Whatever It Takes (2 page)

He lifted his head then and his beautiful eyes were bright green with tears.  And then he said something.  He barely breathed the words and while I heard them I hoped to God I somehow misunderstood.

“I slept with somebody.”

I jumped back, scrambling off my knees until my back was hitting the countertop.  I’d been given bad news plenty of times in my life but nothing has ever affected me like this.  My entire body turned to ice, like someone replaced my warm blood with freezing water.   My heart was pounding so hard it actually caused an ache in my chest.  As I let his words repeat over and over in my head my hand went to my mouth which was now gaping open and I stared at my tortured, pained husband.

“What?” I gasped.  Surely I had misheard him, right?  This was Gavin, my amazing husband, who shows me he loves me every single day.  He’s happy.  We’re happy.  Happy people don’t sleep with other people!

He rose from his chair and came walking towards me, the tears now falling.

“Em, it was just one time and I swear to Christ, it didn’t mean anything but I couldn’t keep it in any more.  I love you and I couldn’t keep lying to you.  The guilt, it’s been killing me.”

He was standing in front of me now and my hand came up on its own to stop him from coming any closer. This wasn’t happening.  My head was spinning.   I couldn’t think of what to say and so I repeated my last question.

“What?”

“Baby, I know you must hate me now, I hate myself, but I swear-”

I cut him off, telling him to say the words again. 

“Emma, please just-”

“No,”  I interrupted once more.  “Tell me, Gavin.  You need to tell me again.” 

I closed my eyes and quickly said a silent prayer that it wasn’t true.

“I slept with someone, Em.”

An agonized sound escaped my throat and I moved over to the sink just in time to empty my stomach of the delicious risotto and grilled chicken we had eaten for dinner.  Blood rushed in my ears and a sweat broke out across my forehead and it took me a moment after the vomiting subsided to realize that Gavin was holding my hair and rubbing my back.

“Don’t touch me!”  I screamed as I straightened up and spun on him, shoving his hand away from me in the process.  He looked a bit shocked but put his hands up in surrender and retreated to the opposite side of the kitchen.

“When?” I demanded.

He hung his head in shame and answered, “When I was in Denver.”

“Denver?  That was over a month ago!  Jesus, Gavin a fucking month ago?”  He had gone to Denver for work for only three days and I tried to think if he had acted any differently when he returned.  Nothing stood out as “cheating husband” behavior.  But damn, a month ago?  How many conversations had we had since then?  My God, how many times had we had sex?  He touched me, kissed me, told me he loved me after having been with another woman!  I suddenly felt like I was going to be sick again.

I wanted to ask him who it was but couldn’t bring myself to say the words.  If it was someone I didn’t know, I’d go crazy.  If it was someone I did know, well, I’d go even crazier.  I stood across from him in the kitchen, silently staring at his be face, terrified of what this was going to mean for us.  My life was exactly how I wanted it up until this moment and I could physically feel the reigns on my carefully controlled life slipping right out of my grasp.  Suddenly I felt the urge to do what I normally do when I feel that control slipping away and the panic starts to set in; run.

I quickly tore from the room, grabbing my purse and keys from the breakfast bar and headed for the garage.  Gavin was right on my heels.

“Emma, no, please don’t run,” he begged, grabbing my hand and holding strong before I could reach the door that led to our cars.  “Please, I am begging you, don’t run from me.  You don’t have to talk to me right now and I’ll leave you alone for as long as you need but
please,
don’t go anywhere.”

I shouldn’t run, I knew that.  It was my old way of dealing with shit and I had worked too hard to regress to that now.  Besides, where would I go?  I didn’t want anyone knowing about this, not now, maybe not ever.  So I dropped my keys and purse right on the floor and told him I wouldn’t run.

“I need to get away from you though,” I said.

He nodded and moved out of the way so I could get around him.  I kept my eyes on the floor as I made my way through the house to the back door that led out to the pool and curled up on one of the chaise lounges.  Words like betrayal, hate, unfaithful, and divorce swam through my head until it pounded and sun was completely gone.  It was a moonless night, the sky dark and lonely.  Exactly how I felt.

