A Really Big Mistake

It was sunny this morning, but still autumn-time cool. I'd been lucky enough to find this small house, just perfect for me, for less than $100,000. It sat on the top of a hill, and had two acres of land, plus a detached two-car garage, established gardens and a chicken coop. I had two covered porches, one on the east side and one on the west, from which I could watch both the sunrise and sunset. As long as the weather was tolerable, I liked to have my morning coffee and a bagel on the east porch.

It was cloudy this morning, with some fog and morning mist; it looked like it could rain at any time, but there wasn't enough wind to push any rain far enough onto the porch to get me wet. My black lab Randi and Maine Coon Fiddlehead sat at my feet, their food on the porch but appetites sated. It would have been a perfect morning for a retired lady like me, except the one thing I was missing most of all: a husband.

I really loved this place! It was just west of the Daniel Boone National Forest, so there were trees in the distance, but my property was mostly cleared. Rowan County is a poor area, which was why I was able to pick it up so cheaply. When I sold my house in Lexington, on retirement, I made enough money to not only pay off the rest of the mortgage, but had more than enough to buy this place, cash. Forty-three years in the banking industry had left me with a solid retirement package, comfortable if not wealthy.

Trouble is, it also left me divorced and alone.

I didn't really think about my ex-husband much anymore; him being gone for 24 years now, well, I wouldn't, would I? But it was the news that Traci brought me yesterday that set it all going again; Blaine had retired, too, and was moving back to our hometown of Morehead.

Poor Blaine! He'd been in the Air Force, and that meant we'd moved around the country. We'd been married for 22 years when he found out that I had cheated on him, and he divorced me. I'd fought it, I didn't want the divorce, but he was just so hurt, just couldn't trust me, ever again. Because I'd been married to him his entire military career, I got half of his military retirement check, and that frosted him no end. Blaine knew that I'd cheated on him, but he had no actual proof that would stand up in court and that meant, in Virginia, that a 'no-fault' divorce was all that he could get.

He was stationed at Langley Air Force Base and I was working at the credit union, as a loan officer at the time, when Harry showed up.

Damn it, Harry was really cute! Of course, I could have mostly ignored cute, and not flirted with him, but Harry was the kind of guy who did his own flirting. And he was good at it, too. About five years younger than me, with a lot of youthful energy, I responded to his flirting, and he could see it. I kept telling him that no, I was married, and us doing anything while we worked at the same branch was a sure-fire way to get fired.

Maybe it was telling him that us doing anything while we worked at the same branch was almost a surrender, a subtle way of saying, 'If only things were different.' That wasn't what I meant to indicate, but yeah, he could have taken it that way.

It took Harry almost three months, and Blaine getting sent to Insirlik AFB in Turkey, an unaccompanied deployment, to get into my pants. My husband was gone, and that left me taking care of the house, and our kids, all by myself. I was lonely, and horny, and Harry was paying attention to me.

I'd let Harry take me to this really good seafood restaurant right across the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel, on Willoughby Spit, with outdoor dining and a view of the Chesapeake Bay. It was raining that evening, so we sat inside, but the restaurant had a huge wall of windows facing the bay, and it was just so nice, watching the rain over the water. The kids were out of the house, with Traci at William & Mary and Blaine Jr military school, so there was no one at home, waiting on me.

There was no doubt what was on Harry's mind when he took me back to his place in Grandview. All the way at the end of Beach Road, then onto Adriatic, into one of the houses on the Back River, with its own boat dock. I shouldn't have gone, I knew I shouldn't have gone, but I did, and we were sitting on his backyard dock, beside his boat, drinking wine, when he kissed me.

I knew what he wanted, and I knew he was going to kiss me, and I let it happen anyway. It wasn't half an hour later that we were inside, with the windows open and being serenaded by the birds and frogs and crickets, that Harry was removing my clothes. I still didn't stop him.

They find out, they always find out. I'd heard it before, and naturally Lue, one of my co-workers realized what was going on. She warned me, these things don't remain secret. When Kimi figured it out as well, I knew, there was no way that this wasn't going to get back to my husband, not unless I ended it right away. Kimi said that my husband would probably take a pick axe handle to Harry when he found out! Blaine was still in Turkey, so no way that he'd find out for a few more weeks, when he got back, so maybe, possibly, I could end the affair right away and get my life back to normal.

