Latest / My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story / My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 3: What Leaves Behind

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My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 3: What Leaves Behind · My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story

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My Playful Wife, Episode 3, What Leaves Behind,
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written by Mia. The bra was pale yellow, trimmed
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with something delicate at the edge, lace or
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the suggestion of lace, and it was sitting on
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the arm of the chair in the living room when
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I walked out that morning. Just sitting there,
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in the open. as though it had always belonged
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on the arm of that particular chair and had simply
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been waiting for someone to notice. I noticed.
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I stood in the doorway between the hall and the
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living room in my work clothes, pressed shirt,
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shoes already on, bag in hand, and I looked at
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it for a full five seconds. My brain did the
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quiet, immediate arithmetic that brains do, how
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it had gotten there, from where, in what sequence
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of events. It took less than a second. The arithmetic
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was simple. It told a story. Not a long story,
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not a complicated one. Just a small, very clear
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story about a garment that had started the morning
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somewhere it should not have been and had been
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hurried off, forgotten in the rush of reassembling
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the ordinary. From the kitchen came the sound
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of Saloni, the stove clicking on, the tap running.
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The rhythm of her mornings, which I knew as well
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as I knew the sound of my own footsteps, the
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particular domestic music of a person at ease
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in her own kitchen, unhurried, humming something
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wordless and low. She was making breakfast as
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though yesterday had a completely different shape
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than the one it actually had. I set my bag down.
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I walked to the chair. I picked up the bra carefully
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between two fingers, holding it slightly away
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from my body the way you hold something you're
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examining rather than claiming. I turned it once.
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The pale yellow, the delicate edge, the two small
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hooks at the back that had been done and undone
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by hands that were not mine. Saloni, I called.
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A beat. A very precise, very calculated beat,
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the pause of someone who has registered the call
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and is deciding how to receive it. What, she
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called back. Her voice was cheerful, morning
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voice, entirely constructed of the ordinary.
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Nothing in it but breakfast and Tuesday. Your
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bra is in the living room. This pause was different,
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shorter. The pause of someone who has been expecting
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exactly this, and has their response already
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loaded. She appeared in the kitchen doorway,
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spatula in hand, face composed with the specific
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composure of a woman who has never in her life
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been genuinely surprised, who has, at most, been
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mildly inconvenienced by circumstances that other
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people might find disruptive. Oh, she said, that.
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This, I agreed, holding it up between my two
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fingers. She crossed the room. She took it from
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me with the easy authority of someone reclaiming
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something entirely ordinary. The way you pick
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up your own book from a table. The way you take
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your own umbrella from the stand. No hesitation.
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No performance of guilt. She didn't look at my
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face as she did it. Or rather. She looked at
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my face and then chose, with great deliberateness,
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to look slightly past it. At the wall. At the
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window. At some point in the middle distance
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that required her full attention. The strap snapped,
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she said. I was taking something down from the
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top shelf, and I just, I took it off. I must
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have set it down and forgotten. I looked at her.
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She looked at the wall. Which shelf? I said,
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the one in the kitchen, she said, with the spice
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boxes. I thought about the geometry of this.
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I was, in another life, an engineering student.
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I understood spatial logic. The kitchen shelf
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with the spice boxes was on the far wall above
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the counter. The living room chair was through
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a doorway and six feet to the left. The path
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between them would require... At minimum, a change
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of rooms and a specific reason to carry an unclasped
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bra from one to the other and then leave it on
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a chair arm. I thought about what task would
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accomplish this. I thought for quite a while.
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Right, I said. Tea's ready, she said. She went
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back to the kitchen with the bra. and the spatula,
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and the composure of someone who has handled
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much harder conversations than this, and found
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them navigable. I heard the drawer open, the
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one where she kept the things that needed to
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be dealt with later. The sound of the drawer
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closing. Story folded. Filed. I picked up my
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bag. I went and sat at the table. Piyush came
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out of his room at half past seven with his bag
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packed and the compact efficiency of someone
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who has decided what they're taking and is not
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second -guessing it. He was leaving that evening,
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night train to Pune, exams starting Monday, the
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practical machinery of his life requiring him
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to return to it. He looked rested. I want to
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linger on this detail because I think it matters.
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not as accusation, not as injury, but as information.
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He looked rested in the specific way that people
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look when they have used their time well, when
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the body has been given something it needed.
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There was an ease in his face, a looseness in
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his shoulders. He moved through the flat the
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way he always moved, with the unselfconscious
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physicality of a young man who has never had
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reason to be uncomfortable in his own skin. I
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looked at my brother across the breakfast table.
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23 years old. The youngest of us. The one my
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mother had carried in the summer and delivered
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in the heat and worried about his whole childhood
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because he'd been a sickly infant, small and
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fierce and determined to survive. He had survived.
