Too Close for Comfort B

I barely saw the road that I traveled on. I just drove it faster and faster. I think I had the idea that if I was lucky, I might be able to drive fast enough to leave all the pain behind me. On the other hand, maybe the Mustang could somehow enact one of Einstein's theories and let me drive backwards in time and say, "NO," to Dahlia's trip to Jamaica.

I wish I had just told her that we could take our own trip to Jamaica as a second honeymoon. It wasn't like we couldn't have afforded it. But then as often happens, my trip down, "what I wished for avenue" had been detoured to "how it probably was" drive.

The thought came to me then that perhaps Dahlia had gone to Jamaica for the sole purpose of getting away from me, so she could fuck someone else. Maybe she had been screwing some guy right here in town under my nose and had just used the Jamaica trip as a chance to be with him more.

It hurt thinking about it. It all just fucking hurt too much. After several hours of driving, I decided to do what I have always done. I decided to give Dahlia one final gift. I would give her the gift of freedom. She would no longer have to worry about being trapped with me. She could go out and screw whomever she chose. She could hang around with Glenda and Mary and do whatever single women did.

I pulled over and got my iPhone out of my pocket. I went on the Internet and found the site of one of those ADAM-like agencies that represent men in divorce cases.

The man I spoke to on the phone was very courteous. He told me he had an appointment for later that afternoon. I looked at the phone's GPS and realized that it would take me at least two hours to drive home from where I was. I set up the appointment for the next afternoon.

While I sat there in the car, I made a few more decisions. I called my boss at work. He had always been more of a friend than a boss anyway. I explained to him that Dahlia and I had been having some problems, and I thought that separating us might be a good idea.

He was shocked. Even so, he told me that he was going to have to do it soon anyway. Our work was so good that he was going to make one of us the new department manager.

I told him just to move me somewhere else in the company and make Dahlia the manager.

I drove home, for the first time in my life dreading my arrival there. Once I got there I pulled the 67' into the garage next to my 2012 Mustang. Dahlia's SUV never went into the garage. She hated the trouble of having to open and close the garage and sometimes having to move other cars to get it out.

As soon as I stepped into the house, I was grabbed. My daughter Lilly snatched my hand and led me to the table in the dining room. "Dad, Algebra, explain," she said. "I've been waiting for you to come home so we could do this."

"Why didn't you get...?" I began.'

Lilly had the same habit of completing my sentences or knowing exactly what I was going to say that her mother and sister had.

"Rose, doesn't understand it either," she said. "She got a C in the class and promptly forgot everything she learned. And Mom can barely do regular math."

My older daughter, Rose, appeared after hearing her name. "I don't need to do Algebra," she said. "I'm going into media communication. Algebra was just taking up space in my brain that could have been allocated for something else. I never actually transferred it over to long-term memory." She floated out of the room on the same cloud that she had floated in on.

Rose had inherited Dahlia's artistic side. Where Lilly, like me, was far more factual and practical.

Dahlia came into the room, and like a magnet to steel gravitated straight towards me. I pretended that I hadn't seen her and positioned myself so that Lilly was between us.

"I guess we should start on this Algebra ASAP so we can be done before dinner," I said loudly. Lilly and I sat down at the table and stuck our heads in the book.

Luckily for Lilly, I'm one of those parents who actually remembers some of the things they learned in college. I could help her understand the basics of working with algebraic equations. She took to it like a duck to water and by dinner time was grinning from ear to ear.

During dinner, the girls dominated most of the conversation. Dahlia sat there quietly soaking it all in with her usual smile on her face. Knowing her the way I did, told me that after dinner, she would declare it to be Mom and Dad time and the girls would be on their own.

So even before dinner was done, before anyone else got up from the table, I was on my feet and heading for the garage. Dahlia came right after me.

"Grant, Honey, I thought that we might watch a movie together," she smiled. I turned looking at her, not knowing what to say. There was an awkward silence between us.

