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The bed was cold when she woke up. April groggily extended an arm towards her husband’s side of the bed and was surprised to find it empty. Usually he couldn’t manage to drag himself out of bed until April was almost ready to go to work, lured by the knowledge that there’d be some freshly brewed coffee.
She hauled herself out of bed and applied herself to the task of making herself look human. When she went downstairs, she was greeted by a hastily scrawled note in her husband’s chicken scratch next to a mug of half drunk coffee.
‘Early meeting. Be home late. –S’
April had a brief moment of annoyance—why couldn’t he just tell her these things ahead of time?—but it had passed by the time she rinsed out his cup and loaded it in the dishwasher. She thought about texting him to ask him what time he’d be back, but he’d never reacted well to those kinds of questions, especially when he’d gone to the trouble of notifying her what was going on.
The rest of the day was uneventful. Work was work. Grocery shopping was as aggravating as usual. Her husband still wasn’t home when got back, and she tapped her fingers against the steering wheel, thinking yet again about calling him to ask when he’d be there. She argued with herself while making dinner, but at the end, she just made a plate up for him and put it in the fridge.
She was halfway through a forgettable book that her mother claimed would change her life when her husband finally arrived. He made his way to her immediately with his coat still on.
“How was your day?” she asked, trying not to sound too eager.
“Fine,” he said, and sat down on the couch next to her.
“Mine was fine too. I made you dinner,” April replied, setting her book aside.
Her husband paused for a long moment; then said, “I want a divorce.”
Her stomach emptied out, and her hands began to shake. She was so focused on steadying her hands that she didn’t notice at first that she was crying. April was horrified—her husband hated it when she cried—but then she realized that it didn’t matter and began to weep even harder.
“You had to know it wasn’t working, this marriage,” he said in a low voice, like he was trying to soothe her. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
April realized that he was waiting for her to say something. “Why?” she managed to gasp out.
“I’m not happy, and I haven’t been happy for a while,” he said, looking at car keys in his hands. “Maybe we could have this conversation when you’ve calmed down some.”
He always did this kind of thing. Any kind of negative emotion out of April would make him profoundly uncomfortable, and he’d always find some excuse to leave. Generally he was smoother about it: something would come at work right at the moment that April started to get angry in a fight or he’d forget that he made plans with his friends whenever April would get upset about her job.
“I rented a hotel room, so I’ll be there until we decide who gets the house,” he said, standing up and leaving before April could reach out and grab him by the arm.
She was glad of it, almost. How pathetic would she have to be to literally cling to her husband at that point? She thought about getting up to call someone but couldn’t muster the energy. Anyways, she had no idea what she’d tell them. My husband wants a divorce, he won’t tell me why, and I had no idea that he felt like that didn’t seem adequate. Instead, she cried herself to sleep on the couch.
She woke up in her bed the next morning. It was cold, but that was to be expected. She didn’t remember getting into bed, but she must have woken up in the night and stumbled in.
April staggered out of bed in search of a phone to call in sick to work. She sounded so abjectly miserable that her boss didn’t even ask her to try to suck it up and come in regardless, his normal response. She curled back up in bed and started crying anew when she realized that the sheets still smelled of him. Eventually, she fell back asleep.
Hours later, her stomach woke her again, and she ventured downstairs in search of sustenance. The note that her husband had left her yesterday was still on the counter next to a mug of room temperature coffee. April frowned. She was sure she’d cleaned that up yesterday. It was hard to tell, it was hard to think about anything other than her oppressive misery. Unwilling to deal with it, she grabbed the last bagel out of the bread box and retreated back to the bedroom.
Impulsively, she pulled off the sheets and then immediately ran out of momentum. She balled them up and threw them in the general direction of the hamper and fell back into bed. After finishing her bagel, she alternated between sleeping and staring at the ceiling trying to will herself not to cry and trying to figure out what was it that was wrong with her that made her husband want to leave.
She was startled out of her malaise by the sound of someone opening the front door. For a moment, she thought he was coming back to tell her that he’d made a horrible mistake. Then she forced herself to be practical and decided that he’d probably forgot something, like a change of clothes. At that thought, she leapt out of bed and dashed into the bathroom in a panic. She didn’t want him to see her like this, an unwashed mess with her face all puffy from crying.
