THE AFFAIR (19 page)

“I know you need me, Larry. I need you also.” My anger at my husband was draining away. “Our desperate needing of each other is killing me.”

I turned from him and exited the kitchen, not stopping until I reached my new bedroom. I had to move quickly. The look on Larry’s face was more than I could take. I sank onto the blue and white goose down quilt and cried.

I cried for my husband who had been abandoned twice, first by his own mother and now by me. And I cried for Chance and for the old soul of Jeremy. Then I cried for Dimitra and the son she’d never held to her breast to nurse.

At last I cried for myself. It appeared I was destined to keep hurting the people I loved no matter what lifetime I was in.

Chapter Nine

I stayed in Erica’s room until my bladder could no longer take it. I had listened in silence as I heard Larry stomping around the house, making calls, slamming down the phone, only to hear him make another in a minute or two.

I wondered who he was trying to reach. I prepared myself for two men in white coats to burst through the door of my new bedroom any moment and haul me away. I wondered, would it look better for me if I went along peacefully or should I fight?

When nature’s call could no longer be avoided, I opened the door as quietly as I could and hurried down the hall to the bathroom. I heaved a sigh of relief when I was done. No Larry.

I peeped in the kitchen. I was starving, but I couldn’t chance another run-in with him. So I decided to endure the hunger a little longer. At least I was alone.

My eyes were focused over my shoulder looking for Larry. My plan was to rush back into the bedroom and close the door if he appeared. When he didn’t I released the breath I was holding and stepped into the room.

I closed the door, sighing in short-lived relief. “Larry,” I gasped as I finally turned. He was sitting on the bed waiting for me. “Why are you in here?”

An eyebrow shot up before he answered me. “Because this is my house. I paid for it. And you’re my wife. I think that means I’m entitled to what you obviously don’t mind giving away to anyone who asks.”

I leaned into the door. Surely he wasn’t intending that we make love. That would be ludicrous. Of course the entire situation was crazy.

Who would have thought in a million years that I, straight- laced, by-the-book, keep-her-promises Michelle, would ever be in the position I now found myself?

If it was not my life I would have thought it was a bad movie. Or at the least a very bad and unbelievable book. I knew better. It wasn’t something I’d made up. It was real and it was happening to me.

Chance Morgan was real and so was Blaine MaDia. I would stake my life on the fact that I believed neither man was conning me. Hell, I’d staked my marriage on it. What did my life mean?

“I called the kids.”

“You did what?”

I walked toward him no longer worrying if he was in the room to assert his marital rights. I had not thought that far ahead. I felt my stomach roll over. I wondered if he told them about the affair.

“What did you tell them?” I managed to whisper.

“I told them the truth,” he answered me. He eased his body from the bed and began walking toward me. “They’re in agreement. They think maybe you’ve been conned. If you keep insisting that this nonsense is true they’re in agreement with me that I should take you in for an immediate psychiatry evaluation.”

He was standing directly in front of me. He reached out a hand to touch my hair and I began to tremble. I wondered if there was any possible way Larry could carry out his threats.

“I want you back in our room, Mick.” His eyes looked feverish; there was a thin film of sweat lining his upper lip. “I’m not going to allow you to destroy what we’ve worked so hard to build.”

“Larry, why are you doing this? I told you the affair is over.”

“It’s not over until you’re back in our bed.” He ran his hand over my hair, then down the front of my gown, letting it fall and linger on my left breast. “I’m fighting for us, Mick, like it or not. I will protect you.”

I wanted to push my husband’s hand away, but at that moment I was afraid. I knew I needed to use my head to keep him calm. The last thing I wanted to do was make him go past the point of no return.

“You’re not going to throw me away,” Larry said. “You’re not going to find me another place to live. You made promises. You’re my wife. I’m going to make sure you honor those promises.”

A sudden flash of awareness skittered across my soul. He was thinking about his mother. He was remembering her abandonment.

“I told you, I’m not asking you to leave. I’m not your mother. I’m not abandoning you. I’m still here, I’m not going anywhere.”

He dropped his hands and stared at me for a long moment. “What are you talking about?” He looked confused. “My mother has nothing to do with this.”

“You said I wasn’t going to find you another place to live. Larry, that’s what your mother said to you.”

Now it was he who was backing away from me.

“Drop it, Mick.” I heard the pain in his voice. “You know damn well what I meant. The woman always wants the man to leave and she takes the house. That’s what I meant.”

“It’s not what you said.”

“So now you’re a shrink. Listen, I’m serious. You get this notion out of your head that we’re sharing a house only. It’s not going to happen. We’re sharing a bed. If you don’t come back to our room, I’m moving in here.”

“Help you with what? How much money did this guy charge you? Do you think he’s going to help you out of the goodness of his heart?”

“I want to see if he can help me with Viola.”

Larry slammed the open palm of his left hand against his forehead.

“Damn,” he muttered loudly. “That again?” Then he marched determinedly toward me, grabbed me by the shoulders and began shaking me.

“Do you have any idea how many innocent people have gone to jail for hitting a pedestrian? Don’t you know how much juries hate people as privileged as we are? Just because you have money you could have had the book thrown at you.