I’m not sure how long I stayed out there but eventually Gavin came out to tell me it was getting late.  Without a word I pulled myself up from the lounge, completely ignoring his proffered hand, and marched straight to our bedroom.  I changed into my pajamas, a tank top and drawstring pants while Gavin watched, leaning against the doorway.  I could tell he wanted to say something but was struggling with himself on whether or not he should.

“I don’t want to talk to you now,” I told him.  My voice was a flat, blank canvass.  Void of anything.  “I’m tired.” 

I walked to our bed, our beautiful, four poster king with its intricate carvings and moldings in the deep cherry wood and the metal scrolled top and stopped myself from getting in.  I couldn’t get in.  I couldn’t sleep there.  Not in the place where we held each other closely and whispered words of love and promise.  Where we stayed up late laughing and talking about everything and nothing at all.  Where we made sweet, gentle love, and where we fucked, good and hard. 

The tears came then and I let them fall silently as I walked past him and exited the room.  His face was broken.  He hated seeing me cry more than anything.

“Emma?”

“I’m sleeping in the guest room.”

“No, I’ll sleep in the guest room if you want.  You take our bed.”

I turned from down the hall and lifted my tear stained face to his.  “I can’t.”

“Do you want to cancel the party tomorrow?”

Shit.  The party.  The one we were throwing in celebration of the beginning of summer and our new pool.  We had almost thirty friends and family coming.

“No,” I answered.  “A lot of people are looking forward to it and many of them made food to bring.”

And with that, I stepped into the spare bedroom and closed and locked the door behind me.  Without even bothering to pull back the covers I curled up on the bed and let the tears continue to fall.  Sobs soon racked my body and I didn’t even try to control them.  Let him hear it, I thought.  Let him hear what it sounds like when someone’s soul is shattered.  

Gavin

I was an asshole.  Such an incredible fucking asshole.  Asshole didn’t even begin to cover it, but it was the best word I could think of while I was standing at my grill, listening to Dave go on about money marketing accounts.  I actually had wanted to stop him, turn to him and say, “Dave, I am a fucking asshole.  Stop talking to me.”

Instead I just pretended to listen to him and turned my gaze towards Emma for the hundredth time that day.  I kept sneaking glances at her, hoping she would meet my eyes and just smile.  Give me just one little sign that she didn’t loathe me, but she didn’t and I couldn’t blame her.  Like I said, I was an asshole.

When I turned this time though our eyes did meet.  I gave her a small grin and willed her to smile back.  Instead, she blinked quickly and turned away and then I saw her reach for one of Yvonne’s cigarettes.  I frowned in disapproval.  Emma hadn’t smoked in years and she knew I hated it.  Is this what I had driven her to?  Picking up that nasty habit again?  It occurred to me then that I had no right to have an opinion on her smoking and it crossed my mind that if we made it through this, I could be paying for my mistake for a long time.

You cheated, I’m going to smoke all I want!

You cheated, you’re going to wash the dishes!

You cheated, I get to pick what we watch on television for the rest of our lives!

If that was the way Emma was going to play this, I had no right to complain.  I was the one that did this to us, after all.

What if she decided to get back at me, though?  I squeezed the Corona bottle in my hand so tightly I was surprised that it didn’t break.  It would kill me if Emma slept with another man.  Just as it was killing her, knowing that I fucked another woman.  Hearing her cry herself to sleep the night before had ripped my heart out.  I should have never told her, I said to myself the night before while I sat on our living room sofa, torturing myself by listening to her sob.  But I was an asshole, a selfish asshole at that, and I couldn’t take the guilt any longer.  Like a cancer, it had eaten away at my insides until I felt like I was going to collapse from the weight of it.  The minute I said the words to her and saw the look on her face I wished I could take it back.  I wished I could go back in time just a few seconds and keep my damned mouth shut.  Hell, if I were wishing to go back, I’d go back to Denver and never screw around in the first place.  What a fucking lousy decision I had made, and for what?  A quick fuck that was over even before it really got started.

