Eat Me, Bill Shakespeare

Traci was breastfeeding the baby when I got to her room. I walked in and plopped down in the chair by her bed without so much as a word. The baby was snoozing, so Traci unhooked her and put her down in the bassinet by her bed.

"I don't even know where to begin, Bobby," Traci said softly as her eyes started to fill with tears. "It wasn't supposed to happen. I went out there just to help him and be his friend. Honest. But then he had several bad days in a row, and at one point he was crying in my arms... and then we were in bed, and it was good like it used to be. And once it happened once... it was so easy to keep it going, except when you would come down to help. Then you and I would go back to sleeping together, and it was awkward and I felt guilty, but I didn't know how to stop. And maybe I didn't want it to stop. We slept together for four months, the last two non-stop since you weren't around. But honestly, you and I were making love when I wasn't on the pill, too, and it could have been just as easy for you to have gotten me pregnant... only it wasn't."

She never took her eyes off the baby as she told me her story. I took it in slowly, until...

"Wait, you were fucking Gary while Kaylee was visiting?" I asked in a daze.

Traci blushed deep crimson, and it took every ounce of my self-control not to choke the shit out of her.

"She knew and never said a word to me!" I cried in total frustration. "Tell me you at least threatened her or bribed her in some way. This can't be happening!"

"Did Jeffrey know, too? How about our parents? Does the whole fucking world know I'm a God-damned cuckold?"

Traci's eyes grew wide and tears slowly slid out of her eyes.

"I know my daughter, Bobby. I just knew she would understand, so we never tried to hide it from her. Yes, I asked her not to tell anyone. I told her that was on me," Traci said.

"No, Jeffrey didn't know, and still doesn't. Nobody else knows except you, me and Kaylee. I want to keep it that way, too, so we can do what's right for Bobbie Geraldine. I know she's not yours technically, but she's yours now, and we need to be every bit the parents to her that we are to Kaylee and Jeffrey.

"We are her parents. Period. End of story. We do this for her, and to honor our best friend."

"Best friend?" I questioned. "I obviously wasn't his best friend, or he couldn't have slept with my wife. You don't do that to a best friend!"

"He was dying, Bobby. It's not like he and I had never had sex before."

"Yes, but you hadn't had sex with him while you were married to me, unless there's yet something else you're not telling me."

Her blue eyes almost glowed with anger. "No, NO!"

"Bobbie Geraldine? Really? Is that supposed to soften me up? What's her last name?"

"Bobbie Geraldine Martin. That's my last name, too, remember? But she's listed as Gary's daughter on the birth certificate, although nobody but you and I need to ever see that document, if you're still intent not to be listed as her father."

"Oh yeah," I rasped.

"Why, Bobby? He was our best friend. He's gone. I gave him comfort and love in his last days. Is that so wrong?"

"You make it sound so compassionate. But you were a married woman. You went over the line with your compassion. You never asked me before you broke your vows, broke our trust and disrespected me.

"Yes, I get that it is your body and I don't own you. But we took vows of fidelity in front of God and our families. At the least, we should have discussed this first. Our vows were not taken in a vacuum.

"And there is no way in hell I raise a child another man fathered with my cheating wife."

"It's Gary's child," Traci whined. "You wouldn't think twice about raising her if Gary had died and she was alone."

"No, I wouldn't, but I never agreed to raise his love child with you," I said sadly.

"You know I love you, Bobby. I don't want to lose you and what we have over this..."

"Mistake," I said, completing her sentence.

"No, I wasn't going to say that," she shot back. "Okay, perhaps it wasn't the best decision I ever made, but I'm not going to call it a mistake. The mistake was us not talking about it first, and that's on me."

"We didn't talk about it first because you knew I would never agree to you sleeping with Gary, let alone having a child with him," I growled. "And if it wasn't for you getting knocked up, you probably would never have told me about the sex.

"Despite how you say it started, you made a willful decision to keep doing it, and you even did it in front of our daughter. I know how to spell humiliation, and that is B-O- B-B-Y. Thank you very much."

Kaylee and Jeffrey both came home from college the next weekend to see their new sibling. I was at best cool to my daughter when she entered the house, and she looked guilty.

