Two Christmases

"Liss, I found out in front of her parents that Liz is doing something that I just don't agree with. This won't blow over and we're probably going to get a divorce. Now is that enough gossip or do I have to tell you all of the details?" I asked.

"I'm really sorry Alan," she said. "It's just that I thought that maybe I could help. Shit, you and Liz are the only couple, besides us, who live around here that are under a hundred. You guys are our only friends."

"And we're still friends," I said. "You'll just have to drive a little further to come and visit me."

Robbie drove my jeep and followed me. During the trip to my parents', house my phone rang again. This time it was my father in law.

"Alan, do you know what time you'll be coming back?" he asked.

"Uhm, let me check," I said. "Holy Shit, I'm almost to Lansing. It's going to take me about an hour to seventy five minutes to make it back if I turned around now."

"Well, turn around now," he said. "I had to take Elizabeth's door off of the hinges to get to her. She's talking with her mother now. They're drinking some of that shitty stuff that passes for tea. Her mom is trying to calm her down. Having you come back here and talk to her before you guys go home would do wonders for her."

"What's going to do wonders for me?" I asked.

"Don't you start too Alan," he said. "You're the man here. We men are supposed to be tough and make sacrifices for our families. So you just shake it off and get back here. Seriously Alan, we all know how much you love her. You two can work this out. And the first step in that process is that you come back here and talk to her."

"What are we going to talk about?" I asked.

"Whatever it take to fix this, son," he said.

"So it's going to be a sci-fi talk, huh?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"The only thing that could fix this is a time machine," I said. Then I hung up the phone. I realized thought that we did need to talk. So I kept driving towards my parents' house. Once we got there, we unloaded everything and I put my Mustang in the garage next to my mom's car. They'd driven my dad's Cadillac down to Florida.

I thanked Robbie for the help and then we drove back to the condo. I packed all of my camping gear that I'd need for the ice fishing trip and then loaded the Jeep with everything else that I could find that I wanted. I drove back to my parents' house alone this time and unloaded it. Then I got back on the freeway and headed back to talk to Elizabeth.

* * * * * *

Elizabeth

I could hear the sound of my mom and dad trying to convince my sister to be more supportive through the open doorway. It made me wish that I'd opened the door in the first place so my dad didn't take it off of the hinges.

"Jeezus Sarah, the least you to do would be to offer a kind word or two," said my dad. "She is your sister after all."

"Dad, you must have rocks in your head," spat Sarah. "Do you know how bad it is to be a young single woman out there now? I meet nothing but assholes and broken toys. They all act like there's something wrong with ME. And when you do meet a nice guy, most of them don't want a relationship with you because they're afraid of exactly what happened to Alan. They all have commitment issues because some slut did them wrong. That's how most of them got damaged in the first place."

"But that didn't happen to Elizabeth; nope...not our Liz. She's special. She goes to college and comes home after a couple of weeks with the sweetest kindest man I've ever met; except for you, Daddy. Look at what he was trying to do for her for Christmas? Look at how much money he spent on the ring. And the cruise. It's the most romantic thing I've ever heard of and he was going to waste it all on a whore."

"Sarah, I will not have you talk about your sister like that," snapped my father.

"Daddy, I applied for a job at Elizabeth's firm," said Sarah. "Have you ever seen her boss? He's almost as old as you are, and he's fat and losing his hair. The only thing he has to offer her is money. And woman who screw for money are..."

I wondered what they were talking about. What ring, what cruise, I had no idea about any of this. I pushed myself off of my bed and walked down the stairs and back into the living room. I felt my brother's gaze on me. His mouth was drawn and tight and from the way he looked at me and shook his head, I knew that he wasn't on my side.

"What ring?" I asked. Sarah rolled her eyes at me and before my dad could stop her she grabbed her purse and headed for the door. My brother decided that was a great time to leave too. He grabbed his wife and their kids and hugged my mom goodbye before bundling up their kids and making their escape.