She heard him slowly moving around the house, in search of something. After making a circuit around the house, he began to call out. “April? April? Where are you? I saw your car in the driveway?”
Unsure of what was worse, him seeing her or him knowing that she was hiding from him, she put her hand on the doorknob and tried to make a decision. It was made for her a minute later when he finally arrived in their bedroom.
“April? Are you in here? What did you do to the bed?” he asked.
“I’m in here,” she replied and opened the door.
“Are you ok? You look sick,” he said, with more shock than concern in his tone of voice.
“I’m fine,” she said, reflexively, and attempted to smooth down her hair.
He looked down at his hands. “I’d wait until you felt better, but I’ve waited long enough already. I want a divorce.”
April thought she was going to laugh. He’d already told her that yesterday. Did he think this counted as having this conversation again? Or, worse, did he think she didn’t understand it and needed to go over the concept again.
Finally he looked at her, clearly waiting for a response.
“I know,” April said, wiping away tears. A remote part of her was surprised that she still had enough water in her to do that.
“Oh good,” he said, relieved. “Maybe we could have the rest of this conversation when you’ve calmed down some. I’ve rented a hotel room, so I’ll be there until we decide who gets the house.” With that, he left.
The rest of the night proceeded much like the last one, but this time she cried herself to sleep in her now sheet-less bed instead of on the couch.
The bed was cold when she woke up again. Somehow there were sheets on it. Maybe she woke up and put them on in the middle of the night or maybe total despair induces sleepwalking. Again, she went to call in sick to work and again her boss told her it was fine. He didn’t complain about her taking two days off in a row, which was truly considerate of him.
Eventually, she went downstairs for food, only to be confronted yet again with her husband’s note and coffee cup. Today, she carefully emptied out the mug and then dumped it in the trash along with the note. It didn’t make her feel any better. She opened the bread box and noted that there appeared to be another bagel. Like yesterday, she took it back to her bedroom and she spent the rest of the day rather like how she’d spent the previous one, just in a bed with sheets.
Some time in the evening, she heard the front door being opened again. This time, she got up and went to meet him. He’d already seen her yesterday and she could hardly look worse.
“Did you forget something?” she asked in an attempt to be casual when she caught him in the living room.
“No,” he replied and looked down at his hands. “I want a divorce.”
“You already told me that,” she said.
“No, I didn’t,” he said, confused.
“Yes, you did. Yesterday and the day before that,” she said and was dismayed to find that she was crying again.
“No, April, I didn’t,” he said, “are you sick? You don’t look so good.”
“My husband wants a divorce, how am I supposed to look? Like I’m glowing?” she snapped, suddenly feeling furious at him for thinking she was such an idiot that he’d need to tell her over and over again to get it to sink in.
“You know I can’t deal with you when you’re like this,” he replied slowly backing away. “Maybe we’ll talk about this when you’re calmer.”
“You said that before, you’ve already told me, how can I be calm at a time like this?” she said.
“Call your mom, I have a room at a hotel that I’m going to be staying at until we figure out who gets the house.” And, again, he was gone.
April slowly fell to the floor, all of her anger drained out of her. She thought about following his advice, but discarded it. The whole thing was strange, her husband hated confrontation, why was he dragging it out by coming to see her every evening?
Unable to come to a satisfying answer, just like she was able to come to satisfying conclusion about why her husband wanted to leave her, she eventually fell asleep on the couch.
She woke up in bed again. She felt, not better, she certainly didn’t feel better, but more focused, clearer. There was no way that she had gone to sleep here. Confused, she got up and went to the kitchen. Her husband’s note and mug was back on the counter. Her stomach turned over. Her first impulse was to blame her memory, her second to get angry at her husband trying to rub her face in their divorce. Her hands shaking, she went to her cell phone to call him and yell at him about it.
Screw him and screw what he wanted. If he was going to jerk her around like this, then she was going to give him a piece of her mind. She held her phone and stared at it blankly for a long time. As she was about to put it down in defeat, she noticed the date. She noticed that the date was wrong.
She knew it was a Saturday, but her phone said it was Wednesday, the day that her husband had first told her he was leaving. Sure that something had gone wrong with it, she took it over to her computer, fully committed to figuring it out. Only to see that her computer also seemed to think that it was Wednesday. Calmly, she typed in ‘today’s date’ into google and it too claimed it was Wednesday.
