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He was supposed to be working at a Sacramento Hertz, lost in memory and yearning. Or pacing around their shitty little house with Claire telling him to take out the trash and him saying What? And her saying Take out the fucking trash. Blazing around the stage, doing the thing he was put on this ear…

I waited for her to say more, but she was done talking, so I took over. Yammering away, I went back and forth in my mind about whether there was a charge between us—I wasn’t overcome by lust, but then, she didn’t seem to be, either. She was sober so I decided not to vape. If I wasn’t aroused by the…

“We went back to her place.”

“Okay.” I stood up. “Okay then.” I sat down. I put my hands to my cheeks and then clasped them in my lap. “All right. All right then.”

He watched me, braced for whatever was coming. I crossed my arms and looked away. So, this was the cost of that free feeling each…

“And . . . favored nations, right?” he said, looking down at his shoes.

“Favored nations?”

“The same rules apply to me.”

Oh. The foldout couch in his office; he probably hadn’t done anything on it but he wanted permission to now. I waited to feel a rush of overwhelming jealousy and rage. I…

“Have you been anywhere fun lately?” a long-haired man asked me after describing Cancún.

“No,” I said, “but I’m just realizing this dynamic I have with my husband where I express my problem so dramatically that I become the problem, which makes me desperate to win back his favor. It’s a cycle …