At that moment, I was the world's best magician. I'd discovered my ability to make others disappear. If only I could do that to myself. Growing up, my siblings and I had our ups and downs but since we'd all grown up and were out of the house, we'd become closer. Today's incident seemed to have set us back years.

"What ring?" I asked again.

"Alan got you another wedding ring," said my mom. "He was going to ask you to marry him all over again. Then you guys were going on a cruise as a second honeymoon."

Even as my mom looked away from me, I started to cry all over again. My mother took me in her arms and rocked me until the tears stopped.

"He really loves you Lizzie," she said. "You'll get through this."

"He's on his way back now," said my dad. "Elizabeth, I really need to know the answer to one thing though."

I sat up and let go of my mother and looked at my dad.

"How bad is this? What exactly did you do and more to the point..." he looked at me as if he was still a news man and he was interviewing a witness for an article. "...Why?" he asked. "You have the perfect marriage to a really great guy. Why would you fuck that up and how far has this gone?"

I was saved from having to answer by the sound of my cell phone ringing. I looked at the screen and breathed out as I noticed that it wasn't Alan. In fact, I realized with dread that it was the only person I could think of other than my husband that I didn't want to speak to.

"Liz," said John's voice out of my phone. He sounded strange. He sounded as if he was having trouble talking.

"Hello," I said tentatively.

"He knows, Liz," he said. "He's already been here."

"What do you mean he's been there?" I asked. "Were you alone?"

"No such luck," said John. "My entire family was here. He beat me to a pulp in front of my wife, my kids, my grandkids and a few friends."

"He ruined your Christmas?" I asked.

"Fuck Christmas," he said. "He ruined my life. Paula wants a divorce. She kicked me out of the house and I'm sure that by now my kids know what a jackass she thinks I am. He and Paula stood over me, while I lay there bruised, bloodied and beaten and actually compared notes and talked about the possibility of sharing a divorce lawyer."

"Did you say divorce lawyer?" I asked.

"That's what they were talking about," he said. At that point, my dad snatched the phone out of my hands and started cursing at John and threatening him. I guess John hung up because my dad handed me the phone back and the line had been cut off.

Things were far worse than I'd ever expected. There was no way I was going to be able to face Alan now. Paula was a pussycat. The woman believed in family first and foremost. On the other hand, my husband was famous for telling his clients that when things weren't working for them, it was time to cut them loose. He often told them that it was stupid to fall in love with any investment or any company. They should only fall in love with the money that company made for them. When the profits dropped, they should likewise drop the company from their portfolio.

I wondered if Alan would be able to drop me like a non performing investment. God knows I've given him no reason not to.

As I waited for Alan to come back, my parents nervously flitted around the house. It was strangely uncomfortable for them to be in the same room with me. But at the same time, they didn't want to be seen as being unsupportive, so they continued to come in and out of the room.

I tried to think about what I was going to say to him. What exactly do you say to your spouse when you've been caught cheating on them. I guess denial came to mind first, but that was already impossible. I didn't even know what my next step should be. How much should I tell him? The problem there was, that just from listening in on his conversations with my mom and dad and my brief conversation with John, hadn't yielded a lot of information either. All he'd said was that Alan knew. He wasn't specific. Did Alan know how long things with John had gone on? Did Alan know whether or not we'd had sex? Or did he only know that we'd been about to go away for two days?

Should I be totally honest with him and tell him everything, or should I just confirm the things he already knew in the hope of not hurting him further? It just seemed to me like everything in my life was falling apart and for no reason. I'd been having some issues with my life, but my marriage was the one bright spot in my existence. Why should I have to risk losing that?

"Have you figured out what you're going to say to him yet?" asked my dad.

"No Daddy, I have no idea," I said.

"I don't think he's coming honey," he said. "I hate to think about him out there driving around alone in that car in the mood he's in. He loves you a lot you know. I hope he doesn't do something stupid."

"You mean like showing up at John's house and beating the hell out of him in front of his family on Christmas?" I asked.

"Well, that was understandable," said my dad smiling. "I'm glad he did it so I don't have to." I looked at my dad curiously.

