Ides of March Pt. 03

Ides of March Part III

Final decisions

Here's my ending. I'm giving an open invitation to write your own, so no need to contact me. Many readers thought I wasn't going to write an ending but I never said that. I said I had my own, but would leave it open for others as well.

No BTB here, fair warning. The category gives it away. Everyone already got what they deserved in Parts I and II, except good old Billy. Dang, where's the military drones when you need one!

Thanks to neuroparenthetical, as usual, for his fine editing skills.

There are a few stories that won't ever leave my brain. This one is based partly on "A Promise Made, A Vow Broken." If you've never read it, it's worth your time. Spoiler alert!! So if you want to read it, stop now, and then come back.

In that story, the characters have been married a long time, have two children and seem totally in love. The wife blindsides her hubby at a weekend away with her bosses and a wealthy client. The client has asked the wife to spend the night with him, and the people the wife works with, seem just fine with the idea. Hubby is told to accept it and then cruelly humiliated. The next morning her workmates even tell her husband that the millionaire client does this for the humiliation, but it's just a little quirk, and he's a great guy otherwise, so they excuse the behavior. The wife has clearly been influenced by those around her, and she's obviously been told her husband will just lie down and take it rather than risk his family in a divorce.

When I write similar scenarios, I have to really get outside of my own head, because I'm not that guy. If I make a promise - to keep it in my pants or anything else - I expect my partner to reciprocate that promise. In fact, if my stories were based on my life, they'd all be less than 750 words. She did this, I did that, adios, period, end of report.

Ah, but then there's love. With my third wife, I understand now why it was so easy to leave the first two.

So, there has to be at least a small chance for people who truly love each other. That's the human dilemma of love and infidelity, and the reason why I put my weird thoughts to paper.

Relax; it's just a story, people!

I'm pretty nervous getting ready to meet Barb. The house is clean, and I rearranged a few pieces of furniture to make it more conducive to our chat. I have the timer on the stove set, so I remember to take the white wine out of the cooler. She likes it chilled but not refrigerated. I've tried to remember some of the little things, but after being apart for so long, many have escaped me.

There is plenty I want to say to my ex-wife. I don't know if any of it will make a difference or have any impact at all. The first time I thought about this, I was also thinking about my daughter, Desi. Barb and I were never good at faking it. If we couldn't truly bury the hatchet, then things might get awkward at Desiree's wedding. I certainly don't want any of that to be on me.

The first time it came up, my daughter had asked if I planned to bring a date to the wedding. I wasn't yet in a place to commit on that, so I'd simply shrugged my shoulders and said, "I don't know."

I'm sure by her reaction, that wasn't the right answer.

There's more to it than burying the hatchet though. If I'm honest, I prefer to be at our daughter's special day with my ex-wife, and no one else. Ever since Desi had announced the nuptials, I'd been thinking a lot about Barb, and even had quite a few interesting dreams. At least they were interesting to me, considering we'd been separated now for six years and almost three months.

The divorce had gone through as planned, and with minimal bickering. The only way I could retain my pride, while forcing Barb to take a hard, honest look at herself, was to simply ride off into the sunset. That month alone at the hotel had forced me to accept a truth that I'd never wanted to entertain.

The Barb I married could never have done what she'd done that night in Las Vegas. Yet, she'd done it. That had been the thing I'd kept coming back to over and over again. She'd had to have changed in order to go through with it. That meant that at the core of it all, it wasn't really about the one night of sex, although I'd be lying if I tried to act like that didn't hurt immensely. Thinking logically, there have been countless couples where a partner pulls a one-timer, and is genuinely remorseful afterwards - maybe even stricken with guilt. They are also still very much in love their significant other.

No, Barb's issue, and mine I supposed, had been the way our thinking had changed. It had taken a long time for me to recognize that fact. In the day-to-day of a marriage and raising kids, it was easy to ignore a lot of things. Sometimes, it felt downright necessary to ignore things.

