The Misadventures of the Laundry Hag 00 - Skeletons in the Closet

urgency to do something fled. “I’m not ready for this.”
    “Really Uncle Scrooge, this is nothing you need to do anything about.” Neil stood behind me and massaged the tension from my neck and shoulders.” He’s getting older, he has a girlfriend—”
    “No he doesn’t.” I shook my head and shrugged out from under his hold.
    “That girl who was here at Thanksgiving, Olivia.”
    “There’s nothing official, they just chat online sometimes.”
    Neil cocked his head to the side and narrowed his eyes at me. “Kids don’t meet at a sock hop, then share a root beer float at the local soda shop anymore, Maggs. Communicating online is dating to the next generation.”
    “I was born in the seventies, Neil. And my first date tried to sell me stolen lawn gnomes he’d filched from the church rummage sale.”
    He stared at me for a beat, then doubled over in laughter. I’m pretty sure he believed I’d made that up. I sighed. Truth can be stranger than fiction.
    Once Neil got control of himself, he resumed the shoulder rub in silence. Obviously, he thought I was a few yachts shy of a boat show. He just didn’t get the mother-to-adopted son dynamic. It seemed like a few days ago, Josh had been a solemn, wide-eyed toddler in need of a mother’s unconditional love. And now he was growing up, in the bathroom….
    I winced and derailed that train of thought. Neil was right, as usual. This had nothing to do with me and everything to do with Mother Nature, the selfish cow.
    “They’ve been fighting more lately, over space and privacy. It’s probably time to give Josh his own room.” Apparently Neil decided to keep the bombs falling before I could fully regroup. My life was changing too fast and I didn’t cotton to change very well. Upheaval was one guaranteed ingredient to turn the mild-mannered Laundry Hag into a belligerent, frothing beast.
    My wrath focused on Neil, the calm eye in the center of my category five turmoil. The man didn’t get worked up about anything and while this usually provided a good balance in our marriage, right now he was pissing me off.
    I blanked my expression. “If that’s what you think is best.”
    His eyebrows drew together to form a dark V. “Don’t do this, Maggie.”
    Tapping my inner Southern Belle, I smiled absently and patted his arm. “You always know what to do, so I defer to your superior intellect.”
    He groaned and dropped his chin to his chest. Take that, hot stuff!
    Neil hated when I didn’t fight back almost as much as I hated losing every argument we had. Granted, sometimes we’d fight, he’d win and then I’d go my merry way, doing as I pleased. Typically though, I wanted to please him before myself so arguing was always a win-win scenario for Neil. Not arguing, however childish it may seem, gave me a bit of a boost. My husband is not the type of man to yell at a woman, especially a non-confrontational woman. I always stopped short of bringing tears into the game, but every so often I needed an edge, a way to make him understand my level of frustration.
    The patronizing tone took all the fight out of Neil. His shoulders rounded and he leaned back against the counter. He didn’t say anything and I got up to fetch a glass of water, just to give myself something to do.
    “I set up an appointment with a marriage counselor for tomorrow.”
    The water slid down the wrong pipe and I choked. “Are you serious?” I wheezed at his profile.
    He didn’t answer me, just stared at the school calendar on the fridge. Neil had mentioned going to a marriage counselor a few months back, but I thought the idea went extinct after the holidays. Granted, we had problems and miscommunicated, but to actually go to therapy like our relationship was falling apart….
    Unbidden, the image of Eric and his bimbo in the ballroom flashed and I cringed. No doubt, I’d been born with some sort of fornicator locator, because I always seem to walk in on people having sex. As if that isn’t enough, it was always people having sex who shouldn’t be having sex, at least with each other. I studied my handsome husband and flinched at the stress lines around his eyes. Guilt flayed me for my self-centeredness. He deserved more from me. A few hours’ time out of my crazy life might not be a bad thing and deep down, I was afraid if I didn’t acquiesce to this, one day my fornicator locator might steer me to Neil. My heart couldn’t take that kind of beating.
    “Okay, I’ll be sure