Without a Paddle

"Yes but..." I began.

"That doesn't seem like love to me," he said. "You let another man impregnate you and then fooled me into raising your lover's child. Is that true?"

"Yes but Mark..." I said again.

"That doesn't seem like love either," he said. "That actually sounds more like fraud. I don't want to see you in prison, Miriam; even though you've lied to me for twenty years. And I can't sue you to recoup the funds I've expended. There is a law in this state about assumed paternity. The law says that in the absence of any other compelling evidence, the husband in a marriage is assumed to be the father of any and all offspring produced."

"Why are we talking about all of this?" I asked. "I want to talk about what we have to do to get past this."

"Miriam we..." This time I cut him off.

"Why are you calling me Miriam?" I asked. "You only call me by my full name when you're really angry at me. It hurts, Mark."

"And finding out that my son isn't mine, didn't," he hissed. "Finding out that the woman I've loved for most of my fucking life has been spreading her legs for another man for most of our time together didn't hurt?" he asked. "At least you have a choice, Miriam. You can walk the fuck out of here any time you want. I didn't have one. I never knew what was going on."

"I'm sorry, Mark," I cried. "You have no idea how sorry I am."

"No Miriam, you have no idea how sorry I am," he said. "I feel like I've wasted my entire life. I feel like all of the love and concern I had for you for the past twenty five years that we've been married and the two before that while we dated were all just wasted."

My mouth dropped open.

"Think about it Miriam. Every memory I have is tainted. When we went on vacation, were you really there with me or were you thinking about him? When you met me at the door and kissed me, were you really happy to see me or were you just giving him time to sneak out the back door. Every time we had sex it was probably just out of guilt and you were probably imagining that it was him. Every memory that we have is simply false now. None of it means anything anymore."

I simply didn't know what to say. I had no idea his pain went that deep or his anger. This was far worse than I thought.

"Why don't you tell me whatever it is that you wanted to say Miriam," he said. "We're getting nowhere and I have things to work out."

"Mark, why can't you understand that this isn't what you think," I said. "I never wanted this. I don't love George. I don't even like him." Mark started laughing then and it made me cry.

"If you don't like him, then why have you been fucking him for twenty years?" I asked.

"I...I didn't have a choice," I said. "Mark, this whole thing was really your fault. You started talking about me and the things we do in bed to George and you know how he is. He thinks that he deserves the best of everything. So he wanted to find out for himself. But I didn't find that out until later on."

"It all started when you went to that plant in Indiana for that manager's conference. I missed you so much that I cried every night while you were gone. About three nights before you got back George and Cora came over and we had a few drinks. Cora passed out and I guess I was drunker than I thought. George got me up and helped me to the living room so I could lie down. I'd told him how angry I was that you'd been gone for so long. It had only been five days but I was angry. We hadn't been apart for more than a day since we'd been together and I was irrational. George kept talking and he convinced me to lie down on the couch and just imagine that you were home. Then he started rubbing me and asking me how you did things."

"I told him and he tried to do it but it just felt wrong. The wine got to me and I started to feel sleepy. The next thing I remember, George was having sex with me. It wasn't sex, Mark. It wasn't anything like what you and I do. I just laid there like a rock. I was asleep for God's sake. As soon as I woke up, I pushed him off of me and screamed. I made him leave our house and for the next five years George and I were never alone together again. I made sure of it."

"When you got home, I'd already decided that it was probably my fault. We were both drunk and I was really angry at you, so I'd probably done something or said something to make him think that what he did was okay. I tried to do everything I could to show you that I loved only you, but I'd always done that, so it wasn't any different. I have always loved only you, Mark."

"Miriam, then why didn't you just tell me that you'd gotten drunk and been taken advantage of? I loved you enough, that I'd have forgiven you. I'd have gotten over it," he said. "...If you had given me the chance to try. But you didn't trust me, or how much I loved you enough for that; did you?"

