Game night

Dear Michael,

I went to work today and nobody could tell anything was wrong. I think that's important. My therapist says high-functioning is still functioning.

That said, I spent most of the afternoon staring at cell B14.

I still don't know what's in B14. Some kind of deductible. Linda from Claims came by around eleven with a box of donut holes and asked if I was okay, because apparently I'd been looking at it for twenty minutes without blinking. I told her I was "reconciling." She left me two powdered ones, which I thought was very kind.

The truth is I wasn't seeing the spreadsheet. I was seeing the bedroom. It kept coming back in pieces, like the morning was a slideshow somebody had set to shuffle.

I'd be checking a formula, and there was the cat shirt bunched up around her ribs. I'd be typing an email to Gary about the Henderson claim (no relation to Mr. Henderson, I checked), and there was Brady's hand, holding her the way you hold a grapefruit at Safeway, his thumb doing that slow little circle. I'd be in the break room waiting for the microwave, and there was the top of her ass where her pajama pants had slipped down, and right above it, the other thing. All of it. Pressed against the small of her back with nothing in between but cotton and a cartoon cat.

I ate my lunch in my car.

And the sigh. That's the one I kept rewinding. That long, low Sunday-morning sigh, and the way she pushed back into him.

I've decided she made that sigh because she thought it was me. She said "Mikey." She said it out loud, with her eyes closed. I wrote it on a sticky note and stuck it on the bottom of my monitor. It says: SHE THOUGHT IT WAS ME.

I love Catherine. I know I say that a lot in here. She organizes our spice rack by country. She cries at dog food commercials. She still puts notes in my lunch with little drawings of sandwiches. When my grandpa died, she held my hand through the funeral and the whole drive home and never once let go to check her phone. She's the best person I know.

And I think if it had been anybody else's hand, a stranger, some sad dad from the program, I could file it under "accident" and be done with it.

But it was Brady's. Those are the same hands that slammed my locker on my fingers sophomore year. The same hands that knocked my lunch tray into my lap in front of the whole cafeteria and then held it up like a trophy. For four years, I watched for those hands in every hallway. And this morning they were on my wife.

But. We're adults now. We're all closer to thirty than we are to high school. He's a man with a trash bag and a dog that got renamed Chad. People change. My therapist says, "The past is information, not instructions." I wrote that on a sticky note too.

So around three o'clock, between B14 and B15, I made a decision. I was going to be the bigger man. The mature one. Open-minded. If Catherine could forgive him for an accident, so could I.

I drove home feeling almost good.

---

I barely had the door open before Catherine was in my arms.

It wasn't a peck. It was a real hug, the full-body kind, arms around my neck, her cheek against my chest. She smelled like vanilla and our lavender detergent, and I held onto her a lot longer than I meant to.

"Hi, honey," she said into my shirt. "I missed you today."

When she finally stepped back, I saw the dress.

It was yellow. Soft, thin cotton, the color of butter, with little straps on her shoulders and a skirt that flared out and stopped a ways above her knees. It's the one she bought for her cousin Dana's outdoor wedding two summers ago. I know it has one of those built-in bra things inside, because she complained about it the entire reception. She said it was "about as supportive as a paper towel," and I could see what she meant. When she moved, everything moved.

The sun was coming in through the front window behind her, and the dress was thin enough that I could see the outline of her right through it, the whole shape of her, like a shadow puppet. I don't think she knew. I didn't say anything. I didn't want her to feel self-conscious about something nice she'd done for me.

She did a little twirl. The skirt floated up around her thighs and came back down.

"I wanted to look nice for you," she said. "After this morning." She bit her lip. "Brady said you always loved me in yellow."

I've never had an opinion about yellow in my life. But she was standing there in it, smiling, and I decided that I did now.

"I do," I said.

"GROUP HUG!"

Brady came off the couch like a linebacker. He hooked one arm around my neck and pulled me in sideways, so my face ended up somewhere around his armpit, and he wrapped his other arm around Catherine's waist and lifted her clean off the floor. She shrieked and laughed. He spun her around in a circle, and her skirt flew out, and her bare feet kicked, and I was being dragged along on the other side like a coat on a hook.

When he put her down, she was out of breath and pink and laughing. He let go of me first. He kept his hand on her back a little longer, low, right about where her back stops being her back.

