The Wives. Tarryn Fisher

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      The most I’ve said about our situation. I immediately want to reel the words back in, swallow them down. I sound so jaded. It’s not a side of myself I’ve ever let Seth see. Men prefer the purrings of a confident, secure woman—that’s what the books say. That’s what Seth said about me in the first months of our dating: “I like that you’re not threatened by anything. You’re you no matter who else is in the room...” It isn’t that way now, is it? Two other women are in the room, and I notice them every minute of every day. I look around my small living room, my eyes touching the knickknacks and art that Seth and I chose together: a painting of an English seaside, a driftwood bowl that we found in Port Townsend in our first year of marriage, a pile of coffee table books that I swore I needed but have never paged through. All the things that comprise our lives, and yet none are filled with memories, or represent a joining of lives, like a baby would. He shares that bond with someone else. I suddenly feel depressed. Our existence together is a shallow one. If not for children, what is there? Sex? Companionship? Is anything more important than bringing life into the world? I reach up absently to lay a hand on my womb. Forever empty.