My Husband Kept Scheduling Over My Night Classes—Then I Learned Why My Degree Made Him So Uncomfortable

PART 3

I leaned back in my desk chair and looked through the glass wall of my little office at a stack of sod waiting to be entered into inventory.

“What else did he say?” I asked.

Hannah made the sound she made when she wished one of her parents would voluntarily become easier.

“Nothing terrible.”

“That is not an answer.”

“He said you wanted something to do now that I’m out of the house.”

I closed my eyes.

“I already have things to do.”

“I know.”

“And I told both of you I’m in the degree-completion program.”

“I know that now.”

“Now?”

“Mom.”

I heard somebody say her name in the background at her office.

She lowered her voice. “Dad made it sound like you weren’t sure. Like you missed taking classes but never really cared about finishing.”

For a second I was not angry. I was twenty-two again, standing in the kitchen of our first apartment with a past-due electric bill under a salt shaker and a yellow legal pad full of arithmetic we had done three times.

One tuition bill could fit.

Two could not.

Mark’s engineering courses ran in sequence. If he stopped, he would lose a year. My classes could be picked up later.

Later had sounded almost like a date.

“I cared,” I said.

“I’m not saying you didn’t.”

“Did Dad tell you I hated school?”

Another pause.

“He’s said you were never a school person.”

I laughed softly.

“What?” Hannah asked.

“I got better grades than he did freshman year.”

“No way.”

“See? This is how myths survive.”

That got a laugh out of her.

I told her I had to work and asked her not to referee between us. She agreed immediately, which told me she had feared that assignment.

At five thirty Mark came home carrying a paper bag from the hardware store and kissed the top of my head while I was sorting mail.

I waited until he put his keys down.

“Why did you tell Hannah I didn’t care about finishing college?”

His hand stopped over the bowl by the door.

“I did not say that.”

“She remembers ‘not a school person.’”

“Oh, come on. That’s a phrase.”

“It is a phrase about me.”

He took off his jacket. “I told her you were taking some classes because you wanted a change.”

“I am taking classes because I want the degree.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

His shoulders tightened. “Yes, Julie.”

“Then why did Mom think I would be done after fall?”

“I may have said you were trying it for a semester.”

“I never said that.”

“You also don’t know whether you’ll like doing this for two years.”

“Neither do you.”

“That’s all I meant.”

“No. What you meant was that nobody should rearrange anything around it yet.”

He walked into the kitchen, and I followed.

“Why are we turning this into a referendum?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I went to class. You’re the one who seems to need the class to be temporary.”

“That’s unfair.”

“Then tell people the truth. I enrolled to finish.”

He opened the refrigerator, stared inside, and closed it.

“You’ve always been flexible,” he said. “That’s one of the things you like about your life.”

I waited.

He seemed to hear the problem only after the sentence was finished.

“I mean your schedule,” he added.

“I know what you meant.”

The following Monday, Mark texted at four forty-five and asked if I could pick up his dry cleaning on my way home.

I typed: Class tonight. Tomorrow.

He sent a thumbs-up.

At five ten he sent: Do we have anything for dinner?

I looked at the message while standing in the employee parking lot with my backpack over one shoulder.

The old answer would have been yes. The old answer would also have included where it was, how long to heat it, whether salad dressing needed to be opened, and which container should go in the freezer.

I typed: There’s food in the house.

Then I got in my car.

Nina was eating crackers from a vending machine when I arrived.

“My husband thinks continuing education is an attack on dinner,” I told her.

She handed me a cracker.

“My twelve-year-old thinks my accounting degree is an attack on Wi-Fi.”

“Is it?”

“Sometimes.”

We sat on a bench outside the classroom.

Nina was thirty-nine, worked mornings at a dental supply company, and had two children old enough to roll their eyes professionally. She was not inspirational. I liked her for that.

“What are you going to do with the degree?” she asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

“That’s allowed.”

“I feel like I should have a better answer at fifty.”

“Why? At twenty I had lots of answers. Most were terrible.”

Professor Kent opened the door.

During class I forgot about Mark’s dinner for almost an hour.

When I got home, there was a skillet in the sink, half a grilled-cheese sandwich on a plate, and a note on the counter in Mark’s handwriting.

Bought tomato soup. Not dead.

I laughed before I could stop myself.

The next afternoon my coworker Beth asked how school was going.

“Fine,” I said. “It’s just a couple night classes.”

The words were out before I heard them.

Beth nodded and went back to her spreadsheet.

I sat very still.

I had been furious at Mark for making the thing smaller.

Apparently he was not the only one who knew how.