"Why does it seem like you think Alan acting like a cave man is a good thing?" I asked.

"Elizabeth, if Alan didn't still care about you, he wouldn't have been so upset. If he'd just let the whole thing slide it would have meant that you and your marriage weren't that important to him. The way that he reacted said that someone, namely that asshole boss of yours, did something to threaten something he cherished. And he made John pay for that. Maybe after he cools down, you guys can talk about it. I need you to know that this is not going to go away overnight. Alan will probably never forget what happened. It's going to take a long time for you to regain his trust if you ever can."

"Elizabeth, there's something else that you should know," he said slowly. "You're my daughter and I love you. I will stand beside you on this or anything else that happens to you because of that, but you're wrong as hell on this. You may have ruined your life and for no good reason that I can see."

Anger flooded me and I lashed out. "Daddy, do you know what my life is like?" I snapped. "Do you even begin to know what I go through on a daily basis? Don't judge me until you walk a mile in my shoes."

He just looked at me. I think that was one of those moments when he realized that I was a grown woman and not just his little girl.

"I've been to your office," he said. "I've seen what you do on a daily basis. They call you an office manager and you have a college degree. What you really are is a glorified secretary. In my day, most women could do that job with just a high school diploma. Unlike the good secretaries though, you don't have to prepare documents or write papers. You don't have to schedule calls or appointments. Shit, all you do is order supplies and give out schedules to make sure that the people who do the real work keep to a schedule. They have a manager for everything these days, don't they?"

"They actually have more managers than they have departments in some places. When you come home, what do you do Liz? You and Alan have one of those modern marriages where you share the house keeping. You have a cleaning lady who comes in a couple of times a week and from what I've seen she does most of your home cooking. She cooks a couple of meals and puts them in your refrigerator. You and Alan warm them up at dinner time. On the weekends you eat out or you grill."

"By your rules, your cleaning lady should be called your household manager, right? She should have a college degree and probably make three or four times what you pay her. You make pretty decent money for what you do, Liz. Alan gets paid pretty well too though. The two of you have never had to struggle during your lifetime. You're both from very good, relatively well-off families. You've never had to wonder where your next meal was coming from."

"The majority of the people you work with are women, Elizabeth. I do know that the creative people at your agency and the sales people and the account reps, all use the secretaries and stenos that you manage, but you don't have very much interaction with them. So you don't have a lot of temptation on the job. In fact, when I look at you young lady, your biggest problem seems to be that you don't have any fucking problems."

"Your husband on the other hand, I got to see him on the job a lot recently. I had to visit his office several times while we arranged this cruise. Elizabeth, has Alan ever talked to you about the pressure he's under at work?"

"Dad, he doesn't have any more on the job pressure than I do," I spat. "And he makes a lot more than I do."

He shook his head. "He just doesn't let you see it," he said. "That place is always busy. Their executives are constantly under pressure to bring in more accounts and to manage the ones they have more efficiently. If the market reacts in a certain way and a client loses money, he can simply ask for another account manager. Alan has to be able to balance entire portfolios for an untold amount of people. He has to make each and every one of those people feel like they're his most important client. Every day, billions of dollars go across his desk and he doesn't make anywhere near what a lot of those people have."

"There are literally hundreds of attractive young women running around that place all day long. I kind of wondered about it once or twice, so I asked. While I was waiting to be shown to Alan's office once, I asked one of the girls who brings coffee to people in the waiting room if there was a lot of flirting going in in that place. She just grinned at me and I could tell that meant there was."

"I saw Alan coming across the floor and asked the girl, "What about him?" She took one look at Alan and laughed at me. She told me that he was probably the least likely guy in the whole place to mess around. She even told me a few things to look out for. She told me that most of the girls there knew that Alan loved you and would probably never do anything like that. She told me that a good way to tell was the office. Men who were likely to cheat all had pictures of their wives in the office. A good way to tell if they were possible cheaters was where those pictures of their wife were placed in the office."

