House of Glass
She was looking for something.
She made her way up the stairs, leaving the crowd behind. The kids’ doors were open; they were with friends for the evening. The hall bath was tidy. It smelled like disinfectant, which Jen found soothing.
She hesitated at the door of her bedroom. It had been milled to match the rest of the doors in the house, solid six-panel construction. It was standing slightly ajar, and Jen tapped it with a fingertip and it opened a few more inches. Did she really want to do this? She could turn around; she could go back downstairs; she could have a glass of wine, a second, a third, however many it took to dull this wanting to know, this need, the one she couldn’t bring herself to separate from, the way she knew was best, the way other women did. Choosing not to know—it was one of the most important tools in a wife’s arsenal.
Some defiant spark wouldn’t let her turn away. She pushed the door open, hard enough for it to bang against the wall, and there they were. In her bed. Sarah Elizabeth Baker sitting astride her husband with her head thrown back, all that luxurious hair tangled around her shoulders as if she’d ridden through a windstorm to come to him. Ted’s hands were on her hips, pressing her against him, grinding up into her, and they were so consumed by the moment that even as they twisted around to see her, they didn’t stop their rhythm and the sight of them thrusting together was like an ax in Jen’s heart.
Chapter Eight
“Jen. Jen.”
Ted was shaking her, his hand on her shoulder. Jen shuddered, trying to banish the nightmare, and then she remembered where she was.
The basement was lit by the single overhead bulb, casting its small, gloomy pool of light down on the four of them. The kids were fast asleep, Livvy burrowed so far under her quilt that only her hair was visible, Teddy tangled up in his covers. Ted was on his knees at the foot of the love seat, staring up at her. Jen blinked and put her hand over her mouth.
“You were having a nightmare,” he said. “You were thrashing around. Are you all right?”
The last bits of the dream dissolved and were replaced with guilt. Absurd though it was, Jen felt like she’d been caught in a moment of betrayal, walking in on the scene between her husband and his lover.
“I’m fine,” she said shortly.
“I couldn’t sleep. I thought I might try to eat again. I don’t think I’ve had a real meal since breakfast yesterday. You want something? We probably ought to.”
Jen didn’t answer, but she watched Ted open the crackers, peel the wax off a cheese round, then another. He split the cheese into four squishy quadrants and stacked each on a cracker, brushing the crumbs into a little pile in the center of the plate. When he picked up a cracker and handed it to her, Jen was surprised that her stomach rumbled in response, and she was able to take a bite.
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