Latest / My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story / My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 9: Closer

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My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 9: Closer · My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story

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My Playful Wife, Episode 9, Closer, written by
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Mia. What happened after the kitchen, after she
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held me, after the 20 -minute phone call to Bengaluru,
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after the thing lifted that she'd been carrying,
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was not what I had constructed in my imagination.
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I had imagined a conversation, the long one,
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the one that had been accruing mass for months.
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The one in which all the things we had not said
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would be finally said. I had imagined it as a
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kind of clearing, painful but ultimately clean,
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the way surgery is painful but ultimately clean.
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But Saloni did not work that way. She never had.
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What she did instead, she made chai. She carried
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two cups to the living room. She sat down on
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the couch and put the cups on the table and she
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looked at me and she said, Come here. Not demanding.
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Not pleading. Simply, come here. An instruction
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given by someone who knows exactly what she needs
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and has decided to ask for it. I came there.
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You sat beside her. Properly beside her. Not
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at the careful distance we had sometimes kept,
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but close, the way we had sat in the first months
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of our marriage before we had sorted out our
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habits and settled into the particular spatial
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arrangement of two people who have decided, without
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discussing it, how they will occupy a couch together.
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She picked up the remote and turned on something.
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A film. Not new, one we had started watching
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the previous year and abandoned halfway through
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for reasons I couldn't remember. She turned it
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on and set the remote down and didn't say anything.
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We watched. Or, she watched and I sat beside
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her and the film moved through its story and
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I became aware, slowly, over the first 20 minutes,
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of the particular quality of her presence beside
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me. Not manufactured, not performing comfort,
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just her, in her own body, in her own flat, watching
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a film with her husband on an ordinary February
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evening. My chest, which had been carrying something
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like a stone since October, felt lighter. This
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was what she had known to give. Not words. She
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had understood that words would try to resolve
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something that was not ready to be resolved.
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That resolution was not actually what was needed.
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What was needed was this. The ordinary. The film.
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The two cups of chai going cold because neither
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of us was drinking. The city outside doing its
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thing. The specific weight of two people sitting
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close enough to feel each other's warmth. Halfway.
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Through she leaned against me. Her shoulder against
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my arm. Her head tipping toward my collarbone.
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Not resting there, just near it. The movement
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of a woman finding a comfortable position that
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happened to involve the person beside her. I
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did not move. The film continued. The chai got
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cold. The city went on. You're different now,
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she said. The film had reached the part we'd
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abandoned before. I could tell from the slight
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shift in her attention, the sharpening of it,
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the way she sat forward slightly. She said it
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without turning, looking at the screen. Yes,
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I said. From before October. Yes. I've been watching
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it happen, she said. Watching you change. It's,
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she paused. Strange, to watch a person become
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someone else while being the same person. I thought
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about this, about whether becoming was the right
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word. I don't think I became someone else, I
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said. I think I became more of who I was, more
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completely. She turned and looked at me. The
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film continued behind her, the screen lighting
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her face from one side. Is that what it feels
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like, she said. Yes, I said. More real. More
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actually myself than I was before. Even the painful
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parts, especially those, maybe. She absorbed
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this. October hurt you, she said. Not a question.
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Yes, I said. It's still hurting you. Less, I
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said, differently. She turned back to the screen,
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her shoulders still against my arm. I never wanted
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that, she said, the hurt. I know, I said. I know
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you know, I just need to keep saying it. Then
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keep saying it, I said. A pause. The film. I
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never wanted to hurt you, she said again. And
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I chose things that hurt you anyway. And I keep
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choosing them. And you keep, she stopped. You
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keep staying. And I don't fully understand it.
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I'm not sure I fully understand it either, I
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said. She turned again, looking at me with an
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expression that was open. Genuinely open. The
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way she was not often genuinely open, the way
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the management she brought to everything else
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dropped away, in very particular moments. Why,
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she said. Really. Not the answer you've built.
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Not the framework. Why, actually. I thought about
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this with the honesty it deserved. Because you're
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the most real person I know, I said. And I would
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rather live in a complicated real thing than
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a simple pretend thing. She looked at me for
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a long moment. That's brave, she said. Or stupid,
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I said. Both, she said. The best things usually
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are. She kissed me. Before that, in the moment
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just before, she looked at me with an expression
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I want to try to describe because it was distinct
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from any I had seen on her face before. It was
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not desire, though desire was in it. It was not
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tenderness, though that was in it too. It was
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something more specific. The look of a person
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who has been choosing something for months, who
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has been maintaining a choice under difficult
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conditions, and who has just been given a piece
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of evidence that the choice was right. Not the
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whole evidence. You never get the whole evidence
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about anything before you're required to commit.
