Ghost on the Wind

This story is a bit longer and slower than most of my stories. I do apologize for that, but I wanted to explore an idea. That doesn't explain my need to inflict it upon you, the reader, but I have. Also, it doesn't contain any explicit sex.

It's been some time since I wrote an angry BTB story. Truth is, I've been enjoying a happier place writing love stories. Still, the itch needs to be scratched and I often wonder what form of revenge brings any real measure of satisfaction? I honestly don't know the answer to that question, although I am repeatedly drawn to that utility knife I employed in A Carpenter's Best Friend. I like revenge that isn't life-threatening and that doesn't get you arrested but is horribly humiliating for the cheater because humiliation is what the betrayed spouse feels. Despite that, there is no real revenge in this story.

I suppose this effort is part story and part travelogue. I started thinking of driving cross country as a metaphor for moving on in life. As I wrote it, I realized that no matter how far we go to escape our lives, we carry those lives with us. Then the COVID-19 virus hit, I became a shut in, and getting out and about became an almost exotic dream. Anyway, this is a story about a man betrayed who ghosts his marriage.

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My name is Andrew Baker. My friends call me "AB", but never Andy. There is always some obnoxious drunk, some jackass who doesn't know me and wants to be more familiar than he deserves, and he'll always call me Andy. "So, Andy, what do you do for a living?" I tell him, "I build a neat little device that cops can just point at you from forty feet away and tell if you're drunk. They've started attaching them to radar guns around town." That usually shuts them up; although if you haven't guessed it yet, that device doesn't really exist. I guess you can tell that I don't suffer fools very well. Lie to me and it gets worse.

I'm not a complicated man. In fact, I like a simple life. I enjoy my work. I'm an engineer with a large national company that has many branch offices across the country. I have friends. I don't drink much, but I'll have the occasional beer. Truth be told, I prefer the nachos, but that's my struggle. If I let it get out of control, I'll put on weight. I need to keep that beast at bay, so I struggle and stay in reasonable shape for a man my age. I used to sail every chance I got, but a wife and two baby girls can put demands on a man's time and I soon sold the boat. That's just one of life's little sacrifices that I made years ago, and I made it happily, so I'd have the time to spend with the people that matter to me.

I've been happily married to Karen, a high school teacher, for twenty-five years. Our two girls are both in college now. Claire is up in Rhode Island at Brown and her younger sister, Denise, is at Boston University. I doubt I could afford schools like that, but the girls are serious students and earned some exceptional scholarships. We live in North Carolina in an area they call "The Research Triangle". It's built on several very good universities in the Raleigh area with top-flight high-tech firms all around. It's a great place to live and work. I'd tell you about Carolina Bar-B-Q, but I'll just get hungry thinking about it.

I was more than a little disappointed when the girls chose to go north for college, but I guess they needed to spread their wings a little and in the long run that's a good thing. The girls are great. They are smart, funny, personable young women with a strong sense of right and wrong. I worry about their safety every day, but I don't worry about their choices. Seeing them raised and taking those first steps of independence meant that my wife and I would finally have time for ourselves again. I'd been looking forward to these days for some time. With both girls off at college, I had fantasies of coming home every night to a loving wife who poured her attention onto me and mine onto her until life was one joyful day after another. We could be like newlyweds again. We would go out to dinner, see plays, go to movies, and finally reconnect the way I'd always wanted. It didn't work out quite that way. Truth be told, over that first year of our empty nest Karen started changing. Her interests were moving away from me, or so it seemed. It was gradual, but over time it could be seen. I wrote it off as her chance to blossom now that the girls had moved out, but eventually I realized that what I was watching was a fundamental change in her values and priorities.

Karen teaches English with an emphasis on Creative Writing. To be honest, and I hope fair, she is a frustrated writer. As a young mother and teacher, she never had the time to write the way she wanted. Karen writes all summer long and whenever she can spare an hour or two, but nothing much has ever come of it. She would regularly submit essays and short stories to literary magazines, developing only an extensive collection of rejection letters, while the master work never materialized. If I were truthful, I do love to read what my wife writes, but as a writer she's never reached beyond formulaic and often melodramatic tales. She has a romantic idea of what a writer is supposed to be, and I suspect, not that I would ever tell her, that she is drawn more to the idea of being a writer than to the writing itself. No matter. If she's happy, I'm happy.

