Four Friends

She prepared a small meat loaf for him that was more loaf than meat because his cholesterol was up. She lit a few candles around the house and put on one of her soothing CDs, the kind you would hear in the background at the spa. The effect was very calming. George was a financial planner and his work was fraught with tension as he dealt with clients’ futures and moved people’s money around. She had time for a warm soak in the tub and a brief meditation so that when he walked through the door she’d smell delicious and be perfectly centered.

When he came in she smiled at him, then her eyes dropped to his shirt. “Oh, George, what did you spill?”

“I don’t know,” he said, looking down. He brushed at the spot.

“Don’t worry, I can get it out. Can I fix you a special tea? I have just the thing if you’ve had a hard day.”

“No, thanks, Sonja. My day calls for a Scotch.”

She clucked and shook her head. “If you must. I’ll have dinner in just a little while—I have to run a meal over to Andy. She’s under the weather.”

“She is?” he asked, lifting his eyebrows.

“I’ll tell you about it over dinner. Just be a minute.”

She took two containers on a tray across the street to Andy’s. When she saw Noel’s car in the drive she knew she’d just hand them off; she didn’t want to interrupt them. When Andy opened the door, the unmistakable aroma of greasy pizza drifted through and Sonja frowned, then forced a smile. “Trust me,” Sonja said as she passed the tray. “This is better for you.”

Andy said thank-you and Sonja went back to her own kitchen. She caught George fixing a second Scotch and chose not to comment.

Once they were settled with their meals—hers was a pasta and greens salad with beans, his was the loaf-meat and vegetables—she said, “Bryce and Andy have split up. They’re getting divorced.”

“Oh?” he said, looking up from his fork briefly. “Too bad.”

“It was really dramatic. When Gerri and I went walking this morning, she was throwing his belongings out the front door onto the lawn, and they were screaming obscenities at each other.”

George smiled. “Is that so?”

“It’s not funny, George. She has to be tested for venereal diseases. Apparently he hasn’t been faithful.”

George made a face. “Really—I don’t need to know that.”

“Some people have pretty complicated, tragic relationships.”

“I guess that’s true,” he answered. He pushed his plate away.

“You haven’t eaten much. You’re not upset, are you?”

“No,” he said. “I had a late lunch.”

“Not something bad for your cholesterol, I hope.”

“Of course not, Sonja. I had a plate of grass. It was scrumptious.”

She smiled patiently. “Oh, you had something bad, I can tell. Well, that’s why I go to so much trouble to make sure you eat well in the evening. No matter how you carry on, I know you appreciate that I look after you as well as I can.”

“Indeed I do. I just wish that occasionally you could look after me with a spice or two. I’d love to taste my food briefly before it passes through my body.”

“And I’d like you to last,” she said. “Because I love you so.”

“You sure you don’t want me to last so you have someone to control into old age?” he returned, lifting a graying brow.

“George! What a thing to say! Just when one of my best friends is going through a terrible divorce!”

“And getting tested for venereal diseases,” he added. “You’d better rush her over some grains and herbs.”

Sonja laughed at him. “You love to do that, don’t you? Pick at my remedies. Well, I guess I’m smart enough to know that I don’t have what she needs for something like that—it’s prescription only. I am going over there first thing tomorrow to burn some sage and smudge the air with Indian feathers just to clear out the negative presence.”

He stood from the table and shook his head. “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”

* * *

Gerri ordered a pizza for the kids. Once that was devoured, they headed for their evening pastimes—family-room TV, computers, phones, homework, usually in that order.

Gerri fixed herself a drink instead of dinner, wondering briefly if Sonja had a herb for homicidal tendencies. She was going to confront Phil, of course. She’d been with the man a long time. She thought there was nothing she didn’t know about him. I’ve been getting fart marks out of his underwear for almost twenty-five years for God’s sake.