"What's wrong, Grant?" she asked. "You've been acting weird lately. Before I went on my stupid trip, you were acting as if I was leaving you forever. You walked around like a little boy who had lost his best friend. Then ever since I got back, it just feels like you've been avoiding me or punishing me aside because I went away from you. We've been joined at the hip for twenty God damned years Grant. I was only gone for a fucking week. Stop acting like a child and get over it."

She was angry; I could see it. My anger was there as well. It bubbled just beneath the surface, waiting to be released.

"You don't hug me like you used to," she said. "You don't kiss me. You don't even hold my hand anymore, and we haven't had sex since the first night that I returned. It almost seems like you didn't want me to come back. In the time that I've been back, you've pulled further and further away from me Grant. You wake up every morning and go out running without me. The first day back I thanked you for it. I was worn out and needed to sleep in. However, ever since then, you've never even bothered to ask if I wanted to go running with you."

"I'll tell you a secret, honey. I hate running. I hate it with a passion. But I would do anything to spend time with you. That's why I go running," she said. Her voice broke. . She was almost crying.

"This morning, I had no idea where you went. I expected you to come in to work and tell me about it. I had all kinds of people asking me where you were. Someone else had to tell me that you had called in and taken the day off. Do you know how stupid it made me look not to know where my own husband was?"

She crossed the room and stood in front of me. "What is going on with you Grant?" she asked. "Why are you pulling away from me? I can't take it. What do I have to do to fix this?"

She just stood there looking at me as if she expected an answer.

"This morning after my run, I went to Tom for a check-up," I said. "I have an STD. And since the first time I met you, I've never had sex with anyone else, you tell me how I got it."

Her face broke then. She started crying and slobbering and telling me how sorry she was and ran out of the room still mumbling apologies. I went into the garage and just pulled out a lawn chair. I sat there between my two Mustangs and lost myself in my thoughts and memories.

Even when it got dark, I just sat there thinking. I thought about what my life would be like and what I wanted. It was a hard thing to think about. I had never even considered being without Dahlia. There had to be some way for us to get past this.

There was surely some way to wipe this all out of my memory, so we could start again. Dahlia and I had been together for nineteen years, give, or take a month or so. I sat there in the dark doing the math in my head. It's really hard to do that kind of math without a calculator, but I had the time.

Dahlia and I had been together for two hundred and twenty eight months. That was nine hundred and twelve weeks. It had taken us six thousand nine hundred and thirty five days to build the bond of love and caring for each other that she had destroyed in a few hours of cheating.

It was like being at war. Two sides have differing opinions so one side drops a bomb that destroys everything in its path. It destroys buildings, machines, and art, and people indiscriminately. A bomb doesn't care, it just destroys. And in the aftermath, the shell-shocked survivors are left to rebuild or sometimes just to move on.

The destruction itself takes only moments. And usually both sides are shocked by what has happened. However, it's the survivors of the bombing who have to walk through the devastation and try to pick up the pieces.

The problem for me was that I just wasn't certain there was anything worth rebuilding. I wasn't confident that there was anything I wanted to have back; at least not between Dahlia and I. More than anything else I felt like a fool. For almost twenty years, I had allowed Dahlia to become the one thing I couldn't live without. I really believed that she felt the same way about me that I felt about her.

What she had actually become was a weakness ... a blind side. Trouble always comes from the place where we least expect it.

However, I was tough. I was so strong; that I knew I could fix the things that were wrong in our marriage. The only problem was that the more I thought about fixing things, the less I actually wanted to. I searched my heart and my mind for a solution. I thought about forgiving her.

I thought that I could just let it go with her promise that it would never happen again. However, I realized that would never work. Even if I forced myself to say the words. If somehow, I could utter, "I forgive you Dahlia," without choking on them or without all the bile I would create to make me vomit. It would never be true forgiveness.

For argument's sake let's say in theory that I somehow managed that feat. Would I ever trust her again? Would I ... or could we ever get to the point where I ever forgot what she had done?

To be truthful, I have to say no. I would never completely trust Dahlia again. And without that blind, brave, unthinking, selfless, fearless, foolish, wonderful trust, the idea of love becomes an exercise in futility.