"There he is," Brady said, and messed up my hair. "The provider."

"Brady was so helpful today," Catherine told me, fixing her straps. "His shift got canceled, so he was home all day. He did a load of laundry, he vacuumed, and he even reorganized the hall closet for us. Like, completely. With my label maker."

"Wow," I said. I've been meaning to reorganize that closet since 2021.

"Gotta earn my keep," Brady said modestly, and dropped back onto the couch.

---

I made chicken piccata for dinner. It's my best dish. I made extra, because I've learned.

When I brought the plates to the table, Brady was already in my chair, the one next to Catherine's. That left the step stool across from them, which we usually use to reach the top cabinets. I sat on it. It's fine. It's a good stool.

"Look at Chef Mikey in his apron," Brady said, grinning at Catherine. "Dad energy."

I'd forgotten I still had the apron on. I took it off. He laughed and reached across the table and gave me a little noogie, and Catherine laughed too, and honestly, it was kind of nice. That's what guys do. That's what friends do.

Brady ate fast and talked with his mouth full. Halfway through his second helping, he cut a piece of chicken, stacked a caper on top, and held the fork out to Catherine.

"You gotta get it with the caper, Cat. Trust me."

She leaned over, closed her lips around his fork, and slid the bite off. Her eyes went wide. "Oh my gosh, Michael. This is so good."

"Thanks," I said. I'd made it.

A few minutes later, Brady pulled his shirt off over his head and tossed it on the arm of the couch. "Hot in here. You guys mind?"

"It's your house too!" Catherine said.

He's a big guy. I know I've said he let himself go, and he did, but sitting next to Catherine with his shirt off, he took up about two-thirds of the table. There was a lot of him, and it was all very close to her. I sat up straight on my stool and sucked in my stomach. I held it there through the rest of dinner, which I think is why I don't remember dessert.

"Mikey," Brady said, leaning back with his arm along the back of Catherine's chair. "You're a lucky man. I hope you know that."

He wasn't looking at me when he said it.

Then Catherine put her fork down and turned to me with her planning face. It's the face she makes right before she tells a bride the seating chart has been "handled."

"Okay. So. I have an idea for tonight."

"Okay," I said.

"Game night. All three of us. I was telling Brady how bad I felt about this morning, and he said something that made so much sense. He said the best way to fix weird energy is to play." She folded her hands. "So, like a reset. Clean it all up."

And that's when I fell in love with her again. In the middle of all this, my wife spent her day thinking about how to make things better for everybody.

"I love that," I said. "That's a great idea, honey."

"She's smart," Brady said. "You married smart, bro."

---

The hall closet looked incredible. I'll give him that.

Every game was stacked by size, spines facing out, each one with a little white label from Catherine's label maker. CARDS. PICTIONARY. MONOPPOLY, with two P's. I didn't say anything about the second P. He'd tried.

Monopoly was on the top shelf, which is a little high for me. Usually Catherine asks me to get things down from up there and I use the step stool. Tonight she didn't ask. She went up on her toes in her bare feet, one hand flat on the shelf and the other stretching for the box. The yellow dress rose up the backs of her legs as she reached, and kept rising, until I could see more of the backs of her thighs than I usually see outside of our bedroom.

"I got it," Brady said.

He didn't get it the way I would have, from the side. He stepped in right behind her, close, so his bare chest was against her back and she was caught between him and the shelves, and he reached up over her head.

"Okay, okay, you're squishing me!" Catherine laughed, tucking her chin down.

He took his time finding the box. When he finally brought it down, he lowered it slowly past her face and over her shoulder, and for a second the two of them were standing exactly how they'd been this morning, his front against her back. Except this time she was wide awake and laughing, and I was standing there holding Pictionary.

I told myself that's just how closets work. There's only one way to reach the top shelf.

"Cards first," Brady said, heading back to the living room. "Classic."

Catherine sat on the rug by the coffee table with her legs crossed, the yellow skirt pooled in her lap. Brady stretched out on his side across from her, propped on one elbow like a guy in an old painting, his head about level with her lap. I sat on the couch and shuffled.

I dealt about four cards before I knew something was off. I counted the deck. Then I counted it again.

"The queens are missing," I said. "All four of them."

