Dispatches From the Trenches of Domestic Life

Six years ago my wife gave me a pair of house slippers. My first ever. A domestic present I thought signaled some new phase of my life. I thanked her. Tried them on. Plush fur lined the inside. I stood up to make a show of enjoying them. Then she handed me a much smaller set of slippers. These had monkeys stitched onto the top of the feet. This is how she told me.

Prior to this we had a fight. Several. The theme of each was my wanting to be a writer and her wanting to have a family. It was a question of time. How much of it we were given and what we would do with it. It was a question of passion. Where it rose in us and how we would dole it out to the world.

My son came out blue, cone-headed, and silent. I was holding my wife’s leg, watching everything. She did not make a sound during labor. Silent willfulness held sway