For most of our marriage, Karen has belonged to one writing group or another. These are people who get together for the purpose of helping each other, critiquing, suggesting, and discussing their work in an effort to make each other better. Some of the groups have seemed to me to be genuinely productive while others are more like mutual admiration societies. Her last group, which was her current group when it all fell apart, had a bit of both. They took turns meeting at each other's home and when they were here, I'd try to make myself scarce. I did try to participate once, but that got me some disapproving looks from Karen and a few others, so I gave up trying.

Karen's current writing group has about 10 people with both men and women. I like some of them. Others I could live without. Half are nondescript and half make a very definite impression when you meet them. Reggie (a woman) is heavy into writing histories and biographies. She does real research and writes books that have a strong academic vein while still trying to engage the reader. I have read them all and I like them a lot. I've told her so. Betty likes to write fantasy. I don't think she imagines herself the next J. K. Rowling; she's more the talking unicorn type, but she's pleasant and she seems to write mostly for her own pleasure. Who can fault that? Bill is the resident know-it-all. A little of that can go a long way, but he seems okay in every other regard. Then there is Frank. I heard alarms in my head the first time I met him, and those alarms have not stopped sounding since. When I was introduced to Frank, and I was most definitely made to feel that I was being introduced to him and not the other way around, he said, "So, Andy, what do you do?" I looked at my wife who pursed her lips and shook her head at me and I just said, "Engineer, Frank." Was that a smile or a smirk he gave me?

I told you that I gave up trying to participate in their group, but I tend to be more out of sight and out of mind, but not out of sound, when they come over. I'll be in the next room working quietly or on the back porch with an open window until they forget I'm there. I noticed early on that when Frank interacts with Karen it's almost like they have their own private jokes. Sometimes he inflates her ego and other times he seems to know her thoughts with an intimacy that I don't care for one little bit. He makes references to past conversations and I get the impression the rest of the group has no memory of them. It's just a feeling, but I don't like it and I've told her so. She just dismisses my concerns and I know better than to push it. I've made sure she knows how I feel about it. The rest is on her.

The group has a pattern to their meetings. After the working session, the group settles down with some wine and loosens up. That's when I learn that some of them are just pretenders. It was the middle of the spring semester, early March, when the conversation turned to the lifestyle of "real" writers.

"Oh, all the great writers were alcoholics!"

"True! They write in the mornings and drink in the afternoons and evenings. It loosens up the brain to new ideas and then in the mornings their creative juices flow and they write."

"Actually, the truly great writers all had love affairs. That was their real inspiration." That was Frank speaking. Thanks, Frank. I've got your number, asshole.

That's when Karen tied a knot in my stomach. "Oh, I know! It's the passion and the excitement of the unknown, the thrill of hiding it all from the eyes of others, that's where the real inspiration lies!" Some of them laughed at that and some didn't, so I told myself it was just a joke, but I kept one ear on them the rest of the night.

"Maybe we should just all have a wild sex night sometime and then we will all write the great American novel." That was Bill. I couldn't tell if he intended it as a joke or not.

"Character flaws are not the foundation of great writing. Humanity, compassion, and the challenge of the unknown are what great stories are built on." I told you I liked Betty. "Great stories are all about facing adversity, reaching for greatness against all odds, and making the world better than it was before."

"Well, maybe if you just cast the right spell, we can save ourselves all the trouble." That was asshole Frank again. To their shame, some of the group seemed to think that was funny. I doubt that Betty did, and I suspected that Reggie didn't, either.

Their conversation continued with this writer's drinking habits and that writer's mistresses and I continued to listen without tipping my hand. Then I caught an interesting discussion. "Is anyone else applying for the Illinois Writer's Workshop this summer?" It was Frank again.

