Hook, Lie and Sinker

"You need to stop this nonsense immediately," she snapped at him. "This is not how a marriage is."

"Was this what you wanted me to talk to you for?" he quickly countered. "Was our meeting to simply be a vehicle for you to make absurd demands and state the obvious?"

Veronica was stunned. This was not how she had anticipated their conversation would go. By this point, she had been living for so long with her own preconceived notions of what was appropriate that it had never entered her mind that she couldn't have both her husband and her lover, and that all she needed to do was put her foot down for everyone to fall into line. Michael, however, wasn't behaving as she wanted, as she expected.

"And you're right that this is not how a marriage is," he continued, deepening her shock. "This is how a divorce is."

"Well, I don't want a divorce," came her petulant reply. Michael was well and truly stunned, to say the least. Where was the woman he had known all those years ago? The one who had a solid head on her shoulders that was used for more than just spouting crap?

"Whether you want one or not is pretty much irrelevant by this point," Michael observed aloud, eliciting a glare from Veronica.

"Darling," she tried, appearing to soften a bit, "you have to realize that, in our circles, it's all about appearances. A divorce just won't do."

Suddenly it was all clear to him. Where things had gone wrong, why she was behaving the way she was and, saddest of all, why there was absolutely no chance for them any longer. As Veronica sat there with a self-assured and smug look upon her face, he put all the pieces together and, glancing at his watch, made his decision.

"Well, let me explain a few things to you," came his quickly- but carefully-considered reply. "First, while you volunteer with the local social set, neither you nor I are part of that 'circle'. Whether or not the other social darlings you interact with opt to live other than monogamous lifestyles is something between themselves and their spouses. However, I have no intent to stay with a lying, cheating whore of a spouse just because it's more convenient for you."

Slowly the smug look on Veronica's face was being replaced by one of shock and horror. Feeling as if his words were getting through, Michael pressed on.

"Your deciding to do volunteer work full-time did not come with a condition that I assist you in maintaining an 'image' or 'appearance', and I only recall one promise that the two of us had to live up to. We made it a little over 13 years ago, and was one we made before our families, our friends, and our Creator."

From shock and horror, the look on Veronica's face quickly morphed into one of predatory victory. Perhaps he wasn't getting through to her, Michael thought. He decided to wait and see what she had to say next, and found himself quite glad he did.

"Our wedding vows, you mean?" countered Veronica. "The ones where you promised to love, honor and cherish me in sickness and in health, for better or worse, as long as we both shall live?"

Michael simply nodded deeply, once.

"Well, dear husband," she continued, her voice now dripping with venom, "it certainly seems to me that you're the one breaking those vows, as I'm still here, in better or worse, while you're the one gone."

"An interesting interpretation," Michael quickly replied, catching Veronica completely by surprise. She was certain that her line of reasoning would be more than sufficient to make him see the error of his ways. "However, there is a problem with your recollection, it seems."

Now she was puzzled. She was certain that, using his own argument, she had a firm position from which to direct the course of this discussion. There could be no other way things could go, she was sure.

"You see, our vows promised one other important thing," Michael continued. "Not only did we both promise to love, honor and cherish the other, through sickness and health until parted by death, but we also promised to forsake all others. Having a lover is not forsaking all others, I have to say."

The confusion was returning to Veronica's face, but she didn't have time to craft her reply, let alone deliver it. Michael was pushing onward, having glanced briefly at his watch once again.

"I loved, honored and cherished you every single day of our marriage, through the good times and bad, through the pain of our inability to have children of our own - you notice, it's 'our' pain, not 'your' pain; 'our' inability, not 'your' - through the chaos of my job and your volunteering. I forsook all others, each and every day, never putting another anywhere near that place which you and you alone had in my life...all the way until the day I discovered your affair. Can you honestly say the same?"

Now he seemed to relax in his chair, seeming to wait for her reply. After a few moments, she began to speak.

"I never meant for you to find out," she started, fully expecting him to stop her right then and there. "At first I was so frustrated with all the long hours you were working, and one day at a meeting I confided in a few of the others there. When they suggested I take a lover, I was shocked, but as the weeks went by they kept explaining to me how having someone on the side allowed them to still give their husbands a solid home life, while allowing for their needs to be taken care of as well."

"Well, that's...interesting...Veronica," replied Michael, "but what ever gave you the idea that our situations were in any way similar to theirs?"

"You were working all those hours, and were always so tired when you got home," she answered. His reply was again lightning-quick.

"Yes, I was. But you'll also recall that I was the one who brought up the subject and that the two of us discussed it and came up with ways to make this less stressful for the both of us. At no point in that conversation did I hear you asking about taking a lover, nor did I ever imply that doing so might be a solution I would find acceptable."

Once again glancing at his watch, he quickly stood and made his way to the door. Confused, Veronica rose behind him and followed. As he reached the entryway, there was a loud knock, and when Michael opened the door, Veronica could see the brown-clad shape of a sheriff's deputy in her doorway.

"It's for you," Michael said, stepping to the other side of the officer of the law.

"Veronica Thompson?" the man asked.

"Yes."

"You are served," came the deputy's reply, as he placed a packet of documents into her hands.