"Huh," Brady said. He didn't look surprised. He'd already rolled onto his back with his hands behind his head. "Queens, man. Always the first to bail."

"Monopoly?" Catherine said.

"Monopoly," Brady agreed.

Catherine knelt at the coffee table to set it up, leaning way over to unfold the board, sorting the money into piles, lining up the property cards. She does it properly. She takes it seriously. And every time she reached for the far side of the board, the dress hiked up a little in the back, and the little straps slid down, and she pushed them back up without looking.

Brady was on the couch behind her with a beer. I happened to glance over, and he wasn't watching the board. He was watching her. Right where the dress was riding up.

He caught me catching him.

He didn't look away. He didn't seem embarrassed at all. He just lifted his beer an inch, toward me, like a toast, and smiled.

I looked away first. I don't know why I did that. It's my house.

"Honey," Catherine said. "Where are the pieces?"

There were no pieces. No top hat. No boot. No race car. No little iron. Even the dog was gone.

When I said "even the dog," Brady got very quiet and looked at his hands.

"Pictionary?" he said after a moment.

The Pictionary box had already been opened. The plastic seal had been sliced neatly along the side, so I figured we'd opened it at Christmas and forgotten. Everything was in there except the hourglass.

"Oh, it probably rolled under the couch," Catherine said. "It does that." And before I could offer, she was down on her hands and knees on the rug, her cheek close to the floor, reaching one arm under the couch.

I'm going to be honest, Michael. In that position, the yellow dress didn't really cover what it's meant to cover. It slid up her back, and I could see her underwear. They were yellow too. They matched. She'd really thought about the whole outfit, which is very her.

"Need some light, Cat?"

Brady got down on his knees right behind her and held his phone flashlight over her shoulder. I'll say that the light was on her more than it was under the couch. I figured the angle was just hard.

"I can't find it," she said, sitting back on her heels, a little dusty and frustrated, her hair falling in her face.

"Oh, no problem," I said, already pulling my phone out of my pocket. "I can use my phone as a ti—"

"Forget it."

Brady was on his feet. He'd crossed his arms over his bare chest. He wasn't angry, exactly. He just looked like a guy who had expected this.

"It's fine. Seriously. I just thought tonight we'd have one normal night." He shrugged one big shoulder. "I'll go hop on the Xbox. In my room." He paused. "Your room. Whatever."

"No!" Catherine scrambled up. "No, no, Brady, stay! We'll find something!"

"No offense, Mikey," Brady said, turning to me with this gentle, patient look, "but you'd set a timer to brush your teeth."

"It's two minutes," I said. "That's what dentists recommend."

Catherine laughed. She didn't mean to, I could tell, but she did, and then she covered her mouth and looked at me apologetically, and Brady winked at me, and I wanted to go back to cell B14.

"Wait." Brady snapped his fingers and walked back into the hall. "Hold up. I think I saw something back here. When I was vacuuming."

He came back with a box from behind the vacuum.

Twister. Still in its shrink wrap.

"Oh my gosh, honey!" Catherine took it and turned it over like it was a present. "You kept this? I didn't even know we had it!"

I didn't know we had it either. I don't remember ever buying Twister in my life. But Catherine does most of the shopping, and she was so happy, and she has a habit of buying things and then giving me the credit for them. So I figured that's what this was.

"Yeah," I said. "I guess I did."

I did notice the price sticker on the corner. Walgreens, $14.99. The Walgreens on Fifth, right next to the Subway. I figured she'd stopped in for those honey-lemon cough drops she likes.

"Oh, wait." Catherine looked down at herself. "I'm in a dress."

"You could change," I said. "Some leggings, or—"

"My leggings are all in the wash. Brady did a load today."

"You'll be fine, Cat," Brady said. "You were captain. You could do this in a ballgown."

She smiled at that. She tried not to, but she did.

Then she pointed at him, very serious. "Nobody looks up my dress."

Brady grinned. "Can't promise that." He put his hand on his heart. "But I'll try."

She swatted his arm. "Brady!"

"And don't worry, honey," she said to me, patting my chest like that settled everything. "I'm decent underneath. I matched."

"Matched what?" Brady asked.

And Catherine, my wife, who is a genuinely good person, took a little pinch of her skirt at the hip and lifted it maybe an inch, to show him the edge of the yellow lace underneath. "See? Matched."

