie Marneffe, her neighbor, to seduce Baron Hulot and wheedle as much money as possible out of him, all the while knowing that he is all but ruined by his previous mistress, Josépha. Meanwhile Bette develops a maternal/romantic attachment to her upstairs neighbor, Wenceslas Steinbock, a Polish artist, whom she prevented from committing suicide

That said, I love to go to sleep at 2 a.m. Which is weird, because I’m an extremely jumpy and anxious person, especially in the dark. As soon as night falls, a family of raccoons will skitter across the deck eating compost or a deer will ram its head repeatedly into the garage door, causing my heart to skip several beats as I brace myself for a horror-movie villain to come crashing through the glass door while my wife sleeps peacefully upstairs, blissfully unaware of the corpse she’s unfortunately going to have to heave out of the way when she wakes up to get past the guy in the Scream mask hiding in the closet. But let me tell you what your partner won’t: it’s worth risking getting your head chopped off by Freddy Krueger to watch your makeup tutorials and/or read a couple chapters of your Book of the Month in blissful unadulterated silence.

all loyal Chinese people hated the Japanese for invading the Korean Peninsula and attempting to infringe on other Chinese territory. Nevertheless she followed June upstairs with the two children trailing behind,

I saw her throw a freaking toaster in his head and it made a dent in the kitchen wall.

Esther.” He nuzzled her crown. “I find I am fully recovered.” “This is amazing,” his wife replied, “as you have neither a medical degree nor powers of divination.” “True.” He nuzzled her again. “But two things are restored to me that indicate my health is once again sound.” “And these would be?” the duchess inquired as she watched Westhaven take a polite leave of Miss James. The duke frowned at his son’s retreating back. “The first is a nigh insatiable urge to meddle in that boy’s affairs. Devlin and Valentine dragooned me into a shared tea pot, and for once, we three are in agreement over something.” “It’s about time.” “You don’t mind if I take a small hand in things?” the duke asked warily. “I am ready to throttle them both.” The duchess sighed, leaning into her husband. “And I suspect the girl is breeding and doesn’t even know it.” “St. Just is of like mind. He and Val all but asked me what I intend to do about it.” “You will think of something. I have every faith in you, Percy.” “Good to know.” “What was the second piece of evidence confirming your restored health?” “Come upstairs with me, my love, and I will explain it to you in detail.