ending. “I especially love the positive message in ‘Together We Rise’—how depending on others for support helps us survive difficult times.” I practically tear up, thinking about how I shouldn’t have to defend my sling ever again. Shouldn’t everyone be wearing a dog for improved mental health?
“That’s not exactly how Mr. Noah described it,” Teddy says with a dubious head-tilt. “You’re making it sound like a self-help book. He made it sound political. Like civil rights and stuff.”
“The personal is political,” I shoot back, as smug as a college freshman who did some but not all of the assigned reading. “Tell them to remember their history. It’s Feminism 101.” Fuck Mr. Noah and Ms. Grace, I think, moving beyond defending my dog to more pressing matters. Together we will rise and resist our awful new government and the Secret Pooper, whether they help us or not. No wonder Teddy barely tells me anything.
But the strangest thing about the People Puppets’ stay by far is how it has forced Gary and me back into the same room and the same bed, Gary’s clothes and toiletries brought up from the basement and piled in a corner of the room and in a heap on top of my dresser without any thought to acquiring permanent drawer or shelf space.
I text Glenn.
We’re like best friends sharing a motel-double on a longer-than-expected road trip. Side by side, absolutely no touching. Like we did that time we got snowed in in Rochester, after that huge “Bird” book signing.
Don’t tell me you’re making him sleep head-to-toe.
Good idea! Even safer!
Oh Judy . . .
* * *
Even Teddy is confused by the temporary arrangement. On the first night of the Puppets’ stay, he stops into our room with a made-up question about what time we’re leaving for school in the morning—we always leave at the exact same time every morning—late—and then stares at us suspiciously, as if the minute he turns his back to go to his room we’ll break character and dive into sleeping bags on the floor. The idea, frankly, is tempting, since I feel claustrophobic with Gary in the room and in the bed: he is so big and unwieldy, and noisy, with his anxiety-related constant throat-clearing—a sound that causes me such annoyance that I self-diagnosed myself with a mild case of misophonia (“Is marital misophonia an actual thing?” “Can marriage cause misophonia?”). I’ve grown so used to having the room all to myself that it’s become a “safe space,” a respite from the daily annoyances of normal marriage. Any infringement on it, however temporary, seems almost too much to bear. In the dark, very much on my side of the bed, I am already counting the days until the Puppets are gone.
On the second night, Teddy comes in to pet the dog, passed out on my feet, and then lingers, staring at us—Gary reading and me scrolling through the news feed on my phone. He is at a particular phase of his age where he won’t voluntarily or spontaneously speak without being prodded to.
“Yes, Teddy?” I say, over the glow of my screen. I have a vague idea of what he’s thinking before he says it.
“I thought you guys couldn’t sleep in the same room because of the snoring.”
Gary puts down his book and I put down my phone. “That’s true,” he says. “But there are extenuating circumstances. We have guests.”
“Yes. We have guests,” I repeat. A mantra, a magic word. Gary and I nod and smile cordially at each other, and then at Teddy—we’re playing the parts of two good-natured adults in a romantic comedy, suffering in the short term—housing People Puppets in our snoring room, which was really our separation room!—to keep our son in private school and to spare him the true meaning of our arrangement. I feel my fake smile start to fade. Even Sandra Bullock couldn’t pull this off.
“Okay, but what about the snoring?”
“It’s not so bad,” I say.
Gary snorts. I turn and elbow him hard enough for his book to slip out of his hands.
“How would you even know? You’re the one sleeping through it.”
“Um, Judy?” He elbows back. I’ve gotten so carried away with my lie all these years that even I forget that I’m the snorer, not him.
“But if it’s not so bad,” Teddy presses, “then why can’t you sleep in the same room when we don’t have guests?”
There it is. The big question. If he were seven, or eight, or nine, that would be the end