Wife 22: A Novel

Maybe it was my droopy eyelids.Maybe it was because I was about to turn the same age my mother was when I lost her.Maybe it was because after almost twenty years of marriage my husband and I seemed to be running out of things to say to each other.<br /> <br /> But when the anonymous online study called “Marriage in the 21st Century” showed up in my inbox, I had no idea how profoundly it would change my life. It wasn’t long before I was assigned both a pseudonym (Wife 22) and a caseworker (Researcher 101).<br /> <br /> And, just like that, I found myself answering questions.<br /> <br /> 7. Sometimes I tell him he’s snoring when he’s not snoring so he’ll sleep in the guest room and I can have the bed all to myself.<br /> 61. Chet Baker on the tape player. He was cutting peppers for the salad. I looked at those hands and thought, I am going to have this man’s children.<br /> 67. To not want what you don’t have. What you<i>can’t</i>have. What you<i>shouldn’t</i>have.<br /> 32. That if we weren’t careful, it was possible to forget one another.<br /> <br /> Before the study, my life was an endless blur of school lunches and doctor’s appointments, family dinners, budgets, and trying to discern the fastest-moving line at the grocery store. I was Alice Buckle: spouse of William and mother to Zoe and Peter, drama teacher and Facebook chatter, downloader of memories and Googler of solutions.<br /> <br /> But these days, I’m also Wife 22. And somehow, my anonymous correspondence with Researcher 101 has taken an unexpectedly personal turn. Soon, I’ll have to make a decision-one that will affect my family, my marriage, my whole life. But at the moment, I’m too busy answering questions.<br /> <br /> As it turns out, confession can be a very powerful aphrodisiac.