"Respect," Brady said.

I didn't know what he was respecting.

---

"Okay," Brady said, clapping his hands. "Snacks first. Cat, help me. Mikey, you set up. You're good with instructions."

So they went into the kitchen, and I set up.

I moved the coffee table against the wall. I unfolded the mat and smoothed out every wrinkle so the rows lined up perfectly. Red, yellow, blue, green. Then I sat down on the rug and read the rules. Both pages.

Most of it I knew. Right hand, left foot, don't let your knee or elbow touch the mat. But there was one rule I'd forgotten, and I read it twice. The spinner only tells you the color. Which circle of that color you put your hand or foot on is up to you. Any one in the row. Your choice.

I remember thinking that was a pretty big rule to forget.

From the rug, I could see a slice of the kitchen through the doorway. Catherine was up on her toes in front of the high cabinet, reaching for the big chip bowl. And Brady was behind her again, reaching over her again, his body pressing her into the counter, one arm up over her head.

Then she shrieked. A real one, high and surprised.

"Brady!"

Then giggling, a lot of it, and the crinkle of a chip bag.

I looked back down at the rulebook. I'm not sure why. I think I wanted to give them privacy, which is a strange thing to give two people getting chips.

When they came back, Brady had the chip bowl and his mouth was full. Catherine was carrying the salsa, and she was bright pink, and out of breath, and one of the little yellow straps had fallen off her shoulder and was hanging halfway down her arm.

"What happened?" I asked.

"He tickled me," she said, laughing. "Right in the ribs. I almost dropped the salsa."

I started to reach over to fix her strap. Before I got there, Brady hooked it with one finger and slid it back up onto her shoulder, slow, without even looking, like he'd done it a hundred times.

"Got it," he said.

"Thanks!" Catherine said.

My hand was still sort of halfway up in the air. I put it down.

When she bent over to set the salsa down, I noticed a tortilla chip crumb stuck right in the middle of her chest, nestled in the V of the dress. I pointed at my own chest, sort of vaguely. She looked at me, confused. I pointed again.

"Crumb, Cat," Brady said.

"Oh!" She looked down, laughed, fished it out with two fingers, and ate it.

---

While I was setting up, Brady had also changed into a pair of thin black basketball shorts, the shiny mesh kind. It was very obvious, every time he moved, that there was nothing under them. I'm not going to describe it. I'll just say that it was the living room all over again, and that my mind went straight back there whether I wanted it to or not.

He caught me looking and didn't seem to mind at all. He adjusted himself right there, like he was straightening a tie. "Commando, bro. Underwear restricts the hips. The pros don't wear it."

"The pros?" I said. "Of Twister?"

"There's a league, bro."

Catherine kicked off her slippers. "Socks off," she said, peeling hers off. "It's on page two. You'll slip."

"It's on page two," I agreed. I took my socks off and folded them and set them on the arm of the couch.

"Bro folded his socks," Brady said to Catherine.

She laughed. "He always does that."

“Okay.” Brady stepped onto the mat and stretched both arms over his head, and his whole body stretched with him. “Gotta have stakes. Loser gives the winner a massage. One hour minimum. A real one.”

Catherine’s eyes lit up. She has never, in her life, turned down a competition. “Deal.”

“Deal,” I said. For a second I pictured winning, and Catherine rubbing my shoulders the way she does after tax season.

Then I pictured losing, and rubbing Brady’s.

We took our places. Catherine at one end of the mat, barefoot, her toes curled at the edge of the red row, the yellow dress swaying around her thighs. Brady at the other end, rolling his neck, cracking his knuckles, his shorts doing what they'd been doing all night. Me in the middle, because there were three of us.

Catherine looked over at me and gave me the brightest, most hopeful smile. This was her idea. This was going to fix everything.

"Who's spinning first?" she said.

"I'll spin," I said.

So I knelt down at the edge of the mat, held the spinner flat on my palm, and flicked the arrow.

---

For the record, I lasted three spins.

I'm not going to go into it. There was a hip involved, and it wasn't mine, and my knee touched the mat, and the rulebook is very clear about knees. That left me standing at the edge of the mat with my socks off and nothing to do with my hands, while Brady did math on his fingers.

