February Sucks - All Year Long

In July, I bought a bicycle. A cheap one from Walmart, but it was all I really needed. Fifteen speeds and sort-of fat tires and I rode it around town and some to the trails. I met up with a few others who were all better bikers than me. I looked and acted like an amateur. I couldn't keep up with the group and my bike was not one that was designed to take on the hard trails; but I tried. And pretty much, at first, failed. I got better the more I rode.

I was cleaning out the garage and pulled out my old guitar from in behind a pile of trash that I needed to get rid of. I couldn't remember why I stopped playing it. It had been so long ago. I took lessons as a kid and even played in a neighbourhood garage boy-band that with a bunch of my friends. We were terrible. Slowly we gave up the idea of being rock stars, went to college and university and got jobs, met women and had families. Life overtook us. But really, none of us had the talent to be much of anything in the music world. So, as the song says 'better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.'

I took the guitar out of the case and cleaned it up a bit. Some of the strings needed replacement and the wood needed to be polished. It's a six-string acoustic. I didn't pay much for it; I bought it used, but it sounded good in its hay-day. I made a mental note to get some new strings and see if I remembered how to play it at all.

**********

August

Jim

God almighty! If it weren't for my kids, I wish that somebody would just put a bullet in my brain and end the misery for me. I know that I said that I would do whatever I had to do in order to protect my children, but Lord Jesus, there are limits. I don't know what the limit is yet, but I must be getting close. This hell that I exist in has been going on for six months now. I know that's not a lot of time but some days it seems like it's sixty years.

Every time I look at Linda, she is doing her best to look like everything is normal. We have not actually touched one another for months now. I stay in the spare bedroom. She stays in the master bedroom, and we never meet. Our talks with one another are limited to kid and household business. If she wants to leave, I wish that she would just get on with it. All we are doing is avoiding the obvious.

I know that she wants me to capitulate and go back to our lives before February but I can't do that. Her insistence that having sex with another man means nothing to our marriage, is still her stance. She continues to think that I should just forget and we all move merrily onward with our family life. I talked to Dee and Dave and tried to get Dee to understand my feelings. I was hoping that she would talk to Linda and maybe then she might understand how I feel. Linda and Dee still talked a lot, maybe it would work, maybe not.

**********

A couple of Friday's ago, some of the people that I work with, told me that they were going to Karaoke Happy Hour at a bar around the corner from our office. They asked me to join them. I initially didn't want to, but after some of the girls mentioned it enough, I figured that 'what-the-hell' I needed a bit of fun other than hiking and sweating. I actually texted Linda and told her that I was going out after work and she was in charge of the kids. I got back a 'okay.' A beer and some chitchat with other adults in a non-work setting might do me good.

The mood at the bar was a refreshing change and the first beer went down all too quickly. I knew that I needed to go slow on the alcohol but damn-it, this was something that I needed. The karaoke part was a laugh. Listening to office workers pretend they're rock stars is always fun. I listened to two ladies from the office try to sing a Taylor Swift song and I wanted to pee my pants I laughed so hard. They were less than amused so challenged me to get up and sing. I had sang with the guys that I played with 18 years ago but not much since. I was actually nervous.

I picked a song by the Irish musician, Niall Horan, This Town. You might remember him from his boy-band days as part of One Direction. He's a solo performer now. This Town is a great song and I like the lyrics. It reminded me of my current life situation. I had heard it in the car a few times and had it on my playlist when I was riding my bike. So, I knew the song fairly well.

The stage area had several monitors to show the lyrics and all you had to do was follow along and try your best. It started off but my voice was too low.

'Waking up to kiss you and nobody's there

The smell of your perfume still stuck in the air

It's hard

Yesterday I thought I saw your shadow running round

It's funny how things never change in this old town

So far from the stars'

I needed to raise my voice a bit in order to do justice to the song. It was time to summon the courage and give the song it's due. I realized that my nervousness kept me from actually singing the way that it needed to be sung. I pushed on and did my best and ignored the people in the bar. There was lots of noise and chatter and really, I was singing this for me and not for anyone else. I kept going.

'And I want to tell you everything

The words I never got to say the first time around

And I remember everything

From when we were the children playing in this fairground

Wish I was there with you now'....

I don't recall much more other than I made it through to the end of the song and actually got a small round of applause from the people that I work with.

I sat back down at the table and the others were all very quiet. I didn't know why. I figured that I would get kidded mercilessly for being off key and generally terrible at my singing effort. One of the women got up, saying that she has to get home, collected her handbag and coat and started to leave. She came over to me, put her hand on my shoulder, leaned in and said very quietly in my right ear, so that the others couldn't hear, "your wife is a fucking idiot." She patted my shoulder again and left.

A few minutes later, I got up, took a small sip of the beer, leaving over half of the glass, put on my suit-coat and grabbed my briefcase, thanked the others for the invitation to come out and left to go home. When I got to my car I sat there and quietly cried. I was now realizing that my new life was about to begin. A life without Linda.