"Bullshit," I spat. "You've always been more important to me than anything, Mark. And you know it. That's why I couldn't risk losing you. Six weeks later, I found out that we were pregnant and I just forgot about George. I blocked him out of my life. Let me ask you Mark; were we happy during my pregnancy and those first few years?"

"Yes we were," he said.

"Mark, I had no idea that Mark Jr. wasn't yours. In fact, I didn't find out until he was five years old. That DNA test that Mark Jr. had to take for school showed it. George heard me crying and ran over to find out what was wrong. Once he found out, he started pressuring me for sex to keep quiet about it. It wasn't sex Mark and it only happened twice a year. I just endured it to protect my family. I couldn't lose you, Mark. That's the mindset I took to help me get through it. I told myself that I was doing it to protect my men. "

"He never got what he wanted, Mark. He never got me the way you know me. There were no kisses, no real intimacy. I just let him put it in and rub away at me until he squirted into a condom. Then I opened the door and sent him away. I immediately went to the bathroom and washed away any traces of him and called you and told you how much I love you. You just never had any idea how much."

Neither of us said anything for a long time. He just looked at me and I could tell that as much as he was trying to stay aloof and detached, he was on the verge of tears.

"Miriam, I don't want you hurt," he said. "I don't want you poor and alone. I want us to split everything down the middle. You get half and I'll get the other half. I'll send you half of my check...If you don't mind I'd rather have the check direct deposited into your account and..."

"Mark, what the hell are you talking about?" I asked. I felt like my vision was beginning to close in on me from the sides. I was having trouble breathing as well. I put my hands on the table to steady myself. Mark looked like he wanted to try to comfort me. He reached for my shoulder and then pulled his hand back almost as if he'd burned himself. That hurt me more than anything else.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I asked.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to do..."

"What didn't you mean to do?" I asked. "You didn't mean to touch me? Is that it? You're telling me that over a period of twenty four hours, I've gone from being the woman you love most in the world to some diseased whore that you're afraid to touch. Is that it? Are my festering lesions showing now, Mark? Or is..." I was sobbing. I ached to have him touch me. I hadn't expected this at all.

"Miriam, that not it at all," he said sadly. "But we can't be...We just have to get used to the fact that things are going to be...different. You're not..."

"I'm not what, God damn it?" I screamed. "I'm not perfect. I don't have huge tits like Cora and what I do have sags. My legs are getting thinner and my ass isn't as perky as it was. I think I have crow's feet forming in the corners of my eyes. So you're right Mark, I'm not perfect. And now that you have the chance, you want to go out and dump me for someone who is. Maybe someone younger, who runs every day like you do and works out and all of that shit. Fuck you, Mark. I know I'm not perfect. But I never was. The only person who ever thought I was beautiful or special was you, dumbass. So go find your perfect woman, Mark. But I can God damned guarantee you that she'll never love you as much as..."

"Miriam, that isn't what I meant at all," he said. "You mentioned yesterday. I guess all of this hinges on yesterday, doesn't it? Yesterday, I thought that you were the most beautiful and most special woman in the world. And you might not have been perfect then either, but you were perfect for me. I love every single line on your face. You have the softest, most wonderful ass on the planet. I've already gotten into trouble for telling that asshole about how good you are in bed and how special you made me feel. None of that has changed Miriam. Not one iota of it. What I tried to say was just that I can't keep reaching out to touch you or to hug you because whether you want to admit it or not, things did change yesterday Miriam. It's a fact. We can't avoid it or pretend that things didn't change, because everything is different. And the biggest one of those changes is that you aren't mine."

My brain refused to process that thought. It was like he'd just recited a mathematical formula with ten, fifteen digit numbers and expected me to give him an answer. My synapses understood what was necessary but I simply didn't have the computing power to come up with an answer. It was as if even conceiving of a world where the two of us were not together simply did not compute.

I stared at him blankly. And I could tell that he was even reeling from what he'd said. But looking in his eyes I could see that though it had hurt him to say the words, he meant them. If saying the words was a blow to the jaw, then realizing that he not only meant them but that he believed those blasphemous words to be true, was a gut punch. I think that if I'd had the choice between having Mark tell me what he'd just said or having him punch me in the stomach the way he'd done George the previous day, I'd have taken the punch.