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But enough. She looked at me the way you look
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at something that has proved itself. She kissed
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me. There was no announcement to it. No buildup
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of tension and release. No choreographed moment.
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She simply turned further toward me and kissed
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me, her mouth warm and certain, the familiar
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knowledge of it mixed now with something I hadn't
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felt before, or hadn't let myself feel, or hadn't
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known to reach for. The kiss was brief. When
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we pulled back, she was looking at me with an
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expression that was surprised. She had surprised
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herself. I could see it clearly, the slight widening,
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the adjusting. What? I said. Nothing, she said.
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You're, she searched for the word, different.
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In the way you're here, right now, you're more
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here than you used to be. I thought about the
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gym, about Samir's notebook. About the months
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of paying attention, and the way it had changed
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not just my mind, but my body's relationship
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to where it was, the practice of being actually
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present rather than managing presence from a
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slight remove. I've been practicing, I said.
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Practicing what? Being here, I said. Not managing
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from a distance. Being actually in the room.
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She looked at me. She looked at me the way you
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look at something you have known for a long time
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and have just understood differently. Good different,
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I said. She smiled, the real one, from the stomach.
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Yes, she said, good different. Something shifted
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in our nights after that. I want to say something
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true about this shift. Something that might be
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useful to anyone who finds themselves in a complicated
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version of love and wonders whether it can still
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be beautiful. It can. I'm going to be careful
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here about what I share and what I keep because
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some intimacies belong to the people inside them
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and don't become more true by being explained.
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But this much I will say. The nights changed.
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Not because the circumstances had changed. Piyush
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was in Bengaluru. The arrangement was what it
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was. The truth of what I knew had not been erased.
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None of that had changed. What had changed was
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me. The months of building the framework. The
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gym, the notebooks, the phone calls, the practice
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of looking rather than looking away. The daily
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choice of the second road. All of that had done
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something to me that had nothing to do with management
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or tolerance or being a good person. It had made
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me more present, more in my body, more capable
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of receiving what was being given. She came to
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me differently, not more frequently, not with
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more elaborateness, with more of herself, not
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more frequently, not with more elaborateness,
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with more of herself. With the register I had
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heard through walls and closed doors, the unguarded
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one, the one that existed below the professional
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and the domestic, brought into the room, brought
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directly to me. I had been her husband for three
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years. I was receiving, in those nights, a version
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of her I had not had access to before. Not because
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she had been withholding. She hadn't. She had
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given everything she knew how to give. but the
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giving had been from behind a glass. The glass
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was thinner now. She came to me warmed. Sometimes
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I knew from what, sometimes I didn't, and chose
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not to ask. She came to me with a full heat of
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herself, with a voice I knew but had only recently
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been given directly, and I received her with
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the completeness I had been building toward.
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Not performing reception, not managing it, but
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actually open to it. It was the best it had ever
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been between us. I want to say that carefully
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because it is a careful thing. The pain and the
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pleasure were not separate compartments. They
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were part of the same thing. The grief I had
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been carrying since October was not incompatible
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with the love I felt now in those nights. In
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fact, the grief had deepened the love, had made
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it more specific, more considered, more chosen.
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I was not loving Celonie despite what I knew.
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I was loving her through it. This is what the
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months of sitting with the second road had produced.
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Not resolution, not the clean ending of difficulty,
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but a love that had been made, by difficulty,
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into something more real. One evening in March,
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three months after the call to Bengaluru, I came
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home to find Seloni's phone ringing on the kitchen
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counter, his name on the screen. She wasn't in
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the room. I could hear her in the workroom, deep
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in something. The phone rang. I picked it up
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and walked to the workroom doorway. I held it
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out to her. She looked at the screen. She looked
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at me. Something moved through her expression.
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Not guilt, not calculation, but something more
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like the specific feeling of being seen accurately
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by someone who knows you. Go ahead, I said. She
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took the phone. She answered it. And she stayed
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at the workroom table. with the door open, with
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me able to hear if I chose to hear, and she talked
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to him for 20 minutes, her voice in the warm
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register, the private one, not hiding from me,
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not performing privacy, simply being herself,
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completely in a room where I was also. This,
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I thought, was what we were building, not a situation
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that excluded anyone, not a secret that had to
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be managed. A life that was big enough to contain
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what was actually in it. When she hung up, she
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looked at me. He says hello, she said. Tell him
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I said it back, I said. She nodded. She went
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back to her work. I went to make dinner. Outside,
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March, the particular smell of it, the city warming,
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the days getting longer. Inside our flat, our
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life, the ongoing complicated daily work of being
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two specific people in a specific marriage that
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had been broken open and put back together as
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something truer. I made rice. I made dal. I called
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her when it was ready. She came to the kitchen
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in her workroom clothes, ink on her hands from
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her pen, a smear of something on her forearm,
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and she sat at the table. And she looked at the
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food, and she looked at me. Thank you, she said.
