The Wife on Ambien by Ed Park

The wife on Ambien knows the score. I mean this literally. Rangers, 4–3 in overtime. Devils fall to the Flames, 3–1. Knicks lose again at home. In the morning, I open the paper and none of this checks out.

The wife on Ambien calls me Bob, calls me Mom, calls me Mr. Bluepants.

The wife on Ambien makes false starts. In one week, she has sketched a music hall (she is not an architect), designed a drone (she is not an engineer), written two scenes of a play called “Haunted Masquerade” (her M.F.A. is in sculpture). The handwriting is a bear, but I piece together a plot: society lady leads double life in the London of Jack the Ripper. In the morning, the wife on Ambien denies authorship, though at lunch I hear the first line of the soliloquy leave her lips.

The wife on Ambien cooks eggs. I take pains to hide the ingredients and the hardware. Still, she conjures omelettes from a secret stash of eggs, with a pan I somehow miss. She singes her robe. I gain five pounds in a month.

The wife on Ambien gets fresh. She moves on top of me like it’s spin class. That was nice, I say afterward. Really nice. It reminds me of our wedding night. Paris! My God! We were so young! Do you remember how the stars, I say, then stop, because she’s already snoring.

The wife on Ambien tries to order Ambien on Amazon.

The wife on Ambien makes up names of golfers.

The wife on Ambien keeps me guessing. You don’t want to know what I did in Tucson, she says, patting me on the head, like a child. I’d better not say what went down in West Hartford. Tell me, I say. She looks around for some eggs.

The wife on Ambien shifts her legs. To the left, to the right, to the left, to the right. She bends and extends. What are you doing? I whisper in her ear. Skiing, she says. Skiing in the Canadian Rockies with Mr. Bluepants.

The wife on Ambien recites the poetry of T. S. Eliot, sings the music of the Jesus and Mary Chain, calculates how much we need to save to retire. Her figures vary. The wife on Ambien also tells me it doesn’t matter, that the sun will swallow the Earth exactly eight billion years, or thirteen weeks, or twenty-four hours from now.

The wife on Ambien orders Uber after Uber. The cars stream toward us like a series of sharks. It’s 4 a.m. Drivers from many countries gather on the corner, fling curses at our window, break out the booze, arrange marriages among their offspring.

The wife on Ambien hacks into my Facebook account and leaves slurs on the pages of my enemies. Get a life, you’re a joke. She joins political causes directly opposed to her own. I spend an hour every morning cleaning up the digital trail.