Free Breakdown Lane, The by Jacquelyn Mitchard Page A

up mildly. “I knew you’d object to this.” He held out a sheet of paper. “I’ve prorated our economic contributions to the family. Since Aurora was born, and you went part time, you work at home, and I provide the benefits; it’s only…well, fair, that you perform a greater share of the household management.”
    “Fuck you!” I told him. “I already do. Do you use fabric softener on the towels when you dry them, Leo?”
    “Of course,” Leo sniffed. “Who wants old, brittle towels?”
    “Beep!” I said. “Wrong! If you use fabric softener, the towels will lose their absorbency and that’s what towels are for, Leo!”
    “When Gabe and Carol went to school…Jules, schools are no longer benign places. They’re containment facilities. They’re…holding tanks for the social misfits we’ve created with our poisoned fast food and our McMansions and our…”
    I left him nattering, took my bike, and rode to Cathy’s, where we spent the afternoon drinking margaritas. It was just plain old foolishness, I thought.
    It was foolishness all right. But it quickly became clear that it was neither plain nor old.

SIX
Ecclesiastes
    EXCESS BAGGAGE
    By J. A. Gillis
    The Sheboygan News-Clarion
    Dear J.,
    I finally confronted my husband with his repeated infidelities. He suggested that our marriage might prosper if both of us had other sexual relationships, a sort of open marriage that would keep us a couple but give us both diversity. I’m not sure I want to do anything like this. Yet, we have two young children, and I want my marriage to stay intact. Could this be a stage?
    Leery in Lancaster
    Dear Leery,
    It could indeed be a stage. Or it could be a loud warning bell that your husband is seriously seeking a way out of your marriage. The only way to find out is definitely not to try experimenting with other relationships. It is to find a good counselor, who specializes in such issues, and there are even some husband-and-wife teams in the area. (Please phone the front desk at the newspaper for a list of names.) It’s imperative that you work together to see what the real issues are at the bottom of this pattern, and they could surprise you. Your husband could feel sexually neglected or insecure for reasons that have nothing to do with you. Most open marriages, as they call them, end in divorce rather than harmony. Make any choices or agreements contingent on previously attending a weekly counseling session, together and separately. And keep me posted.
    J.
     
    Just before the university opened for fall semester, Leo took me out for dinner.
    We hadn’t even started our salads when he told me, “I’m taking early retirement.”
    “We’ve been over this,” I told him, rearranging my shrimp into a wreath around my broccoli.
    “I mean I’m taking early retirement now,” Leo told me, shoveling in his primavera pasta.
    “Now. You mean now, now.”
    “I mean, this year.”
    “You mean, you’re thinking about…Leo, you’re not even fifty.”
    “But I told you there’d be cutbacks, sooner than later, and that I’d get an offer. And I did. At my level, I can take early retirement, get a few years of full salary and then my full pension earnings. I can get benefits as if I’d been in the army. Dental, psychiatric…”
    “We’ll need the psychiatric. Do you know what I make, Leo?” I’d just gotten a raise. “About twenty-two thousand a year.”
    “And you have insurance….”
    “All I have is catastrophic insurance!”
    “Well, you and the kids will be covered. You’ll do just fine. We have our investments. I’m not going to sit around. I’m going to do some commodities trading with Dad. And some environmental work…”
    “That should be lucrative.”
    “But first, and I know you’re going to get uptight over this, I’m taking a real sabbatical. Not like the little trip before. A total break. I don’t mean a total break. I’ll be in touch with you every day by phone. But I’m going to take a