Hissy Fits Set You Free

By Sherri Coner

If you've never thrown a hissy fit, chances are good that you need to! By the time you get to know the girls in Sherri Coner’s latest book, you will much better understand the concept. Allowing your head to feel like it might pop right off your shoulders is part of this process. Add some foot-stomping resentment and good old-fashioned moments of simply feeling pissed off. At the end of this book, you will embrace the fact that.... Hissy Fits Set You Free!!! Gigi hadn't been Georgine in such a long time that she could just barely remember her true self. After too many years of loving a married man, Rita learned at the last minute that her life was not exactly empty without him. When she finally stopped being her mother's crutch, Carolena stepped into the world as her strongest self. Poor wimpy Rory needed to let go of everyone else's expectations while her friend Peach struggled to make peace with her own pain. They traveled different paths and they arrived at different times. But they got there. All of these women got to the same destination- which was self acceptance and joy. How did they get there? Well the recipe for saving one's self often includes a big load of truth and pure honesty, raw moments of pain, hysterical laughter and ...yes, girls... a big messy hissy fit!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Whitesides Words
• Release date: Feb 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311086846

Sherri Coner

As a former journalist and columnist, Sherri Coner takes her craft to a different level through publishing books for women. You will not only hear her voice in the chapters of women’s fiction, you will also hear your own! Her signature style of sarcasm and hysterical honesty might lead readers to assume that she’s just a humor writer. But make no mistake, girls. Sherri’s work will also speak to your soul.

Book preview

This book is dedicated to all the amazing women I have known in my life. Thank you for the long nights filled with laughter and too much wine. Thank you most of all for your willingness to be so amazingly honest about your own pain, for it helps me to believe that I will survive mine, too.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

So many women have such a struggle with setting boundaries. Their stories of painful and embarrassing situations and how they have grown into women who learn to love themselves enough to make the effort to change what they are willing to accept from others inspire me. I want each of them to know how their stories can encourage and motivate others to follow in their footsteps.

If you see yourself in these pages, the rest of us would love to hear about the moment you throw yourself a big, loud, messy hissy fit!

Table of contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Chapter One – Gigi

Chapter Two – Peach

Chapter Three – Gigi

Chapter Four – Gigi

Chapter Five – Peach

Chapter Six – Rory

Chapter Seven – Peach

Chapter Eight – Carol

Chapter Nine – Rita

Chapter Ten – Peach

Chapter Eleven – Gigi

Chapter Twelve – Pinkerton

Chapter Thirteen – Rory

Chapter Fourteen – Gigi

Chapter Fifteen – Rita

Chapter Sixteen – Carol

Chapter Seventeen – Rory

Chapter Eighteen – Gigi

Chapter Nineteen – The Support Group

Chapter Twenty – The Sneaker Ball

Chapter Twenty-one – Gigi

Chapter Twenty-two – Group Therapy

Chapter Twenty-three – Rory

Chapter Twenty-four – Carol

Chapter Twenty-five – Peach

Chapter Twenty-six – Gigi

Chapter Twenty-seven – Peach

Chapter Twenty-eight – Mission Cross Dresser

Chapter Twenty-nine – The Plaid Princess

Chapter Thirty – Rita

Chapter Thirty-one – New Beginnings

Chapter Thirty-two – Peach

Chapter Thirty-three – Gigi

Chapter Thirty-four – Group Therapy

Chapter Thirty-five – Rory

Chapter Thirty-six – Gigi

Chapter Thirty-seven – Florida

Chapter Thirty-eight – Carol

Chapter Thirty-nine – Gigi

Chapter Forty – Meredith Witt

Chapter Forty-one – Group Therapy

Chapter Forty-two – Gigi

Chapter Forty-three - Rita

Chapter Forty-four – Good-bye Group Therapy

About Sherri Coner

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Chapter One

Gigi

It is now twenty minutes past the scheduled appointment time for my annual pap smear. A stress headache ninja kicks my eyeballs. Heat rises in my cheeks. As every second ticks by on the big wall clock, I get more pissed off.

