Merriwether was thirty-seven years old and had supported them since they’d married seven years before. She didn’t mind Jeff not working. She made more than enough money to support them both, and their daughter. And one of these days, Jeff would make big money with his writing. He was forty-two and had a lot of creative years ahead of him. Merriwether thought that he had talent. He just needed encouragement and more drive. Hailey agreed. She was his agent, and she encouraged him and gave him editorial advice when she read his manuscripts. He had sold one book, a thriller, three years before, and nothing since. He said it was a dry spell, and Merriwether was sure he’d find his voice eventually. Some days his writing went better than others. And he never pushed himself too hard. He said the writing had to “flow.” Merriwether was driven and had been an overachiever since she was a child. It was the only thing that got her parents’ attention and approval. She had gone to Harvard because both her parents had. Her father was the head of a corporation and her mother was a corporate lawyer. She was an only child.
“You seem to be getting home later and later these days,” he complained as they drank their wine. There was cold chicken in the fridge, but neither of them was hungry yet. Merriwether liked to unwind at night after long, stressful days.
“It’s been busy at the agency,” she said.
“If you came home earlier, you could see Annabelle before she goes to bed,” he commented, which made her feel guilty.
“I see her at breakfast,” Merriwether said defensively. He didn’t usually complain about the amount of time she spent with their daughter. “And I see her on weekends. That’s what fathers do, who work all day and don’t see their kids at night. I spend more time with her on the weekends than most fathers who’re out playing golf.”
“So you see yourself as the man of the family now?” he said, looking annoyed.
“It’s the role I have as the breadwinner. That doesn’t make me a man, but I have long days at work,” and a big salary to show for it, which she didn’t say. Dan Fletcher and Bob Benson had been good to her. “This is what we agreed to when I got pregnant, and you wanted to quit your job and write full-time. I agreed to earn the money so you could spend time at home writing and be with our child.” Merriwether hadn’t felt ready for a baby yet at thirty-two, but the arrangement they’d made suited her. She was free to have a career, and he could stay home to pursue his. It seemed fair to both of them at the time. And suddenly he was complaining. She was surprised. “Do you want to go back to work?” she asked him. He’d never had a serious job, but had dabbled in PR and special event planning, which he hated. He hated schedules, responsibility, and authority, but he was handsome, charming, and sexy, and she loved him, so she overlooked his faults.
“No, I don’t,” he said. He liked things as they were. He just hadn’t expected Merriwether to be so deeply committed to her job. “If I did get a job, would you stop working?” he asked her.
“No.” She was honest with him. “I love my job. And even if you go back to work, we can’t afford to have me quit.” With her Harvard MBA, she could command a salary he couldn’t. Her taking on the breadwinning so energetically had been a godsend for him. It had seemed the perfect arrangement. “What are you really complaining about?” she asked, puzzled by the underlying message, which wasn’t clear. “Are you mad because I make more money than you do? That’s pretty normal. It takes a long time to earn big money as a writer. You probably won’t make a lot of money for the next five years. That’s fine with me.” She gave him all the space he said he needed to be creative.
“Or never, if I never sell another book.”
“You will. You’re still young for a writer.”
“But not young if I try to get a job and go back to work. I’ve turned into this gigolo that you support, and people consider my writing a hobby. I’m kind of the nanny around here,” he said, and sounded bitter for the first time. She hadn’t realized he felt that way. He’d never put it that way before, in an acid tone.
“You’re not a gigolo, Jeff,” she said gently, and came to sit next to him on the couch. She kissed him, and he put his glass down and put his arms around her.
“I need to sell a book,” he said in a choked voice, and she could tell he was near tears.
“You will. Lots of writers have long dry spells, and then they have a big hit and it all takes off. You just have to keep plugging. Hailey thought your last book was fabulous. Everybody loved it, even the critics, and thrillers are hard to write.” He looked pleased when she praised the book.
“We had seventeen rejections, some from publishers I’ve never even heard of.”
“Every writer has that experience, except a few really lucky ones,” she said, trying to encourage him.
“I read about a woman the other day whose first book was published when she was ninety-two,” he said. “That’ll be me with my second one.”
“No, it won’t be, silly. You stalled for a little bit, it will pick up again soon. You just have to keep at it.”
“Sometimes I think I’m just kidding myself about being a writer. Maybe I’ll never sell another book, and the first one was a fluke. I feel like a fraud, sitting here while you go to work every day and support us. It’s hard to feel like a man when your wife pays all the bills.”
“We knew it would be this way. I never expected you to make a fortune overnight.” She didn’t say that his salary had been negligible before that. She was destined to be the real earner in their marriage, unless he sold a huge bestseller one day. Short of that, she would be supporting them, and she didn’t mind.
“Will you try to come home from work a little earlier?” he asked her with a plaintive look in his eyes. “Annabelle and I miss you. It’s boring and lonely here without you.” He sounded pathetic but she didn’t want to promise him something she knew she couldn’t do.
“We get so busy at the office, and they need me there, Jeff. I can’t just get up and leave at five o’clock. I’m the CFO, not an agent. And the agents don’t leave that early either.” He nodded, and neither of them said anything for a while. They finished their wine and had dinner in the kitchen, and it pained her to see how unhappy he looked. She didn’t know what the answer was, except that he just had to keep writing and hope he sold another book. She couldn’t solve the problem for him. And she wasn’t going to jeopardize her career for him. She couldn’t. But knowing he was unhappy and resentful wasn’t going to do anything for their marriage. She could hear warning bells going off in her head when she thought about it. She hoped it was just a phase he was going through as part of the creative process. If not, and he was serious, they had some rough times ahead. She hoped that their marriage was strong enough to survive it. But for the first time in the seven years she had been married to him, she wasn’t sure they would. It was a frightening feeling, and when they went to bed that night, he turned his back to her and went to sleep. The fire had gone out of their relationship, like the air seeping out of their tires slowly, as he lost confidence in his work. And more and more, he was taking it out on her.