A Professor's Wife

I run at night with my dog, Emma. It's when we get a chance to go, after dinner, and it's cooler then. Streetlights atop telephone poles light up small patches of grass and asphalt, patches not quite touching, houses swallowed by shadow.

My husband said once, "Look out for cars." He had a student, freshman, who got hit four times, running. She's OK. Lucky.

We only go three miles, Emma and I. The same loop each night, which starts with our tree-lined street and takes us past the town's smaller places: rental properties filled with college students that my husband might teach. I like looking in these windows when I can. I went to this college. Emma, though, is a locomotive. She squats low to the ground, on already short legs, and drags me down memory lane.

The top of our run's the town park. It has a stilted gazebo that, during the day, tennis fans sit on the steps of to watch locals lob balls on one of two courts. Beyond that's a wood plank bridge, a serpentine black track, then there's the new playground. Ladybug and spider rides still shine bright red and blue.

At night the park's usually empty, quiet, though last night and tonight there was a car there, a boxy, brown Buick. It was by the playground, headlights illuminating the playground, and its windows open, radio playing softly. Oldies. And inside was a fat woman who looked Hispanic. Tonight she was studying her nails.

On the playground, in the car's light, was a short man, also Hispanic. Both nights he's had on jeans that grip his thighs then bunch at the bottom. Long plaid shirts. Yesterday he stood between the swings and the slide, looking at the ground. Tonight he tottered, arms out, on the balance beam. Tonight the radio played My Boyfriend's Back and Emma stopped, blocked my path so I nearly tripped, but they didn't notice, this couple. They didn't look over.

My husband said once he doesn't like our running at night, called it "unnecessarily dangerous." I took it for love; the route home takes Emma and I on a street parallel to the park, the only street with traffic, where we're in danger. On this street the oncoming lights of cars that pass too close make me nervous. I normally pull Emma down the first alley, back to a quieter block. Tonight I thought, what's the story with those people? Why this playground ritual? I imagined the balance beam man reliving nights on playgrounds with his high school sweetheart, in Mexico, though my husband says it's Salvadorans moving in. I remembered when pop music seemed profound, saying I love you was something; I thought, she does this for him, facilitates nostalgia. She sits in that car, big as she is, and watches her husband play with younger women, in his head.

I was running fast, Emma too. She pulled hard ahead of me, dragged us along that white line. Cars passed, lights stung my eyes, and I thought more of their life in this small town, with few outsiders. Why here? There's so little. It's wrong of me to do this but I placed him at La Cocina Mexicana, where he's a cook, and her in their apartment, keeping house, bored. She'd cook him dinner, would like to, but he brings home Styrofoam containers of leftovers—crisp traces of refried beans, greasy cold cheese—that she eats all of. She's depressed. He messes around.

My husband would call this "projection." A cliché.

Emma and I were on our block and I wanted to turn, go back, tell her to leave. Pull out and leave him, stuck in his teen fantasy, because he's married now to you.

But Emma was to our sidewalk, trotting, panting. The lights were out, our carport empty—Did he drive past us?—Emma needed water. She turned to see that I was with her. I said, "All right, baby. Yes. Let's see if Daddy left a note."