Are you happy?

“Are you happy?”
He watchs the television, changes the channel with the remote, turns his head to look at her, changes the channel again.
“It’s a hard time to know that,” he says.
“Maybe. But I’m not, and I don’t think we should keep on this way.” She pauses. “I don’t think I can keep doing this.”
He runs through more channels.
“It’s not good to be unhappy,” he says, looking at the television, .
“So what are we going to do about it?” She’s sitting on the edge of the green chair, leaning forward, her hands squeezing the arms hard enough that she can see the ends of the fingers growing pinker.
He changes channels again, once, twice, three times. He looks from the television to her, rolling his head on the pillows, not sitting up.
“I don’t know. Wait. See if things get getter. I’m not sure.” She has to strain to here him over the laughtrack as Dave Barry’s TV family squabbles contentedly, a voice-over pulling together all the loose ends.
“I can’t wait much more.” She keeps looking at him, waiting for a response. She stares so hard her eyes start to water, like when she had to stare at her old bedroom closet door without blinking to keep the creature inside.
He keeps looking at the television. The tone of his skin changes as the images flicker on the big screen, the only light in the room, green, blue, pink. His age changes with the colors. He changes channels again, skips through three or four stations, stops on the real estate channel, staring at still photos of expensive houses, listening to cheery descriptions of modern kitchens and multiple bedrooms.
They both wait.
“I don’t know,” he says.
He holds his breath, afraid of what a sound would say, knowing what silence says. She breathes, smells the damp. The room is always musty and cool,windows too small and too high, and in the winter it never seems to get warm.
He folds his hands behind his head, elbows up beside his face, so even the half-view she has is blocked by his crooked arm, only a bit of his forehead visible, his eyes and mouth lost. He stares harder at the television, but can’t bring himself to change the channel, so he watches more houses for sale roll by, one every 30 seconds or so.
“I can’t keep doing this. If you don’t start caring more, I’m going to have to start caring less.” She speaks very quietly, but he can hear her above the house channel, her voice floating just a little, threat and pleading all in one sentence. She reaches with her left hand, pulls the sweater a little tighter around her shoulders, brushes her red hair back. Her fingernails are chewed short.
He lowers his elbow to look at her.
“I’ll try harder,” he says, and changes the channel again. He feels the corduroy pillow pressing into the back of his head, hears the water running in the bathroom, a car starting on the street. He keeps changing channels, looks at her again, then raises his elbows and watches the lights on the screen.
She waits, then stands and leaves the room without saying anything more. He hears her feet, down the hall, down the stairs, into the bedroom. He changes channels, turns up the TV.

“I’m going to the gym.” she tells him 20 minutes later. She has on black leggings, sweat pants, her hair tied back
“Work hard,” he says, looking up from the television.
Once he hears the car leave, he goes to the kitchen, pours a drink, walks down to their room, lies on the bed without spilling a drop of gin. He sees the sweater, pants, underwear she was wearing, thrown in a pile in the corner of the room near the door. He goes and lies on the floor, his head on the clothes, the sweater scratching his cheek. He takes a deep breath, inhales her smell from the clothes, so familiar. He knows it’s the last time he can be sure her clothes will smell that way.