Unrepentant Heart

"Was this about the same time the department of social services started paying visits?"

"How did you know about that?" she asked incredulously.

"How I know doesn't matter. The fact that I do and that you endangered my children does. Sheryl, look at me" he ordered.

She looked up into his dark vacuous eyes. She looked for a spark, a remnant of the man she knew. All she could see was her own reflection.

"Sheryl, I am going to ask you a question and your life depends on the answer you give me"

"My life!?" she squealed.

"Yes. Was he ever alone with the children?"

"No. No, I don't believe so." She stammered. She began to sob.

He took a sip of coffee, looking at her. She had changed. The months had not been good to her. The lines around the mouth were deeper, the pockets around her eyes more pronounced. At one time, he knew, she had been a lovely woman. At one time he had loved her deeply. But that had ended six months ago. A flash of a long suppressed memory, a memory of her with her legs wrapped around a stranger's back, of a man taking her in her ass, and the words "I love it. I love you." went across his mind.

"Do you know how I knew to come home that night?" he asked.

She shook her head no.

"Teresa called me at the office."

"What!" his wife croaked.

"Teresa called me at work. She asked me to come home. She said that 'the man was doing bad things to mommy again'. She, Patrick and Ellie had sneaked back into the house. Teresa had called me from our number." He waited for some reaction from the woman who had been his wife, the mother of his children, and his life.

Sheryl wailed. "Oh dear God no! Not my babies!"

But he was not going to let her off now. He would make her see the ugliness he witnessed that night. "Now they're your babies? Tell me Sheryl, were they your babies in the Comfort Inn? How about those nights when you thought they were at the neighbors? Were they your babies then?"

Her head fell into her hands. "Why are you saying these things to me? I told you I am sorry. Oh, poor Teresa!"

"I'm not finished yet. What did you think was going to happen? Was he going to marry you?" Her reaction told him that this is just what the man had told her. "Let me show you what you were going to marry." He handed her a folded sheet of paper. It was Leonard Strickland's arrest record. She read it and looked up at her husband in shock. "A child-molester? I let a child molester near my babies? How did you get this?" she asked.

"Court records are open record, Sheryl. Plus child molesters are routinely outed to warn the community they move to; same as with perpetrators of domestic violence in this state."

He continued his attack. "What did you think he was, Sheryl? Did you think men of good character, tried and true, went off fucking other men's wives?"

She sank down. No weeping, she was crying hard now. He stood up and looked down at her. He was relentless. "A known sex offender, a man you knew nothing about, a man you met from work who fed you a line of shit; and you brought him into your home, into what was our bed, and fucked him in front of your children. How does that make you feel?"

She couldn't answer. Broken, she laid on the floor of their kitchen. Idly, he took a sip from his coffee. "And you know the funny thing? The cops are watching me."

She looked up. "What?"

He smiled. "Oh yes. They drove by a moment ago. Any minute they will be pulling up here to see if you are still alive."

She sniffed. "Is that it? You're going to kill me now?"

"I thought about it. For a while I was. But there are some strange remnants in me that say I shouldn't."

"Then you do still love me," she observed.

He ignored her statement. "Sheryl, I asked you why. You never gave me the answer, not the real one. Our marriage was going stale? The passion was being replaced with complacency? I didn't treat you as I did when we first married? Sheryl, who can keep up that kind of intensity over the years? If we are lucky we grow comfortable with each other; we grow to trust one another.

"You didn't mind my focus on work when we bought this house. You didn't complain about my ambition when we took the trips to Orlando or when your mother borrowed the money for her surgery when your dad's insurance couldn't fund it all. And when you wanted time with Strickland, my working was actually a blessing, wasn't it? The kids? Kids make demands, Sheryl. Did you think they would just come out and rear themselves?

"No, Sheryl, you did this for one reason; because you wanted to and could get away with it, pure and simple. Everything else, Strickland's professed love, his cock, the sex, my work, your desire for a life away from the pressure of being a parent were all just attempts at justification."

She wept more, knowing that he was right.