Though it was still biting cold in the March night, she bundled up and went out onto the deck, under the starlight. At least she wasn’t hot. She’d been trying to size up her emotions all day long and still didn’t have a handle on whether she was enraged, confused, hurt or completely off base. She went over every day of their marriage—the births of the children, the fights, the really hard times. There was the year she lost both her parents, one after the other, to cancer—it was a blur. She’d been vacant, wandering around in a complete daze, but Phil had picked up the slack; he was completely there for her. No one could have comforted her better. Could he have done that and still had someone else in his life? Someone he went to and said, “You can’t believe how bad things are at home....”

She saw Phil enter through the kitchen, toss his briefcase and laptop on the breakfast bar and wander through the house, looking for her. It was the first thing he did every night unless she was standing in the kitchen.

Eventually he found his way to the deck just as she was exhaling a long stream of cigarette smoke. Her first cigarette in twelve years. He stood in the doorway, noted the drink and cigarette and said, “Jesus Christ, did someone die?”

“You had an affair,” she said evenly.

He took a panicked step toward her, his face in a frozen state of shock, and after making a partial recovery said, “I’d better get a drink and a jacket.” He turned to go back into the house.

So. He had. If he hadn’t he would have said, “What? What the hell are you talking about?” And all she could think was that the son of a bitch was still good-looking, maybe better looking than he had been at twenty-eight. Fifty-three now, still sporting a full head of that thick rich brown hair, now delicately threaded with gray at the temples. His face was just mildly lined but not so much from age as from the sun on the golf course. Then there were those teeth, beautiful and strong. He was not yet seeing the periodontist but she was. Up till today, she’d been happy for him about that. And he’d managed to stay fit, maybe the slightest paunch, graying chest hair, but he was tall and solid. Strong. She hated him so much.

He came back outside with his own drink, wearing his weekend jacket over his shirt and loosened tie. “Lay it on me, Gerri. What’s going on?”

“You had an affair. I just found out.”

“And where’d you hear that?”

“Never mind. Just tell me. And start with the truth because you don’t know how much I know.”

He took a deep breath and a drink from his glass. Then he said, “I had an affair. Years ago. I’m sorry. It’s been completely in the past for a long, long time. I’m sorry,” he said again. “It wasn’t your fault—it was my fault. My failing, my inadequacy. You can’t imagine how much I regret it.”

“You had an affair,” she said again, blown away by his admission. “I need you to tell me about it. The truth about it. When it started, who it was, when it ended. And most important, why!”

He leaned back in his chair. “The why might be impossible—I’ve asked myself a hundred times. Years ago, years ago, there was an attractive woman in the office. We worked together briefly and hit it off right away—she was very personable, funny. I did the one thing I thought I’d never do— Not only was it straying from my marriage, which I’d never even been tempted to do, but also it was a coworker, the potential for major-league sexual harassment. Defying all common sense, I made a pass. She responded to me. We had a couple of lunches, met for a drink a few times. She was single, lived alone and I made the mistake of going to her place one late afternoon and got carried away, knowing it was wrong, feeling like shit with guilt, but it got started. It ended almost six years ago. Nothing like that ever happened before, and it will never happen again.”

Gerri did a quick mental calculation. Six years ago, while he was having an affair, the kids had been seven, ten and thirteen. She remembered that year and the preceding year—soccer, band, one starting middle school. Her mother had died of uterine cancer nine years ago, her father quickly following of prostate cancer. That had been a horrible time, but by six years ago things had leveled out emotionally. As far as she could remember, there wasn’t anything particularly noteworthy going on. They hadn’t had a standoff about him buying a sailboat; none of the kids were sick or in trouble; she hadn’t yet been having the menopausal symptoms that rocked her stable world.

“When did it start?” she demanded.

He hung his head briefly. “Seven years ago. It was on and off for a couple of years. Not steady, but on and off.”

“A couple of years?” she asked, horrified.

“On and off, Gerri,” he said. “I’d see her, then tell her I just couldn’t do that and wouldn’t see her again for months, then slip back, break it off, slip back. And so on.”

“Oh, for God’s sake! Slipped? Can’t you come up with anything more intelligent than slipped?”

“No,” he said. “I honestly can’t. I never drank too much, my job was secure, my case load wasn’t any worse or high pressure than usual, we weren’t in any kind of huge crisis that I can remember, you and I were getting along just fine....”

