Free A Meaningful Life by L. J. Davis

everything, but he had an idea that it would spoil his effectiveness if he were to snatch a bite between diatribes. It might make him look weak or vulgar. He tried to remember if she’d accused him of being vulgar yet.
    â€œIt was a joke,” she said, looking off into space. “You said so yourself.”
    â€œIt wasn’t a joke, and I never said so. You’re just trying to confuse me.”
    â€œI only want to find out where we’re going, Lowell. That’s all.”
    Lowell pictured himself dashing all the breakfast things to the floor with one forceful sweep of his arm. It only reminded him of how hungry he was. If he hadn’t been so hungry, he would have stormed right out of the house, but he didn’t have enough money to buy himself another breakfast somewhere, and he really wanted one. He slumped back in the chair and tried to think things out. Once upon a time he’d known what they were arguing about, but he seemed to have lost the thread. “What are we arguing about?” he asked.
    â€œGod damn,” said his wife. She pushed back her chair, swept into the bathroom, and locked the door. Lowell ate his breakfast. It tasted like cardboard, and he wondered if he was chewing it in a weak way. Nobody in his family ever argued, at least that he knew about. They always agreed about everything, but on the other hand, they didn’t do much. Maybe that was why.
    By midmorning Lowell had decided to take the bull by the horns and announce that they were definitely going to New York. It wasn’t really a decision so much as a tactic, and it was also the only thing that he could think of to do; his previous failure to decide to go to New York seemed to lie at the root of their misunderstanding and the source of all their misery. Clearly (Lowell decided) his wife was waiting for him to decide to go to New York so that she could restore her subservient female role by begging him not to. Things had gotten out of hand simply because he was so damned amiable, and also because of her secret fear of becoming like her mother. It was only elementary psychology. Lowell was glad he’d been able to think it through. He could scarcely wait until he got home.
    â€œOkay,” he announced cheerily but firmly as he stepped through the front door. A cheese-and-onion pie was baking in the oven, and the house was full of delicious odors. “Okay,” he announced, “we’re going to New York.”
    â€œYou’re going to hate it there,” said his wife. “When do we start?”
    And that was how Lowell damned himself out of his own mouth. There was no going back. A seamless wall descended around his life and cut him off from all paths but one, and that was the one he took. His wife was right: he didn’t like it there. Nine years later he could still hear the sound of her voice, clear as a bell and true as a plumb, echoing in his mind in small, solitary moments; a wet newspaper would plaster itself to his ankle on an empty street and he would suddenly feel chilled and mortal, and he would hear her words again: “You aren’t going to like it there. When do we start?”
    There was no getting out of it. Afloat on a tide of events and furiously propelled by his wife, he gave notice at the library, renounced his scholarship at Berkeley, and told everyone in sight that he’d decided to go to New York, desperately hoping that someone would give him a smart-sounding and compelling reason for doing no such a blame-fool thing, but no one did. On the contrary, the more people he told about it, the more it seemed like he was actually going to go.
    â€œI hear you’re going to New York,” said his ex-roommate, meeting him one morning on the quad.
    â€œThat’s right,” said Lowell, giving his friend a look of dumb appeal. “My wife is against it, but my mind is made up. Unless something happens pretty soon, we’re really going to New