Q: Could Pavlov Classically Condition My Husband to Not Be a Dick?

by Brooke MacDonald

My first-edition copy of Ivan Pavlov: A Russian Life in Science was missing. Wedged between Carl Rogers’s A Way of Being and Margaret Floy Washburn’s The Animal Mind, its absence was noted alongside half of my filing cabinet and everything remotely of value from mine and my husband’s offices.

“They took my book,” I mumbled, setting my purse on the counter and rubbing my brow. It was a first edition my mother had given me at my graduation.

“They took fucking everything,” my husband replied, haphazardly dropping a pile of loose files on the counter.

The kids had been dropped off at their grandmother’s, the cat, Milo, fed and taken care of, and I had squeezed myself into a pair Spandex and my best—his favorite—red cocktail dress for our first dinner outing in years. My husband in a tux, two glasses of champagne, a T-bone for two, and a cheesecake dessert should have concluded with a quiet bubble bath and naked reruns of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, only we returned home to a crowbar-scarred front door, Milo, who was typically an indoor-cat, murdering a small animal on the curb, and all of our belongings, gone.

I dialed 9-1-1 as my husband continued to catalogue the empty spaces where our things used to be, scribbling them on a napkin after napkin, sliding each of them down the countertop for me to read off to the operator—who did not ask me to.

“God damn it!” My husband snatched the phone from my ear and took it with him to his office. The words grand larceny in the second degree and Superbowl ring confirmed that our evening was over.

He hung up and shuffled back into the kitchen, slamming my phone onto the island and grabbing an unopened bottle of Old Forester whiskey. I watched as he considered drinking straight from the bottle, thought better of it, and grabbed a glass. He chugged down the first and poured another.

I opted for a glass of Pinot.

“If you could only get one item back, what would it be?” I asked. My husband slinked into the chair next to me, bottle, cup, and defeat in hand.

“Ideally that wouldn’t be the case,” he replied, taking another sip and letting his eyes roll back.

“But what if?” I prod.

“We’ll get all of it back. Criminals this disorganized don’t last very long.” He gestured toward our front door, which we had jimmied shut despite the damage.

“It’s a hypothetical,” I turned to face him and let my hair out of my pin; he wouldn’t meet my gaze.

“All you’re doing is speaking it into the universe,” he let his head slump down between his shoulders.

“I don’t think the universe cares about your work laptop, sweetie.” My glass was nearly empty, and I thought of what my father used to say to my mother whenever she scarfed something down at the dinner table or chugged a drink too quickly: you must have needed it.

He looked up at me through his brow. “The universe will when I don’t get my files back and a felon is let back on the street.”

“The universe isn’t going to smite you; it’s just a question.” I took a gulp of wine.

“It’s a stupid question.” He poured another drink for himself.

“No, it’s not,” I rounded the counter and opened another bottle, scratching Milo’s ears as he sniffed the dry stream of wine.

“Yeah, it is. Especially coming from the person who only cares about one thing.”

“It was an important thing,” I set the bottle down a little too hard.

“It was a book,” he gestured with his glass. “If you don’t get it back, you can get a new one.”

“But it won’t be that one.”

“You can get one in better condition.”

“Just answer the question,” I set the glass down and cradled Milo in my arms as he purred against my skin.

“Fine. If I could only get one item back it would be my dad’s Superbowl ring.”

Well now the universe is definitely going to smite you. “Why not the files?”

“The ring is worth a lot of money, More than a year’s worth of your salary.” He paused between those sentences, as if he considered it a good idea to add the second one. “It could pay for our children’s education.”

Like he’d ever sell the thing. “Smart decision. I guess you could always print the files.”

“It’s not that easy,” he quipped, looking at me like I was stupid.

I smiled anyway. “Then why didn’t you ask for them?”

“Because it’s not a real scenario.”  He pushed off the chair and moved to the credenza in his office. I followed, pausing in the doorway as I watched him rummage through files. He cringed as he noticed a large law book open on the floor, its pages crinkled.

How does it feel? “But we’re pretending it is, and you lied.”

“I didn’t lie,” he grumbled, setting the damaged book beneath a pile of pristine ones to flatten out.

“So, you’d rather let a ‘felon go back on the street’ so you could get your ring back?” I don’t think he liked my air quotes very much.

“Jesus, Madeline, let it go. I’m not one of your patients.”

“Maybe—” my husband’s finger shot up as the police announced themselves at the front door. I followed him back into the kitchen, pouring myself another glass of wine and swallowing it in one sip. My husband straightened his tie as he glared at me in his signature this conversation isn’t over yet look that I was sure he’d used on our children and will use on their children after that. He let the officers inside, mumbled a swift introduction, and pointed him to his office. As they passed, he paused and leaned in, asking what I was going to say before.

“Maybe you should be.”                 

BIO: Brooke MacDonald is a science-fiction writer, an editor, and an MFA in Creative Writing candidate at the University of Central Arkansas, where she graduated with degrees in both creative writing and psychology. When she’s not working on her debut sci-fi novel, you’ll find her writing speculative flash and short stories, reading, or working on her Substack publication, Quasars & Queries. Her work appears in the Oxford American, Hunger Mountain Review, 365tomorrows, NUNUM, and others. Find her at babblingbrooke.org.