Folie a Deux, Episode 06

"What did you do?"

"To be honest I don't even remember the next few hours after I made the connection. I know I went up to the home office and stared at the computer screen. I didn't even turn it on."

"Do you remember anything you thought?"

"Yeah. 'Why him? How could they do that with each other? How could they do that to me?' It was mostly that, over and over again. Sorry, I wish I could say I had more interesting reactions, but it took a few days to get my feet underneath me again."

"I don't remember that night specifically," Mike tells us, "but dad called in sick for a couple days right after that. And that was weird, because he's a guy who goes to work when he's almost dead. I didn't connect it to anything though, I figured he was just ill."

"Over like the next week or so, dad got icy toward mom and Mike," Olivia says. "He barely talked to them. He couldn't even be in the same room with both of them at the same time -- either of them alone seemed to be kind of OK, he just ignored them. But the other one would come in and in a couple of minutes dad would leave."

"So it was becoming pretty obvious that he knew?" the interviewer asks.

"Ummm...yeah, I think so. I guess so. I mean, I hoped I was misreading it. I hoped I was wrong and he had some other bug up his butt, but I was getting ready for the blow-up. Trying to, I mean, trying to mentally prepare myself for the shit hitting the fan.

"It was a really hard time for me, because I had spent my life since middle school preparing to get a lacrosse scholarship to my dream school, Boston College. If things exploded at home and people found out about it -- and I assumed everyone would find out about it -- then I was done at my high school. I could never show my face again. How can you expect a teenager to face a school full of people who know that about her family? You get a little older and you don't give a shit, but at that point in your life, social acceptance is everything. Dropping out of school would mean the end of my scholarship chances, and for all I knew the end of my school career. And I couldn't even talk to anybody about it."

We return to Bob. His eyes glisten. "Mike and I had been very close when he was little. He was my shadow. As he got into his teen years, he developed independence early and we spent less time together, but our relationship stayed good. Very good, even. We loved doing things with each other, whether it was a guys' camping weekends or watching a ball game or just talking. I loved him with everything I had inside me. I admired him, the man he was becoming. I was so proud of him. I was so fucking proud."

"And after the realization?" the interviewer asks.

A single tear escapes Bob's eye and begins to roll down his cheek, but he wipes it away with an abrupt and irritated gesture. "I wished he would have killed me instead."

Emily again. "By the middle of October, Bob was avoiding me in almost any way he could. We barely spoke anymore. Those glares that had been behind my back were now coming to my face. It was an utterly miserable situation."

"Did he address it with you?" the interviewer asks.

"No, and I did not ask because I believed I knew what answer I would get."

"How was he treating Mike?' the interviewer asks.

"Mike felt the rising anger and had begun avoiding him. It was easier for him to do that than it was for me -- he could retreat to his own bedroom to study or be alone. However...when they were together, eventually there was the same tension between them as between Bob and I."

"So you knew he suspected who you were being unfaithful with."

"I assumed he did, yes. And that was awful."

"Were you making preparations for a confrontation?"

"I quietly packed a small suitcase and put it in my closet, and I advised Mike to do the same. All I could do was hope against hope that I was wrong."

"There was no one thing that convinced me of the truth," Bob tells us. "There was no smoking gun. But the more I thought, the more I watched, the more I knew what was going on. One dark night when I was on the sofa watching infomercials, I finally convinced myself. And once you convince yourself of something like that, you can't turn away. You need to act."

The screen goes dark and we see:

October 18

Bob again, who says, "Sunday night. October 18th. Emily and Mike had been flirting with each other all weekend. All Mike had to do was catch her eye and Emily would blush and giggle and look away. It was making me physically ill with rage. I just couldn't take any more."

Emily looks unhappy. "I was in our bedroom laying out my clothes for the next day. It had been more than a week since Bob had been in the room with me while we were both awake, so I was not expecting it when he entered and closed the door behind him. I looked up and him, and he asked --"

Cut to Bob, who says, "'Are you having an affair with our son?'"

We return to Emily. "So. Finally the end had come."

"What did you say?" the interviewer asks.

Emily shrugs. "I said yes."

