Jacuzzi Ch. 03

He responded, with tears forming, "Yes honey, it hurts like hell. We need to discuss it but I don't think I can take any more now." He got up quickly and went to the bathroom. He was crying and it was tearing me apart.

I flopped over on the couch and cried wondering if it would have been any better if I told him right after it happened. Either way, he didn't deserve this. How could I have failed him so miserably?

I don't know what time it was, but I finally cried myself to sleep on the couch wondering if I had destroyed our marriage.

Al was obviously hurting. I knew, even though it was tearing my heart out, that I needed to give him space. He tried to act normally, but he was straining and we didn't talk much until the weekend. Our words were mostly "I love you or I love you too" or some variations. But they were just words; there was not the usual tender touch to them. I had nothing but restless nights and I knew he did too. Our thrashing may have been keeping the other awake.

Saturday morning at breakfast he broke down as he said, "Honey, I have something that has been gnawing at me since you told me about this. I have to know. Is Alice really, truthfully mine, ours?"

Before I could answer he put his head on the table and broke out into long gasping shudders with a full flow of tears. It is a good thing that there was no weapon handy because I think I would have killed myself right then, knowing the agony that I was putting the love of my life through.

Through my own blubbering and tears I let him know that Alice was ours. DNA tests were done almost ten years ago. From the day Alice was born, until the DNA tests years later, I had asked the same question over and over. It had gnawed at me constantly the first couple of years and after that it would rise up and take a terrible bite out of me any time occasions would occur that would reignite the question. It was not until after the DNA tests, about ten years ago, that I had been able to put the whole affair behind me.

I guess my transgression would have been forever hidden if it hadn't been for writing the stories which triggered my sudden slip about Grant and Howard. In reality though, I doubt secrets like that can ever go undetected forever.

During the following week, we showed all of the outward expressions of love, but I knew that Al was struggling. I worried a great deal about him, his health, and what he was thinking. I caught him several times wiping tears from his eyes and he had no interest in doing anything social or recreational. I determined it was best to love him but let him find his own answer without my interference.

One Saturday he seemed to be more like the Al I had always known and loved. He even suggested dinner and a movie tonight. After breakfast he excused himself saying he had to go to the hardware store. He was gone for over two hours and I was trying my best to keep my mind busy with household chores.

Unfortunately, household chores are mostly physical and don't occupy the mind very much. About a half hour before he came home the full force and magnitude of what I had really done to us came crashing down again. I was sitting on the couch crying my eyes out when Al came in.

Through my tears, I saw him set something on the table in the foyer as he rushed to me. I didn't have to tell him what was wrong and his tears turned on. After a few minutes he was able to dry up enough to say, "Honey, I'm as sorry as you are about things. I realize that it was a terrible mistake but I also know it is ancient history. That doesn't make it right, but our life over the past years has been wonderful and I am now realizing that you have probably suffered considerably with a terrible load of guilt and worry hanging over your head."

I hugged him and kissed him and was a little alarmed when he broke the kiss, pushed me away, and quickly walked to the foyer. He did something with what looked like a long box and my alarm vanished when he came back. He was smiling as best he could through his tears, as he handed me the open box with a dozen roses in it. He was trying to tell me something and I had to hold my hand up to stop him. I couldn't hear a word he was saying through the flood of tears and shuddering as I was fighting for breath.

I pulled him to me and we stayed locked in each others arms until I finally returned to an almost normal state. Then he said to me, "Honey, I really do love you. As I have recalled our Jacuzzi experience and your recent revelation, I have had to ask myself if, in those days, I had been put into a similar position (and he chuckled, 'with women of course'), what would I have done. I have to truthfully tell you that I really don't know, but I can see how I could have been induced, or I guess it is seduced."

I responded, "Oh sweetheart, I love you so much and I am so ashamed of what I did. Can you forgive me?"

He said, "The roses are supposed to say how much I love you and I forgive you the one mistake. What you have given me all of our married life can never be tarnished by one little indiscretion. I love you and let's try to push the whole thing behind us as fast as we can."

We hugged and kissed and reaffirmed our love for several minutes. And then he said, "There are no more surprises that I need to know about are there? If you could have been such a little slut once, are there more?"

His questions alarmed me and then I saw he was grinning at me. His words really hurt, even if he was trying to be funny, or was he? I kissed him and then said, "Honey, let's call Pam. I know she has probably forgotten the incident by now, but I want to let her know it has come out and we are handling it."

Before proceeding, I need to let you know that one of the women in Pam and Neil's 'social' group contracted AIDS and passed it to Neil before she was discovered. Fortunately he did not pass it to Pam. Neil died from complications related to the disease about four years ago. Pam moved to be near her parents shortly after he was gone. They never had any children.

The call to Pam was a revelation. First, we learned that Neil had known about the affair and had never let it slip to Al. What really upset me was finding out that Neil not only knew about it, he had suggested it to Pam before he left. I had been set up.

I wanted to crawl through the phone and scratch her eyes out. I mentioned that I had suffered considerably for almost ten years, not knowing if Alice was really ours. Under the pretext of removing any doubt about Junior being our son, biologically, I convinced Al to let me have a DNA test done. With that as a cover, I also sneaked in a test of our daughter's DNA. My longstanding fear and suffering was ended when the DNA tests were positive. Until then I was not absolutely sure she was Al's and I often had nightmares revolving around what would happen if she really belonged to Grant or Harold.

I have paid a terrible price for my inability to stand up and say, "No!" The heaviest price was the period of uncertainty about our daughter and then withholding it from Al. Knowing then what it could do and seeing now what it did do to Al was the most selfish and unloving thing a wife could ever do to a husband. I was a fool to have let it fester all these years.

But, being the wonderful, strong, and understanding husband he is, the love of my life is unswerving in his drive to put the whole sequence of events behind and move on with the rest of our lives. We are serious about letting the past remain the past. I hope I can.

What more can I say than to say how grateful I am that, with an absolutely perfect, loving and forgiving husband, I have escaped what could have been life ruining events. My hope is that maybe others can benefit from my mistakes.

It may look and sound exciting, but DON"T GO THERE! The price tag is much higher than you expect.