**********

Linda

I have tried, repeatedly, to let Jim know that my one night with Marc was meaningless to us. It was something that I had a sudden chance to do and in the spur of the moment I grabbed at it and did it. The night of sex with him was something that I will remember until I'm old and grey and they're having to feed me in the nursing home. But I did it and I don't regret it. It doesn't mean that I don't love Jim just as much as I always have and that I don't want to grow old with him. He missed the point altogether and thinks that I don't want him. I do want him.

The last few months without him being in the bed with me at night have been terrible. I want his touch. I want to lay next to him and feel the warmth of his body. I want to feel him inside me. I want to feel his lips on mine and all over my body, just like he used to do. I want to be able to take his cock in my hand and feel his response to my touch. I want to feel him on top of me with my legs wrapped around him and him pushing into me. I want to feel him come inside me. I want to feel his love. Why can't he see that I love him?

**********

October

Jim

I've been practicing the guitar in the basement as much as I can. The ability to play hasn't come back as quickly as riding a bicycle, but the basics are there and I can remember most of the chords that are needed to do some of the songs that I would like to play. Classical guitar music is the hardest to play, at least it is for me. You have to be good technical musician and be able to read music. Reading music was my challenge.

I got a message from the folks at work that the bar that has karaoke on Fridays also has amateur night on Tuesday. I decided to go by there after work and see what the deal was. The manager of the place remembered me from the karaoke night and said that if I wanted to perform, I would be the third act on Tuesday. Be there at 8:00 and I would likely be on at 8:30ish. I thanked him and left.

That Tuesday I was nervous as hell. When I got there the manager told me that one of the guys before me had cancelled and I would be second up. If I had more than one song to play that would be great. I had been channelling my inner Niall so I had three of his songs ready to go, along with a song by Ed Sherran. All of them were hits and very popular with women. That was my target audience, I guess. I didn't really realize it at the time. I was just looking for something that was easy to play and sing.

I was so nervous when I got on stage that I was shaking. The person before me was a girl of all of about 18 and I'm sure that I've seen her busking in the downtown, before. I took a mouthful of the beer that I bought and made a few adjustments to the tension in the guitar strings.

It was now or never.

Four songs later, I got a pretty decent round of applause and the manager came over and asked me if I knew any other songs. I had to be honest and tell him that it had taken me two weeks to get those ready. He asked if I could go on later and play all of them again. He told me that the crowd after 10 was different than the crowd that was there now. What the hell; why not.

I went back to the bar every couple of weeks and performed. One day, at the office, I got a visit from one of the women that goes out on Fridays for Happy Hour. She said the manager was asking about me and he wanted to know if I was interested in playing there for money on Thursdays. Wow. I'm not that good, or at least I didn't think so. I stopped by the bar after work and talked to the manager, Steve, and he offered me $150 to come and play three sets on Thursday night at 8:00. Each set would be about 30 minutes, or so.

And so, my career as an amateur musician got started. I wasn't planning on giving up my day job for a life in music, but it was a nice diversion from my problem at home.

Speaking of my problem, she wasn't getting anywhere close to understanding what she had done to my trust in her. She never once seemed to recognize that having sex with another man was having an impact on our marriage. She steadfastly stuck with the fiction of 'everything will be fine, if you would just see that it meant nothing.' Every time I tried to explain to her that it meant something to me, she dismissed me and my feelings with a 'but I love you just as much as always, why can't you see that?'

I tried to get her to come to marriage counselling with me. I made an appointment with a woman counsellor and told her about it. I told her to book the time off at work because this was one way that she might get me to forgive her infidelity. She waved her hand at me and said, 'we don't need a counsellor. There's nothing wrong with us that can't be fixed by you coming back to our bed and getting on with our life together.'

I went to the counsellor by myself to try to understand what was going through Linda's mind. Was she mentally ill? The counsellor listened to everything I had to say and even though was empathetic to my needs, she said that it would be impossible for us to get any resolution as long as Linda kept up her story of 'it meant nothing.' I thanked her and left. I didn't go back.

**********

December

Jim

It's coming up to Christmas soon. The kids are getting exited. Some of the homes in the neighbourhood are already putting up and turning on Christmas lights. I got the artificial tree out of the basement and it's in the family room in the box, ready for the kids and Linda and I to assemble it and get the lights and decorations on it.

Every year Linda gets a special ornament made with our four names and the year on it. It's a tradition that we started when we got married. It's cute and kitzy and it's a thing that we always did together. It's always been a special thing that we do as a family.

This year I didn't know quite what to do. Our family was divided. There was me and the kids, and there was Linda and the kids, but there was no Linda and Jim and the kids. It was weird. I decided not to bring it up.

A week after the Christmas tree went up in the Family Room, Linda told the kids that she had gotten the annual ornament made. She pulled it out of a bag and made a show of hanging it on the tree. The kids liked it. I said nothing. After the kids were in bed, I went to my room and closed the door. Later there was a knock.

"Yes?"

"It's me Jim, may I come in?"

"What do you want?"

"We need to talk, Jim"

"No kidding."

"Please, can I just come in?"

I got up from the chair I was sitting in and opened the door.

"What do you want to talk about?"

"Us, you and me."

I stood blocking her way into the tiny bedroom that had been mine now for almost 10 months. "Okay, go ahead."

