My Husband Kept Scheduling Over My Night Classes—Then I Learned Why My Degree Made Him So Uncomfortable
PART 7
Finals made everybody stupid.
Nina sent our group chat a photograph of her reading notes beside a cold cup of coffee and a child’s plastic dinosaur. I spent one Monday evening searching for a quotation I had already highlighted. Mark put the television remote in the refrigerator and denied responsibility until I found it beside the mustard.
By the first week of December, I was tired enough that school stopped feeling symbolic.
It was work.
I appreciated that.
Symbols demand speeches. Work demands that you sit down and do it.
Mark became unexpectedly good at finals week. He did not ask whether I was almost done every twenty minutes. He made coffee. He went to Elaine’s alone when she needed help carrying Christmas decorations up from her basement. When Hannah called about a flat tire, he drove over without first asking whether I could leave my paper.
On Thursday night he put a plate of toast beside my laptop and said, “You’ve read that paragraph four times.”
“Five.”
“Then it isn’t getting better.”
“I hate when you’re useful.”
“I know.”
I closed the article.
“Thank you.”
“For toast?”
“For this week.”
He shrugged, embarrassed by gratitude if it lasted too long.
“You’re almost there.”
Almost there meant the semester this time. I chose to take it that way.
I earned an A-minus in Communication and Community and a B-plus in my second course, which involved more statistics than any humane person should meet after sunset.
When the grades posted, I yelled from the den.
Mark came running because he thought something had happened.
“It did,” I said, pointing at the screen.
He read the grades and grinned.
“Look at you.”
“I am looking.”
He pulled me out of the chair and danced badly with me between the desk and the printer.
I laughed so hard my glasses slipped.
For a while, that was enough.
Christmas was easier than Thanksgiving. I did not have class. Mark did not seem braced for conflict. Hannah gave me a set of good pens and wrote FOR THE SCHOOL PERSON on the gift tag.
I looked at her.
She shrugged. “History update.”
Mark smiled, but there was a small pause before he did.
After dinner Hannah and I sat on the living-room floor sorting photographs for a digital frame Elaine wanted.
We found the engineering graduation picture again.
“You really worked full time while Dad finished?” Hannah asked.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“About three years.”
“Did you hate it?”
I considered the question.
“I hated being tired. I liked my job more than I expected. I liked having money coming in. I liked that your dad was good at what he was doing. I liked you.”
“That seems fair.”
“I was also jealous sometimes.”
Hannah looked up.
“Of Dad?”
“Of the fact that his next step was still happening.”
Mark was across the room helping his mother with the digital frame. I could not tell whether he heard.
Hannah lowered her voice.
“Did you tell him?”
“Probably in some terrible young-married way.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I likely said, ‘Must be nice to have homework,’ while slamming a cabinet.”
She laughed.
“I don’t remember being noble.”
“You and Dad always made it sound like you just decided work was your thing.”
“That became true too.”
“Can both be true?”
“Yes.”
The answer came easily.
Across the room Mark dropped a cable and bent to pick it up.
I watched him longer than I needed to.
In January I registered for one short winter online course that fit between terms. I did it from my phone during a lunch break and told Mark that evening.
He stared at me across the sink.
“You registered already?”
“It’s one online elective. It ends before spring starts.”
“I thought you were taking a break.”
“I am taking a break from driving to campus.”
He did not smile.
“Julie.”
“What?”
“You’ve been doing school since August.”
“Yes.”
“We just got you back.”
The sentence landed between us.
He seemed to want it back immediately.
“I mean evenings,” he said.
“I know what you mean.”
“No, you don’t. I like having you here.”
“That is a nice thing to say.”
“Then why are you angry?”
“Because you said it like school takes me away and home returns me.”
He leaned on the counter.
“Why does every phrase have to be wrong?”
“It doesn’t.”
“It feels like it.”
I turned off the faucet.
“Maybe because we are finally talking about something we used to avoid by agreeing quickly.”
“What did we avoid?”
I thought of Hannah’s question. Can both be true?
“I don’t know yet.”
Mark looked exhausted by an answer that did not resolve him.
For the first time, I understood that his support had been real and his resistance was real too.
One did not cancel the other.
That was inconvenient.
It was also much more believable than choosing one version of my husband and sticking to it.