I told Harry about my decision; I was ending things, now, before we really got in trouble. Harry wasn't married, so he wasn't in any trouble, none at all. Me, I could be.

But, stupid me, when I told Harry, I let him take me out to tell him, and, you guessed it, we wound up right in bed, one last hurrah as it were. Even stupider me, our one last hurrah was the one place I'd never let Harry fuck me, my own house, in Blaine's and my bed.

So, what happened? It was the next morning, a Saturday, when Traci bebopped into my room, with a happy "Good morning, mom," then stopping dead in her tracks, seeing Harry still asleep beside me.

In our marriage bed.

She just exclaimed, "Oh, my God," and ran out of the house; I could hear her crying as she took off. I hadn't expected her home that weekend, and totally fucked up.

Traci loved her dad, and she said that she was going to tell him. I begged her not to, and the most that I got was a promise not to tell him at least until he got back from Incirlik. Too many bad things could happen in Turkey, and he didn't need to be distracted and pissed off because of my affair.

It was a good thing that Traci was away at college; I don't know how frigid the atmosphere would have been if she was living under my roof. She agreed not to tell BJ - that's Blaine Jr - until his dad was back, because we both knew that he'd call his father right away.

I just hoped that I'd have time to find a way to fix things.

"It's simple, Mom: Dad's due back in three weeks, on a Friday. I'm coming home that Saturday, I'll be here at noon, and I'm going to tell him. You've got that much time to confess to him yourself, before I drop the bomb. I don't know, maybe it'll go better if you tell him yourself, but one way or the other, by Saturday afternoon, he's going to know. You just get to decide how he finds out."

It was like the worst evening of my life. Blaine told me, just as he was grabbing me, hugging me and picking me up in the air, that he was just notified: he was being promoted to Senior Master Sergeant! He was so happy, and couldn't wait to get me home, and into bed.

I'd had already planned on simple food, really good sandwiches, but nothing time critical, for dinner. I didn't figure that Blaine would want to eat before throwing me in bed, but, then again, I didn't know how tired he'd be after a long flight from Germany.

Well, it happened the way I thought more likely: he wanted to make love to his wife as soon as we got home, and I couldn't blame him, us not having seen each other for nine months. I tried to get into it, I really did, and I couldn't help but climax when he ate me out, but actual sex itself? I was feeling too nervous and too guilty, remembering that I'd spent three months fucking Harry.

The last time in this bed.

I had thought of getting rid of the bed, buying a new one, but I knew that Blaine would want to know why. I had no good choices: if I bought the new bed and had it in here, Blaine would know before we ever made love in it, and if I didn't, come the following day, Blaine would know that Harry had fucked me in our marriage bed.

Come Saturday morning, Blaine made love to me again, and it was better for me this time. I knew that I had only a few hours left before Traci came home, and I wanted, needed, one last chance to prove to my husband how much I loved him. Blaine wasn't as needy, wasn't as rough as last night, and I was able to enjoy not fucking, but making love.

After we were done, I got up to take my morning shower, and after that, got dressed. Blaine went in to get clean himself, and I went into the living room, and sat down in the wingback chair, and just started crying. I knew: when he came out, I was going to have to tell him.

When I heard the bathroom door open, for him to come out of the shower, I looked at the grandfather clock; it was 11:17. Traci would be by in 43 minutes, and I was out of time.

A couple minutes later, my wonderful, dear husband walked into the living room, and saw me crying.

"Emily, what's wrong? Why are you crying?" The grandfather clock said 11:20.

"Sit, sit down, I have to tell you something." That's easier to write down, now; I was wracked with sobs as I said it.

I could see Blaine's face. He knew that I was going to drop the big one, but he didn't know what it was. Adultery had to be going through his mind, but it could just as easily have been that I was sick or something. He's a strong man, and he was trying to stay calm, as he sat down in the other wingback chair, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, waiting for me.

11:21.

"Blaine, I," I stumbled on my words then, then I charged forward, falling on my knees in front of him, grabbing his hands, holding on to them for dear life. I finally got it out, "Blaine, I had an affair."