"By her theory, men who were less likely to cheat had the picture of their wife on their desk where they saw it often. If the pictures were on a shelf that was further away from the desk, they were more likely to cheat. If the picture was mounted on a wall; especially if it was mounted in a way that it could quickly be turned around, they were probably already cheating. She also told me that the size of the pictures factored in. The bigger the picture the less likely a man was to cheat."

"I kept all of that in mind when I went to Alan's office," he said. "Do you know that beside the fact that most of the women there know that your husband isn't likely to cheat on you, it's pretty obvious when you walk into his office."

I dropped my head then and started crying all over again. I'd been to Alan's office more times than I could even think about.

"Yeah," my dad said. "Alan has four pictures of you in his office at least. He has three of them on his desk and they're all big pictures. Elizabeth, did you ever notice that he has a picture of you on the door in his bathroom. I couldn't figure that one out at first. I just imagined him sitting there taking a dump with you looking at him and it grossed me out. Then I realized something."

"All of that pressure that he's under. All of that Sell, Sell, Sell, stuff. He needs the pictures of you to remind him of why he does it in the first place. So when all of those other guys, including your boss, might seek a distraction by screwing some bimbo at the office, your husband had his priorities straight."

We just stared at each other as the tears fell down my face. My dad looked at his watch.

"Elizabeth, it's after eight o clock. We've been expecting Alan since six. Do you want me to take you home?" he asked.

"I'll stay here," I said. "This is where he's going to come anyway, right?"

"Liz, Honey, I don't think he's coming," he said. "And let's look at this using the worst case scenario. You not going home could be considered as you leaving the marital home. That would give Alan the condo until the court could reach a decision on who got it."

"Daddy, what are you talking about?" I asked.

"I've seen a lot of divorces, Honey," he said. "Even in the easy ones, there are problems and conflicts. I've seen too many reasonable people get caught up and end up spending thousands of dollars in legal fees to settle who gets a really ugly coffee table that neither of them really wants. You just get pushed to the point where you dig in and argue over everything. And in a lot of those cases, you're not really arguing over the item. You're really arguing over your self-respect. You just feel like if you give in even one more time, you're giving up your soul."

"How exactly do you think Alan is going to feel about all of this? The woman he planned on living the rest of his God damned life with is going away on vacations with her boss. How much pride do you think he has right now? I mean, you're sitting here crying and wishing he'd never found out, but you did it. You caused all of this Elizabeth. You made a decision to do something, for whatever reasons they were, that affected not only your life and future but his as well. For the life of me, I just don't see it. Alan is younger and in better shape than your boss. He looks better, I guess. He clearly loves only you and your boss is some kind of horn dog. Alan makes more money than your boss does too. I just can't figure out why this even happened. All I can do is help you get ready for the fallout. So if you don't want to get kicked out of your condo, you need to go home. If Alan does end up here, we'll tell him that you went home."

I went and said goodbye to my mom. My dad and I got into his Lincoln MKZ and he drove me home.

* * * * * *

Alan

It was barely evening on Christmas day. I wondered why it felt so God damned late. Maybe it was because we'd eaten Christmas dinner at a time that would normally be considered perfect for brunch. The lack of snow and warmer temperatures still had no effect on the sun going down though, and during the winter months it started to get dark at about five o' clock. It was just after six and I had nothing to do and nowhere to go. I'd started out intending to go and talk to Elizabeth but I just couldn't seem to do it. The more I thought about it, the less I wanted to see her. I just felt lost and alone. I'd gone to a bar and had a couple of drinks. I wasn't a big drinker and when I started to feel it, I'd cut myself off and started drinking coffee.

Being in a bar, alone on Christmas day is one of the worst feelings ever. How big a loser do you really have to be to spend Christmas alone? Sure, in my case, I was alone by choice. I just didn't want to be around anyone. I just felt like everyone who saw me would realize exactly what a loser I was. It was like every single person I ran into would take one look at me, realize that my wife was fucking a guy old enough to be her father and laugh at me. It just made me wonder even more things about the situation.