"Okay, so Mikey's down," he said. "Two of us left standing. That's a tie. So Mikey owes two massages. One hour each." He pointed at Catherine. "One for you." He pointed at himself. "And one for me."

"That's not how ties work," I said.

"It's how this one works." He walked over to the couch and lay down on it face first, all six-foot-three of him, his feet hanging off the end. "I'll take mine now, bro. Start with the glutes. They're a disaster. You stand at a sandwich station for four hours, it's like a war."

I stood there looking at the backs of his thighs in those shiny shorts. I honestly didn't know what to do with my hands.

Catherine was looking at me. It must have been my face. My therapist says I have a very readable face, and she doesn't mean it as a compliment.

"No," Catherine said. "Nope. Double or nothing."

Brady lifted his head off the cushion. "Go on."

"Round two. Just me and you. If I win, Michael's off the hook. No massages for anybody."

"Cat, Cat, Cat." Brady rolled over and sat up, shaking his head at her like she'd said something adorable. "Double or nothing's gotta be double. That's literally what the double means. It's in the name."

"Fine. So what's double?"

He held up one finger. "If you win, Mikey's off the hook, and I owe you. Not one measly hour. I want a massage every night for a week."

Catherine crossed her arms. "And if you win?"

A second finger. "Then Mikey still owes me mine. And you give me a massage every night for a week."

I opened my mouth. I'm an insurance guy. I work out outcomes for a living. I ran the scenarios, and every one of them ended with the two of them spending a week of evenings with their hands all over each other.

"Wait," I said. "So either way, you two are—"

"You're on," Catherine said.

"—going to be—"

"Michael." She held up a hand without looking at me. "I'm saving you."

She had the look on. The one from the cheer bet: chin up, eyes narrow, a little pink at the top of her cheeks. When that look comes out, I'm not in charge of anything. I'm not sure she can even hear me.

"Okay. Hold on. If we're doing this, we're doing it right." She turned to Brady, all business. She's the same way at work. She once made a groom initial every page of the seating chart. "Say the terms out loud so it's official."

Brady put his hand on his heart. "If Catherine wins, Mikey's free, and I give Catherine a massage every night for seven nights. If I win, , and Catherine gives me a massage every night for seven nights."

"Full massages," Catherine said. "Not, like, five-minute shoulder pats."

"Full-body, professional-grade, Cat. I don't do anything halfway."

"Michael's the witness."

"I'm the witness," I said. I don't know why I said it. I was the witness.

They shook on it. It was a long handshake. Catherine pumped his hand three times, very firmly, because she read once that a firm handshake shows confidence. Then she pointed at me.

"Michael. Spin."

---

I knelt at the edge of the mat with the spinner. They took their places at opposite ends. Catherine shook out her arms and bounced on her toes like she was back on the sidelines at homecoming, the yellow dress bouncing with her. Brady rolled his neck until it cracked, then cracked each of his knuckles one at a time, looking right at her.

"Let's go, Captain," he said.

"You're going down, Brady."

"That's what Kayleigh said." He paused. "Different context."

"Right foot, blue," I said, a little louder than I needed to.

They both stepped in. Catherine took the blue circle nearest her. Brady had four blue circles to pick from, and he picked the one right next to hers.

"Left foot, yellow."

Same thing. His leg ended up pressed along the back of hers, his shin against her calf.

"You're in my space," Catherine said.

"There's no space in Twister, Cat. That's the whole game. It's a contact sport."

"It is not a contact sport."

"Mikey. Is it a contact sport?"

They both looked at me. I flipped the rulebook open. "It doesn't really say."

"See," said Brady. "It doesn't say."

"Right hand, green," I said.

Green was the far row. Catherine folded forward at the waist to reach it, and the dress fell forward with her. I've told you about the dress. Thin cotton, little straps, and that built-in bra she calls the paper towel. When she leaned over, the whole front of it swung loose, and I could see down the front of my wife from collarbone to belly button. Brady, who had his own green circle to find, found the one directly underneath her. He reached for it slowly and looked up the whole way.

"Eyes on the mat," Catherine warned, without looking at him.

"They're on the mat, Cat. The mat's just very close to you right now."

"Left hand, red."