"Oh, I already applied. I'm hoping they let me in. Six weeks to just write and talk with writers... It could be a real game changer for me." It was Karen and this was the first I'd heard about it.

Frank picked up on it right away. "I'm sure they'll let you in. Your writing has improved so much this past year. I know you'll be admitted. I've applied, too, but I'm not as confident I'll get in."

My bullshit meter was pegged. Really, Frank, since when are you so modest?

I didn't like what I was hearing, but at this point I still loved and trusted my wife. When you've been married for as long as us, your trust is fundamental. You don't ask yourself, "Is she behaving badly?" The thought doesn't occur to you. A marriage is a team, and your partner is your better half. She has proven her dedication year after year and all you really hope for is that she will have the success and satisfaction that she deserves. At least, that's what you think. Then later, it all goes out the window when you learn that your trust has been betrayed.

Time passed and I allowed myself to forget that night's overheard conversation. Like I said, I trusted my wife. Some young guys never understand that, but after more than two decades of marriage trust is as much a way of life as a choice. Late April rolled around, and I was outside working in the garden when I decided I was done for the day and headed in. As I reached for the kitchen door, I overheard my wife on the phone say, "I can't wait! Six whole weeks without responsibilities, no obligations, and no one waiting for me to come home..." That last bit registered. I stood frozen and listened. "I know. It's going to be the most indulgent six weeks of my life. I owe this to myself. So do you!" Nothing about this made me happy.

I opened the door and stepped into the kitchen. Karen was startled. "Well, I have to go. AB is here and I need to get dinner started." She hung up quickly.

"Who was that?"

"Oh, that was just Reggie. We were talking about the school ending soon."

"The hell you were," I thought. I wanted to ask her about specific things she'd said, especially that part about "...no one waiting for me to come home", but I had a feeling the truth was in limited supply tonight. My mood turned dark, but I worked to hide it for now.

Later that night, after dinner, the other shoe fell. "AB, you will never guess the great news I got today! Remember that writer's workshop in Illinois that I applied for?"

"No."

"Oh, sure you do. You never listen to me."

The truth is I was well aware of that workshop, but only because I'd overheard her talking about it that night more than a month ago. "No, I don't think you ever told me about it."

"Yes I did! Well, I applied for a six-week writer's workshop. It's mid-June to late July at the University of Illinois. There are lectures by the professors there, and they bring in these great writers for seminars and discussions groups, and then we write, write, write! It's a great opportunity and I've been accepted into the program!"

"That sounds great, love! I'm sure we can afford it. Maybe I can get a little time off and join you. I'd love to hear some of those writers speak."

That remark seemed to catch her off guard. "Oh, well, we can try. It's going to be a very intensive six weeks and I'm not going to have much time to spend with you."

My bullshit meter was pegged again. "Well, you know I'm low maintenance and maybe I could be the guy who gets coffee for the group."

She smiled a nervous, distracted smile. "That would be lovely, dear. Let's see how it works out."

I've been on the receiving end of that kind of deflection and I knew what it meant. She was going to make sure I never went out to Illinois to join her. "I get the feeling you'd prefer it if I didn't go with you."

"Oh, no, it's not that. I'm just afraid you'll be bored. You like your computers and circuits, and this is just a bunch of writers talking about big ideas."

"Bitch!" I didn't say it out loud, but in my mind, I was shouting it for the neighbors to hear. "I'm really not stupid, dear."

"Oh, I didn't mean it that way. It's just that your mind likes to work on the details and writers wrestle with the big life questions."

"Double Bitch!" Still, I didn't say it out loud. I knew when I was being marginalized. "I'm sure you'll do great."

Later that night, after Karen went to bed, I went online to review our phone records. AT&T lets you do that. All the calls coming in and going out are logged along with text messages. I checked the phone log and the call that I interrupted wasn't with Reggie, or if it was it was placed from Frank's phone. It's amazing how fast trust can dissolve after twenty-five years of marriage when you catch your wife in a lie, and you find her making plans to exclude you.