"Deputy," came a female voice Veronica had never heard before, "could you please take a good look at this woman and verify that she is in no way harmed?"

"Yes, ma'am," he replied, and gave her a good, long look.

As Veronica looked on, the deputy and Karen Mills escorted Michael back to his vehicle and watched him drive away before the attorney climbed into her own car and left in the opposite direction. The deputy was the last to depart, waiting until Veronica had closed the front door before he started his engine and pulled away from the curb.

Michael's cell phone rang as he was driving, and when he looked at the caller ID, and saw it was Don calling, he quickly picked up the call.

"How did it go?" he asked.

"Well, I know where she got that hare-brained idea in her head from," Michael answered. "It's from those society biddy's she volunteers with. Like I had realized, our marriage is well-and-truly dead, and now we only need the last rites of a divorce decree to complete the job."

"Well, I've got another surprise for you, if you want to take advantage of it," Don tentatively offered. "Care to head 'down under' a couple of days early?"

"I'd love to," came the reply.

"Then stop in here tomorrow morning and pick up the revised itinerary and tickets. Your apartment is ready for you and the building manager will be alerted to your early arrival," Don was now gleefully informing his friend.

For his part, Michael slept like a baby during the flight across the Pacific ocean.

Veronica was slow to react, even after their meeting, and it was more than two weeks later that she finally contacted an attorney. Even then, she still was clinging to her fantasy that Michael would realize that this was best for both of them and come back. When her attorney found out who was representing Michael, the discussion he had with her did not leave Veronica feeling very hopeful, yet she stuck to her guns. There would be no divorce, she would refuse to sign any papers.

Two weeks after hiring her attorney, and almost five weeks after Michael had left the country, Veronica found herself seated with her attorney in a conference room at Karen Mills' offices. A few minutes after they had been seated, Karen entered, and Veronica quickly recognized her as the tall, elegant woman from the night she was served by the deputy.

"Where is my husband?" snapped Veronica.

"Your husband is not here," came the measured reply. Veronica still did not know that Michael had left the country, and Karen was under strict orders that she should not be told unless it came out in court. "I have been, however, empowered to act on his behalf in these matters, and have been given very specific instructions as to how I am to proceed in his divorce from Mrs. Thompson."

Veronica wasn't buying it, her own preconceived notions wouldn't let her entertain the idea that he had written her off for good.

"I don't believe you, I want to hear it from him," came her petulant reply.

"Very well," Michael's attorney agreed with surprising equanimity as she lifted a remote control and pointed it at the television in the wall behind her. Shortly, Michael's face appeared on the screen and he began to speak, seemingly directly to Veronica.

"Good day, everyone. Today is November 7th, 2008 and I am Michael Thompson. It is 4:47 in the afternoon, and as my job will have me out of the area for the immediate future, and because I have absolutely no desire whatsoever to see my soon-to-be ex-wife, I am making this tape to provide concrete and, I hope, incontestable instructions for my attorney of record, Karen Mills, to follow with regard to my divorce from Veronica Thompson, nee Kelly.

"It is my full intention to pursue a divorce based upon the grounds of irreconcilable differences, as I cannot manage to reconcile myself to my wife's decision to take a lover or lovers. To that end, I have crafted a divorce petition which provides for an equitable division of our marital assets, with the exceptions being that I keep my 401k and retirement accounts in their entirety and in exchange Veronica will receive sole ownership of our home. As it is paid for, the equity alone will more than compensate her for any moneys she may feel entitled to from those parts of my estate I wish to keep for myself. I have already made arrangements for the title to her vehicle to be placed in her name, and for the deed to the house to be amended as such once my petition is agreed to. In the interim, I have made additional arrangements for a household maintenance account to be established, and for any and all utility bills to be paid from said account. I am also providing a stipend of $500 per month to be used for food and incidentals at my soon-to-be ex-wife's discretion; however, if she wishes to continue buying lingerie and other items for her 'dates', then she will need to find employment, as I will not increase my stipend to allow for her continuing along the path which led to the end of our relationship.

"As far as the subject of alimony is concerned, I am willing to offer alimony commensurate with what her projected income would be had she not left her previous employment and had instead been receiving yearly merit-based pay increases. I feel this is incredibly generous, as it was her decision - and her decision solely - that she not return to work after she had left; her volunteer work was a choice she, and she alone, made, and I am not willing to move beyond my offer in this regard.

"Lastly, much like our wedding vows, this is an all-or-nothing issue. That means you either accept my terms - all of them, Veronica - or else my attorney will follow my secondary set of instructions. They are quite simple: if, for whatever reason, this agreement cannot be reached, then the grounds for my divorce will change to Adultery, and I will name your lover, Matt Lambert, in my suit, as well as in an Alienation of Affection suit seeking monetary damages for his part in the destruction of my marriage. I will make sure that this is a VERY public matter, that the information I have collected detailing your trysts with your lover is brought to the public eye, and that, if possible, your society and charity 'friends' are as uncomfortably reminded of this matter as possible.

"The choice is yours, Veronica. You can have a moderately comfortable existence without me, or you can have a very uncomfortable existence without me. But as you may have noticed, there is no option which allows for you to have any existence WITH me."

With that, the screen went dark. Just like Veronica's future.