A few fathers lounge next to the mothers-to-be. I would guess that most of these guys only wanted a lay a few months ago, not fatherhood. The women still believe that adding sperm to the egg is nothing but beautiful. Hints of daddy’s nose, mommy’s dimples, grandpa’s love for beer. These women still believe in happily ever after. They rub their huge bellies where the navel pokes out so much they could hang a purse on it. They have no idea that very soon, their lives will be over before they get started. Have a family and you become a floor mop.

My eyes travel to the corner of the room where women in their forties read books. Here’s a little secret about women past forty…we hate kids. Most of us won’t tell you that outright but we cringe at the sight of little screamers. We think today’s young mothers are lazy and ineffective. If I pay special attention to the scent in this waiting room, I can sniff out that pungent, bitter whiff of resentment. It’s barely a trace, but it’s there under dried baby food stains on bibs. I can smell every older woman who dreads walking in here. We don’t want to be surrounded by young, vibrant, ripe egg carrying fools.

Gigi Turner? The doctor will see you now, says one of the nurses as she pokes her head into the waiting room. Thanks to my perimenopausal memory problems, I can’t recall her name. But I do recall that she’s one of the hard-drinking women my friends hate.

So, the young nurse peruses my chart and smiles her head off. You’re here for your annual exam? Let me just check your blood pressure. Then you can step inside the little dressing room, remove all of your clothing and tie the gown in the back.

She records my blood pressure and reaches for the door. Is there anything else you want to discuss today, Mrs. Turner? Do you have questions or concerns?

Actually yes, I want to say. These damn hot flashes make me feel like I just stepped out of the family clothes dryer.

But I say nothing. I’m not in the mood to discuss my dried-out vagina, which I affectionately refer to these days as desert puss. I don’t want to talk about the three lone hairs straggling off my chin like I’m turning into a Billy goat. Forget it all. I’m here for fifteen minutes. Charlie will walk into the exam room, ram his elbow into my unassuming vagina and try again to convince me to do hormone therapy. I will stubbornly shake my head, grab some groceries on my way home and wrap up the excitement with a nice warm brandy before bedtime.

Gigi Turner. I hear his boom before I see his shiny forehead. He’s the guy who delivered my last child. He’s the guy who knows my body better than my husband knows it.

Charlie goes about his business in the same way Lloyd, the guy at the Saab dealership, tells me about his kids as he checks the oil under the hood. In his line of work, Charlie sees hundreds of flabby boobs and desert pusses. He couldn’t care less about examining my poor old antique treasures.

One of them is gone, he says.

What are you talking about? I’m still flat on my back, counting ceiling tiles. I have no idea what Charlie is talking about. Tiny beads of sweat pop onto the back of my neck. I sit up fast like I do when I attend that stupid Lunch Crunch aerobics class on Wednesdays.

Your left ovary seems to be gone, Charlie says.

How in the world could my left ovary suddenly disappear? And how you can you be so insensitive about it?

My perfectly manicured hand instinctively goes to my left side. My fingers tremble there, fanned across the place under my skin where my reproductive organs once resided.

Three days before my forty-fifth birthday, Charlie met me in surgery room two at the hospital where all three of my children entered the world. Shortly after eight o’clock in the morning, with coffee on his breath, Charlie performed what I refer to as three-fourths of a hysterectomy. My womb and one ovary were removed that morning. No one in the world understood the significance of my loss. I didn’t want to hang on to my uterus for a pregnancy. Of course not. But keeping it was like cherishing a favorite old suitcase. It’s a comfort for some reason, just to know it’s there. I imagined my uterus as a beautiful, overstuffed couch in Laura Ashley prints. My ovaries served as the matching chairs, in a perfectly decorated little world where my eggs sat around gossiping unless they went running from Phillip’s sperm. Since sex happens so rarely in the Turner home, my eggs had plenty of time to lounge around. My husband frequently forgets that I even have a vagina.

Losing my uterus rates right up there with the fact that I am scared to death of aging. On a daily basis, I grab a magnifying glass as big as my face to search for sprouting chin hair. And now this news? My last lone ovary is gone. It’s MIA?