That one twisted her halfway around, so she was reaching back across her own body. I'll say this as plainly as I can: when she twisted, her left breast went one way and the dress went the other. For a second, there was a lot of my wife sitting right out there on the side, all soft and pale, the way she looks first thing in the morning in our bathroom. Then she shifted, and the dress caught up, mostly.

"Oh, the form," Brady said, in a deep announcer voice. "Folks, look at the extension on the captain. You don't see that in the regular season."

Catherine laughed, which made everything jiggle. "Stop! You're going to make me fall!"

"I would never make you fall. I'd catch you."

"I don't need catching, Brady, I did this at nationals!"

"You did Twister at nationals?"

"I did flexibility at nationals!"

"Right foot, green," I said.

---

A few spins later, Brady ended up in a crab position: on his back, hands and feet flat on the mat, belly up, shorts very much doing what shorts do.

"In the league," he told me, "we call this the Mechanic."

And then I spun left hand blue for Catherine, and the only blue circle she could reach was on the far side of him. There was only one way to get there.

She went over him. Both hands on the far side of his head, both feet back on this side of his hips, so she was on all fours, stretched right over the top of him, like a bridge. He was flat on his back underneath, looking straight up.

I want to describe this accurately. My therapist says I should name things, not run from them.

The front of the yellow dress hung straight down, away from her body, like a tent flap. The paper towel gave up completely. Everything she had hung right there in the air, maybe six inches from his face, full and heavy and swinging a little every time she breathed. And she was breathing hard, because it's a hard position. Each breath pulled them a little lower, then a little higher, then a little lower. The straps were already slipping. The left one went first, sliding down her arm. Then the right one started to go too.

"Don't look," Catherine said, through her teeth.

"Eyes on the mat, Cat."

His eyes were not on the mat. I don't know what mat he meant.

"Spin, Michael!"

"I'm spinning! It's sticky!"

It was. My hands were sweating. The arrow kept catching. I flicked it once and it went half a turn and stopped. I flicked it again and it landed exactly on the line between red and blue.

"Is it red or blue?" Catherine called, her arms starting to shake.

"It's on the line."

"Spin it again!"

"Take your time, Mikey," said Brady, from underneath her. "No rush down here."

And that's when the right strap gave up too. The whole top of the dress slid down another few inches, and her left breast came all the way out, over the top. Just out, in the air, a few inches above Brady's nose, swaying.

She didn't notice. I don't think she could feel it, with all the blood rushing to her head.

"Honey," I said. "Your, um—"

"Not now, Michael!"

"No, your—the dress—"

"Spin the thing!"

Brady didn't say anything at all. Brady was very quiet. He's never been quiet a day in his life.

"Left foot, red," I finally said.

She moved her foot, and the movement must have told her, because suddenly she looked down between her own arms and saw herself. "OH MY GOSH."

She couldn't fix it. She had both hands planted and all her weight on them, and if she lifted either one she'd go face first into Brady. So she just stayed there, bright red from her chest to her forehead, completely out of the dress on one side, holding her position because she would rather die than lose.

"Nobody saw that," she announced. "Nobody saw anything."

"Saw what?" said Brady.

"Thank you, Brady."

"I'm the witness," I said, to no one.

---

I spun right foot yellow, mostly to get her out of that position. I want that on the record. My intentions were good.

It didn't work out the way I meant. To get her right foot to yellow, she had to walk it way back, and with her hands where they were, that left her in a sort of upside-down V, the way people do in yoga, with her hips high in the air. She managed to drag the left strap back up with her shoulder somehow on the way, which I thought was very resourceful.

But the skirt didn't know which way to fall. It slid slowly the wrong way, up her back toward her shoulders, until most of the yellow underwear was out in the open air of our living room. They really did match. They were lace, which I didn't know when she said she matched. They didn't cover all that much, which is how lace works, I guess. From where I knelt, my wife's ass was at about eye level, high and round and shaking a little with the strain.

Brady, who had four yellow circles to pick from, picked the one directly behind her. He came up out of his crab and settled in close, right behind her, so that her ass was about two inches from the front of those shiny shorts.

"I'm right behind you, Cat."

"I know," she said, out of breath. "I can tell."

"Michael." She turned her head, upside down, to look at me between her own arms. "Is my skirt—"

"It's… mostly," I said.

"Mostly what?"

"Mostly on."

"How mostly?"

