Fifth Place

"You can't!"

"I'll get to that. At some point you started cutting me off at seemingly random intervals. But I worked out that it seemed to be around the middle of your cycle. I got suspicious, well, more than suspicious. I was sure. You know how I collect and work with evidence. I didn't have enough to convict you in front of a jury, but I was the jury and I had no doubt at all. The clues were unmistakable so I decided to take some time to develop conclusive evidence. It wouldn't take much time if you were trying to pawn off someone else's baby on me because you had a limited time window. I didn't catch you until around 1:00 of the first day I followed you.

"Didn't you have any idea what I did for a living? You did know I had worked for the FBI. Did you forget? Do you remember what I was so sick with?"

Betty just glared at me.

"Radiation poisoning," I continued. "Among the effects are destruction of sperm and disruption of the ability to make them. If you live, it's usually temporary. Not always, but usually. I knew that. That's why I went for a sperm count after an appropriate period of time. You were already pregnant and I wanted be to sure we weren't just lucky. There would have been no point in going when you did your 'scientific' test. If you had waited three to six months, we could have had our own kids. But you were too smart and too determined to even need to know what was going on when you made your decision. It didn't even occur to you that it might be our decision.

"This one," I rubbed Karen's belly, "is mine. I trust Karen. I used to trust you so maybe that does make me a little bit pathetic."

Betty had exceeded the limit of her abilities to remain silent, I think, due to the shock of discovering the truth of the situation. That didn't stop her from remaining on the attack. "You are pathetic. You knew what I was doing and you didn't do anything to stop it. A real man would have stepped up."

"I caught you when you were making Nancy. The damage was already irreparable at Harry. One, three, what's the difference? Treachery is treachery. It was way beyond betrayal. You didn't just cheat.

"Your attitude got worse with each one. What started as I've got one on you evolved into contempt. When you told me you were pregnant with Nancy, after expressing appropriate joy, I told you that was it. No more kids. We had that big fight and you agreed. And then you sprung Justin on me with, 'I decided I needed to have one more.' What more quintessential expression of contempt than, 'I decided?' I couldn't understand why you got so passionate that I shouldn't have a vasectomy, that you'd have your tubes tied after he was born and have the doctor confirm it. Now I do. You were afraid that when they took the before count, I would discover the kids couldn't be mine." Her immediate flush told me I had that right.

"Why don't we take this inside?" Karen was indicating to look around us with her eyes. We'd drawn a decent-sized audience to our very own reality show.

When we were inside, Karen reinforced her comment from earlier. "Did you notice how he's still saying the kids? It's a subconscious expression of his understanding and attitude."

"So why didn't you do anything about it?" Betty asked, less belligerent but still contemptuous.

"By then I loved Harry. He wasn't my son, but I was his father. Money wasn't an issue. I could afford to support all of you by court order or by living there. The issue was the harm it would do to him, them now, to find out that daddy isn't their daddy. Mommy decided to sneak around to find somebody else to be your daddy for whatever iniquitous reasons she had. Eventually that would have been their conclusion when the other kids got done taunting them at school. So I decided to stay and hide my disgust for you."

Betty laughed. "Gee, you were pretty hot for me for being disgusted."

"I'm a hell of an actor, aren't I? I knew you would expect it now and then. I had to prepare for it. I had to put myself in a frame of mind that you were somebody else. I had to build a fantasy that made it possible to become aroused when you were as appealing to me as raw sewage." Even Karen winced at that. "Sometimes I had to resort to drugs to be able to stomach you."

"How do you really feel?" asked Betty. I'm sure she had noticed me backing off from her, but I don't think she had any idea of the depth of my feelings for her. She was too surprised at the moment to launch into any further taunting.

Karen put her arm through mine and leaned against me.

"So I developed this brilliant plan to have a separate life of my own, with a family that was really mine. Perhaps there were a couple of things I didn't plan for. How did you find out?"

"You were happy. You hadn't been for long time. I wasn't really aware of it until I saw you happy. There was such a clear difference that I knew you were doing something and I started to follow you."

