Free The Theory of Opposites by Allison Winn Scotch

real deal. Varvatos. What did this set you back?”
    “Oh Jesus, Vanessa, can you please pipe down for once?” I say, then immediately follow with, “Sorry. Shit, sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
    “Hey, no flies on me. I’m gonna do this thing without you. You guys keep going. Just call me. Coffee later.”
    She quickly kisses my cheek and breezes out the door before I can beg her not to leave without me. Shawn and I are left alone, flanking each other in the kitchen. He pours himself more coffee, making a big show of the silence, dropping in his first plop of milk, then his second, then one last splash, as he does every morning, and for the first time ever, this makes me insane. I don’t want my husband to make me insane, I want Shilla! But then I remember Grape! , and that I’m not exactly the one who might be cheating on us.
    He sprinkles exactly half a packet of Splenda in, then stirs, then sips, and then sighs. Then he unspools the plastic wrap and envelops Nicky’s plate as carefully as parents would swaddle their newborn. Finally, he turns back toward me and says:
    “Why are you so mad at me?”
    “I’m not mad at you.”
    “You’re mad at me. You said, and I quote, ‘I’m resolving as of this moment to stop being mad at you.’”
    I’m about to shout out: Grape! when his phone vibrates on the counter, and he grabs it.
    “Hey,” he says, then wanders to the couch and perches on its arm. “Oh. Okay. Sure. For how long?”
    A long pause.
    “Um. Okay. No, no, that’s fine. I mean, I have to talk to Willa.” He falls silent.
    I can feel my nerve ebbing out of me. I can’t talk to Shawn about Grape! now. That might undo everything – set something in motion that I’m not ready to face. And besides, now, he has something to talk to me about. My thoughts turn to static. I try to catch my breath — breathe in and out, like Oliver showed me — and not totally come undone with the notion of what Shawn needs to talk to me about — affairs, divorce, one-night stands — and to whom he’s saying all this. Please, universe, do not betray me. Please do not make Shawn be like that Goldman guy who slept with Izzy’s friend, Candice.
    Shawn says to his phone: “We’ll figure it out. Sure, sure. No, I get it. I’m sure that Willa will be fine with it.”
    I allow myself a little more air because he must know that taking a call from some floozy whom he met at Grape! or at golf or whatever is not something I’d be fine with. I look at him sideways now, but he’s focused on the long view out the window. Who knows what he sees out there in the distance. But it’s not me.
    “He’s still sleeping,” Shawn says. “I’ll have him call you when he’s up.”
    Another pause.
    “Okay. Be safe. No, I understand.”
    He presses the off button and stares at the floor for a moment, then seems to remember that I’m sitting there with my runny eggs, that we were in the middle of something, that there were things to be said.
    “That was Amanda.” He rises slowly, like he threw out his back while talking.
    “Okay.”
    “She needs us to watch Nicky for a while longer.” He doesn’t make eye contact and instead reaches for his coffee.
    “Well, that’s fine, I guess. How long?”
    “Um, most of the summer.”
    “Most of the summer?”
    “She was up for this position in Tanzania, and she got it. Which is great, by the way. I mean, she’s out there making a difference.”
    “No one said she’s not.” I can’t help but wonder if he doesn’t mean that coming up with sexy ad campaigns for Adult Diapers is not exactly out there making a difference. Hello! I’m well aware that it might be the dumbest thing on the planet. Why do you think I was texting Vanessa in the meeting in the first place? You try to make an incontinent Indiana Jones sexy!
    “Well, you know,” Shawn says. “Where she’s going to be isn’t safe for Nicky right now, and this job is pretty much all she has other than