Chapter 3

On the day of Weiss's college seventieth-anniversary gala, I went with him to the dinner.

Before we left, he picked out my earrings.

I reached for a pair of pearls; he shook his head.

"These."

He drew a different pair out of the jewelry box.

"Your neckline's simple. Something longer looks better."

He bent his head to fasten them for me.

His fingers brushed my earlobe.

I suddenly remembered our second year of marriage, when he'd put my earrings on for me just like this.

My coworkers all envied me.

And he really had loved me, once, and loved me well.

Rosalie was already at the banquet hall when we arrived.

She wore a long dark-green dress.

Someone handed her a drink, and the moment she reached for it, Jacob took it from her.

"You'll have this."

He swapped it for a soda.

Rosalie laughed. "Professor Weiss, I'm not seventeen anymore."

"Seventeen or thirty, drinking still gives you a headache."

"You remember that?"

"You threw up all over my car after your high school graduation dinner."

Everyone around us laughed.

Rosalie laughed too.

"You hold a grudge."

"I have a good memory," Jacob said mildly.

Last year I'd invited Jacob to my company's annual party.

He said that kind of pointless socializing was a waste of time, and in the end he didn't come.

That night my department head kept pushing drinks on me.

I got home and was sick everywhere.

Jacob cleaned it up and made me a bowl of hangover soup.

The next day he told me, in all seriousness, "Since you know you can't drink, you should turn it down ahead of time."

Back then I thought he had a point.

Only now do I see it.

He didn't only tell people how to save themselves.

With Rosalie, he simply took the glass out of her hand.

Partway through the meal, someone set down a dish topped with crushed peanuts.

Jacob reached over and switched out the plate in front of Rosalie.

"You broke out in a rash from peanuts as a kid."

Rosalie paused.

"That was years ago."

"An allergy doesn't just disappear because time passes."

I looked down at the seafood pastry in front of me.

I'm allergic to seafood too.

In our third year of marriage, I'd bitten into a shrimp by accident at a friend's wedding.

After the rash came up, I asked Jacob to take me to the ER.

He drove, and said, very seriously, "You should check the ingredients first. An adult can't hand responsibility for their own safety to someone else."

All of it correct.

Every word correct.

So why, with Rosalie, did he never say any of it?

Halfway through the dinner, one of the faculty teased, smiling,

"Jacob, why have you been orbiting Miss Winfield all night? Anyone who didn't know would think she was the spouse."

The table went quiet.

Rosalie was the first to laugh.

"Don't say things like that, his wife's right here."

She turned to look at me.

"You won't mind, will you? Jacob's been like this since we were kids, always fussing over me."

Before I could say anything.

Jacob said, mildly, "Effie isn't that petty."

He even ladled some soup into my bowl.

"Right?"

Everyone was watching me.

And it struck me.

In these seven years, he had defined me too many times.

Effie's sensible, Effie won't mind, Effie isn't fussy.

Over time.

Even I had nearly forgotten that there were times I didn't want to be sensible.

I set down my spoon.

"I do mind."

The table went dead silent. Jacob's hand stopped, and Rosalie froze too.

I looked at her and smiled.

"So from now on, the things you can look after yourself, you should look after yourself."

Rosalie's face went a little pale.

"His wife, I didn't mean…"

Jacob cut her off. "Effie."

His voice wasn't loud.

But that one word was all warning.

I turned my head to face him.

"What?"

"It's the college's celebration today."

"I know."

"Say what you have to say at home."

I laughed then.

"Did I say something shameful?"

Jacob's brow drew down.

In the end it was Rosalie who smoothed it over.

"It's my fault, he's spoiled me."

She lifted her soda and touched it to my glass.

"Don't be angry. From now on I'll keep my distance from your husband."

Half serious, half not, and the people around us laughed again.

I laughed too.

Only Jacob didn't.

On the drive back, he stayed silent the whole way.

He didn't speak until we hit a red light. "You really embarrassed Rosalie today."

"Did I embarrass her?"

"Everyone could tell."

"And what about me?"

He glanced at me.

"What about you?"

"Did it ever occur to you what it felt like for me, standing there?"

Jacob rubbed his brow.

"Effie, she just got back to the country, she doesn't have many familiar faces around her. It's perfectly normal for me to look after her a little."

I asked quietly,

"Why is it that with me, you're always teaching me how to handle things?"

"But with her, you just handle them for her?"

Jacob was stunned for a few seconds.

Then he said, "Because you're capable of handling them. Isn't that a good thing?"

I leaned back against the seat and suddenly didn't want to say anything more.

He probably really didn't understand.

When a person is praised for being independent for too long.

Sometimes it isn't because she's strong by nature.

It's only because she knows that reaching out won't catch her anything.