My husband snatched his hands away from me, sitting back hard in the chair, and I just grabbed his knees hugging them and begging for forgiveness. For a minute or so, he said nothing, just staring at me, his face an emotionless mask. The clock said 11:23.

Then he erupted, jumping out of the chair, yelling "God damn it!" over and over and over again. He pretty much bowled me over when he jumped up, and I was sprawled out on the living room carpet. For a minute, I thought that he was going to kick my ass, but he never did. Then he grabbed his wallet and his keys and stormed out of the house.

Traci had gotten home earlier than scheduled, and was sitting in her car down the street. When she saw Blaine jump in his F-150 and burn rubber taking off out of here, she knew that I'd confessed, so she walked in early, at 11:40. She found me, laying on the couch, crying my eyes out.

"Didn't go well, huh?" Her voice was almost deadpan.

That was the end of my marriage, 11:23 AM, on Saturday, April 24, 1993. Oh, it still took a while, because the courts take their time. Even though Blaine knew, he had no actual proof, no photos and no witnesses - Traci would have told him about the affair, but she'd never testify against me - so it was a no-fault divorce. I didn't want it, I wanted my husband back, but while I fought it a bit at first, I wasn't stupid enough to contest it for long. Blaine had left me no hope of a reconciliation.

Harry had been the Branch Manager, and was up for promotion to District Manager; I had a shot at the Branch Manager's job. That all came crashing down when Kimi used a figurative pick axe on us, and told corporate that we'd had an affair. Harry got fired, and while I wasn't, because it was a superior-subordinate thing, I was put on probation, and I knew that I no longer had any future at the credit union. At least Kimi didn't get the Branch Manager's job; they brought in someone from outside, and we all knew that he was there to instill a no nonsense attitude.

I had to stay in Virginia until the divorce was final; there was no way I could leave and let the court do to me what it would without being able to defend myself. Fortunately, with Blaine having no admissible evidence of my affair, the lawyers agreed: it was pretty cut and dried. We were going to sell the house - Blaine had already thrown our bed in the garbage - and split the profits 50/50. Because Blaine made almost twice what I did, he had to pay me alimony for three years. We were both on the hook for the kids, but both were over 18, so there was no child support; it was just college expenses.

Blaine had barely put on his Senior Master Sergeant stripes when he retired. I was going to get half of his retirement, and I guess that he'd be damned if it was going to let it get any higher than it was. He knew a lot, and got hooked up with Lockheed-Martin, and wound up with a big jump in pay, though I never knew how much it was.

That was it, I was done with the whole fucking state, and the last thing I wanted to think about was Harry in Virginia! I had been putting out my résumés, and, after the recession, things really started picking up. The dot.com thing was just starting to build, the economy was looking up, and I got a good offer from a bank in Lexington, Kentucky. Since Blaine and I were both from Morehead, it was like going home again. I heard that Blaine had moved to Orlando for his job.

The divorce was really hard on the kids. Traci, of course, had been the one to catch me with Harry, so she knew all about it. BJ heard, I guess his father's side first, but really, my husband didn't really know what had happened, just that I had had an affair.

Our family was really split apart. BJ enlisted in the Air Force, and naturally he got sent all over the place, to Idaho, to Florida, and then to God-awful Fairbanks, Alaska, 60º below zero Alaska. Traci had gotten her degree in finance from William & Mary, and she was working for some financial institution in Arlington. I talked to my kids a lot, over the phone, but never got a chance to see them.

Once three years was up, I got my last alimony check from Blaine, wrapped in a single sheet of stationary on which he had scrawled, "Fuck you, bitch! This is the last fucking penny I'll ever have to send your cheating ass. Eat shit and die."

I couldn't help myself; I broke down and cried. I had hoped that time passing would have calmed down his anger, but it seemed as though he was just as raging mad as the day I confessed my affair to him.