I'm not built like those battered women. I don't have it in me to suffer abuse repeatedly, while hoping that the person they love will change. I don't have it in me to watch Dahlia like a hawk or even more stupidly, not watch her and just pray that she never hurt me again.

Sometime after midnight, Dahlia came into the garage. She turned the light on to try to find me. She looked around the garage and didn't see me. I had gotten into the 2012 and laid the seat back to be comfortable.

Dahlia walked around the garage and finally spotted me. As she reached out to try to open the door, she heard the sounds of the electronic locks snapping shut. My message was clear enough that she got it.

The next morning I woke and went out to run as usual. As I passed from the garage into the house, I noticed Dahlia asleep on the sofa in the living room. She looked like hell. Even closed, her eyes were puffy. And she seemed to be fretting and talking in her sleep. I crept silently up the stairs and changed into my running clothes. I was gone a few moments later. I drove to a nearby park and ran along the trails in the cool morning air.

I nodded to several other runners as I put one foot in front of the other. I had always been able to clear my mind and think as I ran. That morning I thought about what I wanted my life going forward to be like. I guess I wanted to make things as easy for my girls as possible.

Of course, they would have to be told. Conceivably, Dahlia would agree just to move out on some sort of pretense. She could tell them that she got a better job and had to move to a different city or state. I would continue to live with them in our house until they got out of school and were on their own.

By that time, they'd be used to Dahlia, and I living separately. So that when we told them that we had just grown apart, years later, it wouldn't be such a huge blow. As fully grown adults, they would also be much more equipped to handle it.

I went back inside the house and upstairs into our bedroom. I heard Dahlia in the shower, so I quickly grabbed clothes out of my closet. I checked Lilly's room, and she was asleep.

I ducked into the bathroom separating the girl's bedrooms, grabbed a shower, and shaved. I dressed and had almost made it out of the room when Lilly's eyes popped open.

"Hi Daddy," she said sleepily. "What're you doing?"

"Your mom was using our shower, and I just used yours to..." I began.

"Why didn't you and mom shower together like you usually do?" she asked. Though she was the youngest, Lilly was much more aware of things than her sister.

"We're in a hurry," I said. "And..."

She yawned and smiled. "And you don't have time because if you were in the shower together you'd end up kissing and stuff, right?" she asked.

Lilly was getting up and following me by then. As she followed me out into the hallway, we ran into Dahlia. "Right," I said.

"What's right?" asked Dahlia.

"Daddy just told me that he had to use my shower, because if the two of you were in the shower together you'd end up kissing and stuff," said Lilly smiling.

Dahlia looked at me awkwardly. She looked as if she was about to reach for me. I turned and hugged Lilly as hard as I could. "Go back to sleep, baby girl," I said. "You don't have to wake up for an hour or so. Make sure your sister isn't late for class."

I turned and walked down the stairs, with Dahlia followed right behind me. "Grant, lying to your daughter isn't a good habit to get into," she said. "Just because we're having problems doesn't mean you have to start lying to her."

"First off, I'm not sure how to tell either of them about us," I hissed. "Secondly, you're in no position to lecture anyone about lying or being deceitful. And third, how the hell do I even know if she is MY daughter?"

The last one hit Dahlia below the belt. Her mouth dropped open, and nothing came out. She had no idea what to say. I used that lapse on our conversation to grab my keys and head out. A lot of mornings Dahlia and I would drive in to work together.

That morning, by the time I had opened the garage door and backed the 2012 out, she was just opening the door. By the time she came off the porch, I was out of the driveway and gone.

I went into the office and reported to my boss. He took me around to my new area and introduced me again to Bill Davidson. Bill was on the same managerial level as my boss. We knew each other for a while. I had helped out in Bill's department a few times when they were behind, due to vacations or unexpected departures.

From being there in the past I already knew several of my new coworkers and settled in easily enough. I let Bill know as soon as I got there that I had an appointment that afternoon, so I would need to leave an hour early. He didn't have a problem with it.

I made it to my appointment with my lawyer. We talked about what I wanted out of the divorce and the reasons for it. I got home at about the same time I normally did. I spent another evening with Lilly and her Algebra book. Lilly deserted me after an hour though because she was going to have dinner at a friend's house.

