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“I told you ere low last week, Penelope,” he said, and since he was using my full name, I kneas officially annoyed “Remember?”

I did not

“I didn’t have a chance to reht, because you were passed out by nine,” he added

Yes, yes, I was, because I had been up at two the night before to change Miles’ pee-soaked sheets And the night before that, I had stared at the ceiling for nearly an hour, wondering if whatever h ere sleeping a few feet beneath the , our Realtor had called it e bought the house Sanjay had purchased atool, and stood on a ladder with his neck bent backward for eight uy—a wall guy, as opposed to the roof guy or the lawn guy or, for the sake of parity, the painter gal Four years later, Sanjay still swore he was going to call him; on principle, I refused to do so myself Every once in a while, I awoke to find a chunk of plaster at the end of the bed

Sanjay disappeared I was about to unleash a string of expletives (under my breath, lest the children hear) when he reappeared and tossed a package of baby wipes at me “Use these,” he said as the wipes whizzed past me and hit the shower curtain

I reached over to grab the so was at odds with our having marital relations anyti birth, and we had still ed to conceive a second child So

“Not flushable,” I pointed out

“But more sanitary than toilet paper,” he said “That’s research proven”

Sanjay Laghari Kar, patron saint of useless trivia “Thanks,” I said

He shrugged Then he dropped his clothes in a pile and stepped into the shower

I glowered at the shower curtain before looking down at my phone, which was at my feet I had seventeen et dressed and ready, and run out the doorForever, I thought for a brief, sha the idea from my mind

I had planned to rinse off quickly, but noould either have to accept that Sanjay would be in there until I left, or deal with the attitude he copped when I suggested he leave a bit of water in Lake Michigan

I ran back to the bedroom and yanked a dress overto zip it up when Sanjay, hu and wrapped in a toalked into the bedroom

“How do I look?” I asked I had awith my supervisor, Yolanda, at nine, and it was either this dress or my bank-teller pantsuit

He sat on the bed and glanced up at reat,” he said, but I was pretty sure his eyes hadn’t risen higher than my knees

I sighed My closest friend, Jenny, called Sanjay Thing 3 If it had been anyone other than her, I would have been offended Of course, anyone else wouldn’t have known that I souably least affectionate child Now I called hih only to Jenny

Anyway, her husband, Matt, wasn’t perfect Since I had rown up without a mother and had been raised by a father who spent more time at work than at ho on the road all the ti to put up with it, even if she did occasionally feel neglected That was one of the best things about having a friend you shared everything with: It gave you a bird’s-eye view of another person’s life Which in turn reminded you that the bad you had was your choice, and better than the alternative

In truth, I sometimes wondered about the better part There was plenty about Jenny’sbut not limited to the fact that she did not have to rush to work every , because Matt made oodles of cash Jenny did, too—her “little website” had becoh she had never said as much, I was pretty sure she didn’t feel like the walls of her large and tastefully decorated ho in on her, or that Cecily, her one ridiculously well-behaved child, was trying to strangle all whimsy from her life Jenny did not look across the table at Matt (who never ets with an open mouth as he scrolled his phone) and wonder what had happened to the clever, cultured man she had married

Because she did not serve chicken nuggets for dinner

(They had sex all the time)

I didn’t really want out, I reassured myself as I dashed to the kitchen to finish the lunches My childhood had been such that I kne fortunate I was to be a part of a nuclear faood school district in one of the least generic parts of the Midwest—even if I did so for the bucolic, childless existence Sanjay and I had once enjoyed in Brooklyn I recognized the windfall of two healthy, hbor Lorrie, who let herself into our househi!” she would announce as I wetI was not alone and in fact so on le parent I understood how hard this was—my father had become one himself after my mother decided she wasn’t cut out for family life

But my father knew I could be trusted to hold down the fort when he orking and ed, or otherwise tended to Whereas Lorrie only had young Olive, who see was the first step of an orchestrated plan to disembowel you with her teeth As such, I made a conscious effort not to co in the netted trampoline in our backyard, nor towrinkled clothes fro the laundry”

Still I ell aware that the semicharmed life I led was one part luck to three parts effort I had left Brooklyn and traded a beloved but barely paying editing job for a more lucrative position in development at a major Midwestern university—the same institution where Sanjay had spent nearly a year inthat he really didn’t want to be a doctor (never an an expensive preram years earlier)