Kaylee and I prepared dinner together that night after she and Jeffrey gushed over the baby for about an hour. She never looked at me directly the whole time we were maneuvering around the kitchen, and it was pretty quiet.

Jeffrey cleared the dishes after we ate, and I grabbed Kaylee by the arm and led her out to the back patio so we could talk in private.

We had barely sunk down into a pair of chairs when I let her have it.

"You fucking knew she was cheating on me and didn't say a word!" I hissed.

Kaylee jumped back at my outburst, and her eyes started to water. She looked down, started to speak and then finally looked at my anguished face.

"I thought it was great what you and Mom were doing for Uncle Gary. And then when Mom did what she did, well... at first, I was kinda shocked, but when I thought about it I began to look at it as sort of... courageous and sad and compassionate and loving and tragic. It was almost like Shakespeare. I never even gave it a thought that she'd get pregnant. I thought he was too sick for that, plus I assumed she was on birth control..."

"A compassionate friend or a cheating whore. I guess those are my options then," I spat at her while she cried. "Eat shit, Bill Shakespeare!

"What about the tragedy that has become my marriage? Did you even give dear old dad any consideration? Of course not."

The kids went back to college Sunday afternoon. It was just the three of us after that, and it was damn quiet around the house. Several times during the next few days, Traci tried to get me to help with the baby, even just to hold her for a few minutes. I deferred every time, much to her consternation.

"You're going to play 5-year-old on me!" she yelled at me one time when she asked me to hold the child for a minute for some reason. "Grow the fuck up. Put on your big boy pants!"

Traci probably hadn't dropped the f-bomb on me more than a handful of times in all the years we have been together. I knew she was pissed, but that wasn't my problem. I looked at her like a zombie and walked out of the room wordlessly.

Work was my solace. I could be out of the house for 40 hours a week. When I was home, I was often by myself. I had a lot to be worked out. I knew I shouldn't punish the child, it wasn't her fault, but at the same time she wasn't my concern. She was Traci's concern. In the end, I came to the decision that divorce was my only option. I couldn't abide by Traci's betrayal and disrespect, and every time I looked at the baby all I could see in my mind's eye was Traci and Gary having sex.

I came home to find Traci sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and the contents of a large manila envelope spread out in front of her. She was sniffling and crying.

"I guess I'll order out. Pepperoni pizza and breadsticks okay?" I said quietly as I walked into the room.

"That's what concerns you, supper?" she spat at me, total venom in her tone. "Don't you love me anymore?"

I sighed heavily, got a cup of coffee and sat down at the table.

"Not nearly as much as I did several weeks ago," I responded. "You don't or can't see that you ruined everything when you spread your legs for our best friend.

"Now if I was you, I'd get myself a lawyer, and go tell Gary's parents that they have a granddaughter. I'm sure they will be absolutely thrilled."

"You know I don't want a divorce. I love you. I want you to calm down and think about this. Are you going to be better off on your own? I doubt it. Think this through, Hon."

"That's all I have been thinking about. This isn't about me. It's about you breaking our vows... and ripping my heart out," I related.

"But if you love me, isn't there some forgiveness in your heart? We can get past this. We belong together, Bobby, you know it."

"I thought I knew that. But this isn't one of those things that you can just say 'sorry' and things are magically better. Twenty-four years down the drain."

My first call was to my son. I laid out the basics of Traci's actions and the baby being Gary's child. He listened quietly, then I heard a whispered "fuck." I told him I had filed for divorce.

"I should hope so, Dad! That's absolute shit. What was Mom thinking?"

He tried to console me. I could tell he was really angry at his mother. I tried to calm him down by reminding him that regardless of what Traci had done to me, I know she still loved him as much as ever. He asked me what I was going to do about the baby.

"Absolutely nothing. Not mine to support or worry about, either financially or emotionally. I know financially everything will be okay," I answered. "Help look after your sister."

"Half-sister, Dad, half-sister."

I hadn't said anything to my parents until the day after Traci was served. My dad was pissed at both of us, Traci for her betrayal, and me for agreeing to let Traci be alone with Gary for any length of time.

