Read Online The Story Hour by Thrity Umrigar - Free Book Online

her and know? How would it feel to sleep in their bed tonight, after having spent four nights with Peter?
    â€œBut I will see you soon, right?” Peter had a curious expression on his face, as if he’d read her mind.
    She sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t see how. Sudhir . . . When Sudhir’s in town, we’re pretty much together in the evenings.”
    He grinned slowly, a cocky, wicked grin that made the breath catch in her throat. It was unfair, how handsome Peter was. Sudhir was a good-looking man, she knew that. In middle age, he had preserved his runner’s body, and although his temples were beginning to gray, he had a head full of dark, thick hair. But Peter was beautiful. The sparkling green eyes, the long, angular face, the curly brown hair, the thin, ironic smile, it all hit Maggie so forcefully at times that she had to look away. The most attractive part about Peter was how carelessly he wore his beauty, like some cheap aftershave. She had the feeling that he would be offended if she ever commented on his looks.
    â€œWhat?” she said. “Why’re you smiling like that?”
    â€œIf you have to spend your evenings with Sudhir, then I guess we’ll just have to visit during the day.”
    â€œAnd how do we do that? Quit our jobs?”
    He grinned again. “My mother always said, where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
    But was there the will? Maggie asked herself as she set the two bowls of pasta on the small kitchen table. She was already ashamed of what she’d done during Sudhir’s absence. It was so unlike her, this active courting of danger. Peter had a one-year contract at the university; he would be gone to God knows what forsaken country at the end of next semester. Whereas she and Sudhir had a forever contract that tied them to each other. Every strand of her life was woven into Sudhir’s. For years, Maggie had marveled at how lucky she was to be married to a man whom she still loved and respected. In her profession, she had seen so many bad marriages, had witnessed how often love corroded into hatred or indifference. She had heard enough stories to know that bad behavior—cruelty, volatility, secrecy, violence, addiction—was rampant in many marriages. The worst thing she could say about Sudhir after all these years was that he was slightly . . . boring. That he was a homebody, not a thrill-seeker the way Peter was. Imagine that. That the worst thing about her husband was that he was predictable in his routines, that he was loyal and steadfast and reliable, and that the highlight of his day was coming home to his wife.
    So what was she doing sitting barefoot in Peter Weiss’s kitchen? How could she have so easily said goodbye to decades of fidelity, to years of counseling patients about the lasting damage that affairs inflicted on relationships? What did it mean that she had traded in her years with Sudhir for a few days with Peter?
    The answer came from deep within her: It meant that, without her knowledge, a drought had existed in her. That she had been parched, thirsty in a way that Sudhir couldn’t quench. Unbidden, a picture of her ten-year-old self in bed with Wallace rose in front of Maggie’s eyes. And the next instant she knew: The strange, unnamable, ultimately shaming encounters with her father had dried up some part of her, had planted a seed of sexual restraint deep within her personality. No wonder she had picked someone like Sudhir—an Indian male from a conservative Brahmin family who was raised to be courteous to all, to be respectful and protective of women, who was cautious by instinct and precise by training. Sudhir had never seen the drought. Whereas Peter knew, had seen it the very first time they’d met three years ago. Recognized something, with his photographer’s eyes, that she herself was oblivious to. In any case, what had happened between them four nights