"Miriam, you have to understand this," he said. "I've always based everything in my life around us. I knew that we loved each other and that because of that nothing else that happened really affected me. I knew that you and I would be together until one of us died. And even then if it was you who died first, I wouldn't have survived much longer. I never even called you Miriam; I called you "Miri," because I had to have my own little name for you. Because you were not only mine, you were a part of me."

"Fuck you, Mark," I spat. "I'll listen to your stupid words, but only so I can hear what you're thinking about this. It seems funny that for you to come in here and tell me that we have to be logical and deal in facts, when you're the one who's just spouting utter bullshit. I know in the bottom of my heart how I feel about you, Dummy. That has never changed. I'm the same woman you married. Mark, I would take a bullet for you. And you know it."

"And I'll tell you something else. I'm looking in your eyes right now and you're failing. You wanted to come in here and just say a couple of trick phrases and have this all over with. You expected me to just walk away with my tail between my legs and let you drive off into the sunset and then go on E-harmony and find yourself a forty five year old former Victoria's secret model to be happy with. But it's not going to happen. I will contest every statement you make. I will fight every attempt to separate us. I will distort, delay and finally defeat any divorce and most of all I will NEVER give up on us."

"Miriam," he began again as if I hadn't spoken. "Yesterday, I realized that a fundamental belief of mine had always been flawed. I guess I've always thought that even before we were married that we were a pair. I thought that we belonged together and that YOU were mine and mine alone..."

"I AM," I interrupted.

"Miriam, for the past twenty years at least, I've been sharing you with George," he said calmly. "I never knew it and I never would have agreed to do so. My wife has to be MY wife, not our wife. Every memory I have now needs to be re-processed."

My mouth dropped open. "Mark, it's not like..." I sputtered.

"Barely more than twenty four hours ago you woke me up with a spectacular blow job, Miriam. If it was up to me and Mark Jr. hadn't interrupted us, we'd still be in bed together now. Do you remember what the last thing you said to me then was?"

"I was rubbing your, "you know what," and telling you I wanted some more of that later. You told me that it, like the rest of you belonged to me. If it was mine why would I share my pussy, with George? God damn it Miriam, I don't even let anyone drive my Mustang. Why would I share something as important as my wife with ANYONE?" he was actually screaming at me.

"Even before that," he said, "You told me that you'd never made love with anyone except ME," he'd calmed down to the point that he was no longer yelling, but the venom in his voice was still there. His voice was so raspy and so raw that I could feel his pain in every word.

"Another fucking lie, Miriam," he said acidly. "So if you look at this from my viewpoint, I have to question everything you've ever said to me. I'm not even sure there was ever an US. The woman I fell in love with and married probably no longer exists, but I do know that you're not her. My Miri would never have done this. So Miriam, can we get back to where we were before we went off track."

I just nodded. I wanted to stop talking. I just wanted this conversation over with. I wanted more than anything else for us to finish this and then make up and go upstairs to our room and get into our bed. We didn't even have to make love. I just wanted him to wrap his arms around me and tell me everything was going to be okay.

"It's just going to take time, Miri," he'd said it to me so many times that I could imagine him saying it right then. "Everything is going to work out, Miri. It's just going to take time."

"So, what check were we talking about?" I asked to change the subject.

"My paycheck, Miriam," he said. "I'm going to give you half of that, so you'll have some income. Don't you remember what we were talking about?"

"Mark, we're retired, remember?" I asked. I was beginning to think that what happened between us had driven him over the edge too.

"Miriam, I got my job back," he said. "I had to. We're not rich like George. When we retired it was based on the premise that we were going to live together. We have enough investments to generate income for the rest of our lives plus my 401K and social security, remember?" he asked.

I nodded.