Where in the hell did it go? I want to slap Charlie’s mouth closer to his right ear. If he doesn’t at least pretend to be concerned, I might not be able to control my damn self.

This is a crisis, I say as tears gather in my throat. My lips tremble as I imagine that little lone ovary floating from my pelvic area like a tiny feather, to my chest cavity, finally settling in my throat.

Nothing to be concerned about, Gigi, Charlie says.

I want to jump up and knock the holy shit out of my gynecologist. I take a deep breath and sit on my slap-happy hands. Charlie peels lime green rubber gloves from his pudgy, freckled hands. He is pushing the tail end of his sixties but his dull gray hair hangs in skinny little sticks over his shirt collar. His ass is wider than the seat of his beloved Harley Davidson. I respect Charlie for holding on tight to his youth. But his lack of concern about my shriveled ovary makes me hate his guts.

If I told you that your left ball was gone, you'd want to know why, Charlie.

Gigi…

Just hear me out, I snap. You'd be on your knees, looking under the exam table for your left man berry. And I wouldn’t blame you. In fact, I would help you search. And you know why I would help you?

Because you’re a much better person than me? Charlie says while his hand masks a smile.

Charlie has known me long enough to predict what sends me over the edge. A sure bet for a Gigi meltdown is a moment like this, when Charlie feeds me yet another bitter sampling of aging.

I would help you look for your stupid nut because it’s part of who you are, I say with a sniff.

Okay, well…how about hot flashes? he asks. Any problems?

I could count last Thursday evening as a problem, I snarl. I was fanning myself in front of the fridge and accidentally slammed my right boob in the door.

Bet that was unpleasant. Charlie cringes.

Yes, I say as I nod. In fact it was very unpleasant, Charlie. But now I’m not just dealing with a blue boob. Now I’ve got an ovary on the run.

These things happen as women age, Charlie says softly. Your ovary probably just shriveled up.

Shriveled up? Like a raisin?

That's a good way to explain it, Charlie says as he scribbles on my chart. This kind of thing usually happens later in life. But it's really nothing to worry about.

I try to breathe more calmly. But I am devastated by the news. Again I imagine my only ovary weeping somewhere, lost and frightened. Maybe in the crook of my arm. Maybe in the crack of my saggy ass, unable to find its way home.

Do you think you need hormones? Charlie asks. Are the hot flashes enough of a problem to require more attention than a frequent fanning in front of the fridge?

I shake my head. Why in the hell have I lived long enough to discuss hormone therapy.

Haven't seen you and Phillip around the club for a while, Charlie looks up from my chart and takes a chance to smile. How is the business going?

Business is booming, I say lightly. Then I pull a pleasant smile from my knotted gut and paste it into place, right on top of my recent teeth-whitening treatment.

Careful now, I think to myself. Don't make eye contact. Don't allow one little twinge of anything but joy to cross your face. Don't give the slightest hint.

Charlie clears his throat and thoughtfully readjusts his tiny glasses on the bulb of his oily pug nose. Come to think of it, Gigi, I see you at the club. Or I see Phillip. But I don't recall when I last saw the two of you there together.

Our schedules are impossible, I say quickly. Then I slide off the edge of the exam table, pretending to suddenly notice the time. Charlie, I can’t say I’ve enjoyed this appointment, but I need to get going. I'm meeting Phillip in twenty minutes.

Okay, then. He slaps my chart closed and tucks it under his arm. Let me know if those hot flashes get uncomfortable, alright?

Sure, I nod, suddenly wanting nothing more than to disappear.

Good to see you, Gigi. Take care. When Charlie is safely out of the room, I blink back tears. I am more than a little bit upset about my shriveled ovary. But I am thankful that I didn’t drop my guard enough to give Charlie any hint of truth about my marriage which is, for all intents and purposes, in the proverbial ditch.

