Free Domestic Violets by Matthew Norman Page A

all you want, it doesn’t matter. I know you. You’ve let yourself get into a position where you’re afraid that something you hate is going to go away. You’re like those women in Lifetime movies. You’re terrified your abusive husband’s going to leave you.”
    Things had been looking up for a minute there, but now, as my wife ventures into the metaphorical, all my blood is diverting back toward the unimportant parts of my body.
    “I know that you and I aren’t exactly corporate geniuses here,” I say, appealing to a sense of commonality. “But I think just about everyone’s afraid of losing their paycheck right now. This isn’t about having a fulfilling job. It’s about being able to afford groceries.”
    Anna laughs. Apparently I’ve said something ridiculous. “Tom, Curtis is always trying to give us things. You think he’s going to let us starve?”
    “Jesus,” I say. “He already gave us this house. Is that not at all embarrassing for you? We’re almost thirty-six years old.”
    She takes my hand with both of hers. “I don’t want to sound like the type of wife who says something like this, but that’s really your fault, Tom, OK? You refuse to ask for a raise, or to make any attempt to get a promotion, or to take on any more responsibility, or, God forbid, to look for a job that doesn’t make you want to blow your brains out. You have ten years of writing experience. If you wanted to, you could be making way more, and we wouldn’t be living paycheck to paycheck and accepting houses from your dad.”
    “Wow, I didn’t realize that it’s 1953 all of the sudden,” I say. “You make less than I do, Anna. A hell of a lot less. How about you go storming into your office tomorrow and start demanding things?”
    She lets go of my hand, and I see Hank’s head poking up from the foot of the bed as he studies the tones of our voices. “I help poor children learn to read, Tom. What does your company do again? I always forget? Something really noble, right?”
    I lie on my back and so does she, and a long silence fills the growing expanse in the bed between us. I realize that the television is on—the volume turned all the way down. Lately I’ve been surrounded by muted televisions. Over the anchor’s shoulder, there’s a graphic of a red arrow pointing down.
    “I just don’t understand what’s keeping you there,” she says, looking at the ceiling. “What’s keeping you from moving forward? I’m not a Stepford Wife, Tom. I don’t want a fur coat and a BMW. I just want to be able to actually afford the baby that we’re trying to have. Or, at least the one I’m trying to have.”
    Married couples really only have a few arguments. They just keep having them over and over again. “This isn’t my career. You know that. This isn’t what I want to do with my life.”
    “I know that. I’m not saying you have to stop writing, or that you have to give up on your book. I just think you need to start being more realistic about the world. You’re an adult. We have a family. You’ve been working on your book for—”
    “I am being realistic. The day you take on a real job with real responsibilities, that’s the day you’re done writing. You become some poser with five chapters of some shitty novel in your bottom drawer that you’re never going to be able to finish because you’ve got screaming kids downstairs and some bullshit presentation to give about some useless buzzword. You know what my dad was doing before his first novel? Stamping books at the American University library for minimum wage, and he just won the Pulitzer Prize.”
    “You’re not as good as your father, Tom,” she says, her voice suddenly loud. “You’re not Curtis, OK? I mean, for Christ’s sake, wouldn’t you know by now if you were?”
    In the silence that follows—a silence even longer than the one before, long enough for the lamps to turn off and the room to go dark and quiet—I think of all the arguments