"Choices and consequences, Sheryl. You cheated simply because you choose to cheat. You put all of us and your home in jeopardy because you choose to. Every other excuse you ever see, hear and read is bullshit. People cheat because they want to. But choices come with consequences. It was the consequences you wanted to avoid. But they are here now and you have to deal with them. I loved you once."

He reached down and took her roughly by the chin and pulled her to her feet. She stood there, trapped in his hand, looking into blank expressionless eyes. "But I don't any more, Sheryl. A moment ago I told you I shouldn't kill you. The reason I shouldn't is because of those three young souls out there." He motioned outside with his head. "They are the one vestige of humanity I have left. They need a mother, a home. But don't mistake that for love. All the love I had for you died that night. When you told Strickland you loved him my heart broke and all the love and humanity I had, poured out. I couldn't un-break it. I tried. You can't refill a broken vessel. Make no mistake. I won't kill you but not because I can't. Never think that. Do you understand that?"

The terrified woman who had once been his wife nodded, too afraid to speak to the specter before her.

He reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out a packet of papers. He held it close in front of her face and then threw them on the table. "That is everything we own. House deed, insurance that you can cash in on, a few stocks and an account I was going too use for the kids colleges. There is even a power of attorney there so you can sign my name. The no-fault divorce papers are there as well, filled out and ready. Everything you need to start over."

"Take them and cash them in. Sell the house and start fresh somewhere else. But, Sheryl, take very good care of my children. If there is money for only three happy meals, you go hungry, three blankets and you freeze. They lack for nothing, understand? If I once hear anything to the contrary, I will find you and kill you. Do you believe me?"

She stared into his blank eyes. She nodded yes.

"They are your life insurance policy, Sheryl. As long as they live, you live. It's as simple as that." He released her face and stepped back.

He looked outside and noted the sheriff's cruiser pulling up. He turned to his wife. "If you go to the police and tell them about this I will eventually be released. And when I do, I will come for you. Remember that."

He took a last sip from his coffee. "You do still make great coffee."

An insistent knock at the door broke through the heavy atmosphere. He walked to the door and opened it revealing a pair of young deputies.

"Mr. Turner?" one asked.

"Yes, how may I help you?"

The young deputy stared into the face. "Mr. Turner, is Mrs. Turner here? May we speak with her?"

"Of course," he said stepping back. "Sheryl, there is a gentleman here to see you." He stepped back allowing the deputy to walk in.

The deputy couldn't take his eyes from the face. "Mrs. Turner, are you alright?"

Sheryl Turner looked from the deputy to the man once her husband. She had been the cause of this, she knew that now. If not for her, he would still be the dear, sweet, yet plain man she had married. Her own actions had pushed him to the brink and then over.

"Yes, I am fine." She smiled at the deputy. "Why wouldn't I be?"

The deputy still stared at Turner, hypnotized. The man, Dan Turner, held the gaze without flinching. "We, ah, we had heard there might be some trouble."

Sheryl looked from her husband to the deputy. "No, no trouble. Why would there be? Can't you see my husband is here?"

The deputy reached into his pocket and pulled out his card. "No reason I guess. But if you need us, use the number on the card." He stepped past Turner and back outside. He looked at the man with the soulless eyes once more and then he and his partner walked back to the cruiser. Within minutes it had disappeared down the street.

The man retrieved his suitcase and looked about the room once last time. He took in the memories of a man once alive and a life once lived.

"Dan, aren't you staying here? What, what about the children? They will want to see you. Please stay. At least for tonight, please" she begged.

Turner looked at his wife. "Sheryl, do you want their last memory to be of me like this, what I am now, or the man I was?" For a moment, the briefest glimpse of the man she had once loved shone through the pain, the hurt and loss.

She jumped forward and hugged herself to him. His body was hard and unresponsive. "Oh, Dan, what have I done? I did love you. I still do." She stepped back. The eyes were dark again, the ghost returned. "Dan, what are you going to do? Can you tell me?"

Turner reached down and took his suitcase. He looked around the room a last time.

"I am going to offer a man a choice" he said.

He stepped outside and into the disappearing sunlight.