I thought about how to answer that honestly. "Like… a scarf."

"MICHAEL."

She started to wobble. You could see it start in her calves and run up the backs of her thighs, a little tremble that went through her whole body. She pushed back a little to catch her balance, right back into Brady.

"Is that your knee?" she asked.

"Yeah," Brady said.

Both of his knees were on the far side of the mat. I could see them.

Then she wobbled again, and Brady's right hand came off the mat and landed on her, right on the curve of her ass. "Whoa, whoa. I got you. You're tipping."

Catherine turned her head to look at me again, red in the face, hair hanging down. "Is that allowed?"

So I checked. I really did. I picked up the rulebook and read both pages, line by line, while my wife held her position with Brady's hand on her ass. There's a lot in there about knees and elbows. There's nothing about hands. Nothing about touching the other player at all.

"It's…" I swallowed. "It's allowed."

"Okay." She sounded relieved. "Thank you, Brady."

"Anytime."

"Right hand… yellow," I said.

Brady needed his right hand for that. His right hand was on my wife.

He didn't move it.

"One sec," he said. "She's still tipping."

"I'm fine!" Catherine said. "I'm totally fine." A pause. "Am I tipping?"

"So bad, Cat."

"Oh no."

"I got you, I got you."

I want to be careful how I describe this, because I'm still not sure what I saw. His whole hand was on her. Fingers spread wide, the way you'd palm a basketball, his thumb on one side and his pinky on the other and all of her in between. Every few seconds his fingers squeezed. I assume that's how you steady something. Then his hand started moving, slowly, in a small circle, like he was looking for the exact center of her.

"Women's center of gravity is lower," he explained to me, very calmly, still moving his hand. "It's the hips. You gotta find it."

"I don't think that's—"

"It's science, bro. It's why they're better at limbo."

He found it. Then he kept finding it.

I'm a timer guy. I count without meaning to. Ten seconds. His hand slid down to where her ass meets the top of her leg, and his fingers sank into her there a little and held. Fifteen. The skirt slid another inch, and his hand slid under the edge of it like it had been invited.

Twenty seconds.

"Better?" he asked her.

"I think so?"

"Don't let go yet," he said, like she'd been the one holding on.

Twenty-five. His hand was back on top, squeezing, slow, and every time it squeezed, Catherine let out a little "hup," the noise you make when someone pushes on a sore spot. Thirty. I could see the yellow lace wrinkling under his fingers.

"Is it supposed to take this long?" Catherine asked.

"Balance is a journey, Cat."

Thirty-five.

"Brady," I said. "Right hand yellow."

"Bro. Safety first. You want her to faceplant? On your conscience?"

I didn't want her to faceplant.

Forty. His thumb was hooked in the edge of the lace now. Her legs had stopped shaking a while ago. I could see that very clearly from where I was. I don't think Brady could see it from his angle.

"Honestly, this is amazing," Catherine said, upside down. "My hamstrings feel so good right now."

"It's the support," said Brady.

Forty-five.

"Brady."

"Okay, okay." He sighed like I was being unreasonable. "Right hand yellow. Jeez."

He finally let go. His hand came off her slowly, the way you'd take a sticker off something you want to keep, and reached for the yellow circle way off to the side. But he'd been leaning his weight on her for almost a minute, and now there was nothing holding him up. He reached, he wobbled, he windmilled one arm, and then he went over like a cut tree. Elbow, knee, hip, the whole side of him flat on the mat with a thud that rattled the salsa bowl on the coffee table.

Catherine didn't fall. She was still up, still in her upside-down V, the skirt still mostly a scarf.

"Elbow!" she shrieked. "That's an elbow! Michael! That's an elbow! You're the witness!"

"That's an elbow," I said. "I witnessed it."

"I WON!"

She popped up off the mat with both arms straight up over her head in a V, the yellow skirt dropping back down where it belonged. Everything bounced. The left strap had come down again. She didn't care. She jumped up and down twice, flushed and sweaty and glowing, her hair everywhere, and pointed both index fingers at Brady on the floor.

"Who's going down? Who's going down?"

---

Brady lay on his back on the mat with his arm over his eyes, like a man who has just been told some bad news by a doctor.

"I can't believe it," he said to the ceiling. "Seven nights."

