It was Larry, his voice so cheerful that I was suddenly depressed. I wasn’t when I went away with a stranger and made love, but the sound of my husband’s voice filled me with a bone chilling dread. “It’s me,” I answered him as I glanced hastily at the sink to tell if he’d eaten. He hadn’t. There were no dishes. And God forbid that he would have washed them after he was done. Where had that thought come from? I wondered. My husband had cheerfully done the dishes for twenty-six years. So had I. Washing dishes together had always been a time of bonding for us. Besides thinking of it as one of our chores it was something I liked doing. Immersing my hands in hot soapy water while Larry dried, I always felt that I was cleansing something more important than dishes. Now it puzzled me that the thought of doing dishes was enough to bring about irritation. Of course it was easier thinking that than thinking about what I’d just done.
