Night Deposit

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Women and their secrets - a romance.
15.2k words
4.22
52.2k
14

Part 1 of the 3 part series

Updated 09/21/2022
Created 04/13/2011
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Chapter 1

You've got to take the good with the bad

copyright @ calibeachgirl

all rights reserved, 2011

...although this is listed in 'loving wives', i really feel that it is a romantic story of the love one man has for the three different women in his life...

...that being said, there is no explicit sexual activity and more of a psychological journey of the people involved...

...i hope that you enjoy it and i hope that i captured what i think a man would experience given the circumstances...

...thank you, sophia.

*

You've got to take the good with the bad, smile with the sad, love what you've got, and remember what you had. Always forgive, but never forget. Learn from mistakes, but never regret.

My wonderful, loving Belle and I were having dinner at Baxter's, celebrating Reagan's second election. While we both liked him, neither of us trusted George Bush. There was something about him that just didn't ring true, but sometimes, you have to take the good with the bad.

She was having the Ribeye, rare, while I stayed with my usual medium-well Sirloin. And then, I saw her and my throat tightened and my stomach clenched and I almost choked on the meat I was chewing on. I grabbed my glass of iced tea and swallowed enough to finally clear my throat.

I almost didn't recognize her but there really was no forgetting her, as much as I had tried for the last twenty years. Her once-dark blonde hair had streaks of gray and she walked with both a cane and a shuffle, dragging her right foot just off the floor. Fortunately, the waitress seated her near the front which kept her from seeing us. If she stayed longer than we did, we would have to walk right by her in order to leave unless we could find another way. The last thing I wanted to do was have her back in our lives, even if just for a quick second during a chance meeting and yet my heart ached for this woman I once loved more than life itself.

Belle looked at me, saw the emotions on my face, a mixture of concern, sympathy, disgust, and followed my gaze across the dining room until she also saw Nancy. Her eyes widened in shock.

"Vince, do you want to leave? I'm sure we could get out the back, somehow?"

"No, baby, I've put that ghost to rest..." I hoped so, I thought to myself. My unsettled thoughts were interrupted by our waitress bringing out another basket of sourdough bread.

Looking at my Belle sitting near me in the booth and Nancy across the restaurant, it all came back to me in a wild rush and I traveled back twenty years when my life was so, so different, back to one of the holiest days of the year, Good Friday, March 27th, 1964...

Soon after we married, Nancy and I had settled into a comfortable division of responsibilities. She took care of the inside of the house; I took care of the heavy work and cooking.

Nancy was a teller at the savings and loan where we banked and never home before six-thirty, sometimes seven, so it only seemed logical to me that I would cook dinner each day during the week except for Fridays during football season. Rather than seeing it as a loathsome duty, I enjoyed it and the creativity it allowed me; besides, I could eat whatever I wanted rather than something she'd half-heartedly throw together at the last moment.

She wasn't lying when she said she couldn't cook worth a damn. We'd go out to eat on the weekend, sometimes fancy, sometimes simple, but always out. It was as much a source of entertainment as going to the movies or shopping and it gave me a break from the kitchen.

Married life seemed to be so much different from the 'happily ever after' portrayals seen in books and movies and I spent half my time walking on eggshells hoping that she wouldn't explode over some imagined slight. Sometimes, she came home ready to kill without any help from me and other times she was as nice and loving as I could ever hope for.

When we were first married, Nancy kept the house immaculately clean, sometimes to the point of obsession. God help me if there was something out of place, even by an inch or two. The rugs were vacuumed each morning before she left for work and again each evening before we went to bed. Twice a week, each bathroom was scrubbed so clean you could eat off the floor.

She was so tired from cleaning that sometimes there was no intimacy for the entire weekend, sometimes the entire week; the next week she sweetly, savagely loved me like a wanton woman, a complete turnaround from just a day or two before. When I asked her why she wanted a rough 'quicky, she said while I always wanted steak and baked potato, sometimes she just wanted a burger and fries.