Her husband didn’t know nearly enough to pull something like this off with computers. In fact, the only person she knew that was remotely good at programming was Jolene. The only issue is that April had no idea why Jolene would even want to do something like that. Jolene was always so earnest, and they were coworkers that sometimes got lunch together. It wasn’t exactly the kind of relationship that invited pranks, especially something as cruel as this.
Her clearly tampered with phone rang. She picked it up on autopilot.
“Where are you?” her boss barked out. “You were supposed to be here an hour ago.”
“It’s Saturday,” April replied.
“No, it’s not. It’s Wednesday.” he said. “You have work today.”
“Okay,” she said, playing along. “I’ll be there soon, I overslept.” She still had no idea what was going on, but she had a feeling that Jolene had something to do with it. Everybody at work loved Jolene, she hadn’t realized that her boss was among that number, but clearly he was and clearly she put him up to it.
“You better be,” he growled and hung up without so much as a by your leave.
Her mind busy with what she was going to say to Jolene, April got ready, pausing to throw out the note and the mug, and drove to work faster than was prudent and definitely faster than was legal.
Her determination crumpled as soon as she stepped into her office. Everybody was there and appeared to be actually working. As beloved as Jolene was, getting everybody to show up to work on a weekend seemed implausible. For lack of a better option, she went to her cubicle and stared uncomprehendingly at the report she was supposed to be writing.
After an hour or so, after her boss had come by to ream her out about being late, April saw Jolene out of the corner of her eye. Without consciously deciding to, she got up and followed Jolene into the bathroom.
Jolene turned to her and smiled when she saw April. It didn’t look malicious, it looked like she genuinely was happy to see her.
“What’s going on?” April asked.
“What?” Jolene replied.
“What’s going on? Why isn’t it Saturday?”
“Because it’s Wednesday? I wish it was the weekend too, but that’s not the way the world works.”
“That’s not what,” April lowered her voice as one of her coworkers exited a stall and left without washing her hands. “Not what I’m talking about.”
“I don’t understand.” Jolene said, smiling again.
“On Wednesday, my husband told me that he wanted a divorce. That was three days ago. It can’t be Wednesday again.”
Jolene’s eyes grew large. “Oh April, are you okay? No, wait, that’s a stupid question, you are clearly not okay, but it’s definitely Wednesday. I saw your husband this morning in the lobby but I had no idea. He didn’t say anything.”
“Why would he tell you anything if he didn’t even tell me?” April asked and began to cry yet again.
“Oh honey,” Jolene exhaled and pulled April into a hug. April felt intensely awkward, but it was comforting enough that she let herself relax into it until she could pull herself together enough.
“I don’t think you should be at work right now,” Jolene said and took her by the arm and started guiding her out of the bathroom and in the direction of April’s boss’s office.
“I don’t want to tell him anything,” April confessed.
“I’ll handle it,” Jolene said. And she did. Ten minutes later, she’d gotten permission for April to take a sick day and had finagled April out to her car. Jolene paused, took April’s phone out, and put her number in.
Jolene said, “you should really lock this, you know. But call me if you need anything. Seriously, call me.”
April mumbled something and drove home. She ended up back in her room, this time with a sandwich, and collapsed on top of it until she heard her husband coming home yet again.
She was still in her work clothes, so presentable, though her makeup probably looked a mess, and she managed to sit up by the time he entered her bedroom.
“There you are,” he greeted her.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“I need to talk to you,” he said and looked down at his hands.
April was filled with a powerful feeling of apprehension. “You want a divorce.”
He glanced up, surprised. “Yes, how did you know?”
“You told me,” she said.
“No, I didn’t,” he replied.
“I guessed then,” and again she began to weep. She hated herself for it, but she couldn’t control herself apparently.
“Maybe we could talk about this when you’re calmer.”
“Okay,” she said.
This time he left without telling her about the hotel.
April’s mind raced. She didn’t have any explanation for why she was stuck living this day over and over again, but that was clearly what was happening. She fell asleep in the middle of planning out what she was going to do.