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For dinner, I said. She shook her head, her eyes
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very clear. For all of it, she said. I sat down
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across from her. Eat, I said. It'll get cold.
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She picked up her fork. She was smiling. Outside
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the city. Inside, the two of us, in the version
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of our marriage that had required losing something
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to find something better. Not the loss of anything
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that had been real, but the loss of the comfortable
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distance from which we had been loving each other
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without fully knowing it. Closer now. Both of
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us. We finished the film. Neither of us had been
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watching it properly since the middle. The story
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had continued on the screen, but we had been
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elsewhere, in the specific elsewhere of two people
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who are sitting together and being conscious
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of sitting together. When it ended, she turned
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off the television, and the room was quiet. I
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want to say something, she said. Say it, I said.
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She was looking at the dark screen. I've been
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afraid, she said. That learning to see me would
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make you want less of me. She paused. That the
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more you understood, the less you'd want. I looked
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at the side of her face. The specific quality
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of her in that moment. Not performing bravery,
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but exercising it. The difference was visible
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if you knew what to look for. Has that happened?
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I said. No, she said. Then that tells you something.
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I said. She turned and looked at me. It tells
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me you're either extraordinary or you love me,
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she said. Probably both, I said. She looked at
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me for a long moment. In her eyes, in the dim
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room, something moved, a wave of something that
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was too large and too real to be named quickly.
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I love you, she said. She said it the way she
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said important things. Plainly, without decoration,
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the way you state a fact that has been true for
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a long time and is still true and always will
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be true. I know that probably gets complicated
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given everything. I know there are other things
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too, but that one is just, that one is just true.
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I held what she had said. Three years of marriage
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and she had said this. regularly, ordinarily,
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across dinner tables and in the dark. But I had
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never heard it the way I heard it now, because
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now I knew what it was being said alongside.
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Now I understood the full complexity of the person
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saying it and the full reality of what she was
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choosing. She loved me, fully, alongside everything
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else that was also true. I know, I said. I've
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always known. She looked at me. And I love you,
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I said. The full version of you, not the simplified
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one. All of it. She pressed her lips together,
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held it. Okay, she said finally, very quietly.
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I reached over and took her hand off her knee
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and held it. Her hand in mine in the dark room,
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the city outside, the life we were building out
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of the complicated real materials of who we actually
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were. She leaned against me, her head finding
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its place at my shoulder. We stayed. The city
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went about its night. The flat held us. The complicated,
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beautiful, difficult, alive thing that was our
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marriage continued, as it did every day. To be
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what it was. Chosen. Real. Worth the cost. She
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told me something else that night, after the
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film, after what had happened, after the room
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had settled into the particular quiet of two
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people who have been through something and are
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on the other side of it. She told me about the
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first time she had understood what she was. Not
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what she was to Piyush. Not the arrangement.
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What she was to herself. The kind of person she
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was. I was 18, she said. Before we'd met. Someone
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I cared about. I won't say more than that. He
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left. And I cried for two days and then I got
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up and I felt she stopped. I felt full. Which
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was wrong, you'd think. But I felt full. Of everything.
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Of the grief and the love and the next thing,
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whatever it was. She was looking at the ceiling.
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I've always been like this, she said. Too much.
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Too full. I love too much. I feel too much. I
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want things at the same time that are contradictory.
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I know, I said. Most people find that, she stopped
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again. Overwhelming, I said. Yes. I don't, I
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said. She turned and looked at me. I know you
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don't, she said. That's the thing I keep learning
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about you, that you don't. I held her gaze. It's
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not a virtue, I said. I'm not noble about it.
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It's just you're the most alive person I know,
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and I'd rather be next to alive than comfortable.
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She looked at me for a long time. Okay, she said
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finally. Okay. She turned back to the ceiling.
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We lay in the dark together, her warmth beside
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me, the city outside. The ongoing life we were
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building out of the complicated real materials
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of who we actually were. I kept thinking about
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what she had said. I've always been like this.
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Too much. Too full. And what I had said, I'd
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rather be next to alive than comfortable. These
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were true things, the truest we had said to each
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other, and they had the particular quality of
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true things. They changed the room they were
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set in. Made it larger. To be continued in episode
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episode 9 of My Playful Wife. If this story is
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staying with you, the next episode is already
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waiting. Subscribe so you don't miss it. The
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complete book is on Amazon and early episodes
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plus bonus chapters are on my Patreon. Links
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are in the description. Thank you for listening.