I sigh, hoping to stop my worn-out heart from flopping around in my chest like a fish. Then I peer down the neckline of the paper gown to study my wrinkled belly. A terrible wave of sadness overcomes me as I silently urge my lost ovary to go back to my pelvic area, where it is supposed to be. Slowly, I dress again in the perfect, two-piece linen suit. Salmon, my best color. I shove my feet into the very uncomfortable but gorgeous designer sling-backs. I run a comb through my hair. Thick and straight, bobbed near my chin, I consider my lovely, highlighted hair to be my best feature. I tuck a few strands behind my ear so other people can enjoy my lovely new earrings. I offer my wrist and neck a spritz of expensive perfume and open the exam door to leave.

As I make my way to the exit, the receptionist with dirty hair and bad acne asks if I want to schedule my annual exam for the following June.

No, I say in a low growl. I could be dead by next June.

On my way across the waiting room, I try not to focus on the poster-sized uterus and fallopian tubes scotch-taped to the wall next to the magazine rack. I try to look past the young women lining the cheap seats in Charlie's office. They pat child-filled bellies and wipe the pink little faces of snotty-nosed toddlers. Many of them look exhausted. Others still have that hopeful sparkle in their eyes. That look makes my stomach turn with a mix of sadness and disgust.

You have no idea what you're in for, I whisper to the tired air. When you're my age, you will be invisible. No one will remember how beautiful and energetic you were before life sucked everything good right out of your gut.

I suck in the sticky early summer air and turn the key in the ignition of my baby blue Saab before I realize I am holding my breath. No doubt I rushed through the waiting room to escape that herd of belly-blooming women. I also had to escape the lie I told Charlie about rushing off to meet Phillip. The truth is that I’m not meeting my husband. I’m not even speaking to my stupid husband. It’s impossible to speak to someone when you never see him or talk to him on the telephone. I lie to everyone about Phillip. I have too much pride to admit that my marriage is in the gutter. I will carry this albatross around my neck until it finally strangles me. I suddenly feel dizzy.

That makes sense, I mutter. I was holding my breath.

The weight of the world is on my shoulders. But the good part about that? Hysterical screaming is impossible if a person is unable to breathe. I reach for my cell phone and dial a bit more frantically than I intend to.

Dr. Pinkerton? Thank goodness you're there. May I stop by? I'm very upset, doctor. I absolutely must see you.

Less than thirty minutes later, I snake through the parking garage at the corner of Hawthorne and Meridian. My psychiatrist, Dr. Arthur Pinkerton's office, is on the tenth floor, in suite 1022. I appreciate Pinkerton’s wet, puppy dog eyes filled with empathy. His velvety, funeral home director voice is a salve to my broken heart. I have never been in a counselor’s office until this one. I have never been prescribed medications for depression until now. And I have never once believed, until lately, that something somewhere could actually take me down.

I’m not the type of woman who considers divorce. I don’t have a single feminist bone in my body, either. I am just fine with the idea of every man hurrying to open doors for me. I’m happy with Phillip being the breadwinner. I like the fact that, at least on paper, all I have to worry about is whether I want to whip up a meatloaf or cram a roast in the oven. After the kids grew up and went away, my greatest stress involved getting Phillip’s shirts starched stiffly enough at the dry cleaner.

It has all worked for me. For years, I have liked the predictability of living in such a traditional relationship. Actually, I’ve loved my life for lots of our years together. I’ve liked my husband, too. At least a lot of the time. So I absolutely refuse to let that dreadful D-word roll off my tongue. It isn’t necessarily because I’m deeply religious and committed to my wedding vows. It is mostly because this life is the only one I want to know. And I don’t want change. I will do whatever is necessary to keep stupid Phillip and our uneventful life together intact.

As I make my way into the boring office, decorated in shades of gray and lavender, I secretly hope that it’s late enough in the afternoon for few patients and no human at the half-moon reception desk. As much as I adore Pinkerton, I loathe the good doctor’s goggle-eyed receptionist named Wendy. That chick wears weird shrouds and reads faded paperbacks about vegan diets and Wiccan beliefs. She welcomes patients with a stupid, whispery greeting, Enter in peace.

Some kind of primal drum usually plays on the CD player beside Wendy's collection of crystals. And last summer, when she wore wrinkled, sleeveless cotton, I discovered the girl doesn't shave her pits.