"You knew they had a thing for each other years before. I can't believe you'd be that naïve, even if you trusted her completely. Come on, Boy, you know you can't trust any other man as far as you can throw them when it comes to your woman."

I had to admit he was right. I should have fought harder to keep Traci from staying alone with Gary. That, at least, was on me.

Mom saw things completely different from Dad. By her way of thinking, I was wrong for walking out on Traci and not trying to reconcile.

"Everybody makes a mistake," she told me softly while Dad sat there scowling.

"Mom, a mistake would have been if she had slept with him once. Sleeping with him for four months was a conscious decision, hardly a mistake. And sleeping with him without birth control... unfathomable," I said.

"Still, Bobby, you know you still love her, and she's going to need help raising the child. That's your job, Robert. By the way, I'm still going to consider that baby my third grandchild."

In addition to her vocal tone, the fact that Mom called me by my formal name told me that she was on Traci's side. Dad looked at the ceiling, then back at me. He knew he was going to catch hell from her later on.

I didn't call Kaylee. I figured she was probably Traci's first call after she got served. My thought was proven correct when an irate Kaylee called me later that day.

"Uncle Gary's dead, Dad. Get over the sex. She can't take it back now. Move forward. You and Mom still love each other, and now there's a baby in the mix. Man up for Mom and Bobbie G," she practically ordered.

"Sage advice from someone who didn't feel the need to tell her own father that her mother was cheating with another man. Somehow I don't feel the need to worry about what you think anymore," I responded.

I heard later that Gary's parents were floored and elated to find out they had a grandchild. They were upset that Traci had planned to keep the news a secret, but they told her they understood her reasoning. They called me a day later to plead with me to stay with Traci and raise Gary's daughter. They knew we were extremely close for a lot of years, and they felt I was the best person to be father to Gary's daughter.

"Thank you for the confidence and compliment, but I'm not that person. I've got to admit that I'm so pissed at Gary and Traci that I can't see straight."

I practically felt Gary's parents cringe over the phone as it got quiet on the line. I felt bad, but not that bad. I was being honest.

Of course my in-laws called as well. They also pleaded with me to stay with Traci. They admitted that what she did was both terrible and stupid, but they were sure that she still loved me and wanted to raise her child with me. I thanked them for their concern, but told them I didn't know if I could ever get past "terrible and stupid."

Of course, Traci fought the divorce. She and her lawyer were successful in getting 12 joint counseling sessions scheduled. I knew I didn't have any choice in going, but I wasn't going to be a limp dishrag during the sessions.

Jocelyn McAdams, Ph.D., seemed very prim and professional when I walked into her office. I guessed she was about 10 years older than Traci and me, and she was wearing a gray blazer over a very business-like skirt I saw when she stood up to greet me with a firm handshake. Traci was already seated in a chair to my right in front of a good-sized desk.

She asked Traci to tell her side of the story first, and since I knew the story, I guess I kind of drifted into my own little world. I'm sure Traci played up the compassion angle and downplayed the cheating angle. Anyway, next thing I know, the doc is waking me from my reverie. I assumed, wrongly as it turned out, that I was going to get to tell my side of the story next.

"Mr. Martin, it would seem to me that you are the one who holds the power here. You can keep your marriage and your family together simply by being the bigger man here, putting aside your ego and working to get back to where you were with Traci."

Whoa, I didn't see that coming from the person who was supposed to be the professional. This was virtually the same position almost everyone was taking: it was up to me to man up and accept what had happened. Had I fallen into an alternative universe?

"Wait a second, doc..." I started before she interrupted me.

"Doctor or Dr. McAdams, please. We will keep this professional here. I don't want either one of you to treat me like I am a personal friend or ally."

"That's your go-to, Dr. McAdams? That's the important thing here to you? It seems to me that you've already picked a side, without even hearing my story."

I got up, turned and walked out. On the way home, I called my lawyer and told him he needed to get a neutral counselor, or I wouldn't be attending any further sessions.

The second counselor at least listened to my story after taking in Traci's, but I knew I was still swimming upstream.

"You've admitted you still love your wife, Mr. Martin. Your wife still loves you very much, and now there's a baby involved. What would it take to get the family back together?" asked Dr. Lauren Avent.