"Can we go downstairs and sit down and talk?"

This was probably the most that we had said to each other in months, other than things directly related to the kids or home issues. Maybe she was ready to admit that we had a big problem.

"Okay, let's go downstairs and talk."

I went to the refrigerator and got myself a beer. I had the feeling that I was going to need it. I sat at the dinning room table. Linda went to the refrigerator and got herself a glass of wine. She sat across the table from me.

She took a sip and cleared her throat. "Jim, why do you hate me so much?"

"Linda, I don't hate you. I hate what you did. I hate that you betrayed my love for you so easily and so casually. I hate that you cared so little for me and my feelings that you ran off with some other man without so much as telling me that you were unhappy with me and wanted another man. I hate that you think that you are impervious to the consequences of your actions. I hate that you continually lie to me. I hate that you have so little regard for me that you don't have the courage to tell me to my face what it is that you dislike about me to cause you to run to the first man that tells you he wants to have sex with you. I hate that you think so little of my feelings that you couldn't be honest with me after and tell me why you did that. I hate that you deny that you did something wrong and refuse to take responsibility for what you did. That's what I hate"

Her mouth was open and she looked at me for the first time in months with the tiniest bit of realization that she might have been wrong about the condition of our marriage.

"You know that I love you and he meant nothing to us...."

I got up from the table and left the room. I went back to my bedroom and shut the door. Her record was stuck and I couldn't do anything to get her unstuck. She followed me to the door.

"Jim, please talk to me and tell me what you want."

I opened the door and looked her square in the eyes, "I want you to leave and put me out of my misery. I want to be rid of a cheating wife. I want to be rid of this pain and misery. That's what I want." I closed the door. I didn't sleep much that night.

**********

The week before Christmas

Jim

I was planning a few things for the holidays. I wanted to take the kids and do some tobogganing and skating and winter activities. They liked winter and I did too. The kids both had Christmas concerts at school and Linda and I buried the hatchet long enough to attend together. They were marvellous and I applauded as loud as I could at the end. We took them out for treats after and talked about what they wanted to do during the time off from school.

The kids' grandparents were all wanting visits so that was on the schedule. I took the kids to my parents' house for a day and Linda took them to her parents' house for the same. The kids came home stuffed with turkey and treats and an armload of presents.

I had promised to entertain at the bar downtown for two nights. The patrons were getting tired of Christmas music so some other songs were a welcome diversion.

I was getting good enough that I was even drawing a small audience that came to hear me. This particular night I was again channelling my inner Niall and did some of his popular songs. This Town, and Slow Hands were always well received. I found that there were several women standing not far from the front of the stage with their drinks. They were into the songs and I watched some of them sway back and forth a bit as I sang. Some even mouthed the words along with me.

Now, I'm not a handsome Irish lad, like Niall, but I'm not butt-ugly either. Since the spring, I've lost the gut that I was developing, added some muscle to my upper body, got contact lenses, mainly so I could run and ride without my glasses, and started cutting my hair in a bit more fashionable style. Without really knowing it, my stock was going up with my female fans.

After I finished, I chatted with some of the patrons and ended up getting cocktail napkins passed to me with names and phone numbers of two women. This was definitely new territory for sure. I realized that I had value that was outside of what Linda had attached to me. I could be my own person, not just Linda's husband. Hmmm.

**********

Christmas

Jim

I had bought the kids a few gifts. Things that they had been hinting for all year. Electronics were not on my list of things that I wanted my kids to get. They needed to do things that were mentally and physically stimulating and not just sit transfixed in front of a screen all day and night. That would come soon enough in their lives.

My daughter got a new bicycle. It was time that she got a bigger bike. This is one that was big enough for her to ride with me and her friends. She also got a keyboard. She wants to learn the piano, so this was a start. I knew that music lessons would be important and told her that I had arranged for lessons starting in the first week of January.

My son got some books and Lego. He loves the stuff and I knew that he would spend hours making it into all kinds of different things. The part that was especially good is that I would get to spend time with him building things. That, for me, was the best.

I avoided Linda.

**********

February 14^th

Jim

It was now one-year since Linda decided that she wanted to end our marriage. We were still together, but we were very much apart. We lived in the same house, but we might as well have been separated by continents. We rarely talked to each other and we never did anything recreational as a family. When the kids and I did things together, she hardly ever participated.

I never asked her what she did with her time and she never asked me. We went to work and we lived according to the schedule that we made to manage the kids and the house. That was it.

I'd had enough. I couldn't take it anymore.

The week before, I called Tommy and asked him to get the paperwork ready. Now was the time.

On the 13^th, Linda, oddly, asked if there was anything special I wanted to do on Valentine's Day. I told her that there was. I told her that I had arranged for my parents to look after the kids and that I wanted for us to have a talk here at home. Her face brightened for just a second and then she must have realized that the end was near.

On the way home, I picked up a bottle of wine that I knew was Linda's favourite and got take-out food.

Before I did that, I called Dee. I wanted to talk to her. My point was simple; I wanted to know what was going on in the mind of Linda.

I called from my office. "Hello Dee, it's Jim. I need to talk to you if you have some time just now."