Life with Nancy was an emotional rollercoaster with no end in sight... and yet, I loved her and stayed true to the vows I had sworn to in front of God, her and most everyone we knew. If I gave my word, you could bet your life I would follow through no matter the personal or financial cost to me.

During football season, my unmarried assistant coaches always took over practice when five-thirty came so that Joe, the other married coach, and I could be home in time to have dinner with our wives.

Each year, after the season was over, I left campus at three in the afternoon and head home to occasionally work on my model trains; otherwise, I went around the house doing some light housework when it became obvious it needed to be done when she was in one of her moods. After a few hours of that, I was ready to fix dinner and wait for her to arrive. Sometimes, I would call at noon and tell her about dinner plans and later head to the savings and loan. We'd go to dinner straight from there. Once in a while, though, Nancy seemed more annoyed with my presence than happy to see me and I chalked it up to one of her mood swings that had plagued our lives from that very first day.

I found myself caught in a "Jiggs and Maggie" comic strip.

Then, on that miserable, fateful Friday, I had to attend a league dinner meeting to set the calendar for the next two years. At the last minute, I decided to send two of my assistant coaches in my place; I headed home and set about fixing dinner so it would be ready when she came home.

I pulled out the chicken I was going to use for Saturday night's dinner and baked it with an orange marmalade sauce, made a nice green salad just waiting for the bleu cheese and brownies for dessert. It was going to be perfect, I thought.

By six-fifteen, I had the table set and since it was the start of the weekend, I used the wedding china and silverware and even put a tablecloth down.

Everything looked perfect and as I waited for Nancy to come home, I had the radio on listening to some new group from England, the Beagles or something like that. The girls at the school seemed to like them but I was more into the local guys, the Beach Boys and some girl singers like Barbara Lewis. Her song, Hello, Stranger was enough to break your heart and even today, that song makes me sad. So, I was a romantic at heart, somehow necessary to balance out the violence that had filled my life. Sue me.

The news said something about more troops being sent to Viet Nam and I had an uneasy feeling about it. Working with teenage boys tended to make me want to protect them as much as I could. Viet Nam... sounded like a deep inner circle of the Inferno with no way out. Listening, it made me uncomfortable, like watching a train wreck coming and you couldn't do anything about it.

Six-thirty came and went and like the fool I was, I started to worry that the chicken would dry out before she came home and the salad would wilt. Fortunately, cold brownies still tasted all right, but my idea of hot brownies and ice cream would no longer work.

At seven, the chicken sadly went from the oven into the refrigerator and I tried to eat the salad but finally threw it into the trash can outside. I stood on the back porch watching darkness envelope the coastline. It wasn't such a good idea but I ate half the brownies, I was so hungry and frustrated.

I turned off the radio; the news about Viet Nam was making me sick.

Why hadn't she called? My mind imagined all sorts of problems ranging from a flat tire to a fatal car accident and I was stuck next to the kitchen phone just in case a call came in from my wife or the police.

The house was so quiet the ticking of the grandfather's clock was starting to drive me insane; I stopped the pendulum. It was going to be hard to set it again but I suddenly realized I didn't care, anymore. The damn clock could fall apart as far as I was concerned; damn thing constantly reminding me of each second she wasn't home.

When seven-thirty arrived, I was very worried and on edge and ate the rest of the brownies. Surely, I thought, the bank employees had finished balancing their damn accounts by now. I called the savings and loan but all I heard was the stupid machine announcing hours and days. If something had happened, the police, the hospital or Nancy herself would have called me by then... should have called me by then.

I had had enough and after checking all the windows and doors, I drove over to the back parking lot. I didn't know whether it was a good thing or not finding her bright yellow sports car and the building dark and deserted.

It was now eight and black and cold as I sat in my '57 further back in the corner of the large parking lot behind a series of boulevard stores. The two concrete block fences came together and created a deep shadow. The radio was off so that I could hear anything that happened and no one could come up on me. Even though I had Army self-defense training, it still made sense to be careful.

I was as worried then as I had been when the Cuban crisis threatened to go nuclear two years earlier and my reserve unit was called up. I had to leave her behind to cope as best she could. Looking back on it now, those three months I was gone... I guessed she coped with it pretty well.