"Seven nights," Catherine sang. She did a little shimmy, which she does when she gets the last parking spot at Costco. "Seven full-body professional-grade nights."

"I was so close."

"You were not close."

"I had you, Cat. I was right there."

"You had your hand on my butt for a full minute and then you fell over."

"I was steadying you."

"And I won." She turned to me, beaming. "Honey. You're off the hook!"

She threw her arms around my neck and kissed me on the cheek, hard. She smelled like vanilla and sweat and the floor. I hugged her back. I was off the hook. That's what I'd wanted, technically.

Brady sat up slowly, rubbing his elbow like it had been in a war. He looked so sad, honestly. Like a golden retriever who's been told he can't come on the car ride.

"Okay," he said. "Okay. A bet's a bet. But full disclosure, Cat, I'm gonna have to go easy on you."

Catherine let go of my neck. "Excuse me?"

"Like half-power. Maybe a quarter." He held up his hands, palms out, very reasonable. "Look at these. I'm a lot stronger than you. It's not your fault. Women's muscles are like—" he thought about it "—spaghetti. Al dente, at best. I go full power, I could snap you like a breadstick."

"A breadstick?"

"I'm just saying. Safety first. I'll do, like, a light shoulder thing."

"Oh, no. No, no, no." Catherine put her hands on her hips. She looked exactly the way she looks when a caterer tries to swap the salmon for tilapia. "Don't you dare be a sore loser, Brady. You lost. Fair and square. You're giving me a proper massage. Full power. The whole thing."

"Cat—"

"I can handle it."

"You don't know what you're asking for."

"I'm asking for what I won."

Brady looked at her for a long moment. Then he looked at me, like he was hoping I'd step in.

I didn't step in. I didn't know what I would step in to.

He let out the biggest sigh I've ever heard a human being make. "Fine," he said. "Fine. Tonight. Before bed."

He got up off the mat, picked his shirt up off the arm of the couch, and walked toward the hallway. At the doorway he stopped, without turning around.

"Wear a towel," he said.

And then he went down the hall to the bedroom.

Catherine stood in the middle of the Twister mat with her hands on her hips, and she laughed. It was the laugh she does when she beats me at Scrabble with a word I didn't think was real, short and sharp and a little bit mean, completely delighted.

"Ha! Did you see his face? Did you see his face, Michael? 'I'll go easy on you.' Please. He's a sore loser. He's such a sore loser." She shook her head, grinning, and fixed her strap. "Breadstick."

She came over and kissed me again, on the mouth this time, quick and happy.

"I'm gonna go shower," she said. "Thank you for spinning, honey. You were a great witness."

Then she went down the hall too.

---

I cleaned up. That's what I do when I don't know what else to do. I put the salsa back in the fridge. I folded up the Twister mat into perfect squares and put it back in its box. I put my socks back on.

When I lifted the couch cushion to make up my bed, I found the four queens. And the Monopoly top hat, and the boot, and the race car, and the little iron, and the little dog. And the Pictionary hourglass, with all the sand at one end.

I guess Brady sits on them a lot. It's a big couch.

---

I want to end this entry honestly, Michael, because that's the whole point of you.

I was jealous tonight. I'm saying it plainly so I can't take it back. I watched my wife have more fun at a game night than I've seen her have in months, and instead of being happy for her, I spent most of it counting seconds and reading the rulebook, looking for something to be upset about.

And I found plenty. That's the thing about looking.

But here's what actually happened, if I take my feelings out of it the way my therapist says. Catherine won. She played fair, she played hard, she didn't quit even when her dress had obviously quit on her, and she beat a guy almost twice her size. She did it to save me from having to rub Brady's glutes, which, let's be honest, nobody deserves. And when he tried to weasel out of his end, she held him to it, the way she holds everybody to everything. That's my wife. That's exactly who I married.

The only sore loser in this house tonight was me. And I didn't even lose. I was the witness.

So I'm going to work on it. I'm going to be happy that she's happy. I love her. I've loved her since the bleachers. I love that she can't stand to lose, and that she shimmies when she wins, and that she says "breadstick" like it's a swear word.

As for the towel, I've decided that's just practical. That eucalyptus lotion stains, and those are the good sheets.

The shower just turned off.

Seven nights. That's fine. It's just a week.

Sincerely,
Michael