"I didn't see you."

"I read your training manuals. I borrowed cars so you wouldn't notice a pattern. I kept it to short time spans so, if you noticed, you would also notice that the car didn't keep following you." She sounded so proud of herself. "And you were so happy, you weren't paying complete attention. I learned a lot." There was a very loud silence. Her tone changed. "God, I really fucked up, didn't I? I loved you so much. I see you averting your eyes. It doesn't matter if it's true does it? I guess the only one who could possibly believe me is me. And even I have reasons for wanting to fool myself. I don't suppose," she glanced at Karen and laughed. "Silly thought."

"I guess we have to figure out what we're going to do. My plan certainly didn't work out. I, can't continue living with you. I don't mean to be nasty, but the idea of staying with you makes my skin crawl."

"What the hell would be the nasty way to say that?" Betty asked.

"I think you two should go for marital counseling," said Karen. We both looked at her as if she had said Soylent Green is people. "You have to work out custody, visitation and finances, and you need to do it with 'how does it affect the kids' as the most important factor." She looked at Betty. "You've spent over half your married life thinking of him as a pathetic loser. And you've reached the point where just the idea of sharing a house with her makes your skin crawl. That's not a good basis for working together in the best interest of the kids."

I nodded. Betty nodded. After some awkward silence, she turned and headed for the door. As she opened it, she turned back toward me. "I'm sorry." She left.

"She seems to have turned her attitude around awfully quickly," I said.

"There's no such thing as a slow epiphany," Karen said. "When you get it, you get it. She suddenly realized how badly she screwed things up. Don't worry, she'll still have a lot of anger. It's the way she knows how to deal with you. The anger will fade when it fully sinks in."

Karen turned to me, put her hands behind my head and drew it to her chest. It was comforting, as she had intended. For once, I did not take the opportunity to speculate. Perhaps later I would reflect on why it was comforting to find your head on a woman's chest.

It came to me later that day that I had not been completely honest with Karen. It had not been intentional, but once I became aware of it I had to set it right, particularly because it related to our situation.

"Karen, we need to get a bigger house. With the three kids, I assume, coming over for visitation, and one and counting of our own, we're going to need a much bigger place. I'm thinking at least six bedrooms, preferably seven."

"That's huge. Do you have any idea what something that size would cost?"

"I think I do."

"I don't know what you think I make. I know I told you I make more than most guys, even guys doing pretty well, but I can't see how we could make the mortgage on a place that expensive."

"Uh, that's not all. I want to be near center city. We both work there and I can't see adding a timely commute to our day."

"Randy, that's just way beyond our means."

"I think you may have underestimated how well I do. I'm afraid I think so because I intentionally mislead you." Karen did not look like a happy camper. It was time for damage control. "In the beginning, I had no idea who you were and it was my standard practice not to give off any signs of wealth. Wealth is appealing enough to attract women who would otherwise have no interest in me. It could even attract women able to figure out how to act like the woman I was looking for so they could get their hands on some of my money." I saw her eyes start to fill. It devastated me.

"It was obvious from the first night that you weren't like that. But that thing you did where you told me about myself after reading all that information about me had me so shocked I didn't know what to say. Besides, even if it had occurred to me at the time, what was I going to say? 'Hey, by the way, I fooled you. I'm loaded.' That wouldn't have seemed very funny. And after that, I never even thought about it. I was just thinking about the relationship, about you. I mean, you were such a prize, who cares about money?

"I know we talked about money some, that night I cooked here. But, everything I said about it was how I feel, and, again, it didn't seem like an appropriate time to interject that I was doing really well. I did have a brief thought that I would have to remember to bring it up. But, honestly, compared to everything else I was learning and feeling it seemed trivial.

"I didn't mean to make it a big thing. I hope it's obvious I had no agenda. I was thrilled to make a baby with you. You can't imagine I would do that, let alone consider it, if I had the slightest doubt about you."

She seemed to regain a little control at that so I decided to go for the big finish with some humor. Alright, I confess, I was unable to resist. "Honey, you know everything I have is yours. And Betty's."