That's just ridiculous, Wendy, I scolded. A young woman like you, walking the streets like you're half chimp. Get home and shave that body hair, Wendy.

Other people say that I am a judgmental person who sticks my nose into lots of places where it doesn’t belong. I know this could possibly be viewed as a character defect or a flaw. I simply don’t care. I have enough sense to know that Wendy’s lack of fashion is not my concern. But I am already on a roll. By the way, Wendy, stop acting like a burn-out from Woodstock. You weren’t even an embryo at that time.

As if she spends her day chewing Quaaludes while scheduling crazy people for psychiatric appointments, Wendy merely smiled at my outburst.

Go in peace, Mrs. Turner, she said sweetly as I stormed out.

Go to hell, I muttered back.

Not even certain why Wendy’s pit hair enraged me so much, I stomped into my house that afternoon and made a beeline for the liquor cabinet. By the time Dr. Pinkerton called that evening, I was sucking down a third finger of scotch and feeling just a tad bit remorseful.

Tell me why you felt so threatened by Wendy, Pinkerton said in his low, soothing, voice. Tell me Gigi, why you felt so aggressive about Wendy’s body hair.

I didn't answer. In a timid voice I hate, I simply promised an apology to Wendy. Then I went an extra step. At the next appointment, I walked sweetly to the reception desk and gave Wendy a gift certificate to shop at the mall. I never admitted to Pinkerton or to myself, maybe, that I hated Wendy for being young and fruitful, with two ovaries and a uterus. I also hated Wendy for hiding all those youthful gifts under hippie shrouds.

I have always loved clothing and fashion trends and colors. My closet is an unending fashion statement, coordinated by colors and fabrics. Popular local designers call me personally when they expand clothing lines in area boutiques.

Now that I am more than an entire half-century old, I have sadly decided it is no longer appropriate to wear short, flirty skirts with strappy sandals. Plunging necklines are out of the question, too, just like the Spandex. Some of my decisions are based on that invisible group of judges (mostly female, with a few gays mixed in) who decide what’s workable and what’s trashy after age forty. That same invisible group of judges get even more opinionated about what’s okay for women over fifty.

Some of the fashion decisions, however, were made by my body, which has cruelly deceived me and gotten old, despite all of my best efforts. Clingy fabrics are knocked out of my life, thanks to the ham hocks around my bra. My waistline has widened and traveled north. It is only an inch or two under my rib cage. My ass has turned into a flat pancake. Though my boob job still looks fairly perky, I have a wrinkled skin curtain under my chin. I am committed to skinny. I lift weights every evening, while watching Wheel of Fortune and I live on naked lettuce and yogurt. Plastic surgery can only do so much, you know.

As if I don’t have an entire laundry list of perfectly good reasons to be neurotic, now my stupid ovary is MIA. This might be the final straw.

I enter the waiting area, avoiding eye contact with the dreaded Wendy. But the young woman who sports ribbons laced through her dreadlocks, offers me a marijuana-induced grin.

Do not speak to me, Wendy. I think as I offer up my best mean face. I will absolutely slap the shit right out of you.

I notice her newest eyebrow piercing and curse under my breath. That makes the fourth hole shoved through the foolish girl’s thin little eyebrow.

I hope your eyebrow rots off, I think with a hateful smile. I would enjoy that, Wendy. I’d love to see your eyebrow rot right off your face and fall into your cup of herbal tea.

Enter in peace, Wendy says.

Hardly, I snap back at her. Then I drop into the chair closest to the aquarium and rearrange the collection of diamond bracelets on my left wrist. Pinkerton is expecting me.

Yes. Wendy nods, still smiling her head off. He's waiting for you right this moment, Mrs. Turner.

I stomp past a teenager with a bright green Mohawk. Past a couple dressed exactly alike, hissing at each other under their breath. Past a rather attractive older man who stares blankly out the window at the afternoon traffic. The sad, lost expression on his face makes me want to bawl my head off.