We see Bob again, who is silent for a long moment; it is the expression on his face that makes the silence painful. Finally he says, "Even then I was hoping I was wrong. Not about the affair -- I knew I was right about that -- but about it being with Mike. But I saw the truth as I asked the question, even before she answered. I saw the...the depth of it. Of the betrayal. In her eyes, on her face, in her posture. She didn't have to admit it. I knew."

Quietly, the interviewer asks, "What did you do?"

Bob shakes his head, his mouth a grim line, and says, "I am not going to repeat what I said to my wife. The language I used, the things I said...they don't reflect well on either of us -- me because I said them, and her because they were true."

Emily, who looks sad but surprisingly resolute. "He said terrible things. Terrible things. The fact that he never raised his voice a decibel made it all the worse. It wasn't a screaming, rage-filled tirade. It was...an indictment."

"Did you explain what had happened?" the interviewer asks. "How everything had begun?"

"No. He wouldn't have listened. If I had told him right after Mike and I arrived in San Francisco, he would have listened...not anymore. I simply let him tell me what he needed to tell me so that I could leave."

"Leave?"

"The room. The house." Pause. "The marriage."

"That seems quite determined. You'd been on tenterhooks about his behavior to you."

Emily considers, then says, "The worst thing is to have a sword over your head. You dread the fall, you dread the pain, you dread the consequences, so much so that it can incapacitate you. Once the blow lands, however terrible it is, you no longer have the dread, you simply have the facts. Facts are things you can deal with."

"You make it sound as though being exposed by your husband was a relief."

"I didn't have to deceive him anymore."

"Fifteen minutes," Bob says. "Twenty, maybe. That's how long it took me to tell her everything I ever wanted to say to her again. Just about one minute for every year of our marriage. Then I told her I was leaving to pick Olivia up from her friend's house, and she and Mike needed to be gone by the time I got back."

"The moment he left, I raced to Mike's room and told him what had happened," Emily says. "Then I went back for my suitcase."

Mike, looking sad. "So that was it. That was the end, of the family, of my relationship with my father. For all I knew, the end of freedom for me and mom, the end of my scholarship, the end of...everything. Everything I'd ever known."

"What did you do?" the interviewer asks.

"I grabbed my go-bag. Then I texted Olivia that dad knew and was on his way."

To Olivia, who sighs, "Fuuuckiiiing fuck. Dad had sent me a text like two minutes before telling me he was on the way, and then Mike sends that. All I wanted to do was turn and run as far as I could go. All I could do was wait for my dad."

"What was it like when he got there?" the interviewer asks.

"Ugh. I got into the car and he looked at me. Just looked for like half a minute. I just kept shrinking down into my seat. Then he asked me if I'd known about it. He didn't tell me what had happened, he just asked me if I knew. And I said I did."

Bob still looks a bit stunned at the recollection. "Of the three people in the world whom I loved the most, one had betrayed me with another, and the third had known and covered it up. I couldn't have been a bigger fool. I just couldn't have been a bigger fool at all."

Mike once more, who slowly tells us, "What kills me to this day is that dad never deserved what he got from mom and me. I admire my dad. Whatever I know about being a man, I learned from him. He's good and kind, he's wise and supportive. He's everything a dad ought to be. He didn't earn what we gave him. I just..." There is a painful pause, and finally he sighs and says, "I just don't think it ever could have turned out any way but how it did. From the moment the Visigoths decided to make me have sex with my mom, I...I feel like I never had a choice except to fall in love with her."

"Some might say that sounds like an excuse," the interviewer jabs.

Mike nods, his eyes downcast. "Some would. Most would. All I know is that with what I felt, with what mom felt...it didn't seem like we had a chance to turn away. Early on we tried and it was too strong, it just pulled us right back in. We were too perfect together to ever want anyone else."

We see Emily, who sadly says, "Poor Bob."

"Taken as a whole," the interviewer asks, "do you feel justified in your actions toward your husband, from the time the affair began to the end of the marriage?"

She is plainly unhappy with the question, but her gaze never wavers as she says, "Justified? Of course I don't...and of course I do."

"What does that mean?"

"Bob deserved better than he received. He deserved a better wife and a better son. He deserved to have his love and respect returned with the same, instead of with betrayal. What Mike and I did to him was unforgivable."

"But?"

