When the fights first began, Art swore he’d try harder. Homemaking just didn’t come naturally to him, he said. Dinners were burned. Bills went unpaid. Lucy was often forgotten at school. And slowly, chore by chore, Jo resumed doing it all. In the meantime, Art’s plays weren’t being produced. His agent dropped him. And thanks to a crippling case of writer’s block, he hadn’t typed a single word in months. Jo didn’t want to add to his worries. She prayed to whatever gods might be listening that Art would get his big break and they could go back to having a functioning partnership—before her rage detonated and destroyed them both.
At two o’clock in the morning, Jo woke up drenched in sweat, just as she had almost every night for over a year. She climbed out of bed, stripped out of her T-shirt, and left her yoga pants in a heap by the side of the bed. Bare-chested and wearing only her underwear, she walked out onto the master bedroom’s balcony and stood spread-eagled in the chilly late-spring air. Jo could have sworn she saw steam rising from her muscular limbs. She no longer questioned what was possible. Her body had become a constant source of amazement, even pride. She didn’t duck back inside when a faint glow lit the trees at the edge of her lawn. It grew brighter until a car’s headlights appeared. A slight swivel of his neck, and the driver would see Jo standing there, her naked chest exposed to the elements. But it felt too good to go in. And she’d already given up giving a shit.
As soon her temperature dropped to the normal range for a human, Jo returned to the bedroom and sat cross-legged on the floor. She sensed every atom in her body pulsating. Her nerves buzzed, her synapses crackled, and loaded blood cells raced through her vessels. She’d never be able to sleep right away. Jo closed her eyes and laid her hands in her lap, palms facing up. She visualized the energy coursing through her body’s passageways, traveling up and out through the crown of her head, then cascading around her in a shower of silvery sparks. It was all part of Jo’s regular meditation routine. But for the first time, she experienced a strange sensation in the palms of her hands. She could feel the presence of a fiery ball hovering just above them. Had her eyes been open, she would have seen the bathroom light flicker.
When she climbed back into bed, Art rolled over and threw an arm across her waist. “Everything okay, naked lady?”
“Yeah.” She hadn’t planned to say any more, but it all came out at once. “I was meditating, and it felt like I generated a ball of fire in my hands. I swear to God, Art, I could literally feel it.”
“Hmmm,” Art mumbled sleepily. “That’s great, honey. But can I be honest with you?”
“Sure,” she said warily.
“That’s the dumbest superpower I’ve ever heard of.”
Jo couldn’t stop laughing while he kissed her, and she didn’t stop until his pants were off and he was inside her. That was one thing about their relationship that kept getting better.
For years, the only gym in Mattauk had been a meat market for the recently divorced and soon to be single, where the women wore thousand-dollar outfits and meticulous contouring while middle-aged men pumped and preened for the mirrors. Jo had driven to a dingy old gym in a neighboring town to avoid the scene. Dressed in ten-dollar Old Navy sweatpants and an army surplus tank top, she would climb on a bike and ride until the rage burned off. There was nothing pretty about it. Back then, she was still managing a hotel in Manhattan. On top of her long hours, she spent an hour at the gym every day after work. Art bitched and moaned a few times until she explained that her workouts had probably saved his life. The more time she spent at the gym, the less likely he was to end up buried in the backyard he never bothered to mow.
As the months passed, Jo began to spot more of her neighbors at the run-down gym. Every one of them was a woman her age. Their choice of equipment varied. Some stuck to the treadmill; others showed an unsettling devotion to a particular elliptical. While they worked out, Jo watched their lips form silent curses and their fists punch the air. She saw them walk in wearing prim professional attire and later head for the showers with crimson faces and hair plastered to the sides of their heads. And Jo realized her fellow women had all driven miles out of their way for the same reason she had. They were blowing off steam before they exploded.