Surely, the saying about not wanting to grow up to be your parents is true. I'd seen it happen many, many times, even to people who'd shouted that same saying from the rooftops. Hell, I'd seen it happen to people who'd kept shouting it, in complete denial that they'd become Mommy Dearest or Dear Old Dad. Barb had grown up in farm country, and, while she'd never gone truly crazy before that night, she'd also never stood up for her parents' attitudes or way of life. The tipping point, I'd concluded, was when she'd gotten into the publishing industry and made a bunch of new friends - mostly work friends, but some actual friends too. It was a very different world, with very different attitudes about relationships - even outright hostility to the concepts of monogamy and marriage. Even if Barb had never come out and announced that she was more comfortable with 'free love' or whatever else, clearly she had been - at least enough to cheat on me with that football star. How could I have been aware, when she'd been like a mother and wife-of-the-year award winner?

Analysis aside, I knew I couldn't definitively speak for Barb's state of mind that night. Even if she'd shared, I'm not sure I would've trusted what she'd said. It had been clear to me from the get go, though, that no one in that room had seemed to care if she was married or not. It was all about having her 'dream date' with Billy the Beast Bronson. When I'd become frantic, the organizers had looked at me like I was a petulant child, a combination of pity and disbelief written on their faces. Their stares had said, "What's the big deal?" That had made me seethe. How dare they impose their loose morals and stupid beliefs on me? I'd been so shocked and confused by their reactions that I'd allowed security to basically fast-walk me out of the hall without much more fuss or resistance. Even my kids had seemed eager to get out of there, their mother's integrity be damned.

Admittedly, the same was true of me, though it had nothing to do with marriage or infidelity. Over the years, I'd spent many hours with the guys at the fire station. Often, I'd realized, they'd tried to impart some of their opinions onto me in order to sooth my hurt feelings, relating to my injury and the subsequent insurance and financial issues I'd had. That had prompted me to go berserk after the divorce. I'd spent many hours with attorneys trying to sue the Ides of March magazine, the New York Giants, and Billy Bronson, himself. Every one of those attorneys had tried to let me down gently. There was no case. Barbara had signed all the waivers. Bronson had offered himself for charity. The idea that he had been able to write off his night with Barb on his taxes, pissed me off all the more. One lawyer had taken the time to at least lay it out for me.

"Rob, look," he'd said. "I know it's a raw deal but the truth is, your wife, your ex-wife, did it on her own. There are no damages to sue for. There were at least a dozen points where she could have extricated herself from the date, starting at the point where she was announced the winner. Hell, she couldn't even sue for damages, unless she wanted to claim rape, or something nonconsensual."

I'd not wanted to hear it, but it had made me think a lot. Both Barb and I had been negligent in not understanding the rules of the auction, however, beyond that Barb had been the 'at fault' party in every possible way.

So then, had I gotten my pound of flesh? Only partially, I ascertained. With that revelation, I'd decided I wanted to put this all behind me and get on with the happiness of living. I had looked into my physical condition, and while my spine issues were mostly healed, the limp I'd developed had screwed up my left hip. My new doctor had told me he could make a new man out of me with a hip replacement, so I'd done it.

Unknown to the kids and other relatives, I'd started seeing a therapist. I'd known I wasn't crazy, but I needed someone impartial to talk to for a while. In those talks, the therapist had suggested that if I didn't like the way things worked, then I should go do something about it. That had gotten me interested in local politics, and my leverage as a well-known fire captain, helped me in a bid to get elected to our city council.

That adventure was an eye opener. I learned how government really worked, at the county, state and even the federal level. I'd also learned I wanted nothing to do with those people. I'd come full circle, and as a reward, I'd learned that opinions were like assholes. If only I'd listened to my grandfather.

Now being older and wiser, I'd started to look at the road to forgiveness, as a means to get my life back on track. The more I'd thought about forgiving everyone who'd wronged me, including Barb, the more I realized that if she was remorseful, and had learned the ultimate lesson, not to ever do it again, then maybe we had a shot for a future. What that might look like would have to be several conversations after Desi's wedding, starting with the one tonight, and would also be contingent on whether she even wanted it.