The bed was cold the next morning when she woke up, but she was somewhat used to it at this point. Trying to keep her mind as blank as possible, she got up and went downstairs. The note and her husband’s half drunk cup of coffee was there, like it had been for the last five mornings. Mechanically, she went upstairs and got ready for work.
When she parked her car at work, before going in, she walked over to her husband’s parking spot. She’d chosen to work at her current job primarily because he was a lawyer in the firm downstairs, and she didn’t really see him otherwise. Sometimes, he’d text her that he was free, she’d pick up lunch, and they’d eat out in her car. Logically, they should share one and commute in together, but he’d reacted badly when she’d suggested it. He’d been the person to suggest she’d work there in the first place, and she’d never understood why he held it against it and used it as proof she was clingy when it had been his idea in the first place.
His car was there, so Jolene’s comment yesterday, or in the previous repeat, the terminology was confusing, about how she’d seen him was accurate. April remembered all of a sudden that Jolene had said she’d talked to him and she needed to know immediately what it was that he said.
Before she knew, she was dragging Jolene by the arm into the supply closet.
“What did you say to my husband this morning?” April asked.
“I’m sorry, what’s going on?” Jolene asked.
“I know you talked to him this morning, what did he say?”
“He said hi, like he does most mornings,” Jolene replied, looking confused.
“You talk to him most mornings?” April asked.
“Yeah,” Jolene then paused, “Are you ok?”
“No, I am not okay,” April snarled, “What is it that you talk to him about.”
“The weather, mostly. Work sometimes. He makes a stupid joke about how I’m too pretty and too female to be in I.T. a lot. You occasionally.”
“Did he tell you that he wanted a divorce?” April asked.
Jolene looked shocked and then guilty. And April all of a sudden knew. She knew exactly why her husband didn’t want to be married to her any more.
Months and months ago, back when her husband made an effort once in a while to see her, he'd surprised her at her cubicle with lunch from the next door deli. Jolene had been leaning over April's shoulder, trying to explain how the new file backup system worked, driving April crazy trying to figure out what she smelled like, when he'd entered.
"Hey, is it not a good time?" he'd asked.
"Oh, no," April had said too fast, thrilled that he'd come to see her, "I think we're done here?"
"Sure," Jolene said, straightening up, "I have a meeting in about five minutes."
"We wouldn't want to keep you from that," he'd said, "Hi, I'm Steve."
"Jolene," she'd replied, sticking out her hand. "Do you work on this floor? I don't think I've seen you around here, but this place's so big that that doesn't mean a lot."
"No, I work at the firm downstairs. I'm a lawyer," he added.
"He's my husband," April interrupted and then immediately regretted it.
"Nice to meet you, April’s husband," Jolene had said with a small, apologetic grin. “I really should be going.”
As she left, Jolene turned and gave them one of her best, full-hearted smiles. April would later spend hours trying to describe it, this expression that had hooked into her husband so completely, but at the time all she did was beam back helplessly for a moment. Then she’d looked over at her husband watching Jolene and her stomach turned over.
She’d tried to put this out of her mind—her husband was a man, he was going to ogle other women once in a while and April was fully aware of the effect someone as beautiful as Jolene had on people. Apparently she’d been successful enough that in all her soul searching for an answer about the breakdown of her marriage, she’d never once thought about Jolene stealing him.
Returning to the present, April began to weep, yet again, in earnest. “Jolene, please, please don’t take him. I love him so much. I know that I’m not anything compared to you, but I need him. Please, Jolene,” she babbled.
Jolene said, her face tight “I don’t want him. I wouldn’t do that to someone, let alone to you of all people.”
“Jolene, please,” April begged.
“I think you should go home. Let me go talk to your boss.” Jolene said, and edged past April and out the door. She returned shortly and escorted April to her car.
“I know you don’t believe me, but I don’t want anything to do with him,” Jolene said sadly.
It took April a while to pull herself together, but eventually she did. She wasn’t sure why this was happening to her, but maybe she was getting the chance to keep him from leaving her. She just had to figure out how.
She waited in the living room for her husband to return. At a little after eight, April was careful to note the time, he did.
He came in and stared at his hands. “I want a divorce.”
Through an extreme force of will, April kept from sobbing. Repetition wasn’t making this any easier. “Why?”
