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All couples argue. Benji and Dana were no different before and after getting married. In fact, sometimes, he looked forward to it because the make-up sex was incredible.
The first big fight they ever had, the one that made him doubt whether marriage could last, was over a cupcake. Dana was six months pregnant with their second child. Exhausted from looking after their eldest and trying to juggle work. Benji accidentally ate the cupcake she'd been saving for after dinner.
It may have started over a cupcake, but it spiralled into every argument they avoided having. Every little thing that was wrong in their lives was thrown at each other like an unpinned grenade. After hours of fighting, Benji wasn't shocked when she packed a bag and took their daughter. Dana needed time to cool down. He needed time. He thought she'd go to one of her sisters. It was what she usually did.
But not that time. No, she went to Robby. The friend she constantly told him not to worry about. For two weeks, he was left to flip from wanting her to come home to seething with jealousy.
Their youngest was five the evening she came home wearing Robby’s shirt. “If I was screwing him, I'd hardly come home wearing his clothes,” Dana responded when Benji questioned it.
“Do you want to?” Benji had asked, arms folded across his chest. “Screw him?”
Dana just huffed, rolled her eyes, and went outside for a cigarette. She never said no. Dana had promised never to lie to him no matter how uncomfortable the truth was. You can't lie if you don't say anything.
When Dana got pregnant with their third child, a boy, he'd always wanted a son. Benji loved their daughters, he'd die for them without a second thought. He didn't understand why he desperately wanted a son, but he did. Maybe Dana had always sensed that.
Benji believed in God while Dana had lost her faith years ago. There was only so many times anyone could watch people die for no reason before they parted ways with God.
He didn't understand why God punished them, making her lose the baby. It should have brought them closer. It didn't. It was never more painfully obvious than when he came home from visiting his mom and Robby was in his house. Cooking dinner for his wife. His daughters. Then in his garden smoking his wife's cigarettes.
“You should get a vasectomy,” Robby dropped halfway through smoking his cigarette. He didn't look at Benji. “Excuse fucking me.”
“f you love your wife, ensure you can't get her pregnant again,” Robby said slowly as if he was explaining something to a small child who knew nothing about the world. “I was there when she lost the baby. I'm telling you as her friend and as a doctor, mentally and physically another pregnancy and you'll lose her one way or the other.”
There was something deeply unsettling about another man buying his wife jewellery. Dana rarely took off the cross Robby bought her. Benji had seen her take off her wedding ring as if it was nothing.
If he mentioned it she pulled further away from him. He would wake up in the middle of the night, bed empty. It never took long to find her. Downstairs on the phone to Robby. The way she smiled when she was speaking to him, it hurt.
“Babe I could have told you she and you weren't going to work out,” Dana said, eyes half closed. Head lolling against the back of the sofa. She reached for the cross around her neck and fiddled with it. Benji didn't make a sound because it was like watching a version of her he never got to see anymore. “She was way too weird about me giving you a star of David.”
He wasn't sure how they got into a rut of no sex. She was always tired. He was busy. Kids, work, all the in-between stuff. Before he knew it eighteen months had passed and he fucked up.
Benji did the right thing and came clean right away. It was nothing. It meant nothing. He expected the arguing of course he did. Only a moron wouldn't.
He didn't expect it to get so loud his youngest phoned Robby in tears. He and Dana were too busy fighting to know about it until Robby was in their house.
“I know you want to kill him but think of the girls okay,” Robby half whispered, hand rubbing circles on her back. “Go pack them and you a few things, come to mine and calm down.”
Benji couldn't decide what stung more, his wife being placated and soothed by him or how his children stuck close to Robby while she packed. As if he could make everything okay in the world.
It took six months of begging and pressure from the rest of Dana's family before she took him back. She might have let go of God but they certainly hadn't. Catholic to the core. She might be home but if she wasn't working with Robby then he was in their house for dinner or to watch a movie.
“I think the kitchen needs redecorating,” Dana commented, legs over Robby's lap as he massaged her feet. Benji didn't care if they redecorated it or not. He'd have liked to be asked about it. All the mundane stuff he used to sigh about hearing, he'd like to hear again. “I hate that color.”
“Do you want me to do it on my next day off?” Robby asked.
“When you start paying the mortgage you can paint it,” Benji snapped, tapping fingers against his knee. Sitting in an armchair Dana had never wanted but his mom insisted they needed. He had sided with his mom.
“I do. I pay Dana half of the mortgage. Have been for a while,” Robby answered. “Don't worry she pays half towards my apartment, what with us staying at each other's place so much it just makes sense to contribute to each other's bills.”
“I'll hire someone, you have many skills Robinavitch but decorating isn't one of them,” Dana answered, letting out a sigh as he began to massage her foot deeper.