What I'd first mistaken for a character defect in Barb turned out in my head, to be a temporary sense of entitlement. After all, who exactly would blame her for 'riding' her date out to the next day. No one would, of course, except for the person that was supposed to matter most.

Barb had suffered too. That turned out to be a good thing, but hadn't been what I'd intended. She'd had to worry about me far longer than I'd had to worry about her that night. I'd packed up some stuff and moved into that motel, and more or less shut her out, save for a few conversations about my obligations to the household finances and the kids. She'd gone ahead with the divorce, and although I'd never heard it first hand, members of the family told me later that she'd both agonized about it and also found it necessary.

Sure, I'd known that if I'd gone home, she'd have been contrite, apologetic, and bending over backwards to make things up to me.

If I'd come home, back to the house, but not really come home, she'd have just kept trying harder and harder until she exploded. Then the case could have been made that I was intractable, unreasonable and even unloving.

Had I come home and relented, Barb would never have had to confront those things inside her that had caused her to go to Billy's hotel in the first place. By staying out of reach and out of touch, I'd taken the chance that she'd have to spend some quality time confronting her inner demons. I hadn't been too worried that she'd refocus on the kids 24/7, since they'd already become fairly independent teenagers.

Barb's sudden change of heart during that fateful meeting, going from begging me to come home and talk, straight to divorce, had confirmed I'd made the right decisions. She'd done a good amount of self-analysis, and she'd realized that the only chance at reconciliation would be time and distance. I had to give her credit for that bold move, because the chances of us getting back together in the future were far lower than the chances of one or both of us meeting the next love of our lives.

As for sex, well, with my new and improved body, and my rosy outlook on life, it was quite easy to find interested women. I even dated one of Barb's single friends for a time, and Barb graciously never brought it up. It was Laura who really frosted Barb's liver, when she discovered we were an item. She and Barb had been at odds since they'd first met all the way back when our kids had attended first grade together. I went with her for quite a few months before Laura told me in no uncertain terms, that she believed I was still in love with my former wife and that I should find a way back to her. That had been our last day together. I did hope that my time with Laura, helped Barb understand a little better how I'd felt when she'd gone with Billy. I'd heard from Des that she'd gone out with her hero a few more times, but, since we were divorced, I wasn't as bothered.

I'm a liar. I was gutted all over again.

So here I was; more mindful, less likely to fly off the handle. I'd let more things slide off my back, because, well, I understood how things actually worked and why. What I couldn't do was find a woman to love. I'd tried. That woman was in my rearview. The more I thought about that sad fact, the more I asked myself, "Is she really?"

Possibly she was, but I knew that if I didn't ask, I'd never know for sure. I also realized I had other things I needed to say to my ex. I made a list, crossed a few things off, added one or two, and then decided the best way to do it. A week later, and just before Desi's wedding, I made the call. Barb seemed excited to hear from me, which I took as a good sign. I also got the sense she'd been expecting to hear from me.

"Hey Barb," I said, waiting on the porch so she wouldn't have to ring the bell.

"Hello, Rob," she said kindly, giving me an unforced hug.

"Come on in. Let's sit on the deck. It's such a nice day." This was going to be harder than expected after six years. I was nervous and acting every bit as convivial as a host in a high-priced restaurant.

"You still drink Chardonnay?"

"Yes, please," she said excitedly. Probably she needed a drink if she was feeling like I was.

After getting comfortable - turning my chair slightly to face her, I began. I'd decided to get right to the heart of the matter. Prolonging it would likely make me seem the fool. She took a sip of her wine, and when she made eye contact, I began.

"Listen Barb, I've...been such an ass...and a damned fool." I left it there, watching for the reaction I hoped for.

After the shock settled, my former wife seemed to spend more than a few moments processing my words before she responded.

"Well, I'm sure your actions were justified, being married to a selfish slut."

I wasn't expecting that, so apparently we'd swapped breaks. We just stared at each other trying to read each other's thoughts. What seemed like a whole minute later, we both broke out in a nervous laughter. She sprayed the wine in her mouth across my patio.

