Suzette knocked cautiously on the closed door of Henry’s laboratory over the garage, which before had been her own writer’s space, calling cheerily, “Dr. Jekyl, where are you Hyding?”               

Honestly, he’d been in such a bad mood lately, and so changeable that she almost didn’t recognize her husband of three months; she’d known marriage was not an easy road (her poor father), but this seemed far beyond the pale of what she’d ever anticipated for her own marital efforts.

Twisting the knob at the top of the stairs, she pushed the door open slowly to silence broken only by slow, stertorous mouth breathing; yes, that sounded like Henry, so it should be safe to enter. More to the point, it smelled like him since he’d replaced her writing tools with his chemical equipment and taken over the space: thick, moldy, rank.

Stepping into the room, she thought “I just need to be more understanding because it’s all so much harder for males,” and then screamed as the fearful-faced man pushed past her and fled down the stairs, muttering “Hide, Hyde!”

“I just wanted to talk again…” Suzettte called after his thundering shuffle, “…about converting this room to an apartment for my mother…she’s so lonely since Dad died!”

© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2025)

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