“What are you doing up so late?” the wife said. She turned on her light and rolled over. The husband was on his back with his hands crossed on his chest. He stared at the ceiling, his eyes unfocused and still. A ceiling fan revolved above the bed, the pull chain rattling with each revolution.

“Thinking,” the husband said.

“I thought you told me that guys don’t think; that you just react based on instinct, like animals in the wild or children.”

“Yeah. That probably sounds right.”

“Wait a minute. Where did my husband go? I don’t recognize this person at all. You almost sound pensive. What’s going on in that little head of yours?” The wife reached over playfully, but the husband didn’t want any of that and rolled over to face away from her. “This must be really serious,” the wife said.

“Do you ever wonder what it’s all about?”

“What’s what all about?”

“Life.”

“I wonder about that question all the time.”

“What is it that you wonder?”

“You never really took an interest in philosophy before. I would have loved to talk about this with you because I think about it so often. I convinced myself that such worries never occurred to you. I always thought we’d be having this conversation when we were old and death had crept up on us. It’s rather reassuring to know that you have these concerns. It makes you seem less robotic—not that you’re robotic, but you know what I mean.”

“Robotic? It’s funny you should say that. I feel that way sometimes.” The husband rolled over to face the wife. She had blackened circles under her eyes from working late nights during the past week. He began counting the wrinkles on her forehead.

“I don’t find you robotic. Well, not usually. You just have a tough time in sharing your emotions. Many men have that problem. I’ve always thought it was something they taught you in school, probably in that health class where they separate the boys and girls.”

“They didn’t separate us in school. We all had the same health class.”

“That explains many things about your development.”

The husband finished counting twelve wrinkles on the wife’s forehead. He reached over and ran his finger across her forehead, releasing the wrinkles. “I don’t like dealing with those parts of my life,” the husband said.

“You deal with the children’s problems fine—and I have no complaints about you and the household. And I think our relationship has lasted rather well. Everyone has problems of course, and we’re no exception, but I think we work them out rather well. I think you’re being too hard on yourself.”

The husband was silent for a while. When it was clear to the wife that he didn’t intend to say anything else, the wife said, “What are you thinking?”

“Nothing, I’m an instinctual animal, remember?”

“Come on. Tell me. I want to know what’s been going through that thick head of yours tonight.”

“First it’s a little head, now it’s a thick head—you have to make up your mind.”

“Tell me, please,” the wife said. She lifted her head up on her elbow and stared at the husband, her face a mold of pleading emotions.

“I’ve been on an emotional rollercoaster these past few days. I don’t know what set if off, whether it was the death of Charlie at work from a heart attack—he was only 44, two years older than me!—or the kids growing up so quickly, or unresolved issues from my childhood. Damn, listen to me, I sound like one of those daytime talk show guests.”

“No you don’t, dear. Maybe you’re finally hitting the dreaded midlife crises. I was hoping you were immune to it. Heck, I was sure it was going to take all our energies to get us through mine, but here it, as clear as your nose on your face. Existentialism meet my husband, husband, this is existentialism.”

The husband snorted. “I don’t think this is my midlife crisis. If it was, I should be out buying a Porsche or climbing a mountain to prove my manhood or something. I’m not feeling old, just empty. It’s like there’s tons of stuff out there and I don’t know about any of it. I feel like I’ve wasted so much of my time on the silly little things and now I have no time for the big important things—that is, if I ever figured out what the big important things are. Does that make any sense?”

“Sure it does. Everyone has worries in life. Yours are coming to you late, and they seem so intense because you’ve always been so sure of everything. It’s all been a completely logical adventure for you.”

“Stop turning me into a cliché,” the husband said. He sat up in bed and covered his face with his hands.

The wife had never seen the husband like this before. She didn’t know what to make of him, whether to be impressed or scared. She crawled over and put her hands on his back, trying to massage away his worries.

“Is it about your childhood?” the wife said.

“Not everything relates back to childhood—no matter what that Freud guy said.”

“I know that. It’s just that you had a tough childhood, and now things are coming to a head with your thoughts. Your experiences might have left you scarred. You never had a chance to work them out. You shouldn’t be ashamed. I always hoped we’d work those problems out together.”

“Is it affecting the children? I don’t want the children growing up the same way I did.”

“How can it affect the children if I didn’t even think you were having these thoughts—whatever these thoughts are, you still haven’t told me—until now. The children love you very much, and because you’re not cold toward them, I love you for that.”

The wife continued, “My father was different. He died before we met—I’m sure I’ve told you this story a million times, but—here I go again—he was a brilliant doctor, a pioneer in blood-related illnesses. I was so very proud of him, we all were, my mother, my sisters, but none of us was ever close to him, even my mother. He never shared anything of himself, and he died without letting anyone in. I sometimes wonder if perhaps there was nothing else inside of him except the medicine. I know there’s more in you, and our kids know that. You’re a wonderful father and they feel that.”

“You know that I haven’t been to my own father’s gravesite in over twenty years. My mother used to take us there. I’d pretend to be sleeping in the backseat of the station wagon. She would visit the gravesite with my sisters, and I would sleep through it. I didn’t want to deal with it, you know. Crying was such a waste of energy. If I didn’t think about it, I figured it’d go away. And the more I didn’t think, the further away it went. It seemed to work. The feelings cropped up less and less over the years.”

The wife ran her hand through his hair. “You never talk much about that part of your life. I wish you would tell me more about it. I feel like there’s a whole part of you that I miss. It must be tough to bottle it up for all these years.”

“It’s easier than you think.”

The next morning, after the wife had bundled up the children and sent them to school, the husband sat down at the breakfast table and found a plate full of pancakes. The wife had cooked nothing but oatmeal with sliced bananas for the last fifteen years for breakfast. The husband didn’t think the wife knew how to cook any other breakfast food.

“This looks good,” the husband said. He poured the maple syrup over the pancakes, and cut into the pancake with his fork.

“See, things can always change.”