Free Wife 22 by Melanie Gideon Page A

emotional data points. For some of your longer answers there might be fifty data points that will need to be considered and tracked. For shorter answers, perhaps five.
    I like to think what we have developed is an algorithm of the heart.
    As far as your second query, we’ve found there’s a trust that developsbetween subject and researcher that slowly builds over time. That’s why we parcel out the questions. There’s something about the building of anticipation that works to both of our advantages.
    Waiting is a dying art. The world moves at a split-second speed now and I happen to think that’s a great shame, as we seem to have lost the deeper pleasures of leaving and returning.
    Warmly,
    Researcher 101
    From: Wife 22
    Subject: Re: Maritalscope?
    Date: May 25, 9:22 AM
    To: researcher101
    Dear Researcher 101,
    The deeper pleasures of leaving and returning.
Why, you sound like a poet, Researcher 101. I feel that way sometimes. Like an astronaut looking for a way back into the corporeal world only to discover the corporeal world has ceased to exist while I’ve been floating around in space. I suspect it has something to do with getting older. I have less access to gravity and so I float through most of my days, untethered.
    Once, in ancient times, my husband and I used to lie in bed before we fell asleep every night and give each other our Facebook posts face to face.
    Alice had a very bad day. William thinks tomorrow will be better
.
    I have to say I miss that.
    Wife 22

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    T he seventh grade is going on a camping trip to Yosemite. Which means I am going on a camping trip—hurray! At least I might as well be going on a camping trip given all the preparation I have to do to get Peter ready.
    “Do you have a mess kit?” I ask Peter.
    “No, but we have paper plates.”
    “How many meals?” I start counting on my fingers. “Dinner, breakfast, lunch, dinner, breakfast. The plates are compostable, right?”
    Peter’s school takes their green very, very seriously. Plastic is forbidden. Cloth napkins encouraged. During spirit week the Parents’ Association sells bento boxes alongside mugs and sweatshirts.
    Peter shrugs. “I’ll probably get some crap.”
    I do a quick calculation in my head. Drive twelve miles to REI to buy a new mess kit on Spare the Air Day, a day I should be carpooling, or at the very least taking the bus. Arrive at REI to find the only mess kits in stock are made in Japan. Leave defeated, because I will get in trouble (with Zoe) if I buy a mess kit that had to travel over three thousand miles to get to Oakland. Paper plates it is.
    “If anybody asks, tell them the carbon cost of getting a new mess kit far outweighs using five of your mother’s paper plates, bought in 1998, back when greenhouse gases were a result of gardeners eating too much cabbage for lunch.”
    “Black beanie or green?” asks Peter. He holds up the green. “Green. And did you remember to get the wet wipes? I want to have a backup in case the showers are disgusting. I hope they let Briana and me share a tent. We told Mr. Solberg that we were like totally platonic, we’ve been best friends since fourth grade, and why shouldn’t tents be co-ed? He said it’s under consideration.”
    “
Under consideration
means no, but I’m going to wait until the very last minute to tell you,” I say.
    Peter groans. “What if I get stuck with Eric Haber?”
    Peter won’t shut up about Eric Haber. What a jerk he is. How loudly he chews, what a terrible conversationalist.
    “Then offer him the black beanie,” I say.
    I suspect Peter has a crush on Eric, but is too scared to admit it. I’ve read the LGBT literature, which says my job is to remain open-minded and wait until my child is ready to come out. To push him into this revelation before he’s ready will do nothing but scar him. If only I could come out for him. I’ve imagined it so many times in my