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He had more than survived. He stood in my kitchen
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in the morning light. Alive and easy and full
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of something I was only beginning to understand
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I had given him permission to have. I thought
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about all the things we were both not saying.
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I found, somewhat to my surprise, that the inventory
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of those unsaid things did not destroy me. They
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sat there, heavy and specific, and I carried
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them, and I was still standing. You didn't sleep
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well? Saloni asked him. Setting down his chai
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with the particular care she brought to things
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for people she was fond of. The good cup. The
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right temperature. I slept fine, he said. Thanks,
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Bobby. Bobby. The word for a brother's wife.
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Sister -in -law, roughly, though the English
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translation misses the weight of it, the specific
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warmth and complication of that relationship
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in our culture, the tradition of closeness and
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teasing, and a particular kind of intimacy that
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exists in the space between family and something
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else. He said it the same way he always said
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it. Warm, easy, familiar. I ate my toast. The
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conversation was entirely normal. This is what
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continued to unsettle me most. Not the abnormality,
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but the profound, unnerving normalcy. We talked
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about his exams. He talked about a professor
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he disliked, a problem set that had defeated
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three sleepless nights, a project due in April.
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Saloni asked questions, and he answered them,
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and I watched them talk and thought, this is
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also real. This warmth, this ease, this genuine
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affection, it is all so completely real. Nothing
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about the last 24 hours had been false. That
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was the thing I could not locate a place to put.
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She laughed at something he said, a quick, genuine
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laugh, the kind that doesn't ask permission.
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The laugh that started in her stomach. I knew
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that laugh. I had been hearing it for three years,
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across dinner tables and in the dark, and on
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phone calls I was not part of, and it was still
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the realest sound I knew. The morning light came
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through the kitchen window, at its usual angle.
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The chai was exactly right. The toast had butter
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on it because I had been the one to make it and
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I always put too much butter, and Saloni had
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never once in three years told me to use less.
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I thought, this is my life. All of this together.
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The toast and the light and the laugh and the
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pale yellow bra in the drawer and my brother
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eating his third sandwich. All of it, together,
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simultaneously true. After breakfast, I told
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them I had to go into work early. I'll be home
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by seven, I said to Saloni. I'll make something
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good, she said and meant it. She always made
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something good. This was the kind of woman she
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was. She fed people with the same seriousness
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that other people gave to important projects,
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as if the act of putting good food in front of
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someone she loved was itself a form of love that
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deserved the full weight of her attention. I
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said goodbye to Piyush. I shook his hand. We
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had never been huggers. Our family expressed
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things through practical gestures, through being
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present, through doing the thing that needed
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doing rather than speaking it. He held the handshake
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a beat longer than usual. His grip said what
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he wasn't going to say, and I understood it,
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and I held it back. Come back soon, I said. I
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will, he said. He was not only talking about
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visits. I left. I stood in the corridor for a
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moment with my back to the closed flat door,
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my hand still resting on the cool metal of the
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handle. I stood there, and I listened to the
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silence on the other side of it. Then I heard
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Saloni laugh. Not the public laugh. The other
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one. I took my hand off the door handle. I walked
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to the lift. I pressed the button and watched
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the numbers change and thought about what it
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means when two different people are capable of
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drawing two entirely different laughs from the
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same woman and what that means about the woman
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and whether there was anything in that worth
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grieving. The lift came. I got in. Work was a
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series of rooms I moved through without fully
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entering. I sat at my desk, and the report existed,
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and I worked on it, and the work was competent
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and complete and occupied the part of my brain
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that could be occupied by such things, and the
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rest of me was somewhere else entirely. In the
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flat. In the kitchen. On the balcony with the
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watering can. In the corridor outside the closed
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door. I thought about Celonie's hands, the way
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they moved through the kitchen with a certainty
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that had always moved me. The economy of her
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gestures, the way she never made a wasted motion.
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I had loved this about her from the beginning.
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The groundedness of her. The sense that she existed
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entirely within herself, contained and whole,
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not needing the world's confirmation to know
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that she was real. I had just not understood
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the full scope of what that wholeness contained.
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At 1130, a colleague asked me something, and
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I answered it correctly, and he went away satisfied,
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and I looked at what I'd said and had no memory
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of saying it. I thought about the pale yellow
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bra, the specific calm of her face, when she
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took it from me, the way she hadn't insulted
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either of us by making the lie too elaborate,
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just the bare minimum of story, enough to move
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past the moment. Trusting me to allow the passage.