She felt the sting of tears in her eyes and it made her furious. “Then why?” Her voice cracked.

“I don’t know. She wanted me. Someone desirable actually wanted me. You and I were fine, but there were always so many complications keeping us from... I guess I was thinking like an eighteen-year-old. But really, there should be a statute of limitations on shit like this— I screwed up, I haven’t screwed up since and you can be damn sure it won’t happen again. And it was a long, long time ago.”

“Who is she?”

“No,” he said without hesitation. “She’s gone. It’s over. We haven’t had any contact in over five years and there’s nothing to be gained.”

“I might have to see her,” Gerri said.

“No,” he answered again. “I don’t know where she is, what her life is like, but I’ve messed up my life enough. There’s no point in messing up hers, as well. Gerri, I realize what happened is unforgivable in your eyes, but I’m here because I want to be your husband and want to be with my family. That’s the bottom line. That’s all I want. Whether it’s perfect or at times difficult, that’s my choice, not something I have to rely on willpower for. There was never any question about loving you.”

“God, you can’t really have done this,” she said. “You had an affair for two years, and I never knew. Never even smelled it in the wind....”

“I wasn’t with her often. I’m busy—you know that. And I never once missed a family thing to be with another woman, I swear to God. I never let it interfere with my family, my marriage or my job,” he said.

“Well.” She laughed humorlessly. “What magnificent control. Tell me, was the sex at least fantastic?”

“Irrelevant,” he said, bolstering himself with a deep drink.

“Not to me, it’s not!”

“Gerri, the worst sex I ever had was fantastic. Men and women probably look at that differently.”

“You know they know in the prosecutor’s office.”

He sipped again. Maybe nervously. “I realize there was some gossip, but I only leveled with one person—my boss. When it was over, I told the D.A. I’d been involved with someone in the office. I find it hard to believe he shared that with the troops. He has a lot of faults, but he learned how to keep confidences years ago.”

“Why’d you tell him, then?”

“I told myself it was because we serve at the discretion of the people—because if there was ever an accusation of any kind, I couldn’t let him be blindsided. But in the years since I realized that it helped to end it for good—confessing. Because I knew what I’d done was wrong and I was consumed by guilt. I think it was like standing up at a meeting and saying ‘Hi, my name is Phil and I cheated on my wife.’ He told me that behavior could not be tolerated and if I valued my job, it had to stop.” Phil chuckled. “Imagine that from him, huh? Son of a bitch has a revolving door for a zipper.” He took another drink. “I could have done the same thing here, with you—confessed, let you hit me over the head with a baseball bat until you were convinced I could be a better husband, but I couldn’t risk losing you.”

Tears rolled down her cheeks and she stamped out the cigarette. “My God, Phil. I think my insides are festering. I’ll be peeing blood by morning.”

He leaned toward her. He reached for her hands, but she wouldn’t let him connect. “Listen, I did the wrong thing, not you. I hoped you’d never be hurt by it, I hoped I’d make it right over time by being a good partner, a good father. None of it was your fault and I’ll pay the price—but don’t let it eat you up. No reason both of us should carry the load.”

And yet in her mind there were so many things she couldn’t quite place in the context of the affair. She remembered that during sex one night he said, “Didn’t you used to move your hips?” and she had laughed, thinking he was so funny. Was that when he realized he needed a woman with some passion? He’d remarked that he loved her coming to bed naked these days and she’d firmly told him not to get any ideas. They were too tired at night, too rushed in the mornings, had too many kids around the house on the weekends and never, absolutely never got away alone. And then there was the fact that she was hot-flashing her brains out and her vagina felt like sandpaper. The things people don’t tell you about menopause... But five years ago, seven years ago, she hadn’t had any of those symptoms. She had been so content.

He had asked her if she wanted to get away for a weekend, if only to the city. Just the two of them. When was that? He hadn’t asked in a long time and she had never suggested it. They hadn’t escaped—there were always too many family and work obligations. She asked herself if she had driven him to her by being so unlike a mistress, and that made her want to kill him on the spot.

“I never had an affair,” she said.