Dave turned my attention back to the food I was cooking by telling me it looked like something was burning.  I quickly started removing the meat and placing it on a platter calling out to our guests that dinner was served.  Emma came over to me then, reaching out with her slender arms to retrieve a tray from me.  She looked great, even after the night we had had.  Her dark hair was pulled up and her shapely shoulders were being shown off by the halter top of her bathing suit.  I always preferred her in bikinis when we were in the sun, but this was a family event and there were some kids present.  My Emma was too modest and too much of a lady to prance around in something skimpy today and so she wore what she called her black “tankini” top with a pair of black board shorts with white flowers on them.  My wife was a knock-out and I cheated on her.  What the hell was wrong with me?

As she moved to take the platter I instinctively reached out and ran my thumb down between her shoulder blades.  It was an unconscious move, I was always touching my wife lovingly and it usually pleased her.  This time though she stiffened at my touch, mumbled something I couldn’t hear, and then disappeared into the house.  My guts twisted.  My wife couldn’t stand me touching her now.  I was such a fucking asshole.

3

Emma

Present Day

It was just after eleven p.m. when the last of our guests left the party.  The rest of the day had gone as well as I could have hoped and I didn’t think anyone suspected there was anything wrong with Gavin and me.  The last few to go had been kind enough to help with the cleaning up but I still had a few things that needed to go into the dishwasher.  I kept my smile on my face, standing at Gavin’s side at the front door until the last car left the street.  Then I moved away from him without a word and went to finish the clean up. 

He followed me wordlessly into the kitchen and sat at one of the breakfast bar stools.  He just watched as I put the extra hamburger buns away and then moved on to load the dishwasher.  When I was just about done, he finally spoke.

“It was a good party, I think.”  His hands fidgeted with the tasseled edge of a placemat.

I said nothing but nodded in agreement, still refusing to make eye contact with him.

“I saw you smoking a cigarette.”  He didn’t say it in an accusatory way, but stated it matter-of- factly with a hint of disappointment in his voice.

“Yup.”  I said the word with a loud pop at the end in defiance.  I didn’t care what he thought of me having a cigarette.  I finally looked up at him from my cleaning and gave him a “what are you going to do about it?” look. 

He sighed and I knew he wanted to argue the fact but he thought better of it. 

“We need to talk about this, Emma.”

I put the last of the dirty dishes into the washer and started it up.  It’s low hum sounded strangely loud in my ears, yet was somewhat soothing.  A running dishwasher was normal.  It was routine, a comfort, if that made sense at all.

We certainly did need to talk but I had no desire to do it now.  One, it was late and I was tired.  Two, the patio still needed sweeping and the tables needed to be wiped down.  As tired as I was, the cleaning could not wait until morning.  Another trait of my OCD, I couldn’t sleep knowing something in my house was messy or dirty.  Over the years, with Gavin’s help, I’d learn to let some things, especially those out of my control, go, but going to bed with cleaning that needed to be done was not one of them.  Once, Gavin tried to make me go to bed with a load of laundry sitting in the dryer.  Even though he distracted me with sex, albeit really great sex, as soon as we were finished I tossed and turned, the anxiety dancing in my stomach until Gavin gave up and helped me fold and our towels and put them neatly away in the closets. 

My OCD and need to control things was something Gavin knew about when we first started dating.  I didn’t try to hide my compulsions nor the anxiety I felt when I wasn’t in control.  At first, I think my little tendencies were endearing to him.  He loved me because of them.  Now, he probably loved me in spite of them, but he knew how to handle it.  Some things he would just let be, like my need for a sink empty of dirty dishes before bed.  Some things he would tell me I needed to just let go, especially if there was no way of controlling it.  For our wedding, Gavin had wanted to get married on the beach.  I loved the idea but when it occurred to me that the weather could spoil our day I began to panic.  Gavin had been the one to soothe my fears and assure me that if it rained, we’d move the ceremony indoors and everything would be fine.