The Husbands by Chandler Baker

Author:Chandler Baker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Flatiron Books

* * *

Nora sits still while Cornelia fastens straps around her upper chest and stomach.

“Women tend to breathe through their chest,” Cornelia explains, moving to secure a blood pressure band around Nora’s arm. “While men are belly breathers.”

Hayden shoots her a comical look from across the sofa as he is equipped with the requisite cords and skin sensors, and it’s clear from the way that he’s sitting that he thinks he’s not allowed to move. Poor thing probably itches.

Cornelia sticks a last sensor to the tip of Nora’s ring finger. “There, comfortable enough?” Cornelia breezes back to her desk chair.

Actually, it seems a bit excessive, is what Nora wants to say, but she says yes, the teacher’s pet inside her coming out in full force. Welcome to couples therapy, session two. She’d strongly suspected (correctly, it seems) that their first one had intentionally been a softball designed to ease them into a false sense of security.

Cornelia clicks something on the laptop facing her. Hayden and Nora each have keyboards with USB cables connected to her computer port alongside the wires from their respective breathing apparatus. Nora doesn’t have the faintest idea how any of it works.

“Now,” Cornelia says, intertwining her fingers and resting them on the stainless steel desk in front of her. “The therapeutic journey on which the two of you have agreed to embark is based on an offshoot of PACT, short for Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy. This discipline has been spun off and further perfected by one of my most esteemed mentors, Dr. Neha Vita. Today’s focus is on the bonds of partnership where we’ll be taking a bird’s-eye view of the strength of your marriage. I know, it sounds heavy, but no need to be nervous. This is a polygraph test, colloquially known as a lie detector. It’s simple.”

Shit, Nora thinks, suddenly panicky. Because she has absolutely no intention of telling Hayden what’s happened with Liv’s preschool until well after she has a workable solution in sight. Probably not a tactic that’d be endorsed here in couples therapy, especially not with a lie detector strapped to her, but Nora has her reasons.

Anyway, it’s not like she enjoys lying. Honestly, it’s exhausting. But lies get such a bad rap. If Nora lies, it’s only because it’s the truth that would give the false impression. On the surface, though, she knows, her screwups loom so much larger than his because hers affect Liv.

Cornelia checks her screen. “Are you okay, Nora?”

“I’m fine,” says Nora. “Just anxious to get going.”

“Right. So that’s all there is to it. I will read you a series of yes-or-no questions and you will type Y for yes or N for no.” Cornelia sits back in her chair, balancing her gold pen between her fingers. It makes a satisfying click as the inky point unsheathes. “Let’s dive right in, shall we? First question: Have you ever lied for your partner?”

There’s a pause. Nora glances over to Hayden’s face. His tongue is poking out from between his teeth.

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