Jenny gives me a dirty look and I quickly wipe the smile off of my face.
What the fuck was that? I shouldn’t be happy if she’s injured, right? Play it cool, man. Play it cool.
“I mean, that sucks that you got hurt. You hurt yourself. That’s just sucky. I mean, because you know, you hurt yourself.”
There. Much better. Be calm, be cool. She’ll never know you suspect anything.
Jenny’s dirty look never leaves her face and I start to squirm. “You couldn’t have picked up a little today? This house is a mess.”
I look around at all of the toys on the floor and the dirty dishes on the coffee table.
“We were busy watching movies,” I explain.
She turns and looks at the TV, noticing for the first time what we’re watching.
“You have seriously got to quit watching this stupid movie. Veronica doesn’t stop quoting it as it is,” Jenny complains with a sigh.
This worker’s comp fraud has already changed her! She used to love this movie. Nooooooooo!
“So, how did you hurt yourself? You know, when you really hurt yourself,” I ask, folding my hands in my lap and acting concerned.
She can’t know that you know. What if it’s like that TV show, When Animals Attack? She might just come at you, bro.
“Well, I decided to leave work a little early and try a yoga class. It turns out I’m not as flexible as I used to be,” she tells me.
Is yoga her code word for something? Is that what she’s calling “sticking it to the man” now? I wonder if she has a group of minions working for her, helping her with this elaborate lie. Yoga – yeah right!
“I tried doing that Downwind Lapping Dog thing and I twisted my ankle,” she finishes, resting her head on the back of the couch and closing her eyes.
See? I totally caught her in her lie. Downwind Lapping Dog isn’t the name of a yoga move. It’s a Chinese proverb or something, like, “He who fart in church sit in stinky pew.” I think it goes, “He who is downwind of lapping dog make bump-bump in pants.”
“So does Claire know? Did you tell Claire? What did Claire say?” I question.
“No, why would Claire know? After class I just wanted to get home and put my foot up. I haven’t had a chance to talk to her yet.”
Ahhhh, so she’s biding her time, formulating a plan. I got ya.
Jenny picks Veronica up from her lap and sets her back down next to her, pushes herself up off of the couch, and starts hobbling towards the kitchen.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“I need to get some ice for my ankle,” she replies as she uses the wall to support her as she goes.
Wow, she’s good. She really thought this through. I would have never thought to go get ice. That limp kind of looks real too. She must have been practicing.
I jump up and go to her side in a show of “helping” her with her “injury”, when really, I just want to see if I can trip her up.
As I help her walk into the kitchen, I stick my foot out in front of her and she stumbles over it, grabbing onto the table at the last minute before she falls to the ground.
“Drew! What the hell? Did you just trip me?” she yells.
“How’s your ankle?” I ask, staring down at the foot suspiciously as she holds it a few inches above the floor.
“What is wrong with you today? You’re acting weird,” she mutters before using one of the chairs to help her stand and then hops over to the freezer to grab an ice pack.
“I’m onto you, Jenny,” I tell her menacingly.
“What the hell are you talking about?” she asks as she sits at the kitchen table, brings her foot up to a chair, and sets the ice pack on top of her ankle with a wince.
Man alive, how is she so good at this? I never knew she was such a good faker. Oh Jesus, what if this isn’t the only thing she fakes? Oh my God. This is why she never wants to have sex with me. She’s tired of faking it!
“You’re faking it when you have sex with Claire and now you want to cheat me out of my money! Sons a bitchin!” I yell, before stomping out of the room.
~
In hindsight, I’m pretty sure I can pinpoint exactly where I went wrong with Jenny. I blame it all on natural childbirth. No man should ever have to see his wife in that position. No man should ever have to look at a live vagina in that position. Although a dead vagina in that position would probably be just as bad because it would be dead. A dead, gooey vagina. It’s a sight you can never un-see.
The day had started off fairly well. Jenny was a week overdue so the doctor had her check into the hospital first thing in the morning so she could be induced. We took Veronica with us since the day would mainly consist of us sitting around waiting for something to happen. Carter and Claire agreed to take her home with them for a sleepover once things started progressing. We did everything we were supposed to do so Veronica wouldn’t hate her brother at first sight. We included her when we picked out the name, we let her help decorate the nursery, we brought her to the hospital, and we had a present hidden in Jenny’s overnight bag that would be given to Veronica, “from her brother”, as soon as he was born - everything necessary so she wouldn’t step on his nuts and call him a shitbag when she saw him. Considering that was the name she picked for him, calling him that at first sight actually wouldn’t have been that weird. It was her new favorite word, and it was a hard sell to get her to pick another name out for him when we were going through the baby name book.
“But I wanna call him Shitbag! Baby is a shitbag!”
It was kind of hard to be mad when she strung together her first swear word sentence. It really was a proud day for me.
Around lunchtime on the day of delivery was when things got serious. And by serious, I mean seriously fucked up. Jenny’s contractions went through the roof and the woman I like to refer to as “Crazy-Ass Bitch” made an appearance. And I mean that in the nicest way possible.
“WHERE THE FUCK IS THE GUY WITH THE DRUGS?”
I put my hands over Veronica’s ears and stared in horror at my wife. Jenny never yelled or cursed in front of Veronica. Ever. She raised her voice at times, but it was usually just because someone couldn’t hear what she was saying. This was a whole new side of her I wasn’t used to.
“The nurse just paged him like two minutes ago, baby. He’ll be here soon,” I reassured her as I removed my hands from Veronica’s ears.
“FUCK YOU!”
I glanced at the contraction monitor and saw that the little squiggly lines were so far off of the top of the page that the thing was flashing a red warning light.
“Breathe, baby. Just breathe. Think about something else,” I told her.
“I’M THINKING ABOUT SHOVING YOUR BALLS STRAIGHT UP YOUR ASS, YOU SHIT HOLE!”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Carter and Claire standing in the doorway with equal looks of horror on their faces.
“Um, so we’ll just come back later,” Claire said as she quickly darted in the room, scooped up Veronica, and made a mad dash back to Carter whispering, “GO, GO, GO!”
With Veronica out of earshot, I walked over to the side of the bed and tried smoothing hair off of Jenny’s forehead and telling her it would be okay, but she bit off my hand.
And that wasn't an exaggeration. She literally leaned over and clamped her teeth around the palm of my hand.
The doctor had showed up a few minutes later, but when he told Jenny he wasn’t the one with the drugs, I actually feared for the poor guy’s life. Then he had told her he needed to break her water to really get things going.
What has been happening in here for the last hour? A mother fucking tea party?
I really wish I could erase this part of the story because I look like a giant douchebag, and if I could take it back, I would. But I guess it’s necessary for you to understand everything.