“I’m not happy, and I haven’t been happy for a while,” he replied.
“Are you leaving me for someone else?” April demanded.
He glanced up at her. “Yes,” he admitted.
April began to cry, her worst fears realized.
“Maybe we’ll talk about this when you’re calmer,” he said, and left her all alone.
She woke up again in her freezing cold bed. Halfway through getting ready for work, she was stuck by inspiration. He couldn’t tell her he wanted a divorce if he couldn’t get in contact with her. After methodically packing herself a lunch and calling in sick, she got in her car and started to drive.
She spent the whole day aimlessly driving in whatever direction appealed at that moment, stopping only for gas. At about eight thirty, she saw that her husband was calling her. She carefully pulled over to the side of the road and picked up.
“Hello,” she said.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“Out,” she replied.
“Are you going to be home soon?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
“I didn’t want to do this over the phone, but I can’t wait another day. I want a divorce.” he said. “Maybe we can talk it over in person later.”
She began to laugh after he hung up, and then full on sobbed in her car. Somehow she ended up at a cheap motel, the kind that give you bedbugs, but it didn’t matter because she woke up in her own cold bed.
She tried it again the next day, but this time she didn’t pick up the phone when he called. He gave up after five calls and left two messages an hour apart.
“This is Steve. Where are you? Why aren’t you answering? I need to talk to you. Call me back.” The first one said.
“I’m sorry to do this over answering machine, but I can’t wait. I want a divorce. Maybe we can talk it over in person later.” The second one said.
April ended up at home again.
She gave it another go, but this time she left her phone at home. She still woke up in her bed, alone, on Wednesday.
After that, she realized running wasn’t going to work. Obviously, she needed to get her husband to change his mind, and she had a good idea about how to do so: convince Jolene to not take her man.
She drove to work and confronted Jolene. It ended with her crying and Jolene petitioning April’s boss to let her take the rest of the day off. April needed to plan this out better and she brainstormed until it was time for her husband to, once again, tell her he was leaving her.
She tried begging, she tried threats. She thought about killing Jolene, but quickly discarded the idea. That was way, way too far for her, and if the price of her husband’s love was murder, she couldn’t do it. Before long her days fell into a weird routine. Wake up in a cold bed. Eat breakfast. Drive to her office. Confront Jolene. Go home early. Listen calmly to her husband tell her that he wanted a divorce. Cry herself to sleep. Rinse and repeat.
One day, out of the blue, her husband told her that he was in love with someone else for, and she didn't have to fight off tears immediately. Another, later, day, Jolene told her, sitting out on a bench in front of their office, that she didn't love April's husband, and April believed her a little.
Slowly, slowly, April began to feel more normal again, more numb to the one-two punch of her conversations with Jolene and her husband. She began to think about all the things, besides the obvious, that were wrong with her marriage. How he was afraid of commitment. How she tried way too hard to please him all the time. April had thought, when she married him, that it was okay for her to love him more than he loved her. It had to be impossible for two people to love exactly the same amount, but she overlooked how big the difference was.
Finally, one day, she went to work, asked Jolene to have lunch with her and didn’t grill her about Steve. She just sat there with Jolene and realized that while her husband may be in love with Jolene, Jolene didn’t feel the same way at all. No woman who was in love with another woman’s husband could be so nice to the wife.
She went home and cooked herself a nice dinner. Pasta with vegetables, one of her favorites. Steve came home at eight and found her on the couch, almost finished with the insipid book her mother had recommended. He sat down next to her and stared at his hands.
“I want a divorce,” April said, before he could.
He looked at her with shock.
“I’m not happy. I haven’t been happy for a while, but I didn’t let myself realize it,” she continued. “Maybe we could talk about it later, when you’ve had some time to think about it. I think you should stay at a hotel in the meantime.”
“Are you kicking me out?” he asked.
“Actually, now that I think about it, you can stay. I’ll go.” April said, getting up. She quickly grabbed a change of clothes and turned back one last time to look at him on the couch, still in his coat, his keys in his hand.
She treated herself to a nice four star hotel with the fanciest sheets she’d ever felt. And so the next day when she woke up and her bed was cold, she knew by touch that it was Thursday. She smiled, turned over in bed, and resolved to take another sick day.