“I know,” he said.

“No! You don’t know! You don’t know any more than I knew about yours, but I’m telling you, I had just as many kids, just as little sex, just as much pressure and I never had an affair!”

“Gerri—”

“Phil, I don’t think I can live with you now, knowing.”

“Let’s not do that,” he said calmly. “Let’s work through it if we can, go to counseling if you want to, do whatever it takes. But let’s not throw in the towel now, after almost twenty-five years and one terrible mistake that I’ll do anything I can to make amends for.”

She shook her head and wiped the moisture off her cheeks. “I don’t know if I can do it,” she said with a hiccup of emotion.

“After everything you’ve seen in families—the abuse, addiction, crime, neglect—Gerri, please keep your head. We can weather this. We love each other.”

“We’re not like those families.” She sniffed. “You and I—we were always different. We always played as a team. Fuck you, you asshole, you played on another team!”

“All right, listen to me. If you decide you can’t live with it, if you can’t forgive me, we’ll deal with that—but first, you have to give it a little time, some effort. You obviously just learned of this and you’re hot as a pistol. If you feel the same way after we’ve tried to get beyond my crimes, we’ll make a plan that’s best for the family. But not the very day you find out. It’s reactionary.”

“Weren’t you reactionary? Falling into bed with her like that? Not even sure why?”

“Absolutely,” he said with a nod. “And trust me, the price was high, even without you knowing what I’d done. Give yourself a little time to think. Please.”

“You’ve done some real stupid, lame-ass, highly punishable things in our marriage,” she said. “I was with my dying mother and you were supposed to pick up the kids and bring them, but you lost track of time and left them standing around outside the school, waiting, while it was getting dark. And they were so little!” He nodded solemnly. She didn’t add that she’d fired a hospital water jug at him when they’d finally shown up and despite the fact she’d left a nice purple bruise on his head, he’d held her close while she cried. For a long time. “I was about to go into labor with Matthew and you went on a fishing trip, because the mayor asked you to go, to represent the prosecutor’s office.” She’d been so angry with him for that. She was so afraid she’d have to have the baby all on her own. But Matthew waited for his father. “You drank too much at the neighborhood block party and peed in the clothes hamper in the middle of the night.” A slight smile threatened his lips. “You don’t deserve for me to think it over.”

“I know. But I won’t leave the house without telling the kids why.”

“You’re not serious!”

“I’m completely serious. It was my mistake, I’ll fess up, take my medicine. I hope we don’t come to that, Gerri. You know the best counselors in the business. Pick one out, set us up. If that doesn’t help, at least we will have tried.”

“See, right now you’re just too goddamn calm,” she said. “Like you’ve been ready for this day for a long time and had it all planned, what you were going to say, how you were going to play it. You lawyered up—you strategized it.”

“You’re partially right,” he admitted. “I’ve had years to think about what I’d say if you found out, if you came at me. I decided a long time ago, I wasn’t going to lie or make excuses.” He shook his head. “I’m so sorry.”

She wished he’d have spent that time coming up with a good story to refute what she’d heard—she didn’t want to know what she knew. “Please don’t sleep in my bed tonight.”

He gave a resigned nod.

She rose to go to their room, but stopped before entering the house. Pulling her jacket tighter around herself, without looking at him, she asked, “Did you love her?”

“I loved you. Always.”

“But her? Did you also love her?” She turned to look at him.

He stood up and faced her, his hands in his pockets. “I wasn’t using her. She was a nice woman, I was fond of her. I was attracted to her and I cared about her. You know I’d have to have some feelings, that I’m not the kind of man who fucks around. But from the first time we were together, even before we were together, I told her I had a good marriage, that I loved my wife, that I didn’t want a divorce. I feel as bad about what I did to her as what I’ve done to you.”

“So. You loved her. In your way.”

“I never weighed it, honey. I knew how much I loved you, but I wasn’t thinking with the right head. I was all steamed up and driven. I wish I’d known how to stop that, but... Gerri, I wasn’t done with my sex life. I was still interested. Responsive. I can’t undo it. I can tell you one thing—I might’ve thought that’s what I wanted at the time, but it didn’t make me happy. It made me miserable.”