"But what I felt for Mike as a man, as a lover, as a mate, as my everything, was so much greater than what I ever felt for Bob that comparing them isn't fair to either of them. They're different in type, not merely in magnitude. There was nothing I wouldn't do for Mike, just as there was nothing he wouldn't do for me. How could what I had with Bob ever compare to that? How could it stand in the way of that?"

"So the ends justified the means?"

Emily shrugs. "I'll let others make their own determinations. All I can say is that, for what Mike and I share to come to fruition, Bob needed to suffer. There has never been a day since that I have regretted my decision to be with Mike. Whether it was justified or no, I wouldn't change a thing. Not one thing."

"Some would describe that as amoral."

Emily's gaze is level and unflinching as she says, "I imagine they would."

Returning to Olivia, she tells us, "Walking into the house was like walking into a tomb. A whole family had just been buried there. I went upstairs and stood in the doorway of Mike's room, and it hit me that I would never see my stupid, annoying jerk of a brother who I loved so much in that room ever again. My parents room was now just my dad's room. Mom was gone. My mom had always been there, every second of my life, and now she wasn't."

"What did you do?" the interviewer asks.

"I lay down on my bed and sobbed. Just sobbed. My whole body hurt from it. Eventually I wore myself out and fell asleep. I had nightmares."

Bob again. "Since college, I had never been much of a drinker. That night I drank so I could pass out, and I did."

We return to Mike. "When we drove away that night, the only life I'd ever lived was gone for good. Mom and I went to a hotel., and the drive there was the weirdest thing. When I pulled out of our driveway, I was shattered. It felt like everything had just ended. But...it was crazy, because the further away from the house we got, the more it felt like...like something was beginning. Like yeah, the old door closed, but here was this brand new one."

"Were you concerned that your father would go to the police about you and your mother?" the interviewer asks.

"Well yeah. He'd told her he would when he'd confronted her. I assumed that the hammer was going to come down pretty soon."

"So that new door must not have looked particularly inviting."

Mike shrugs. "Well that's the thing with a door. You don't know what's on the other side until you open it. Maybe there was a world of shit on the other side of that door but...mom was on the other side too. Emily was on the other side, and even if she was only there for one night, she gave me the strength to walk through."

Keen observers will note that this is the first time Mike has referred to his mother by her given name.

We see Emily now, looking a little happier than before as she reminisces, "So, my marriage had ended and I was still alive, and still with the man I loved. It would be the first night we spent together -- the first time we went to sleep in the same bed and woke up in the same bed since we'd become lovers. For all I knew, it would be the only night. If that were the case, I wanted to make it a night that neither of us would ever forget. Even if the worst happened, even if we were sent to jail for our love, we would always have that night to keep us warm. It was a gift I wanted to give to both of us."

"How long can the prison sentence be for incest in Minnesota?" the interviewer asks.

"Up to ten years," Emily replies. "Our fears were not abstract."

"Did you consider running?"

"Not for a moment."

"Why not?"

"Where could we go? How far could we run with the little money we had? What would we do when we got there? If these were to be our last free hours, I wanted to spend them in bliss, not in flight."

We see Mike again, who says, "I never thought about running. I don't know why, I just didn't. All I thought about was getting someplace where Emily and I could be alone. That was a hotel -- and a much nicer one than the last one we had been in."

What was the conversation in the car like?" the interviewer asks.

"Ummmm...minimal, I would say. I think we both needed to spend a little time in our own heads. Anyway, it only took 20 minutes to get to the hotel."

"I got the room for four nights, just to have a place to shelter." Emily tells us with obvious fondness for the memory. "The room we got was actually quite pleasant. There was a large television, a clean bathroom, and a queen-sized bed that was very comfortable." She grins and adds, "Obviously, the last item was the most important."

"I was still up in my own head when we got to the room," Mike remembers with a chuckle. "We hadn't discussed anything about it, so I didn't know what Emily's intentions were until the door closed, when she immediately slipped into my arms and kissed me. It was a very sweet, very gentle kiss, and the moment I felt her lips on mine I grabbed her and held her."

"The kiss was not sexually passionate at first," Emily relates, "but by then we knew each other so well that we didn't need words to explain our desires. Thirty seconds later his tongue was in my mouth and I was suckling on it."