She tried to look stern. She tried to hold back a laugh, but it was too big to stop. It burst from her mouth. In fact, it burst from her mouth with such force that she spit all over my face. Now I joined in laughing and soon we were rolling on the floor with as little control over our laughter as if we had been playing Ha Ha.

When we regained control of ourselves I took Karen in my arms and she buried her head against my chest. Her body relaxed. All tension left her.

Finally, she sat up. "So how much do you make, and how much do you have?" she asked.

I took a piece of paper and a pencil and wrote a figure on it. I passed it to her, acting like a character in a movie responding to, "So, what's it going to take to get this done?" Before she even looked at the paper, out came another spit laugh, though not nearly as juicy as the last one.

She smacked me on the arm and said, "You're really lucky I love you so much."

"That's the God's honest truth. And don't you ever let me forget it."

She looked ready to cry again, but this wasn't the bad kind or we wouldn't have had that long, soft, happy-to-be-here-with-you kiss.

Chapter 8

In the beginning, I'm not sure we needed a marriage counselor so much as a referee to break us apart in the clinches. We had so much anger there wasn't room for much else.

By the third session we were able to listen without attacking, though the anger bubbled just below the surface. Andrea played a short film that had nothing to do with us or our relationship. Then she gave us each a pad and pencil and asked us to write down ten facts about what we'd seen in the film.

It was easier for me. I was trained. When we finished, I read my list.

"That's amazing," said Andrea. "I've never seen anyone do that so well. Your first six were facts, then a conclusion citing the facts, two more facts and a final conclusion. Let's see what you have, Betty."

Somewhere in the middle Betty stumbled onto a fact, an observation of what we had seen. As we went over her list, Andrea explained. "Most of what you wrote was an interpretation of what you saw based not only on the facts, but on your view of how things work in the world. To put it in terms of the experience in your marriage, you noticed you weren't getting pregnant and concluded something was wrong. When you checked out, it had to be Randy. There didn't have to be anything wrong, that's an interpretation of the fact of not getting pregnant. Then you may have concluded that since everything you were thinking about this was facts, Randy not noticing and not doing something about it showed he didn't care. That's an interpretation based on an interpretation based on an interpretation. You can see how easy it is to get to the wrong conclusion when you're doing that. And the further you went, the more interpretations and assumptions you piled on, the easier it became for you to get to the ultimate 'fact': that Randy was a pathetic loser."

Betty groaned. "God, it's painful to hear that phrase. If anything, it describes how I was treating him."

"You did some of that too, Randy. You saw confusing, suspicious behavior and chose to interpret it as this is the same wife I married; it doesn't mean a thing; she's just under stress. Had you been able to look at the facts of her behavior, you might have been able to ask yourself: do we have a problem." I sat up to start to defend myself, but she continued. "I know, Randy. When you got less ambiguous facts, you recognized them, analyzed them and came up with a plan."

"A pretty stupid plan," I said.

"It does seem to have had its flaws." That was a tension breaker. "I think it would be useful if you both went home and considered how your understanding of what we talked about affects how you feel about each other."

"Do you want to kiss and make up, honey?" asked Betty, with a smile, fluttering her lashes.

As I said, the anger had eased, but not that much. I'd rather die, I thought. But I said, "I don't think I'm ready for that," with flat affect. I had enough anger left that I couldn't acknowledge the humor in something that was objectively amusing. We didn't part friends, but I didn't want to rip out her jugular at the moment.

I reported on the session to Karen. She asked, "Do you think the two of you will wind up together?" Everyone's a damn comedian.

Chapter 9

Betty realized the inevitability of a divorce from the day she confronted us in front of Karen's house. A no-fault with both parties agreeing required a waiting period of ninety days, so four to five months was the fastest it could be accomplished. If the defendant objected, the wait would be two years.

The sessions with Andrea were designed to help us deal with issues other than the fact of not being married. It was three weeks from the last session and Betty wanted to meet to discuss issues. She said she thought we didn't need Andrea any longer. We could always go back if she was wrong.