She shook her head in equal parts disgust and pity, then turned and went to the bedroom. Wasn’t done? She couldn’t remember a time he’d let her know something was missing for him. The bigger ache came from knowing there hadn’t been anything missing for her! She’d thought they had the perfect marriage, the perfect family.

If he’d been beside her in their bed, she would have kicked him every time she turned over. But having him on the family room couch left her feeling so alone, she cried. In every crisis of her life, she’d turned to Phil, and now he was the crisis in her life. She wanted him to feel more pain for her, yet if he’d come to their bed and tried to hold her through her tears, she would have torn his eyes out. If he apologized one more time, she might stab him in his sleep.

The next morning, she went for her walk and she wore sunglasses. Of course Sonja and Andy could tell something was wrong. “There’s a dreadful situation at work I can’t talk about yet,” she said. “I’ll tell you when it’s okay to.”

* * *

Andy called Bryce once she had his things packed up—it had only taken a couple of days. She got his voice mail and left him a detailed message: she was filing for divorce, would be canceling credit cards, closing the joint accounts and would have copies of the statements for him, a final accounting. She knew he had a company credit card he could use, but still she asked if he needed money.

He came for his things that very night. He told her, in a very subdued, boyish way, that he’d be fine financially. She knew in that instant that he was relieved to be free of her—she cramped his style. He was not the kind of man ready to have serious ties. She didn’t bring up the house—there was already a divorce lien on its proceeds of sale from her first husband. It appeared Bryce was going to take his belongings and go away quietly, content to have the ball and chain removed from his life. There was something about the simplicity of it that hurt more than the screaming fights. He was so easily done. Finished. Why couldn’t she have made the break long ago? She knew why—it was embarrassing to be so foolish, so wrong, at her age.

When Bryce came, he was with one of his closest friends, using his truck to load the big screen, sound system and speakers, boxes of clothes and books, toiletries and miscellany. Bryce rode away behind his possessions on his motorcycle and all the while Bob, working in the kitchen, managed to stay very busy and very quiet. It was completely over in an hour and Bryce would never be back. He hadn’t even waved goodbye.

The trash was full of Sonja’s concoctions, the entire house was filled with dust from Bob’s construction in the kitchen plus the odor of burnt sage from Sonja’s cleansing voodoo. Gerri, who was Andy’s rock, was distracted by some heavy work problem and felt terrible about her lack of support, but Andy reassured her that she was getting along pretty well. She’d gone back to work the morning after the boy toys disappeared from her life.

While there was a part of her that wished for quiet and solitude in the evenings, there was another part grateful that Bob was in her kitchen, pleasantly working away as the sun set. She sat on her bed with the news on, there being no TV in the family room anymore, and took odd comfort in the humming, whistling and construction noise.

She wandered into the kitchen. “How’s it going?” she asked him.

“Good,” he said. The crowbar was being used to pry the old, chipped ceramic tiles off the floor. “Very good.”

“I’m going to have a glass of wine,” she said. “What can I give you?”

“Oh, I’m just fine with water.”

“I didn’t mean I was going to get you liquored up,” she laughed. “I realize you use power tools. But how about a cola or something?”

He looked up from his work, smiling. He wiped a rag across his sweating bald head. “That would sure be nice, thanks.”

She went for a glass in the laundry room where she kept the few dishes she needed since the kitchen cupboards had been torn out and carried away. The refrigerator was purring along in the garage now. She couldn’t actually cook anything but she could get ice and keep things cold. As she looked inside she said, “Hey, have you eaten?”

“I have,” he said. “Had something on my way over.”

“How about Beau?” she asked, and as she did so, the yellow Lab lifted his head and looked at her with those sad eyes that suggested he hadn’t been fed in days, lying eyes that made her laugh.

“Don’t believe a word he says. I always take care of Beau first,” Bob said.

She poured his cola, her white wine. She settled at the table in the nook, still undisturbed and covered with dust. “Could I ask you a personal question?”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Sure. If I get confused by it, I’ll make up an answer.”