"It was a great kiss," Mike says. "Going from the scene at the house to that kiss...it was water in the desert. I held her so close. I never wanted to let her go. That kiss...it was special."

"What made it special?" the interviewer asks.

"Because these were the first moments of our lives together as a couple -- as a real couple, I mean. We weren't sneaking around behind dad's back anymore, or behind Olivia's back, or behind anyone's back. From now on it was just us, for however long it lasted. And that kiss was the beginning of it all."

"His hands went to my bottom," Emily recalls, her cheeks beginning to pinken, "and he pulled me to him. When he holds me that way, so close against him, I simply melt. And that night I needed him to melt me."

"It was while we were kissing that it hit me," Mike says. "We didn't have to hurry. For the first time, there was no time constraint. If we wanted this to take until dawn and until we both passed out from exhaustion, we could do it. Finally we could just be us."

"The perfect freedom of it," Emily nods. "Yes, that was it, the perfect freedom. We could do what we wanted, how we wanted, for as long as we wanted. I could be as loud as I liked, as lewd as I liked. That night, no one could tell us no. That night we became each other's everything."

"And we didn't hurry," Mike tells us. "We stood just like that, kissing, hands not even moving, for...ten minutes? More? I remember the way her tongue moved on mine as we kissed, how unhurried it was. Most of the time when we kissed it was a lot more frantic than that, but this was just...it was how lovers kiss, real lovers. People who are going to spend the rest of their lives together."

"Again we didn't speak," Emily tells us. "Our hands began to move at the same time, undressing each other. That was slow too, and gentle. I was wearing a sweater, and he slipped his hand underneath it, between it and my undershirt, and rested it against my stomach for the longest time. I've always wondered if he could feel the butterflies I had."

"You were nervous?" the interviewer asks.

"No, excited!" she laughs. "Mike's touch always excites me. He put his hand against me and it could have gone up to my breasts or down between my legs. It could have begun working my sweater off or gone beneath my undershirt. There was so much potential. It was a synecdoche for the night."

"And what did it do?"

"It stayed there for a couple of minutes!" she laughs. "And that was just as wonderful as anything else it might have done."

"I love Emily's body," Mike tells us. "She's a dancer. She's lithe and strong, no fat, perfectly toned, absolutely fit. I could feel her abs through her shirt, each one individually against my hand, just like I could feel her warmth. And I was like...she's mine now. For real. She's not someone else's wife, she's mine."

"Of course, I wasn't sitting still," Emily tells us. "He was wearing a long-sleeve button-down shirt, and I slid my hands behind him and up underneath it, stroking it gently, touching his skin, feeling his muscles move beneath." She grins and says, "I do adore a sexy back, and Mike's is very sexy."

"I slipped my hand a bit further up," Mike says. "I was slowly pushing her sweater up over her boobs. I could tell she was starting to get hot because she was kissing me harder --not faster, not devouring me like we usually did, just firmer, more pressure of her lips on mine. She started nibbling my lips, and then I started nibbling her ears..."

"I adore having my ears played with," Emily tells us with a slight flare of her nostrils. "It sends shivers down my spine when a pair of lips close on my earlobe -- and these were not just any lips, they were my man's lips. My man. I believe I may have moaned a little."

Mike is grinning. "Oh yeah, when I start sucking Emily's earlobes, she has a hard time being quiet. She moaned and she pushed my shirt up further in back so that she had her hand between my shoulder blades -- and then she raked her nails down all the way to my belt."

"That sounds painful," the interviewer observes.

"She didn't gouge me!" Mike laughs. "She just let me feel five fingernails running slowly down my back. It gave me goosebumps."

"I wanted my sweater off," Emily tells us. "I wanted my skin on his, but both of us were determined not to hurry. I wanted it off, but more than that, I wanted Mike to take it off of me, in his own time, without me asking him. And I knew he would. I knew we would do everything to each other. It would simply take hours instead of minutes. And that was why he spent so long thrilling me by suckling and nibbling my earlobes, by kissing down my neck, by letting his teeth scrape flesh in the most sensitive of spots..." An astute observer might notice that Emily is flushing now and her eyes are getting a bit wider, as happens when she becomes excited by a memory.