Unexpectedly, Milo - Matthew Dicks [9]
Then there were the new demands, the ones that he had never experienced before, which were impossible to predict or prepare for. About six months before moving out, Milo suddenly found himself needing to acquire a Weeble, a plastic toy that was shaped like an egg with a weighted bottom, so that it would wobble when pushed, but never fall completely over. He had played with these toys as a child (Weebles wobble, but they don’t fall down!) but could not explain their sudden reemergence in his consciousness. Nevertheless, he needed the toy, and he knew what must be done with it: Place it in the doorjamb, in the space between the hinges, so that when he slammed the door shut, it would compress the Weeble against the frame, exploding it into tiny plastic bits. He had no idea where this need came from or even if Weebles could still be purchased in toy stores, but with a weekend full of planned activities, he had found this new demand especially challenging.
Thankfully, acquiring the Weeble had proven to be easier than Milo had first imagined. He expected that he might need to purchase the toy from eBay or a similar collectible website but was surprised to find them still available in the local Toys “R” Us. But it took two days for Milo to get to the store after verifying their availability online, since he and Christine had been together for every second of the day. Even after purchasing the toy (and six others just like it in case one wasn’t enough), it took another half a day before Milo could place it in the crack between the basement door and the frame, since explaining these actions to his wife would be even more difficult than the actual purchase of the toy. In the end, he had waited until she was in the shower before fulfilling this demand, and thankfully, one Weeble proved to be more than enough.
The sense of relief had been extraordinary.
Milo had been keeping secrets like these from his wife for far too long, and though revealing his secrets to Christine was not in the realm of possibility, the vacation from the lies and half-truths that their separation had afforded had been better than expected.
Christine, however, had not reacted with a similar enthusiasm.
When he arrived home on a Friday night and announced that he had signed a lease, expecting to be greeted with ironic appreciation, Christine’s reaction couldn’t have been more unexpected. “I didn’t mean for you to get an apartment! I was thinking about a couple weeks at Andy’s house! What the hell are you thinking?”
Milo stood dumbstruck in the kitchen, still dripping from the downpour outside, unsure if his wife was even telling the truth. When a wife asks a husband for space, and when she asks for it as many times as Christine had, Milo thought that she could only be requesting a trial separation. “Are you serious?” he shot back. “Are you really serious?”
“Of course I am! I never told you to sign a lease. What in God’s name are you thinking?”
Milo knew quite well what he had been thinking. He had been thinking about the dozens of requests for space and time apart from a wife who barely made an effort to speak to him anymore. He had been thinking about all the ways that he had tried to change the subject, ignore the request, appease Christine and otherwise dodge the topic altogether. He had been thinking about the fear and pain and uncertainty that came with each of Christine’s requests for space and how he had finally come to terms with her appeal.
But in all honesty, he had also been thinking about a break from the secrecy and lies that his inexplicable demands demanded. A vacation from the constant vigilance and need for preparation in order to ensure that his demands and their satisfaction remained hidden from his wife. A little time alone, so he could live in peace with his oddities while simultaneously fulfilling the wishes of his angry wife.
Milo had also been thinking about the hours of walking that he and Christine had been doing, the four months of loops through their neighborhood that had started following Christine