The weeks went by and all she spoke about was the workshop. I tried several times to engage her in the idea that I would go with her or go out to visit at some point, but she shot it down every time. Then she moved from reason to manipulation. "AB, I have the most wonderful news! I got you two tickets to a fishing camp in northern Canada in late June. You can take Jake and the two of you can fish for those big browns you're always talking about! It cost a fortune, but I wanted to thank you for understanding about the writer's workshop and I felt guilty that you wouldn't be enjoying yourself. So, I want you to go and have fun! Then we can compare notes when I get home."

I smelled a rat. "Thank you, sweetie. That was very thoughtful of you. Truth be told, I'd have more fun with you."

"AB, we've been over that! It just doesn't make sense. I'll be working the whole time and I'd feel guilty ignoring you like that."

I looked at her face and eyes for a moment, trying to gauge what I was seeing there. Was it condescension? "Thanks, sweetheart, Canada sounds like fun." I didn't say it with much enthusiasm. In my mind I was formulating my options. A surprise visit to Illinois was at the top of the list.

"Well, you could at least smile when you say it. Those tickets cost a bundle and I want you to be happy!"

"Okay, it sounds like fun." I wandered down into the basement to tinker the rest of the evening.

Ours is an old house and it has one of those floor grates in the hall. It lets hot air rise from the furnace room and was the original means of heating the first floor. When we first moved in, I made it a point not to step on it if I didn't mean to, but after a time I got used to it and forgot that it's there. The phone is also in the hall. I was quietly tinkering in the basement and considering my next move when I heard Karen place a call. "Yes, I gave him the tickets. He's still resisting... I don't know. I keep telling him he won't enjoy it... No, I can't flat out tell him to stay home... I know, and I want that too, but I want to stay married at the end of it. I just want him to give me a little space to enjoy myself for a few weeks. I deserve it. I've earned it... Yes, I want those weeks with you, too... Okay, just let it be for a bit. I think he'll come around... Okay, baby, I miss you, too. Write something good for me tonight." With that, she hung up.

My heart was in my throat. I'm not stupid. I know cheating when I hear it. Either Karen was having an affair, or she was planning one. Anything less and she would still have a shit load of explaining to do. It took me twenty minutes to get my thoughts together, but I knew that for the time being I needed to become the liar that I'd always despised. At least, I needed to play my cards close to my chest until I knew what I was going to do. I called upstairs and in my most loving voice said, "Karen, I'm going over to see Jake and tell him the good news!"

"Oh, that's wonderful, dear. Have fun."

And with that I was out the basement door. I needed to stay away, and Jake was just an excuse; but as I thought about it, I realized that I needed someone to talk with and Jake had been my best friend since we were in grade school.

"You are shitting me!" Jake was never one to mince words. "No way, I don't believe it! She would never cheat on you, AB."

"Well, she sure is trying hard to keep me away from that workshop. And she's calling someone 'baby' and it sure as hell isn't me!"

We just sat there not speaking. That's most of what a guy needs from another guy -- just sitting there and sharing the pain.

"You've got to talk with her about this, AB. You can't go the next two months thinking the worst and not knowing."

"And what will she tell me? How much you want to bet when I check the phone record tonight it wasn't Frank she was talking with, it wasn't Frank she called 'baby', and it wasn't Frank she's scheming with?"

"Sorry. I won't take that bet. What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to sit down and talk it out. That's what you do after twenty-five years. I'm going to tell her how much I love her, tell her I'm hurt that she doesn't want me to go with her, and ask her point blank what she has planned that she doesn't want me around."

"You think she'll tell the truth?"

"No. But I will tell her the truth and some of it won't be what she wants to hear. She'll know I love her. She'll know that cheating on me will end us. And then she'll try to convince me that it's all in my head and I should go fishing." I paused for a moment. "By the way, I have two tickets for a fishing camp in northern Canada late June and one is for you."

"Sweet!" Jake caught himself. "I mean, I'm here for you, buddy."

I had to laugh. I've never had any doubt where his loyalties lie. We sat, talked, and drank a few for the next three hours and then I headed home.