While the Soviets had threatened the world, this was threatening my own personal world, the one that really mattered to me because without her, there was nothing else.

At nine, I had had enough and after locking the Chevy, I walked over to the blue convertible, pushed the seat back and drove it home. As angry as I was, I still wasn't that stupid and parked it on the next street over. Even though the street was bright with the overhead lights, it probably was enough to keep it hidden beneath the overhanging Chinese elms trees that lined the street.

I remembered the day I had bought that beautiful blue car... for her.

I was talking with the Kenneth Chevrolet salesman; he was very happy, almost ecstatic. The commission from that sale alone helped his Christmas budget, I thought, that was for sure.

"That's quite a nice thing you're doing. Not too many men would or could give our wives a "Vette for Christmas. These Stingrays are incredibly popular and are hard to find, right now, so we were lucky to find this one for you."

"When you love someone," I had said, "as much as I do, then it's easy. She's the most important person in my life. I don't know what I would do without her."

"OK... here's what we have: base price for the convertible, 4,037; leather seats, another 80; tinted glass, 16; hardtop, 236; positraction, 43; 3.08 axle, only 2; power brakes, 43; 327 360 horse with fuel injection, 430; automatic, 199; power steering, 75; aluminum wheels, 322; whitewalls, 31, back-up lights, 10; AM-FM, 174 and the special performance package, 1,818... total... just a sec... 7516 plus sales tax and dealer prep and delivery, 7875... tell you what, make it an even 7800. That OK, coach?"

I wrote out the check for $7800, signed it with a flourish and gave it to the salesman. The Stingray was an incredible sports car and I couldn't wait to see her face when I brought it home.

That car was fantastic. The fuel-injected 327 made the car fly like a rocket and I put every option on it I could, including automatic transmission. That first day and that night were the only times I had ever driven it. Whether I would ever drive it again was an unknown bridge I hadn't crossed yet. It seemed a glaring symbol of what was missing in my life.

Sometime just after ten, I heard her key rattle the lock and she almost stumbled in. I slowly rose from the couch where I had almost fallen asleep and approached her. She smelled of smoke and sweat and stale beer and something else I couldn't quite place but still seemed like I should have known what it was. 'Damn,' I thought, 'I am so fucking stupid.'

My wife was startled to see me home and her face turned crimson for just a split second or two before it vanished as quickly as it had appeared, her face becoming stone cold.

"Nancy, baby, what happened?" I asked, wondering what possible excuse she could come up with.

"Someone stole the car and I've been with the police." She started for the bedroom still wearing her heavy winter coat and carrying a silver clutch purse I'd never seen before.

I followed her down the hallway. I would have thought she'd be more upset about the loss of the 'Vette and a little more forthcoming on what actually took place with the police, at the very least. When she stopped at the closed bedroom door, I almost pushed into her.

"Are you all right? You were with them all this time? Was anyone with you? Four hours? What did they say? Why didn't you call me?"

"What could you have done?" she snapped back, moving back and forth from one foot to the other. If she was a guy, I thought, she was ready to throw a punch at me.

Somehow, her personality had shifted again from earlier in the morning. She had been singing along with the radio while eating her breakfast. I had commented on her happy mood and she became quiet.

"I could have been with you and brought you home, that's what I could have done. Who brought you home, anyway?"

"I'm tired and going to bed. Good night, Vince," she said... never answering my simple question.

We went into the bedroom. "Nancy, I've got your supper waiting," I said, giving her a chance to sit down and maybe talk one last time before my anger could possibly make me do something we'd both regret... well, me at least. I knew she was hiding something but still wasn't sure just what or with whom, although my stomach was as tight as a washrag twisted dry and I wanted to vomit all those brownies I had foolishly eaten earlier.

Nancy walked into the bathroom still wearing her winter coat and closed the door. I heard the lock click and then the shower running, something that never happened in the evening... at least, I started to think, when I was home.