Thank God I’m not crazy, I mutter under my breath. I’m probably the only sane patient Pinkerton sees.

I peck twice on the door before walking into his apparently jungle-inspired office which is always dark, musty and cluttered with wild ferns and palm trees. The office smells faintly of vanilla incense and old leather. Dr. Pinkerton’s slight, runner’s body barely peeks past the hanging green stuff by the window.

Are you in crisis, Gigi? he pats the cracked leather loveseat beside his chair. Come. Sit. Share with me, Gigi.

Am I in crisis? Of course I am, I sit primly on the edge of the loveseat. I’m thinking for the billionth time this year how crazy it is that I am in a psychiatrist’s office and that he happens to be my lifeline even when I don’t want him to be.

What seems to be the problem? Pinkerton asks.

My ovary, I say. It's gone. It's shriveled up and gone. Maybe dead.

Saying it aloud starts that wave of panic I experienced at the gynecologist office. My chest freezes. What can I do to win back my ovary? How can I find it in this aging, wrinkled body?

Pinkerton crosses one skinny leg across a knobby knee. He is a marathon runner. Occasionally he meets with patients while wearing tiny mesh running shorts. Those days make my appointments difficult since I can see the perfect outline of his flaccid penis through the fabric. Unfortunately, it is a perfect little pencil pecker, snuggled in that flimsy mesh. Before I know it, my mind gallivants away and I’m thinking about why, at this age, I haven’t experienced more men and their penises.

A lost ovary, Pinkerton says. And that bothers you because...

To make myself focus, I pinch the skin on my arm. It's my ovary. And it's lost somewhere in my own body.

That happens sometimes as women age, Gigi, Dr. Pinkerton says.

I’m sure the head doctor wonders why women tell everything about everything. When I told him last month about my vaginal discharge, I knew he didn’t care whether I had crotch rot. He would not care if my entire vagina fell off, just as long as it doesn’t happen in his office. I’m sure he wonders why I tossed that topic across a psychiatrist’s desk. But the truth of the matter is that I am a hateful old bitch.

As he mulls over the news of the runaway ovary, Pinkerton reaches for a stick of spearmint gum. As he chews, he studies me.

An ovary is just as important as a testicle, I say with a sniff.

Pinkerton removes his outdated wire rim glasses, leans forward and studies my face for a long moment.

What are you looking at? I snap.

Your ovary is another loss in your life. Isn't it, Gigi? The same as the loss of Phillip.

I have not lost Phillip, Pinkie, I snarl. He's still my husband.

Here it is… the true issue, right here between us. Thousands of miles away from my displaced ovary.

Phillip lives on the third floor of your home, Pinkerton says slowly as if I need to re-trace the last few months of my personal hell. Phillip has not participated in your life for the last year.

I sit back against the couch as if Pinkerton's hot words have shoved me. Right against the fern fingers. All of a sudden, I don't care if leaves drip on top of my bob. My breath is caught in my throat, wedged in there between a million tears and a dormant rage.

I imagine my home. A lovely open floor plan. Sprawling square feet decorated beautifully with shades of white and a few touches of primary colors. Until lately, I loved my house. It reminded me of a cloud with a spill of crayons across it.

Pinkerton is right. Phillip is gone. Upstairs. Third room to the right. At the top of the stairs. He lives in there. In fact, I haven't seen Phillip, except one day two weeks ago, as he rushed out the back door to the garage. He was wearing the usual button down and slacks. The crown of his head looked less bald, almost furry. Maybe he invested in hair plugs.

Fucking Chia Pet, I muttered that day. My breath, hot on the window, left a fuzzy circle on the glass. That’s exactly what you look like, Phillip… someone’s Chia Pet.

I watched how he walked across the driveway with that slight limp from his bad knee. He climbed into his car, grabbed his sunglasses from the visor. Nothing out of the ordinary. No hint to explain why he apparently hates me, his wife. There’s no hint as to why he moved out of our life together, but not our house. On that day, I pressed my forehead against the cool glass with my eyes closed, trying to convince myself that somehow my life would go back to what it was for three decades. I was Phillip’s wife. Gregory, Bethany and Stuart’s mother. Berni’s best friend. Meredith Witt’s enemy. Where had Phillip gone? Without even leaving the house?