"First, we've never been a family. That's not my baby. I won't raise another man's child," I said.

"So this is about your ego, then?" Dr. Avent said with more than a smug look on her thin face.

"I can't win with you guys, can I?" I asked with more than a little disgust in my voice.

"Why is this even about me? Let me draw you a picture with words, and I will speak slowly so you can catch everything. I wasn't the one who deceived my spouse and broke my vows by having sex with another person, and I wasn't the one who had another man's child. You should be asking her why she made the choices she did, and what she thinks she can do to overcome those bad choices, if she can at all."

I glanced sideways at Traci and saw she was frowning. I could see the counselor was trying her best to keep a blank face. Like the old Monty Python joke, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, and I didn't see it coming.

"Mr. Martin, if you divorce your wife and in the future would marry another woman who already had children, wouldn't you in effect be raising another man's child?" Dr. Avent asked.

"Well, I guess you got me there, Doc, but in Traci's case, the child in question was conceived while she was married to me, which I think is a pretty big difference, don't you?"

She gave me a small nod, but she apparently wasn't finished.

"But since the man in question died even before the child was born, aren't we just splitting hairs? Aren't you just being petty about that at this point?" Dr. Avent said.

"Petty? Petty is when you know you've done wrong but decide to lie by omission. She didn't admit anything to me until I caught her."

She started to go on, but I was done.

"Look, Doc, this is ridiculous. Yes, I still love her, you don't just turn that off immediately, but how can she say she loves me when she cheated on me, got knocked up and tried to pass off the baby as mine? She might love me somewhat, but if she loved me as much as she says, that wouldn't have happened. This wasn't a one and done, Doc. She and her lover engaged in numerous encounters.

"Now she's been telling everyone that this was purely compassionate. He was a close friend, and he was dying. Well, if it was so compassionate, why didn't she come to me, her husband, and at least discuss this decision with me? Because she knew the answer. I would have said no, and she knew it. I get that it's her body and she probably thinks she can do with it what she wants, but once we said the vows she gave up the right to unilaterally give her body to another man, at least without discussing it and/or informing me, same way I should have to do if I ever want to give my body to another woman, for whatever reason. Once we made vows to each other, we were no longer operating in a vacuum. Simple as that, Doc."

The doc sat there looking like a coma patient except with her eyes open. She tapped her finger on her pad for a few seconds.

"So is there enough love left at least for you to even try to step up and be a husband and father? You say there is still love left for your wife. The baby's biological father is dead. There is no reason to make her a victim in this," Dr. Avent said.

"Step up? Good phrasing, Doc. Attack my manhood. Try some guilt. My wife and our best friend willfully tore my heart out, Doc. If he was alive now, I'd punch him in the face. My love for her grows fainter by the minute. The baby? Unfortunate, but not my problem. Translation: there's no chance to save this marriage."

We had a second session with the counselor. I didn't say anything except hello and good-bye. Traci whined, wheedled and cried.

"I can see that you are not going to reverse yourself and even consider this, Mr. Martin. I will tell the judge that we are done."

"Thank you, Doc."

The divorce was finalized six months later, just in time for Christmas. We lived in a no-fault divorce state, so we split everything down the middle, except Traci paid me for my half of the house, which was fine with me since she had a child to rear. Gary had left us much of his estate when he died, so Traci had the money for the house. She also got a few years of alimony, since I made more than she did.

Although my son was still in my corner, so to speak, I knew he wanted to spend Christmas with as much family as possible, which meant his mother, sister and baby half-sister. I told him I was cool with that, and we would celebrate New Year's together.

Two days before Christmas I stopped off at my former house to drop off gifts for everybody, including my ex-wife and her baby. It wasn't much for Traci and the child, but I didn't want to look petty in front of my kids.

Traci, at first, was surprised to see me when she answered the door holding Bobbie Geraldine. She looked surprised at my two shopping bags of presents, and hesitantly let me in. She walked me in to the living room, where the Christmas tree was set up, and everything was decorated exactly as we had always done. The only difference was that I didn't do any set-up and decorating, as I always used to.