I took the opportunity to take a long draw on my Guinness. As the laughter died to a few chuckles, I asked, "So, are you seeing anyone?"

That caused her to spit more wine, she recovered quicker. "My, you have become very direct." she said. I kinda like that."

"No point wasting time," I smiled. "So?"

"I'm not," she answered definitively.

"Good. Will you be my date and accompany me to our daughter's wedding?"

I hadn't seen that smile for so many years; it almost made me melt in my seat. But then it faded her face got a little twisted up.

"Look Rob, I need to say..."

"Don't.," I interrupted. "Please. You don't have to say anything, Barb... well, except yes."

"Sorry Rob, but I do. It's been there for six years, and I need to. I'm so very sorry for what I did to you. To us, and our family. I know it's been a long time. But I need you to know, that I know just how selfish I was. It was the worst decision of my life."

At least some things hadn't changed about her. Direct and to the point.

"You're forgiven, Barb. Truly. I'll never forget, but the least I can do after all this time is forgive."

Barb looked like she might collapse. I saw overwhelming long-endured stress wash away from her face - no, from her whole body. She came out of her chair on wobbly legs and moved towards me. I rose instinctively and we wrapped our arms around each other. She softly cried into my shoulder. We stood there in the warm summer breeze, swaying slightly for several minutes.

After a bit, Barb looked up into my eyes without releasing me. "I accept. I'd be happy to accompany you...anywhere actually."

She giggled. I got the joke.

"Okay, good. Now, one more thing to do, and then no more talking about the past. Let's enjoy the afternoon."

Barb looked at me with a questioning gaze. "What thing?"

"Do you want to call Laura and tell her she can't go, or do you want me to?"

Seconds later, I was reminded how much I'd missed her playful punch. The rest of the afternoon went splendidly. We caught each other up on our lives. Barb seemed to keep checking out the new me - at least the new upper-body me. She wasn't salivating, but I think she liked what she saw. Then we took a break, ordered some Chinese take-out, and went through all the last-minute details of the wedding we were paying for. I'm glad we did, because I forgot a few key things, like getting a rust-colored - or as Barb called it, chestnut-colored - belt to go with the shoes. Afterwards, we were both feeling beat from the emotional day we just had, and sat next to each other on my sofa.

I knew that loving look on Barb's face. "I know what you're thinking, lady. It isn't going to happen tonight. It's been quite a day, and I'm spent. When it happens, I'd prefer to be at my best - so if you're a good date, and behave, then we'll see how the evening goes next week, okay?"

Barb was smiling ear to ear. "That's a wonderful idea, Rob. Can we cuddle for a bit before I go home?"

There was plenty left unsaid that day and evening too. That would come later, if there was anything left for us to start a fresh future.

Barbara

I was on cloud nine when I returned home. I still lived in our marital house, and, for the first time in a long time, it felt alive with hope and anticipation. I'd understood Rob all too well when he'd declined having sex. He knew me well enough to sense I'd been about to seduce him. I felt like a damned teenager, and after a shower I gave myself two orgasms thinking about him in bed with me.

The wedding went off without a hitch. Well, except for how people reacted to Rob's cousin - his married cousin - taking some liberties on the dance floor with a girl I'd never seen before. His wife popped him in the jaw and stormed out.

That night, while Desiree enjoyed her new husband in the biblical sense, Rob and I renewed a long- lost love. My ex-husband had always been fit, but this new Rob made for a formidable partner in the sack. He literally wore me out; after the third round, I fell asleep in his arms.

The harder part came over the next several weeks, as we both talked honestly about our feelings. It seemed both of us had once more changed, but this time in good ways. I explained my childhood, and how I'd fed off the people in my circle. I never blamed them for any of my actions. I just wanted Rob to know that I'd experienced two very different ways of living. I knew their pros and cons firsthand - and especially the downside of abruptly switching between them. I told him that I preferred that first one - the one I'd had with him, and hoped to have again.

We agreed that due to our own personal Ides of March catastrophe, we'd never get back what we once had, but we could make new adventures - new memories for our futures.