Chapter 1
A year into our marriage, planning had replaced spontaneity. As both professionals and owners of an Australian Shepard, my wife Stacie and I relied on the order only a schedule can provide. An executive at a SoCal tech company, Stacie often worked late evenings. By default, I was assigned to pick up Ramanujan from daycare. Most weekdays Rama was in my vehicle, a 2018 Subaru Outback, by 5:00 p.m. The high school I worked at, Jefferson, was only 7 miles away. When I didn’t swing by Kev’s, I was at HappyDog in less than half an hour. Kev had the purest Molly in the city. And I only ever swallowed the good stuff.
Stacie had no idea I was still doing Molly. Our predictable, functional marriage was how I was able to hide it from her. She knew I smoked pot since age thirteen. One bowl a day. I was twenty-nine, five-foot-eleven, tall for a Filipino, and brown like a walnut. That was probably something Stacie assumed I did—get high—while she spent time with her girlfriend, Jamie, earlier that Saturday.
I’d gone to see Kev, Rama riding shotgun, and bought three grams of translucent baby crystals (he had them ready for me in a baggie). After that, I took Rama to the beach to cool off. It was low tide, and we had a blast running and tumbling on the moist sand. When I got home, I smoked my allotment of weed, ate, fed my fur buddy, and meticulously weighed out four, 0.2g doses on my digital balance, encapsulating each.
Lucky for me, Stacie went to bed early, even on weekends unless we were on a date or hanging out with friends. She was usually zonked by 9:30 p.m. She got home at half past eight and hurried past me toward her pajamas. I played the good husband, “I’ll come join you in a minute,” I said, looking furtively in her direction. She went inside the bedroom. I walked to the kitchen, filled a cup with tap water, took out a 0.2g capsule from my polo shirt pocket, dropped it in my mouth, and gushed it down my throat. Twenty-five minutes, I thought.
Stacie recapped her entire evening with Jamie, save for minor details too private to share. I loved that she was talkative and forthright. She liked to relieve my thoughts and fears away from any contrived notion of her being unfaithful. What I didn’t love was having to sit and listen to her beyond my body’s natural “chill level”, the point where my anxiety spikes. Roughly nine minutes in.
We were twenty minutes into our chat, and Molly was starting to lure me astray. “What’d you do today?” Stacie asked. She was under the covers, her head resting sideways on fluffy pillows. I laid next to her, atop a white, cool comforter, looking at a dark ceiling and avoided eye contact. The only light in the room came from a muted television.
“Oh, you know,” I said with some difficulty, “just hung out with Rama.” I felt like telling her everything, coming clean. It was the Molly. I need to bug out asap, I thought.
She pulled a lock of blonde hair back off her rosy face, looked up and said, “The two of you stay home?”
“We went to the beach.”
“How fun.” She yawned lightly.
“What should we do tomorrow, honey?” I asked Stacie pleasantly, patting her hip.
“Um,” she said groggily, “we can go on a hike in the morning, if you’re not watching sports.” The NFL season had concluded two months prior. I’d transitioned to watching basketball.
“Nope,” I said, “I’m good.”
“Great. Then maybe we can have lunch and—” she let out a great big yawn— “go from there.” She was almost down, fading fast.
I got up gingerly, minimizing mattress deformity, and said, “Sounds good, babe.” I leaned over and planted a kiss on top of her head. Her hair felt smooth and silky on my lips. “Good night,” I said blissfully.
