A Really Big Mistake

Even with Harry, I'd never spent the night, because Blaine could always have called home from Turkey; everyone still had land lines in 1993. It was only that one fucking night, when I stupidly fucked him at my house, at Blaine's and my house, that I ever woke up with him the next morning, and look what it cost me. Sometimes I thought back, and rued that morning; if Traci hadn't shown up unexpectedly, Blaine would never have found out about my affair, and we'd still be married today, enjoying our retirement.

Man, I had fucked up my life so badly!

Morehead is a small town, and when Traci brought me the news that Blaine had retired back home, I wondered if I'd ever run into him again. Heck, would I ever recognize him if I did? He was divorced a third time, Traci told me, having gone through two younger wives in Florida, and apparently both of them had cheated on him, too. He was living in his parents' old house, but he didn't own it himself; he'd had to split it with his three brothers and sisters, and they just hadn't sold it yet when Blaine retired. If he wanted it, he'd have to buy them out. It could be most charitably described as a fixer-upper, and after all of those years at Lockheed, he surely had the money to do it, but Blaine wasn't really a handyman, wasn't the kind of guy who liked to take on projects like that himself. I was pretty sure that he'd want to get a place of his own, even if it was an apartment, and just take his fourth of whatever his parents' old house sold for.

I got up with Betty Lou, with whom I'd been friends since we were in high school. She'd been a cheerleader, and President of the Rowan County High School pep club, knew everybody in town - other than the Morehead State University students - and spent her whole life in Morehead. Her husband owned the most successful insurance agency in town, and Betty Lou sold real estate. She was the kind of agent who had sold the same people three different houses, and her husband was just like her, knowing everybody in town. Either one of them could have been elected mayor if they had tried, but neither one was the least bit interested in politics. I don't even know who they voted for.

I had to ask her: was Blaine looking for a house?

"Uhhh, Emily, why are you asking me this? You know that, unless you are interested in selling some property to him, I can't really tell you much."

"Betty Lou, please, if you know something, you've got to tell me. I really need to know."

"Are you trying to get back with him? I mean, I can't think of any other reason for you to be asking me this"

I wasn't quite in tears, but my eyes did water up a bit. "Oh, Hell, I don't know. I messed things up so badly" - I'd never say fucked up things so badly, not in front of church-going Betty Lou - "and we never should have gotten divorced, but he might still be angry at me."

"After all this time? What the heck happened between you two?"

I guess that I should have expected that question. Answering it truthfully would hurt my standing in Betty Lou's eyes, but what the Hell, there was really no sense in lying; if she ever talked to Blaine, he'd probably call me a lying, cheating whore, and then she'd know the truth.

"I had an affair," I admitted, my voice having gotten a bit quieter.

That was when I started bawling. "Betty Lou, I messed up so badly! I never wanted to do anything like that, and I never wanted to lose Blaine, but he was away, stationed in Turkey, and I was lonely, and let myself get seduced by a guy at the credit union I was working at. I was going to break it off, but we got caught by Traci right at the end. She threatened to tell Blaine if I didn't confess, and when I admitted it to him, he stormed out and the only times we were ever together again was in court."

I wasn't really expecting it, not from straight-laced Betty Lou, but she was hugging me, consoling me, comforting me.

"Oh, Emily, I don't know. Blaine was always good at holding a grudge in high school. Remember when he kicked Jerry Smith's ass after Jerry had tried to horn in on whatever girl he was trying to date, and said that he'd kick his ass again any time he ever saw him?"

"That was Cindy, little Cindy-Lou-Who, remember, that little freshman tease."

"She was a huge tease, wasn't she?" Betty Lou giggled, to disarm my crying. "I heard that she'd done a lot more than tease, when it came right down to it. My mom wouldn't let me have anything to do with her."

"Blaine told me that he'd never gotten in her pants. Of course, he might've just been saying that, you know how guys are."

"Except for your Eric, of course," I added quickly, "he wasn't that kind."

"No, he really wasn't. Good, solid, upstanding Eric, never does anything wrong."

That was when I knew: Betty Lou understood my plight, because she'd messed around on Eric, or at least been sorely tempted. In the naughtier recesses of my brain, I could picture it: Eric having sex with Berry Lou, missionary only, in a dark room, with her wearing a long, flannel nightgown pushed up to her waist, once a month, scheduled on the calendar for the first Saturday of the month. Not only was it total vanilla sex, but it was artificial vanilla flavor to boot.

Still, that was a lot more than I had been getting for the last twenty-four years, wasn't it? Blaine had been pretty good, and he liked a lot of different positions, and Harry had been decent and inventive in bed as well, but I'd have taken artificial vanilla sex once a month, with a man who loved me, over what I'd had since April 24th, 1993.

There were a few seconds of silence between us, as Betty Lou sort of collected herself. "OK, Emily, I really shouldn't tell you this, but yes, Blaine has been looking for a new place. He wants an apartment, not a house, but he's got a kind of specific list: he wants first floor, as few steps as possible, in good condition, and wants to avoid Morehead students as neighbors. That's actually kind of hard to find."

