He told me the panties belonged to a stripper. Like I didn't already know about her. I guess the idea of some anonymous stripper is supposed to make me feel better. It doesn't.

I mean, you find women's underwear in your husband's gym bag while looking for car keys. This freakin' black thong. God. How unoriginal. He doesn't even like thongs. Anyway. You find this thing, and it's definitely not yours, and so you're supposed to think...what? It belongs to some stripper? When you already know he's got this girlfriend that neither of you talk about?

"Yeah I got it at that bachelor party."

"But I was with you at that bachelor party. I never saw any dancer giving you her thong."

"It happened while you were with Andy. She slipped it in my pocket. I barely noticed."

"Front or back?"

"What?"

"Pocket."

"Oh, uh...I don't...front."

"Front?...Front? Really? You're gonna go with front?"

Shrug.

The thing is, I know. I knew already. Before the thong. He knows I know. We just don't talk about it. Because what good would that do?

Shit. Not a good week to quit smoking.

Then the other day he tells me about this conversation he had with a character from one of his stories. What the fuck? He says he was just shooting the shit with this guy. Chatting on the front porch. And so I'm like, ha, ha and I'm waiting for the punch line and I'm looking at him like you're kidding, right? But he's not. He's dead serious. And he's telling me he knows the guy was real because Honey saw him, too. She actually ran over to him at the fence. And so he says they talked about yard stuff and storms and dead things. And they drank beers. And he shows me how yesterday he had five beers in the fridge and now he's got none.

Like that proves anything. Jesus Christ.

Anyway.

Now he says he keeps seeing the guy in the back yard. Usually early in the morning. Big bushy beard ... doing something in the dirt near the trees. But when he goes out to talk to him, he's gone. And at this point I don't really believe him. But then again what if there is somebody out there? Forget sleeping, right?

So then he says it's Moses. And so I ask him, "Moses? Like, from The Bible?" And he tells me no, the guy from this story he wrote. And my stomach kind of turns when he says it. Because there's no irony there.

And I'm hoping some will be there. But there's not. And he says something about how he never got that guy right. And I'm not sure what he means by it.

Now he's getting up earlier and earlier and he's walking Honey sometimes even before the sun comes up.

Anyway.

I'm just worried. About him. About the thong. About Moses.

This was definitely a bad week to quit smoking.

Category: Moses