Betty had an agenda so she started off the session. "I've been seeing Andrea on my own since last time. I needed to understand more of how we, I, got here. You were right about a lot of things. I was selfish and immature. Even before any trouble started, we were in trouble. I loved you, in my way. But I saw our marriage as my marriage. I saw how I could get everything I had always wanted in life. I didn't stop to think what you would get out of it.

"A lot of the things we decided to do were things you agreed to do because I wanted them. Maybe I should fault you for not standing up to me more. But, it's hard to say you did the wrong thing by trying to make me happy. I guess if you had realized my demands might never stop, you would have said 'no' more often.

"I suppose it doesn't matter how much you think you love someone or how long you've been together. It's built out of a lot of things, but if you pound it enough, it just can't be sustained. Like you. If you still loved me deeply after all the shit I piled on you, I'd probably have no respect for you. Even if I showed complete contrition, you'd, I don't know, either have to feel you deserved to be treated badly or were completely unlovable except by me, or for some other pathological reason needed to be with me. It would be sick. Obviously, that's not the case. You've got Karen, who, I've got to admit, is nice.

"Anyway, I talked to a lawyer. He wasn't sure what would happen with the kids. Given that you just found out for sure they're not yours, he didn't know if you could deny paternity, but thought you might be able to. I could go after the real fathers for child support.

"He wasn't any more definite about alimony. I'm the one who chose to stay home. I have a degree and meaningful work experience. He didn't know how long I'd get alimony to help 'rehabilitate' myself. I've already started looking for work.

"He said I'd get somewhere in the vicinity of half of our property in Equitable Distribution. My efforts at home helped make it possible for you to be successful. In theory. I think, looking at all my efforts, you were a success in spite of me.

"Given all that's gone on, I don't want to sponge off of you. It's time I started being an adult and took some responsibility. Anyway, all I've worked out is my general attitude, I don't have detailed suggestions. But that's a pretty good contribution, isn't it?"

"It is. And at least, listening to you now, it makes me feel like I wasn't totally insane to marry you," I said.

"That's the sweetest thing you've said to me for a long time."

This time I was able to laugh. "I have given some thought to how we could work this out. I was ready to really slug it out. I didn't expect you to be so cooperative."

"How could you?"

"You're going to need a lawyer and he's going to advise against it, and I heard you acknowledge your role, but I would like to put a little penance in the split. I think this mess we're in was mostly your fault. And it was more difficult to build the business with all this other," I resisted the temptation to use a pejorative word here; she had been gracious in her acceptance of responsibility, "stuff. Property, 60 me, 40 you. As far as alimony, I'd rather make that a loan to be repaid. Otherwise, it would feel like I'm being made to pay for being victim. I'll cover whatever you need so you don't fall behind, but I want it repaid. I probably couldn't win this if we fought it out, but it just seems right to me."

"Yeah, from what my lawyer said, this wouldn't fly, but okay."

"One more financial item, I want you to pay for the divorce."

"Your lawyer too?" she asked.

"No. Just the costs."

"That's less than $300."

"I know."

"Symbolic?"

I nodded. "Support is the problem. I don't want to fight over the issue of paternity. It would suck for the kids. On the other hand, any agreement we come up with is meaningless to me if you decide to go to court to have the amount modified. As long as Pennsylvania sees them as my kids, I'm on the hook for limitless increases as my income goes up."

"I'll agree never to go to court."

"Given how far you've come, I don't want to say I don't trust you, but I don't trust you. And your agreement is meaningless anyway. The concept of the best interest of the kids overrules any agreement we would make." I took a deep breath and continued. "I haven't been able to come up with any solution that guarantees me protection without fighting over paternity. And even if I'm allowed to deny paternity and win, it might cost me all my rights regarding the children. I don't want to do that to them."

She looked me in the eyes. "I know you may not believe me. I probably wouldn't in your position. You were right. At best, you were fifth. But now I'm fourth. I want to do whatever is best for them. I'm the adult. That's supposed to be my job. I'll work with you on whatever you need for your protection as long as it doesn't hurt them."