The Marriage Variations
MONIQUE LABAN
1
When your husband told you he would be sleeping in a separate bedroom, and you complied, you suspected some health problem. After all, you heard those moans at night and wondered if he was gnashing his teeth, curled on the bathroom floor. But every morning, he woke you with the smell of coffee, a couple slices of buttered toast, and a smile, as if you had spent your whole marriage like this. Then you suspected a late-night addiction. You checked his video game controller for warmth when he left for work. Both bedrooms have TVs, and matching armoires, and bay windows overlooking the sea. Everything about the rooms looks the same, in fact, except for his console and controller.
Your husband is obsessive, training to be the top player of his intramural soccer team; a week of feeding you omelets until they met your family’s high standards. Surely he’s spent night after night in bed, defeating demons, saving princesses. You wonder if your husband plays as a demon, a princess, or a different creature entirely.
Video games never interested you. He told you about one with angry goddesses and adventures to the underworld, but you forgot the details immediately—you were late to the real estate agent’s walk-through inspection. You told him, on the steps of your new seaside cabin, that this was a real adventure.
As you lie awake with the moans, the scraping, whatever other noises you refuse to put an image to, you hope he is playing a game, acting out fantasies through the body of a monster.
One night, the noises are unbearable. You aren’t to disturb him, but you will break if this continues. If you intend to learn their cause, go to 2. If you must escape these ghastly moans, go to 3.
2
You remember the story your husband told you now, don’t you? With your phone flashlight on, it comes to you as you climb down the stairs, slower than your shadow. You know the game he plays, a myth about a woman who learns her lover’s divine nature and how he vanishes upon this knowledge. She searches for him anyway, more in love after her discovery.
Perhaps your husband is hiding something shameful. If you force him to reveal himself, if you accept the cause of these moans, will he disappear? Is knowing the truth worth this risk?
You hear a bang. In the light, you see that the cat has knocked the keepsake box off the hallway shelf. Out spill childhood photographs of your sister and two brothers. They never liked your husband.
His door opens on the cat’s commotion. He stares at you, blue eyes wide. If you confront him about the noises, go to 4. If you return to bed and seek counsel from your family in the morning, go to 5.
3
The tide rumbles up the shore and the foam licks your toes. If only you could sleep standing up, feet in the sand and the breeze on your neck.
“Hello there,” says someone calling from the sea. You search for the voice and spot a beautiful woman in a white dress, floating in the water. You recognize her as one of your husband’s ex-wives.
“I thought you were dead,” you say.
“I am,” the woman says.
“We all are,” say the other beautiful women floating along the shore, all your husband’s ex-wives.
“We’d have been good friends,” the first ex-wife continues. “Our deaths weren’t his fault, really. His mother was the true terror.”
The other ex-wives agree heartily. They guard you as you sleep. When you return to the cabin, go to 4 to confront your husband. Go to 6 to investigate your mother-in-law.
4
“Have you been all right?”
“Never better. Why do you ask?”
“Then what’s been going on every night?”
“What? Every night?”
“Moaning? Thudding? Wails?”
“From you?”
“No, from you.”
“Are you having those dreams again?”
“No, that’s not what this is.”
“Have you been taking your pills? What’s going on?”
“I can’t sleep. You’re loud.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do. Why won’t you tell me?”
“No, something is wrong with you. You need help.”
If you wish to believe your husband and end the conversation, return to 1, having learned nothing. Go to 7 to press on.
5
The slow Wi-Fi distorts your brothers’ laughter through the Skype call.
“Remember the keys?” your sister says. Your husband has a ring of keys that he keeps in his inner coat pocket. Your sister once asked what they were for, and he spent the whole evening explaining each one. There was one left whose use he couldn’t recall. He went silent when your sister suggested he dispose of it.
“That’s just how he is,” you say in defense.
“We don’t trust him,” your brothers say. “He and his family are strange.”
“And now you’re sleep-deprived?” your sister asks. “What’s he hiding?”
“We didn’t think you two would last,” they all say.
If you need to clear your head, go to 3. If you look into his family, go to 6.
6
You find his late mother’s scallop-shell earrings in his nightstand’s drawer. He was a mama’s boy, but you were scared of her and not without reason. She tested you viciously before the wedding—adhering to her strict weight-loss diet, spending a week’s worth of wages to gift her the pricey beauty supplies she wanted.
“You are stunning,” she told you. “He has such good taste in wives.”
Even after proving yourself to her, you knew she resented you for taking her son. Perhaps the nights are punishment from beyond the grave.
If you are ready to confront your husband, go to 4. If you seek counsel from your family, go to 5.
7
“What’s the problem here?”
“Why can’t you talk to me?”
“We’re talking now.”
“Then tell me what’s going on.”
How has communication between the two of you crumbled so steadily?
“You’re the one making a problem out of nothing.”
You miss him next to you at night. The bed is too large without
