Stephen King: A Good Marriage

“All right.”

“And don’t forget to take your Prilosec.”

He beamed at her. “You bet.”

She watched him go bounding up the stairs, thought of saying Don’t do that, Bobby, don’t test your heart like that.

But no.

No.

Let him test it all he wanted.

The sun came up the next day. And the next. A week went by, then two, then a month. They resumed their old ways, the small habits of a long marriage. She brushed her teeth while he was in the shower (usually singing some hit from the eighties in a voice that was on-key but not particularly melodious), although she no longer did it naked, meaning to step into the shower as soon as he’d vacated it; now she showered after he’d left for B, B & A. If he noticed this little change in her modus operandi, he didn’t mention it. She resumed her book club, telling the other ladies and the two retired gentlemen who took part that she had been feeling under the weather and didn’t want to pass on a virus along with her opinion of the new Barbara Kingsolver, and everyone chuckled politely. A week after that, she resumed the knitting circle, Knuts for Knitting. Sometimes she caught herself singing along with the radio when she came back from the post office or the grocery store. She and Bob watched TV at night—always comedies, never the forensic crime shows. He came home early now; there had been no more road trips since the one to Montpelier. He got something called Skype for his computer, saying he could look at coin collections just as easily that way and save on gas. He didn’t say it would also save on temptation, but he didn’t have to. She watched the papers to see if Marjorie Duvall’s ID showed up, knowing if he had lied about that, he would lie about everything. But it didn’t. Once a week they went out to dinner at one of Yarmouth’s two inexpensive restaurants. He ordered steak and she ordered fish. He drank iced tea and she had a Cranberry Breeze. Old habits died hard. Often, she thought, they don’t die until we do.

In the daytime, while he was gone, she now rarely turned on the television. It was easier to listen to the refrigerator with it off, and to the small creaks and groans of their nice Yarmouth house as it settled toward another Maine winter. It was easier to think. Easier to face the truth: he would do it again. He would hold off as long as he could, she would gladly give him that much, but sooner or later Beadie would gain the upper hand. He wouldn’t send the next woman’s ID to the police, thinking that might be enough to fool her, but probably not caring if she saw through the change in MO. Because, he would reason, she’s a part of it now. She’d have to admit she knew. The cops would get it out of her even if she tried to hide that part.

Donnie called from Ohio. The business was going great guns; they had landed an office products account that might go national. Darcy said hooray (and so did Bob, cheerily admitting he’d been wrong about Donnie’s chances of making it so young). Petra called to say they had tentatively decided on blue dresses for the bridesmaids, A-line, knee-high, matching chiffon scarves, and did Darcy think that was all right, or would outfits like that look a bit childish? Darcy said she thought they would look sweet, and the two of them went on to a discussion of shoes—blue pumps with three-quarter-inch heels, to be exact. Darcy’s mother got sick down in Boca Grande, and it looked like she might have to go into the hospital, but then they started her on some new medication and she got well. The sun came up and the sun went down. The paper jack-o’-lanterns in the store windows went down and paper turkeys went up. Then the Christmas decorations went up. The first snow flurries appeared, right on schedule.

In her house, after her husband had taken his briefcase and gone to work, Darcy moved through the rooms, pausing to look into the various mirrors. Often for a long time. Asking the woman inside that other world what she should do.

Increasingly the answer seemed to be that she would do nothing.

On an unseasonably warm day two weeks before Christmas, Bob came home in the middle of the afternoon, shouting her name. Darcy was upstairs, reading a book. She tossed it on the night table (beside the hand mirror that had now taken up permanent residence there) and flew down the hall to the landing. Her first thought (horror mixed with relief) was that it was finally over. He had been found out. The police would soon be here. They would take him away, then come back to ask her the two age-old questions: what did she know, and when did she know it? News vans would park on the street. Young men and women with good hair would do stand-ups in front of their house.

Except that wasn’t fear in his voice; she knew it for what it was even before he reached the foot of the stairs and turned his face up to her. It was excitement. Perhaps even jubilation.

“Bob? What—”

“You’ll never believe it!” His topcoat hung open, his face was flushed all the way to the forehead, and such hair as he still had was blown every which way. It was as if he had driven home with all his car windows open. Given the springlike quality of the air, Darcy supposed he might’ve.

She came down cautiously and stood on the first riser, which put them eye-to-eye. “Tell me.”

“The most amazing luck! Really! If I ever needed a sign that I’m on the right track again—that we are—boy, this is it!” He held out his hands. They were closed into fists with the knuckles up. His eyes were sparkling. Almost dancing. “Which hand? Pick.”

“Bob, I don’t want to play g—”

“Pick!”

She pointed to his right hand, just to get it over with. He laughed. “You read my mind… but you always could, couldn’t you?”

He turned his fist over and opened it. On his palm lay a single coin, tails-side up, so she could see it was a wheat penny. Not uncirculated by any means, but still in great shape. Assuming there were no scratches on the Lincoln side, she thought it was either F or VF. She reached for it, then paused. He nodded for her to go ahead. She turned it over, quite sure of what she would see. Nothing else could adequately explain his excitement. It was what she expected: a 1955 double-date. A double- die, in numismatic terms.

“Holy God, Bobby! Where…? Did you buy it?” An uncirculated ’55 double-die had recently sold at an auction in Miami for over eight thousand dollars, setting a new record. This one wasn’t in that kind of shape, but no coin dealer with half a brain would have let it go for under four.

“God no! Some of the other fellows invited me to lunch at that Thai place, Eastern Promises, and I almost went, but I was working the goddarn Vision Associates account—you know, the private bank I told you about?—and so I gave Monica ten bucks and told her to get me a sandwich and a Fruitopia at Subway. She brought it back with the change in the bag. I shook it out… and there it was!” He plucked the penny from her hand and held it over his head, laughing up at it.

She laughed with him, then thought (as these days she often did): HE DID NOT “SUFFER!”

“Isn’t it great, honey?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’m happy for you.” And, odd or not ( perverse or not), she really was. He had brokered sales of several over the years and could have bought one for himself any old time, but that wasn’t the same as just coming across one. He had even forbidden her to give him one for Christmas or his birthday. The great accidental find was a collector’s most joyous moment, he had said so during their first real conversation, and now he had what he had been checking handfuls of change for all his life. His heart’s desire had come spilling out of a white sandwich-shop paper bag along with a turkey-bacon wrap.