This Is Where I Leave You

don’t do it up against the wall, on the kitchen sink, in the shower, from behind while she’s bent over the bed. It’s just paint by numbers missionary sex: kiss, rub, lick, stroke, enter, rock, moan, and come, all at the proper time. I’m playing scared, letting her set the rhythm, trying my best to banish the image of Wade humping Jen that hovers in the background of my mind. Thanks in part to my earlier release with Alice, I’m able to hold out until Penny finishes, gasping and digging her teeth into my chin hard enough to leave a mark. And it occurs to me, as I surrender to my own somewhat subdued orgasm, that I’ve come twice today, and as sad and twisted as each occasion was, both involved actual, live women, one on top of me, and one beneath me, and maybe that’s a cause for some small measure of optimism, even if we’re not counting Alice. Which we’re not.
    When we’re done, I roll off of Penny, feeling ridiculously accomplished and wondering how soon I can leave.
    “That was nice,” Penny says drowsily, throwing a leg over mine, splaying out her fingers against my chest.
    “Okay. Give it to me straight,” I say. “I can take it.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Why did my wife need to have sex with someone else?”
    “Because she’s an evil bitch.”
    “Come on. Really.”
    Penny lies back on her pillow and removes her leg from mine. I grab it and put it back. I like it there. “In my limited experience, women rarely leave because the sex is bad. The sex becomes bad because something else has gone wrong.”
    “Really?”
    “Nah. He probably just has a world-class schlong.”
    “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.”
    Penny laughs. “Judd Foxman. Naked in my bed. This is beyond surreal.”
    “Surreal is my new reality.”
    She kisses both my eyes and wraps her arms around me in a way that brings me dangerously close to tears. I should tell her about the baby. It’s on the tip of my tongue.
    “Judd Foxman.”
    “What?”
    “Nothing. I just like to say your name.”
    Penny pulls me closer and burrows her head into the hollow of my neck, lazily repeating my name a few more times as she drifts off to sleep. I open my mouth to say any number of things, but in the end I just lie there, telling myself that no one can feel this disconnected forever. 11:30 p.m.
    Wendy and Barry are standing on the front walk, having an argument. Wendy gesticulates wildly while Barry stands there absorbing it, swatting away gnats as he waits her out. I wonder, as I often do, why 220they stay together, what it is they offer each other that keeps them locked in this bloodless stalemate. But I suppose if I understood anything about marriage, I’d have understood my own a little bit better.
    “I’m sorry, babe, it’s the eleventh hour,” Barry is saying. “I need to be there to close this deal now, or it’s all going to go up in smoke.”
    “You’ve had a death in the family. Can’t they understand that?”
    “Yes, but I can’t be gone for seven days. They need me there.”
    “And what about your family? We need you too.”
    “I’m doing this for my family.”
    “Right. That old load of crap.”
    They fall silent when I step out of the car.
    “Where the hell have you been?” Wendy says.
    “Clearing my head.”
    “You didn’t tell anyone where you were going.”
    “There’s actually a good reason for that.”
    “What?”
    “I didn’t want to.”
    Barry snickers. Dumb move. Wendy turns on him with a baleful stare, and I use the distraction to slide past them and into the house. Mom and Linda are in the living room, playing Scrabble at the coffee table and drinking tea. Paul, Alice, and Tracy are on the couch watching Jon Stewart, while Phillip sits on the floor, thumbing through a shoebox of old photos. They all look up at me. Alice smiles, but I can’t look at her, can’t be anywhere near her. The monitor in the hall is broadcasting Serena’s cries in stereo. No one seems terribly concerned.
    “Where have you been?” Mom says.
    “Out and about.”
    “Don’t be evasive. Just say you’d rather not tell me.”
    “I’d rather not tell you.”
    “But now you have me curious. Did you see Jen today?”
    “Yeah.”
    “And ...?”
    “And now I’m going to bed.”
    Alice flashes me a meaningful look, and I try to remember if there’s a lock on the basement door.
    “Look at this picture,” Phillip says.
    I squat down to see the photo he’s holding. I’m around