The moonlight peers through your perfectly square, curtained window. You just returned from another mixer, where a couple of girls made eyes at you. They were all so pretty in their identical summer dresses. You pull up your sheets, close your eyes, and dream of your future wife:

You want a sweet, silent thing who curls her hair and lines her lips. She flutters her eyelashes effortlessly. Never will you see her bare face, even though you are certain it’s lovely, just a little less lovely than the one sporting make-up. She will always appear put-together, never frazzled, no matter how many demands you make upon her. This wife will bake meatloaf from scratch and serve it with hot garlic mashed potatoes as soon as you return from work. She will fervently study cookbooks and whip up new, delicious recipes for you every week, while still remembering to prepare your favorites. After dinner, she will ask you about your day and nod compassionately at every complaint you spew. She never expects you to ask about her day and, in the rare event that you do ask, she simply replies that she did “nothing much” and that she “missed you a lot.” Regardless of how many shirts she ironed, socks she darned, square feet of floors she scrubbed, or herbs she harvested from her private garden while you threw paper airplanes at the office, your wife will never whine. She will not read. She will not have any friends. She will never urge you to buy expensive clothes or take you to expensive places. Every Saturday morning, she wakes up early to pull gooey chocolate cookies out of the oven for you. You spend the day lounging in the backyard as she tends to you, bringing tumblers full of fresh-squeezed lemonade and adjusting the radio so you can listen to the game. At night, she will stay home, painting her nails a coquette shade of pink while you run out with the boys. She will never cry about being lonely and demand that you come home early. Nor will get upset if you come home drunk or with another woman. Sunday, she attends church, even if you stay snoring in bed until noon. She dresses up the children in their mini tweed blazers and reminds them of all the words to the prayers. The next day, she starts her routine again, walking the children to the school bus while you get into the car and head to work. She will do all this and more without you ever once thanking her, saying that you love her, or merely saying you care.

But when you wake up, you turn to the woman lying next to you. You lament that she has an independent mind and an independent life. She knows a world outside of you. And she will never be your wife.