Still, it was 1997 and the economy was humming along; there was even talk that the government might just balance the budget. Banking, of course, was doing great, and I was rising through the ranks, slowly but steadily. I finished my BA, and then my MA, in night school, which really helped my career prospects. I had been putting the alimony checks into saving anyway for the past two years, and just living on my earnings. I had started with 6%, but had increased my 401(k) contributions up to 8% of my salary, and planned on continuing to raise it every year. When the new Roth IRA law passed, I immediately switched my future contributions there; I'd rather pay the taxes then, and not get socked with tax bills when I retired.

But if I was doing great in my career, my personal life, not so much. Traci told me that Blaine found someone else, a Florida girl, and had gotten married down there. I really, really didn't want to know too much about her. As for me, I had a few dates over the years, but nothing went anywhere. My experiences with Harry had soured me on the ways men seduce women, even though I was single now, and couldn't get into the same kind of trouble if I did find a real boyfriend. I ate out a lot, since I really didn't care for cooking just for myself, and bought a house on Sycamore Road, near the Ashland estate of Henry Clay; I could walk to work in fifteen minutes if I wanted, though I usually drove. It paid off when Lexington had snow, which the city did a shitty job of clearing, because I could always get in to work.

When the recession following the September 11^th attacks hit, I found myself upside down on my mortgage, but I didn't lose my job, when a lot of other people were, and I just kept on making payments. I knew that property values would eventually recover, and then I'd be sitting pretty.

But I was still sitting pretty lonely.

The 2007-2009 recession was even worse, and Traci, who had by this time been working for Lehman Brothers, lost her job, and a sizable portion of her nest egg. This recession looked like it was going to be a long, bad one, and I asked her to come and stay with me; I had plenty of room, and I was, once again surviving the recession. But once things recovered, and financials started to grow again, I thought that my reputation could get her a decent job in Lexington.

It took a long time for the economy to recover, and while Traci did some part-time work waitressing - I had told her that she didn't have to, but having any job was always better on the résumé than a long period of unemployment - she was home a lot, with me when I was off of work. That I had no boyfriends, that no men ever called on me, she noticed. I was 55 years old, hardly dating material.

"Do you still miss Dad?" she finally asked me one day.

It was so hard to answer, but I finally got out, "Yes, I do."

"Do you still love him?"

Another hard question. "Yes, honey, I do. There's no one else out there like your father."

"So, why?" I knew what she meant, and it was the first time, after all these years that she ever asked why I had the affair.

And that was the problem. Yes, I had been lonely, yes, I was missing having my husband while he was overseas, but really, there was no reason, certainly no good reason. I had just gotten seduced, but I had to admit it, I knew it was coming and I let myself get seduced. It was daring and fun, and the sex was pretty good - though no better than with Blaine, and really, not quite as good - and it was just nice having a man paying attention to me. I had thought that Blaine had cheated on me before, with that bitch Colleen at Langley, but I never knew for certain; he might not have, and even if he had, that was no justification for what I did.

I had thrown away my marriage, for nothing, for not one God damned thing. I had a nice house, in one of the best neighborhoods in Lexington, but the queen sized bed in my master bedroom still slept only one. I had gotten used to sleeping alone, a long time ago, but it was still an empty existence.

It was 2011 before I was finally able to get Traci a professional job again. The financial markets were taking off, even if the rest of the economy was still struggling, and my reputation and contacts finally got her in with what passed for a medium sized brokerage in Lexington. Her experience and education were great, but she was competing with younger grads, and that big Lehman Brothers on her résumé really wasn't much help.

As for me, I had done well, and I decided: I was going to retire at 60, just because I could, sell the house on Sycamore and buy a nice place out in the country. If I was going to be alone, at least it would be better to be alone without seeing everybody else around me coupled up. I put out the word to one of my old high school friends to keep an eye out for what I needed.

So, in 2013 she found me the perfect house. Housing prices were recovering, finally, in the cities, but out in the rural and small town areas, not so much. Like I said before, I got this place for a great price.

It was two years later, in late 2015, when I was sitting on the eastside porch, drinking my coffee and watching the sun come up over the forest and the hills, that I realized I had been divorced for as long as I had been married. The few dates that I had had while I had been working were long in the past, and I had never, ever, not even once awoken with someone other than Fiddlehead in the bed beside me, not in this house. Really, in all of that time, it had happened only a few times since the last time I woke up next to Blaine that Saturday in April, 22½ years ago.`