THE AFFAIR (30 page)

His world was crumbling around his feet and he could think of no way to fix it. His children yelling at his wife. His Mick yelling at them, telling Erica to go and leave the keys. Now this, her threatening not to support Shannon. They’d agreed on not mentioning this.

Larry searched his memory vigilantly. Mick was accusing him of not listening. He was trying to fit the pieces together when he noticed the worried looks on the faces of his children.

He’d become lost in memories, lost in thinking about how much he loved his wife. He licked his lips. “Leave us alone. Your mother and I need to talk.”

“No buts, Erica.” He was screaming now. “It’s time for you to butt out. It was wrong for me to have involved you kids in the first damn place. It was none of your business. It was wrong for me to do this to your mother. This was a betrayal of my love for her, of our marriage. I was wrong.”

He turned to Mick. “I’m sorry. I needed someone to talk to. I didn’t have you any more. This thing,” he pointed toward Erica and the rest of the kids, “kind of snowballed. I’m so sorry. It was a mistake to have involved them. I wish I could take it all back.”

Mick wasn’t talking to him. She was looking instead at their children. None of them had made a move toward the door.

Larry looked first at his wife, then at his kids before he stormed over to the door and snatched it open. “Get the hell out. Now,” he ordered them. “And don’t come back until I say you can.”

He didn’t know if he would be able to stand there and talk to his wife calmly. All he wanted to do was tie her up if he had to, lock her in the basement until she loved him again.

“Larry, I’ve said everything. There’s nothing left.”

“What if I agree to get counseling?”

His entire world was crumbling. He felt hands on his shoulders, cold hands shaking him until his body began shaking of its own accord.

His chest was burning and a searing pain was running rapidly up and down his left arm. He couldn’t breathe. It felt as if an elephant was sitting on his chest. His body suddenly became cold and clammy.

From out of nowhere, Mick was handing him a glass of cold water and asking if he was all right. Hell no! He wasn’t all right. His dreams had all been turned into a pile of ashes. He would never be all right again.

He took a long sip of the water, willing his body to cooperate. He didn’t want her to see him like this. He felt the tears coming to his eyes and try as he might, he was thrust backwards into time, forty years in the past.

He saw himself as a little boy crying and pleading with his mother not to leave. He watched her leave with him screaming out her name. And she never looked back.

Now it was happening again. Only Mick meant so much more to him than his mother ever had. This time he would not scream or cry out in pain. He attempted to suck the tears back into the aching void that had become his body. If she was going to leave him, he would not hold on or beg her to stay.

“You’re leaving me for him, aren’t you?”

“No,” Mick answered. “I’m leaving you because what we have is not enough anymore. I can’t make up for all the hurt in your life and I was wrong to try.”

He looked at her, wishing his heart would stop thumping a mile a minute. How the hell was he ever going to be able to pull off pretending she wasn’t killing him?

If only he could make the pain go away. She was looking at him with worry. The last thing he wanted from his wife was pity.

A week ago to keep her he would have accepted even that. Now with resurfacing memories of the little unloved boy he’d been, he couldn’t accept pity.

Not from Mick, the woman he adored. Not the woman he’d loved from the first moment she spoke to him. No, if he couldn’t have her love, he damn sure didn’t want her pity.

“Do what you have to do, Mick. I won’t try to stop you.”

He took another drink of the water, noticing the trembling in his hands. A clear image of the child he’d been came to him. If only he could erase the look of fear and pain on the face of the boy he’d been.

Larry sank into the chair, his strength ebbing. Whatever Mick was going to do he wished she would do it quickly, so he could be left to bleed in peace.

He closed his eyes, sending mental commandments to his heart to slow its pace. He listened to the sounds of Mick moving around. He heard her going down the stairs to the basement for luggage.

He thought about it being high on the shelf and her not being able to reach it. He almost got up to go to her, to get the luggage down. But that was too damn civilized. Besides, he was nauseous. He had to sit to let it pass.

It seemed to take forever for Mick to pack. And at the same time, it seemed as if she did it in the blink of an eye. It was over. It was really over. How the hell would he ever be able to say goodbye to her?

Larry watched as Mick struggled with the two large pieces of luggage and her bag she kept her samples in. To not help her now would be just plain mean. His heart had finally slowed down. The pain had receded to the feel of only a very heavy adult male sitting on his chest instead of an elephant. He thought he would be able to handle lifting the bags for her.

