Chapter 5 - The Houses Marcus Sent My Wife
The next morning I found six listings in Nora's phone.
Not because I searched it.
She placed the phone on the kitchen table and opened the messages herself.
Santa Monica.
Manhattan Beach.
A gated place in the hills.
All too expensive, even for us.
Marcus had sent each with little comments.
Good private school ten minutes away.
Easy drive to practice.
Pool works for Ethan.
One even had:
Nora, this one has the kitchen you said you always wanted.
I looked up.
“You talk to him about kitchens?”
“Three years ago when ours flooded.”
I laughed once.
Not because it was funny.
Marcus had built a sales pitch from pieces of our life we had forgotten giving him.
“When did these start?”
“Two weeks ago.”
Before I left home.
Before the hotel.
Before Nora and I stopped speaking except about Ethan and bills.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
She leaned against the counter.
“Because you were already acting like every question was opposition.”
“That doesn't answer it.”
“No. The answer is I was angry.”
I waited.
“I wanted to know how far he would go.”
“You tested him.”
“Yes.”
“Using our family.”
Her jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
At least she didn't hide behind softer language.
“Did you reply?”
“To two.”
“What did you say?”
She showed me.
One message:
Ethan would hate being forty minutes from school.
Another:
We are not moving unless Caleb and I decide together.
Marcus had replied:
Of course. Just helping you picture options.
I looked up.
“That's it?”
“No.”
She scrolled.
Three days later Marcus wrote:
Caleb wants this handled before it turns into another season of indecision. Better if Ethan starts seeing the upside now.
My jaw tightened.
“I never told him that.”
Nora studied me.
“Never?”
I opened my mouth.
Stopped.
“What?”
“You tell Marcus things when you're angry.”
“Not that.”
“Then what did you tell him after our fight?”
I remembered standing in the hotel parking garage.
My duffel bag in the back seat.
Marcus on speaker.
My words came back in pieces.
I'm done doing the same fight every week.
See what's out there.
I can't breathe in that house right now.
Get me options.
Nora watched my face.
“What did you say?”
I sat down.
“I told him to see what was out there.”
“And?”
“That's all that mattered.”
“Caleb.”
I stared at the table.
“I said I needed somewhere I could breathe.”
She looked away.
I hated the sound of it now.
Not because it was completely false.
Because I had said it to my agent instead of my wife.
Nora walked toward the window.
“You know what I told Dana?”
“What?”
“That I wasn't asking her to keep you.”
The answer surprised me.
“What were you asking?”
“Whether I was preparing Ethan for a move that had actually been requested.”
“Why didn't you ask me?”
She looked at me.
“I did.”
I remembered.
Three times.
Each time I answered with what Marcus had told me other teams were thinking.
Never what I wanted.
Never what I had started.
Nora said:
“Dana told me she'd received interest, but your agent was the one inviting it.”
I stood.
“I need to go to practice.”
“Fine.”
“I'm talking to Marcus there.”
She nodded.
I reached for my keys.
Then Ethan came downstairs.
School uniform half buttoned.
Backpack hanging from one shoulder.
He looked at both of us.
“You're fighting again?”
“No,” Nora said.
“Yes,” I said.
He stopped.
I continued.
“But it's ours.”
He watched me.
I wasn't sure whether that comforted him.
Before he left, he looked toward Nora.
“Can you tell Dad the other thing?”
She stiffened.
I turned.
“What other thing?”
Ethan's face changed.
Nora said:
“Go get your shoes.”
He didn't move.
“Nora.”
She folded her arms.
“I was going to tell you after practice.”
“Tell me what?”
Ethan answered before she could.
“I quit the basketball team.”
I stared at him.
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
Three weeks.
Before the hotel.
Before the trade talk.
Before the envelope.
May you like
My own son had stopped playing the sport that built our entire life.
And nobody had told me.