"Miriam, the problem is that we factored in a vacation or two every year, plus a rainy day fund and we doubled the amounts of most of our bills, but we never figured that we'd maintain separate households. That means that even if one of us stays in this house, which is paid off, we're still going to have to add a mortgage and property taxes, or rent, plus more insurance, plus even more bills to the equation and the only way for us to swing that is if I go back to work. If, and that is questionable, but if, I get any money from George on either of my lawsuits, that would be split between us as well, but I'll be giving a big chunk of that to Mark Jr. because he suffered from this deception at least as much as I did."

"Mark, I don't understand any of this," I said. "Can you start again? It would be good to get some money from George, I'm suing him too. But I don't understand any of the things you said. Yesterday we were planning on going to Barbados and now all of a sudden we don't have enough money and we need another house."

"What's wrong with the house we live in now? I don't want to live anywhere else. I thought we'd decided against the whole idea of a vacation house. Remember, you, yourself said that trying to maintain too residences would be more effort than we wanted to expend. You kept saying that we were retiring, so we wanted to just relax and have fun together. I want to live here."

"Miriam, I have to have some place to live too," he said exasperatedly. He kept looking at me as if I just didn't understand him.

"Mark, what don't you like about our house?" I asked him.

"I love this house," he said.

"Then why can't we live here?" I asked. "And if we're moving, won't we get a lot of money when we sell the house?" Suddenly I thought I understood.

"Mark, you're afraid of George aren't you?" I laughed. "Or is it that you just don't trust me around him. You're afraid and jealous that your wife will succumb to the charms of the super sexy George Wilson. You're afraid that I'll start up again with the asshole who blackmailed me into having sex with him for all of that time. You don't have to worry about that Mark. It will never happen again, I..."

"Miriam, we need another house because we aren't going to be living together," he said. I stopped laughing and my smile faded.

"Miriam, we're not going to get past this. I can't," he said. "I think we need a divorce. That's why I've been trying to go over the bills and figure out how much money we need and what we can and can't afford to do."

"Mark, can't we..." I began. He just shook his head.

"Miriam, you hurt me too badly," he said. "I don't know what to do or even who I am anymore. I'm really thinking about leaving the area. Maybe I need a fresh start. Mark Jr. is thinking about it too. He's looking at a lot of different cities in his career field and what the outlook for jobs is. As for me, a good engineer can work anywhere. I figured you'd probably stay here or move to Richmond with your sister and her family. I'm sorry, but I think it's for the best."

I was stunned. I couldn't think of anything to say.

"I'll have your divorce papers for you as soon as you get a lawyer. To save money we could even get the same person to handle both sides. I want to be as fair as possible Miriam. I really want us to come up with something that is fair to both of us and that allows both of us to have what we want," he said.

"Mark, that would be the easiest thing in the world to do and it wouldn't require money or lawyers," I said. "All I want is you."

Two days later, Mark and I went to his lawyer's office. I watched as they drew up the paper work. We made several different sets. One for if I wanted to live in the house. One for if Mark stayed in the house and one just in case we decided to sell the house and both of us live elsewhere. The only thing that I kept saying throughout the process was that I didn't want a divorce and that I wouldn't ever agree to one.

After the papers had been drawn up, Mark helped me to find another lawyer who could act in my interests alone. She looked over the papers and after asking the reason for our divorce, told me that the settlement, considering what had happened, was extremely fair and that Mark could probably have tried to sue me the way he was suing George. She also told me to take any one of them and move on because most judges wouldn't give me what I was getting. I told her that I'd known that Mark would never try to cheat me. In fact, he was going to pay me half of his salary for the entire time that he continued to work. Most judges would have capped it at 8 to ten years at the max. She did note that there was the contingency that the payments would stop if I re-married. I simply laughed at her.

I told Mark that I didn't understand the need for the other lawyer in the first place. He told me that he'd wanted me to have someone who looked out just for me. That way I could be assured that he and his lawyer weren't trying to pull a fast one on me or cheat me. I laughed again.

After the meeting, the lawyer asked me to stay for a few moments. I asked Mark if it would be okay. He told me to take all of the time I needed. The lawyer asked me why I'd asked his permission.