Wood & Iron

Chapter 15

It was Friday.

Morgan could usually find a reason to love every day of the week, but Friday was definitely her favorite. She loved everything about it, from the excitement on the girls' faces at the end of the school week to the fact that Quincy closed his laptop an hour early to go and get the Ba Mee from the Thai food truck that had been a staple in their lives since graduation. She loved the fire pit more than all of it, though. Four or five hours sipping on drinks with her five best friends while they reminisced on the past and dreamt about the future... she loved every second of it.

And she was especially excited about this week's fire pit. She had news. On Tuesday, she got a call from a local number she didn't have saved. She picked up on the second ring.

"Morgan Offan? Hi, we haven't met, but I saw your set at The Go-To Laughing Room a few weeks back."

Morgan had loved being on that stage, and knew she wanted to do it again. But until that moment, she hadn't known her next step. But by the end of that call, she had her plan: to perform at next week's Bend Bender, the five-day-long comedy and beer fest that she'd attended each of the last three years. It had never even crossed her mind to try and get on the bill for the Bender. That was reserved for real comedians, and she was surprised when the voice on the other end of the line put her in that category. She'd been holding on to the news for half a week, and the wait was killing her.

She looked at her watch and counted down the minutes. The girls were almost asleep by the time she heard the front door open and the aroma of the noodle soup waft through the house. Morgan loved that smell, and not just because of the taste. It signaled the beginning of the weekend, which made it that much more delicious.

"Mmm... so good."

Each Friday, the conversation went about the same. Morgan did most of the talking while Quincy was still decompressing from the work week. She'd tell him about the girls' week, and he'd sip his beer and listen quietly. She'd talk through the feelings that blessed or plagued her, and after a while, he'd start to open up.

"I was gonna wait until the fire pit," she said after he'd told her about the budget cuts they were making at work, "but I'm about to burst. I gotta tell someone."

He set his fork down and looked across the dining room table.

"You remember that night at The Go-To? Well, this guy was there, and he got my number somehow. Anyway, he called the other day and invited me to..."

A buzz on the table cut her off. He looked down at his cell phone, which was lying face down next to his bowl of soup. She waited for him to reach down and tap the button on the side, silencing the vibration. But instead, he turned the phone over and looked at the screen.

"Sorry," he said, looking perplexed. "I gotta take this real quick."

Morgan was a bit surprised at her husband's actions. It wasn't that they had a rule about phones at the dinner table; they didn't. It was more that Friday night takeout was sacred, and there was an understanding, at least she thought there was, that it wasn't to be interrupted.

"Hello?"

He said it quietly as he quickly walked through the dining room and out onto the back patio. Morgan loved her husband. She knew she loved him on their first date, and she told him, through tears, on their second. It was about their fifth date when she realized that she could usually tell what he was thinking. She quickly learned his body movements and facial expressions and was pretty good at knowing what was going on in his head.

So it surprised her when he went from decompressing on a Friday night to midweek work tense on the back porch. If you asked, she wouldn't be able to give you specifics... whether it was how he held his shoulders or how his cheeks tightened every so slightly toward his eyes, but something about the phone call was stressing him out. She stood and slid open the patio door, wanting to make sure everything was okay.

"What do you mean, you think he knows?"

Morgan couldn't see her husband's face, but his tone and the way he rubbed his temple made it clear that something was seriously wrong. She walked across the patio and put her hand on his shoulder, making him jump in surprise. He turned and looked at her, holding up his finger to indicate that it would only be a moment.

"What's wrong?" She mouthed it silently, and he shook his head softly before turning and walking out into the yard.

Morgan didn't want to pry, so she turned and walked back into the house.

"Ok, tell me exactly what you said."

She shut the patio door behind her, scanning her memory for any indication of what might be wrong. Was everything okay with Quincy's aging parents? Was it the budget cuts at work?

Morgan sat quietly at the dining room table. It felt wrong to eat her Ba Mee without him, so she sipped her wine and watched the soup get cold. She glanced out in the yard and watched her husband pace back and forth along the fence line. Something was definitely wrong. Now she could see it in his gait.

Every time she looked, she longed to see him end the call and come back inside. She hated unspoken tension, even if it was momentary and during a phone call. So when he finally did come back in, his answers were less than satisfying.

"Sorry," he said, feigning normalcy. "Just some stupid stuff at the main office."

"What is it?"

"I don't want to get into it."

"It must be big if they're calling this late. What time is it there, 11?"

"I don't know. Can we just eat?"

They sat quietly while they finished their cold soup. He didn't ask about her phone call from the comedy club, and she didn't ask any more about his. But that phone call was stuck in his head, and she knew it. The way he kept looking at his phone, as if he were expecting it to blow up right there on the table... something was definitely wrong.

They finished their dinner in silence and cleaned the dishes the same.

"I'll go get the Friday cooler."

She could tell by his tone that he was attempting normalcy, but he wasn't successful. It's not work, she told herself while scraping the leftover noodles from her bowl. Quincy didn't care enough about his job to be this bothered by it... unless it was going away. Oh god, is he getting fired?

She watched him leave the kitchen and head toward the garage. She put the bowls in the dishwasher and took the last sip of her wine. She returned to the dining room to grab the last of the silverware and was surprised to see his phone still there, next to the dirty spoon. Quincy never went anywhere without his phone, not even in the house. Morgan had joked that he must've needed the GPS to find the bathroom.

But there it was, and maybe it was the wine, but she couldn't help herself. She heard him walk out into the garage and shut the door behind him. Without thinking, she quickly picked up his phone, typed in his passcode (their anniversary), and went to his recent calls.

When she saw it, she was honestly confused.

He lied to her.

She wasn't angry. She didn't know what to think.

Why would he lie about that? And what could she have told him that made him so upset?

It wasn't work who had called him.

It was Alex.