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She had trusted me. I turned this over for a
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long time. The trust in it. The presumption,
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yes, but also the trust. She had looked at me,
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across our three -year marriage, across everything
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she knew about who I was, and had decided. He
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will let this pass. Not because I'm a fool. Because
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I'm the kind of man who chooses which battles
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to enter. Because she knows me. Do you know what
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it feels like to be known? Not the performed
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version. Not the self you have assembled for
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general consumption. But the actual one. The
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one with the specific capacities and the specific
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limits. The one who goes very still when he's
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thinking hard. The one who puts too much butter
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on toast. She knew that man. and she had looked
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at him this morning and trusted him to hold what
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she was handing him without breaking it. I did
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not know, yet, whether I was going to live up
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to that trust. I did not know what I was going
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to do with what I knew, but I held it with more
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care, thinking about her trust, than I had been
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holding it before. I left work at 6 and sat in
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a coffee shop around the corner from the flat
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for 45 minutes. This was a cowardly thing to
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do, and I want to name it as such. I sat in the
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coffee shop, and I ordered something I didn't
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drink, and I watched the street, and I gave time
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the responsibility of figuring out what I was
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feeling, which is not something time does reliably.
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What time did do, it passed. The evening came
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in through the windows. The coffee got cold.
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People walked past carrying the visible evidence
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of their days. A woman with two children and
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an impossible number of bags. A man on a phone
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call, his face doing the specific thing faces
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do when a phone call is going very badly. An
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old couple moving slowly. The man's hand at the
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woman's back, not guiding, just present. I watched
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the old couple until they were out of sight.
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At 6 .45, I paid and walked home. The flat smelled
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of cooking when I came in, something long and
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spiced, the kind of smell that means hours of
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attention, a meal that had been thought about.
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Saloni was at the stove. The flat was quiet in
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the specific way it goes quiet when a presence
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has recently left it a negative space. the shape
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of where someone was. Piyush was gone. He left
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at four, she said, without my asking, without
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turning from the stove. Trains at nine. He wanted
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time. He'll be fine, I said. I know, she said.
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I put my bag down. I changed into the soft cotton
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corda I wore at home. I came back to the kitchen
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and stood in the doorway and watched her cook.
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I watched with the new eyes, the ones I had been
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developing since the balcony morning, the ones
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that received her as she actually was rather
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than as I had assumed. She had changed her clothes.
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The blue sal wore, loose and soft, the kind she
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wore when no one was coming and she wanted to
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be comfortable. Her hair was down, which she
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rarely did in evenings. Small choices, private
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ones. She was beautiful in a way that undid me,
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and I was standing in my own kitchen watching
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my own wife cook and feeling it the way you feel
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things you have stopped letting yourself feel,
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suddenly, completely, like a window opened in
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a sealed room. She turned and saw me watching.
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She did not look away. She met it, my gaze, my
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presence in the doorway, the weight of everything
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the day had contained, and she met it with the
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steadiness that was her most essential quality.
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Sit, she said. Twenty minutes. Iset. She served
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dinner. We ate at the small kitchen table. The
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two of us, in the particular quiet of a space
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that has given back its extra person and settled
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into itself. The food was extraordinary. It always
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was when she cooked long things, when she gave
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time to it. It's good, I said. The whole spices
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need time to open, she said. You can't rush them.
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I know, I said. She poured me more water. Her
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hand was near mine as she set the glass down,
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close enough that I could feel the warmth of
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it without being touched. She did not move it
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immediately. She left it there, close to mine,
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for a moment longer than the action required.
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He'll come back, she said. She was not talking
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about the spices. I know, I said. She looked
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at me directly then. For the first time since
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the morning, since the bra and the story and
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the careful geometry of her lie, she looked at
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me directly, and in her look was a question that
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was also a statement. You know, the look said,
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and you are still here, at this table, eating
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the food I made for you, present. Yes, I said.
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She nodded. once small, with a certainty that
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settled something. We finished dinner. She washed,
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I dried. We moved around the kitchen the way
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we had moved around kitchens for three years,
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the easy choreography of two people who have
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learned each other's rhythms. The particular
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music of it, dishes, water, the clink of the
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rack, was as familiar as breathing. Later, in
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the dark, She turned toward me. I held her the
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way I always held her, one arm, her head at my
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collarbone, and I felt her breathe, the slow,
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even deepening of her breath as she fell toward
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sleep, her hand flat on my chest, the gesture
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she used when she wanted to feel that I was there
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without having to say so. I lay awake for a long
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time. I thought about the pale yellow bra. The
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story about the shelf, the trust in her face
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when she handed me the lie and watched me decide
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what to do with it. I thought about the word
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she had used, he'll come back. Not he might or
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he could, he will. She had said it with certainty
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because she knew something I was still learning,
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that what had happened in this flat was not the
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beginning of a destruction. It was the beginning
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of a different architecture, one I did not yet
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have the plans for, but that was already quietly
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being built. I closed my eyes. Outside the city,
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inside the sound of her breathing. To be continued
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That was episode three of My Playful Wife. If
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this story is staying with you, the next episode
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is already waiting. Subscribe so you don't miss
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it. The complete book is on Amazon and early
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episodes plus bonus chapters are on my Patreon.
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Links are in the description. I'm Mia. Thank
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you for listening.