I waited until I knew she was asleep. She could probably sleep through an atomic bomb, I remembered thinking, after one night when a passenger jet had flown low over the house and she didn't waken. I didn't want to get into bed, anyway, not after all that, probably never would, after all that. I didn't know what I was going to do. Her attitude didn't seem any worse than a few other times over the years when she fell into a depression that would last for weeks at a time.

God, my baby was so screwed up.

Going into the clothes hamper, I found a skimpy red dress; holding it up, I remembered she came in with her heavy coat on. I'd never seen the dress before. It still reeked of cigarettes and something else I still couldn't quite place but it seemed familiar, somehow. Wherever Nancy's underwear was, though, I had no clue and at that point, I no longer cared... well, maybe I did, if only for my personal pride... someone was trying to play me for a fool and I wasn't going to put up with it. Whatever acceptance I had shown for her behavior had come to an abrupt and final end. Before, I was an ignorant fool, but now...

The sad truth was staring me in the face. I threw the sticky, smelly dress into a grocery bag and went back to the kitchen and scrubbed my hands until they were as red and raw as my broken heart.

As far as I knew, my wife had never cheated on me and that's why I was having such a hard time with all that was happening.

Although it was impossibly late, I called my brother to get my old car back.

A little after midnight, we returned; I had driven Nancy's 'Vette to my brother's house. Even though my brother looked at me, waiting for an answer, I said nothing. There was nothing to say and I could see my brother shake his head when he thought I wasn't looking.

I had overlooked and accepted a lot of her strange mood swings during our five-year marriage because I had come to love her more than life itself. I took seriously my wedding vows. If I gave my word on something, I would stand by it... it was a damn shame, I came to realize, that no one else seemed bound by the same rules... or at the very least, most people.

I overlooked a lot of her even stranger behavior recently but this was something I couldn't forgive and I had to think about how to proceed. If she had indeed done what I was now thinking, then the marriage no longer existed, shattered by her own actions, freeing me from my vows and everything they implied.

The obvious 'kick her ass to the street' sounded good but I didn't want to get killed by the divorce proceedings. I knew there had to be a better way than to get steamrollered by the insane California divorce laws where the woman got everything.

As I was getting out, my brother held out to my hand. "Whatever it is, you know I'm here," he said. "Whatever..."

"OK, thanks. I'll let you know."

I went back into my house, wondering how long it would take for it to hit the fan. I turned on the television and was astounded by news of a huge earthquake in Alaska. The massive destruction in Anchorage seemed to mirror the destruction of my life.

Eventually, I fell into a restless sleep and the dreams I did have came straight from hell.

The next morning, I awoke at six as usual even with as little sleep as I finally got. Remembering where I was, though, was another thing. I had slept on the recliner and was a little stiff after spending the night there. The television was still on; it's bluish glow lighting up the room.

The dining room table, of course, was still set from last night. I left it alone and went into the kitchen to make an omelet and some toast. Too bad there's no beer in the house, I thought, I sure could have use one now. For a man who didn't drink, I sure wanted to get drunk, a foolish response to a serious problem. Might as well put that on the shopping list, along with a gun, maybe... a big gun... seriously big, goddamned cannon...

The plate dropped into the trash. "Wedding china, the hell with it," I said to myself. I realized there was no sense in tipping my hand so I picked it back up.... I had cracked it. It seemed appropriate given the way I was feeling.

Occasionally, we would have long, loving, wonderful Saturday morning sex but the thought of that now turned my stomach and I thought I was going to lose my breakfast. I never felt so miserable in my life. Even the death of my mother didn't affect me as much as the horrors rushing through my heart.

Nancy was still sleeping, looking the same as she had since the day we married. She was lying on her stomach, dark blond hair spread out across the pillow and her left arm off the side of the bed.

Barely keeping my anger in check, I knew it was fourth down and I refused to punt. It was time for a 'Hail Mary' down the field. Never once, though, did it occur to me to pray. If she was destroying my life, praying wouldn't change that and if she wasn't, there were still plenty of believable explanations I would require.

She was still in bed at noon, fourteen hours after coming home. Whatever happened the night before... I didn't even want to think about it, but it certainly had a serious effect on her. She had never been like this, before.