“Do you think anyone would care that it was an accident? Did you think I was going to wait around and trust your life to the system?

“Hell no, Mick. I love you! I kept my promises to protect you. If that’s what all this nonsense has been about, I’m getting sick to death of it.”

He shook me one last time, then stalked away. I thought he was afraid of being so close to me. No matter the reason, I was just glad he moved away.

“You’re not a stupid woman,” he screamed at me from his new position across the room. “I gave that woman more money than she’s probably ever seen in her entire life. I didn’t cheat her, Mick. There was no reason why you should have gone to see her.”

“But, I promised her, Larry.”

He sighed loudly before throwing me a look of pure disgust. I was beginning to wonder if he didn’t think me a backward child.

“Then you shouldn’t have broken it, should you? Tell me something, Mick. Why is your promise to her so important, but your wedding vows you managed to break so easily? Did you enjoy sex with this man? Did you scream out his name? Did he rock your world? Or did you fake it with him also?”

It was finally out in the open. Hurt and humiliation claimed my husband’s features. I bit my lips wishing to God I had never met Chance.

“I need to know if the accident was my fault. I want to know what I was doing before I hit her. I’m hoping Blaine can help me remember. It’s important that I remember. You never saw her, the fear in her eyes, you never saw her blood or the groceries spilling in the streets.”

I was crying. “You weren’t the one who urged her not to worry, who promised to be there for her. I was. I promised her and I’m the one who broke that promise.”

He glared at me then. “If it was that important, why didn’t you go?”

“Because,” I answered him, “from the moment we said I do and became husband and wife, for twenty-six years I’ve been doing what you wanted me to do. For twenty-six-years I’ve been trying to please you, to keep a promise I made to you. That’s why I didn’t go.”

Larry’s fists were clenched at his sides. “So you do blame me. Why in the hell don’t you get it over with? Why don’t you just tell me that you’re angry with me?”

I don’t know how it happened. It was as if his razor sharp glare released years of resentment. I found myself screaming at my husband.

“Yes, I’m angry with you, Larry, for acting as though I can’t cross the street unless you’re there to tell me the light is green.

“I’m angry that, as usual, you convinced me to do something I didn’t want to do. I wanted to go visit that old woman and it’s my fault for not going.

“I’m an adult. I should have told you to go to hell, but I didn’t. Instead, I allowed you to convince me that it would be easier that way. I wanted our home to remain happy.”

I started laughing hysterically. “Funny thing, about that. I’m not happy. I don’t know the last time I’ve been happy. You’ve been telling me all these years how happy I am, but I haven’t felt it.”

The tears were running freely down my face now. I had no more to lose. My marriage was over. There was no longer any reason to keep my feelings damned up behind a façade, so I continued.

“Baby, I’ve been too busy walking on eggshells to be happy. I always wanted our marriage to work. I was afraid to fight with you. I didn’t want to be like my parents any more than you wanted to be like yours.

“You always thought it was so wonderful that I was raised in a home with two parents. You never heard me when I told you how miserable my childhood was.

“I can understand how hard it was for you to have been abandoned, but maybe you were better off. Maybe you had a better life because your mother left.”

A look I was unfamiliar with from Larry came into his eyes. It took me a moment to recognize it as hatred. He thought I was deliberately trying to hurt him but I wasn’t. I was trying to make him see he’d painted a fairy tale world that had never existed.

Before I could say another word he’d stormed out of the bedroom and headed for the front door, pausing only long enough to retrieve his keys from the kitchen counter. I ran behind him, barefoot, screaming for him to stop.

“Larry, don’t go. I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

I banged on the car window. He ignored me and drove away, the screech of tires ringing loudly in my ears. I looked up to see a neighbor staring at me and realized how I must look. I was in my nightgown, my hair matted and uncombed, screaming at a now invisible car. Without a word I turned and walked back into my house.

It was three days before I saw my husband again. Three days of agonizing over where he could possibly be. During that time I cursed his mother for having left him. I cursed Larry for asking me to assume the burden and I cursed myself for accepting it and letting him down. Lastly I cursed fate and my dreams of a dark- haired man.

It was only my incredible guilt that kept me from cursing Viola. My hitting her was the catalyst for everything that had happened in the past eight months. I could only go so far in not accepting blame for my actions. My mind refused to travel down that path. Viola was not to blame. I was.

I could have said no to my loneliness and pain. I could have tried harder to make Larry understand what I was going through. But I had chosen to take the easy way out. Even I had to wonder what I was trying to prove by returning home to sleep in separate bedrooms. What was that all about?

I closed my eyes against images of Chance and more recently the invasion of images of Blaine. Blaine’s face was a constant onslaught of pain. I shivered each time his face came into focus. I remained stunned at the images I’d seen when he touched me.

I’d meant it when I said the affair was over, but I didn’t think I could so easily put Blaine into my past. I had to see him again. I had to talk to him. But not before I was sure my husband was fine. His safety was the most important thing to me at that moment.

For the first time in our marriage, I believe Larry heard me, but only the parts that caused him pain. Maybe Larry and Chance were both right. Perhaps I slept with Chance to punish Larry.