Without a word, he took the bags from her hands and carried them to her car. He placed them in, turning back to face her with the key to her trunk outstretched in his hand.

She took it from him, her fingertips brushing his, melting away his resolve, his brave front. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t stop himself from crushing her in his arms. He held onto her for the longest time.

He resisted the temptation to kiss her. He felt the trembling in her body and knew it wouldn’t take much to change her mind. She would stay if he pressed the commitment. He no longer wanted to use that. Maybe he’d heard her after all.

He never would have believed it, but he wished she would just do like his mother had done when she abandoned him. Just leave and never look back. Every time Mick got out of the car, she killed him just a little more.

We were being so polite about everything, about my leaving. Larry took the luggage from my hands, helping me as he always had.

From the first moment Larry had told me he loved me, he’d been there to do things for me, maybe even before that. I looked into his reddened eyes and wondered why I was leaving my husband for loving me too much, for trying to protect me? I had a mouth, I should have spoken up sooner, told him what I wanted. I hadn’t and now here we were. There was no turning back.

Larry held me in his arms. I could feel the heavy pounding of his heart, his ragged breath, his clammy skin. I wanted to hold onto him forever, never leave him, never say another mean word to him again. I wanted to be for him the Michelle I’d promised to be, but I was no longer her.

I caressed my husband’s back and face, kissing his stubble cheeks, breathing in the smell of his aftershave, ingraining the prickly feeling of the coarse hair on his chin.

This man was a part of me, a part of my life. What would I do without him? I pulled away, finally aware that to stay with him would do us both more harm than good. Now we loved each other. We had that.

If I stayed, our love would eventually turn to hate and despair. I didn’t want that. I knew without Larry asking me that he wanted me to stay. I also knew it would kill him for our love to turn completely sour.

As I pulled away from Larry, my heart was breaking for both of us. I knew he thought it was easy for me, that this was what I wanted all along.

I knew he hadn’t believed me when I said I wasn’t leaving him for Chance. I had not spoken to Chance other than to tell him about my seeing Blaine. I had not seen him once since Larry’s return from Arizona. He had no idea I was making this move. This was done on my own and for me.

Easy to leave my husband of twenty-six years, my comfort zone, easy to break another promise? No. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done.

As it was, I could barely make myself drive away from him, from our home, from our life. I stopped twice maybe three times, I wasn’t sure.

Anyway, each time I stopped, I got out of the car and looked at my husband standing there, pretending that it was alright, that he wasn’t hurting.

The last time I got out of the car, the realization hit me like shock waves rolling through my body. I didn’t want to leave my husband.

As much as I thought I wanted this, needed it in order to save my very life, I didn’t want to leave. I could feel the tears beginning again as Larry and I stared long and hard into each other’s eyes. As much as I didn’t want to leave I knew I had to for both our sakes.

When I was probably two blocks from my home, I pulled the car over to the curb and bawled like a baby. I don’t know how long I stayed there. I was paralyzed by the pain I’d caused Larry and myself.

I was free, free to do whatever I wanted. I didn’t have to hide or pretend, yet I felt more bound to Larry in that moment than I ever had. I didn’t want the last thing we would share to be pain, but I had made the decision.

I drove to the same hotel I’d first gone to with Chance months before. I had a little over a hundred dollars and a couple of charge cards. I hadn’t made concrete plans for my life. I hadn’t thought about the financial aspects.

I thought of Larry. He hadn’t written a check in years. I knew he wasn’t stupid. He was a lawyer, for God’s sake! Still, I worried about him.

I checked in, remembering the pasty look on Larry’s face. I worried about him, his health. I couldn’t stop that. Regardless of my need to leave, Larry was a part of me. If no one but me believed it, it didn’t make it any less true. I loved him.

I picked the phone up several times to call my husband, to tell him I was sorry, to tell him I was coming home, to ask him to join me.

I did none of those things. I stripped all of my clothes off and climbed naked into the bed under the covers. Then I cried myself to sleep.

Larry stood outside for several minutes after Michelle drove away. He walked to the curb and saw her when she pulled over. He stood watching her, wondering what she was doing, wanting to run all the way to her car to make sure she was fine, to beg her not to leave.

When the urge to do so became so strong that he’d taken a step toward her, he felt the burning pain once again flaring up in his chest, constricting his diaphragm, making his breathing difficult.

He took a half step forward toward Mick before stopping himself and turning back toward his now empty home and broken dreams. He had to let her go. He had to let it be over.