"Well there are only the two of us here now," said Dahlia. "Do you think we can talk about this like adults?"

"We have nothing to talk about," I said.

"Grant we have everything to talk about," she said. "You have to let me explain. I made a mistake. I should never..."

"You should never have married me," I said. "I agree with you on that. So all we have to do is fix it."

"Grant, what are you talking about?" she asked. "That isn't what I was going to say at all. I love you, Grant. We..."

"There is no 'WE,'" I yelled. I had never raised my voice to her in all the time that we'd been together. I stopped talking and just looked at her.

"Dahlia, look," I said. "I just need some time. Right now, I'm in a lot of pain. I'm confused. I'm hurt. I just need some space. I only want to spend a few days with my girls and my cars and get my head on straight."

"Trust me, I know how you..." she began.

"You know how I what?" I snapped. "Feel? Were you about to claim that you know how I feel? You don't Dahlia. I've never lied to you so you don't know. At no time have I ever gone out of town and fucked some other woman, so you don't know. I've never risked your life by giving you an STD, so Dahlia, you truly don't know how I feel, and you never could."

Dahlia just started crying. I went into the living room to watch TV. Dahlia went up and went to bed. Lilly came home at about nine p.m. Rose was in by eleven. I got a blanket and settled on the sofa. At about midnight, Dahlia came and got me.

"Grant, are you coming to bed?" she asked.

"Nope," I said. "I thought I'd sleep here."

"Do you really want to make the girls worry about this before they need to?" she asked. I thought about it and decided that she was right. I showered and got into bed. I moved as far away from her as I could.

During the night, our bodies drifted near each other. And I awoke with my arms around her. I had one hand on her left breast, and the other was nestled on the curly hairs between her legs.

When I realized what I was doing, I moved away from her so quickly it seemed as if I was shot out of a canon.

"You didn't have to move, Grant," she said in the darkness.

"I've already got my quota of VD," I said through gritted teeth.

"See if you're still feeling that way after your anger fades," she said. "In all the years that we've been together, I have never refused you sex. In a few weeks when we're clean, you'll be all over me."

"From what I've seen lately, I'm not getting anything that you aren't willing to give to other men, so it's really not that special. It was only exceptional, when I thought that it was all mine. And in a few weeks we'll be divorced," I said. I could have been nicer about it, but I was embarrassed again about my showing any weakness. I was upset that my body had accepted Dahlia back so easily, when my mind hated her.

I tried to get back to sleep but all I could hear was the sound of her crying next to me. I had loved her for so long that her pain touched me. I had to do something to help her.

"Dahlia, calm down," I said. "I promise; we'll talk about this. I just need some time."

She scooted over next to me, and I put my arm around her. "I ... I ... I don't understand what we have to even talk about," she sobbed. "I made a mistake. I admitted it. Why can't we just move on with our lives?"

I sat up in bed then and moved away from her.

As I started to leave the room, she suddenly jumped up. "What?" she asked. "What the hell did I do now?" She grabbed my arm to prevent me from leaving.

"Grant, we were doing fine," she said. "It felt good to have you holding me. Why did you stop?"

"Did you ever once think about me in any of this?" I asked angrily. "It felt good to you for me to hold you. You think that we should just forget about everything that happened and merely move on. Does it matter what I think about any of this?"

She just looked at me as if she was going to cry again. "I told you once, Dahlia, I needed some time to process this and begin to get over my anger. You haven't even told me what happened or how yet. Once I know all the details, my idea of moving on and yours may not be the same thing," I said.

"Grant, moving on means you forgive me, and we put all this behind us," she said.

"Dahlia, you slept with another man; you gave me a STD, and you kept this from me until I went to the doctor's office. You endangered my life, and I still have no idea why you did any of this," I said. "We'll talk about this after I sort my feelings out. You got to decide what you did. You got to decide why you did and who you did it with. I'll decide when or even "IF," I feel like talking about it. Maybe moving on for me means a divorce and moving on after it."