For six years, life sped past. Marriage with Mike met Amanda’s most optimistic expectations. She never relaxed entirely, and yet Mike Morrison loved her well. He behaved exactly like a content, devoted husband.
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After he graduated, and she was still a sophomore, they had moved to Chicago where Amanda finished her bachelor degree and Mike got an MBA. Amanda babysat and Mike did some freelance accounting but mostly Mike’s parents supported them until he landed a hot-shot job at Northern Trust.
The summer before she graduated, when she was nineteen, Amanda became pregnant with her first daughter, Evie. Three years later to the day, she gave birth to her second daughter Vanessa. With Vanessa’s arrival they moved to the suburbs, renting a red brick bungalow in Evanston near the El tracks.
Motherhood filled Amanda with joy. Even the girls’ tantrums and erratic sleep patterns gave her pleasure. She was the mother she wished she had had: not perfect, but calm and strict and boundlessly loving. Not to mention—present.
She began to sell small, well-kept houses in Chicago’s expensive North Shore suburbs, working mostly on weekends, while Mike played with the girls. The year Evie started kindergarten, they visited Mike’s parents in Madison, over spring vacation. Mike’s father the famous cardiologist threw up his hands seeing Mike. “What the hell happened to you? You must have gained thirty pounds.”
Mike puffed his cheeks. “Twenty.”
His mother, who never criticized him, chimed in. “Really, Mike. You were never fat.”
When they turned to Amanda, remarking on how slender she was, she blushed. “Nervous energy.”
Nonsense, they claimed. Mike was overeating and not exercising. Had he taken to drink? He looked terrible. In silence, Amanda disagreed with “terrible.” All his buddies were fatter, which may be why his weight gain hadn’t concerned her much. What really worried her was how Mike’s confidence and his easy delight in small things grew thinner all the time. And the charm he used to exude seemed to have vanished.
She was busy with the girls and suddenly Mike needed reassurance and approval. His fat friends were cut-throat clients and business rivals. They returned to Chicago and Monday morning Mike signed up with a special trainer, Nadia, at a downtown gym.
The first time Mike said her name, Amanda’s radar flipped on. Mike worked late and then worked out for two or three hours. He always took the last train home. Soon, Amanda joined a local group of flex-time mothers who traded babysitting, because Mike was spending Saturdays and Sundays downtown.
For all that, by August Amanda wondered out loud why Mike was heavier than ever. “Muscle mass,” he said. “That’s what Nadia and I are going for. If my muscles burn enough calories, I can eat whatever I want.”
“Good,” she said. “You should eat what you want.” But her inner voice whispered that expensive restaurants figured into the trouble. He came home scrubbed clean, freshly shaven, and tasting like toothpaste.
After the girls were born, he used to mumble “luv ya,” just before falling asleep. But lately he had started declaring his love as if someone off stage were denying it. He pulled her into bed with no preliminaries. Then, even though it was late, he hurried downstairs to watch TV and drink beer.
Amanda stopped counting the signs, and started envisioning how it might play out. In October an unfamiliar phone number flashed on the land line at four pm. “Amanda? This is Nadia Hinson. I’m calling to inform you that Michael wants to divorce you and marry me.”
“Mike,” Amanda asked, “are you there?”
“Of course, he’s not here,” Nadia snapped.
“I’ll call his office then.”
“Fine. Do that. But he’ll be here by six.”
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