"No steps?" I wondered about that; Blaine had always been vigorous and in shape.

"I guess that you haven't seen him for a long time, have you? He's diabetic now, and he's injured his foot somehow; walking is difficult for him these days, and, being diabetic, whatever happened to him is slow to heal."

"No, Traci never told me that." Traci had always been protective of her dad, and had told me only the most minimal things she could since the divorce. "He's not in a wheelchair, is he?"

"I've never seen him in one, but I have seen him use one crutch before."

"Oh, poor Blaine! No wonder he wants out of his family's old home; it's a two-story."

"Yeah, and it's kind of run down; the family wants to sell it, but I'll be lucky to get $60,000 for it."

"What do you think would happen if I was to just 'accidentally' run into him?"

"Well, I know that he usually has lunch at the American Legion Hall on Old Cranston Road. I guess that he enjoys the company out there, and probably doesn't like to cook for himself. But if he's still holding a grudge, that might not be the best place to 'accidentally' run into him. Can you imagine if he gets all worked up and starts calling you vile names, out in public like that?

"Really, if you want to see him again, you'd be better off going through Traci."

That was advice I really didn't want to hear, but it made sense; Traci loved both of us, and if she was maybe more protective of her father than she was of me, I could accept that. It might have been a bit of overcompensation on her part, because she looked so much like me. Other than the brown eyes she got from her father, she looked like me, just 24 years younger.

Which is just the age I was when I had to confess my affair to Blaine. That might not help me much.

I called Traci that evening, after she should have been off of work. It turned out that she had an after-hours business meeting, but she said that she could call me the following evening. I gave her a quick heads up, just so she could think about it; I told her that I wanted to talk to her about arranging a meeting between Blaine and me. I think that I shocked her.

"You know that dad has trouble walking, don't you?" Traci began with the next evening.

"Yeah, Betty Lou told me. But I'd like to cook him a nice meal, here, just the three of us. Can he make it up the front steps?"

"Yeah, I think he can; his arms are still strong, you've got a strong looking handrail coming up the front steps, and there are only four steps. Good thing you've got a first-floor bathroom."

I fretted about the whole day! Traci arranged for the dinner on Saturday, when she ought to be off, because I wanted her there. I was still as nervous as could be, but I knew that Blaine (probably) wouldn't go off on some tirade about my affair, so very long ago, not with Traci here. And Trace provided a lot of small-talk opportunities, about her life, in case Blaine and me talking about our own lives was taking an uncomfortable turn.

I made fired chicken, something I had always done well, and green beans, and this warm potato arugula salad that I'd learned about only a few years ago. I had artificial sweetener handy for Blaine's coffee and checked with Betty Lou, who's also diabetic, about what I should and should not have for dinner. She seemed genuinely happy for me that Blaine was coming over. When she told me that she'd found an apartment that fit Blaine's list of criteria, I asked her to please, please, hold off telling Blaine about it, at least until after the dinner.

"Emily, that wouldn't be ethical. It's what he's been looking for, and if I wait, someone else might snatch it up."

"Well, can you tell him about it, but somehow arrange to show it to him next Monday instead of right away?"

Betty Lou was silent for a few seconds, before agreeing, but she warned me that if Blaine tried to push to see it sooner, she'd have to go along with it. Blaine was her client, after all.

And Blaine had done just that: he saw the apartment on Friday morning, and told Betty Lou that he wanted it. It was $700 a month, with a one-year lease, and first and last month's rent due at signing. Blaine knew about our dinner the next day, and he still went ahead and committed to renting an apartment in town; Betty Lou gave me the heads-up about that. I know that she could hear how crestfallen I was over the phone.

Still, there was the dinner Saturday, and I was still going to give it my best shot. Maybe there really was no chance for me, for us, ever again, but I was at least going to try. Twenty-four years after my disastrous affair and our divorce, I still loved Blaine. It wasn't as intense, it was the cool kind of thing that was under the surface, subtle, but it was still there.

And I was Blaine's first real love: we'd lost our virginities to each other, as was so typical, on prom night. As angry with me as he had been, a much as he might still hate me now, no man ever forgets first women he slept with. Somewhere, maybe really deep down, he had to still love me, he just had to!

The sun was streaming in my bedroom window Sunday morning, and it was glorious! Fiddlehead was curled up, in the crook of my knees, but, to my right lay Blaine, still asleep, but with a smile on his face that I hadn't seen for twenty-four years.

It had been hard on Blaine, struggling up to my bedroom on the second floor, but he had done it. Diabetes had hurt his circulation, and robbed him of the sexual potency he'd once had; when Traci had seen what was happening, and discretely absented herself, he told me that that was the case.

But at that point, I didn't care! Maybe Viagra would help him with that later on, but I had the one thing I really, really needed, my husband, husband! waking up with me in the morning.