Do you deserve to be treated the way your husband treats you? Pinkerton's voice is soft. A tiny diamond stud twinkles in his ear.

It's a phase, I say, more for myself than for my shrink.

For a year? No, my dear, Pinkerton shakes his head. A phase is fleeting, Gigi. A year is...well, habit, hobby, lifestyle...

He'll be back, I whisper.

Losing your ovary is like losing Phillip, Dr. Pinkerton says. One day, Phillip suddenly resided in a separate world on the third floor.

I think about that day. It was last spring, after Phillip returned from a golf trip in Phoenix. On that warm afternoon, he blinked awake after a nap in his favorite chair, enjoyed a piece of peach cobbler with a big plop of melting vanilla ice cream and quietly announced that he needed space.

I was not exactly listening. Not exactly offering my undivided attention. I was looking at magazines, considering new furniture for the family room. And I was thinking about what to wear to the neighborhood block party. I was racking my brain, trying to remember what I wore to it last year. All those thoughts ran through my head so Phillip’s little whine about space, didn’t exactly register. I merely looked across the room at him, watched his mouth move for a couple of seconds and returned to my own decisions about color schemes and throw pillows and the possibility of wearing a cute pair of Capri pants to the block party.

Before finishing the last few bites of cobbler, Phillip disappeared down the hall. A few moments later, I followed the sounds of file drawers opening and closing and the squeak of his desk chair as he rolled from one side of the office to the other. He barely glanced at me as I studied him curiously from the doorway.

Are you moving your office to the top floor? I asked. Perspiration dotted his furry eyebrows. And something like fear tickled in the bottom of my stomach.

Philly? I smiled, calling him by that pet name from our dating days, hoping to make a connection which would lead to an explanation. I thought you hated to climb the stairs.

Phillip muttered something under his breath. Irritation clouded his face so I returned to the living room with my magazine. But I could not concentrate. My intuition screamed at me. Whatever was happening wasn’t good.

A while later, I heard his footsteps above my head, walking into our closet. A few moments later, the footsteps traveled up the steps to the third floor. Whatever he was doing felt immediate.

What's going on? I asked nervously. Are we divorcing? Is this a hint or something?

He needed private time, Phillip said as he ran his hand along my cheek.

What does that mean? I swallowed hard. But a lump was now growing from my stomach to my throat.

I need a room that’s only mine, Phillip said as he shoved his sweatshirts into a heap. I want my own closet and my own TV and my own bed.

Your own bed? I squeaked.

I just want to be alone, he said wearily.

There’s such a sadness on his face, I thought. Why haven’t I paid attention? Why haven’t I noticed how exhausted and worried and sad my husband seems to be? Is this about depression? Is he going through some kind of mid-life crisis?

I studied him again, noting that every time I tried to question him, irritation bristled on his face. I decided to make the moment light. Maybe Phillip would be more willing to share his feelings if he didn’t feel threatened.

Are you turning into a mole? I teased.

He didn’t answer so as I followed Phillip to the third floor bedroom and watched as he crowded the much smaller room with his possessions. There’s hardly enough room in here to change your mind, I said in that squeaky, nervous voice I hated. Isn’t it okay to leave your clothing in our bedroom. Philly? You can come up here to read or watch TV. Is it really necessary to have your own bed?

Yes Gigi, it is necessary, Phillip’s voice, now heavily peppered with irritation, had its usual effect. I wanted to know what exactly he was doing and why. But I didn’t want Phillip to be angry. I guess I didn’t need to always understand everything the man did. Right?

That evening, Phillip grilled ribs by the pool while I chopped all the fixings for salads. In thirty years together, I’ve known a few things about this guy. I knew he wouldn’t eat cucumbers but wanted extra cheese, boiled eggs and dressing splattered on top of his salad. I knew so much about this man. Yet I didn’t know why Phillip suddenly insisted on isolating himself from me in the third floor bedroom.

That night and every night after that, Phillip