On a Park Bench in March

My eyes went from one side of my field of vision to the other and I caught sight of a figure standing a ways down the sidewalk. It was a woman, but the shape seemed to remind me of her. As I stared, it seemed like she realized that she had been sighted and she started towards my bench.

"Jesus Christ" I said under my breath as I realized that it was Cammie and she was coming my way.

Quickly I returned my gaze out to the ocean as my peripheral vision took in the sight of her approaching and sitting down next to me. My mind was racing as I sat there staring straight forward, wondering what to say or if I should say anything at all.

I could see her, but of course I pretended not to. She looked good, maybe thinner, hard to tell because she was just in some running pants and a baggy t-shirt. Her hair was a bit shorter but still in a ponytail.

"I'm sorry I disturbed you, you seem so deep in thought," she said softly and stood up, just as she had that day ten years ago. She must have realized I would never acknowledge her.

At her voice though, I knew why I hadn't spoken to her. "No that's okay, just scared is all." I replied, shocking myself with answering in the same way I had back then. But it was just as true today as it was then, I had no idea what to say to her.

"Oh God! I thought I was the only one!" She exclaimed as she plopped back down on the seat.

We both started chuckling a bit as we each must have felt the relief of breaking the ice.

"How have you been Cameron?" I asked facing out to the ocean, refusing to look at her. Maybe it was petty, but it was just the way I wanted this to be.

I could see her flinch a little when I used Cameron instead of Cammie. "Fine and you?"

"Okay."

We sat in silence for a while, both of us looking out at the scenery that hadn't really changed in all the years gone by.

"I wondered if you would come." I said quietly, still not facing her.

"I ... ah ... I've been here awhile, not sure if I should come over."

"I understand."

"Do you?" she asked with hint of sarcasm.

"You were worried I would hurt you?" Somehow her last words the night of the big fight still running around in my head.

Again silence filled the air for a minute or two.

"Not anymore." She finally answered cryptically.

I took it as a dismissal, she was letting me know how unimportant I was to her and I felt my blood boil. How could she feel that way when ... well when, fuck it, I could feel my voice rising, taunting her. "You seem to think that you were the only one hurt."

"You didn't seem that hurt when you packed your things and took off!" She replied defiantly.

"It was for the best, that way you didn't have to sneak around anymore!" Ah, I felt good as my counter punch hit her!

"Sneak around, who the fuck was sneaking around?"

"That's right, you weren't sneaking around, you were right there at home!" I shot back at her, letting her know that I hadn't forgotten how she was fucking her boss in our bed!

"Home, what the fuck are you talking about, I was at home, you were out, I hope you're happy now with her!"

"Her? I'm not even seeing anybody let alone have someone around! But now that you bring it up, how are you and lover boy doing?" I asked her, the words flying out at her even as we still weren't looking at each other.

"Lover boy, what ... where do you get that shit, I haven't even ... even ... oh fuck it!" She said her voice full of hate. Jumping to her feet she finally turned to me and yelled out. "I knew better than to come here!"

"Then why did you?" I spat out as I jumped up too.

"Because I made a promise, that's why!"

"A promise, you mean like a vow!" My words shocking her and I meant them to, what right did she have to play the integrity card now, the cheating bitch!

"FUCK YOU!" She cursed at me and then started to turn away.

Fuck her, fuck her, fuck her, I thought as she turned away. But then quickly it passed, I spent money and time to be here and have this shot at closure and this wasn't going to do it. "CAMMIE, STOP!" I yelled out, louder than I really needed to, and she froze, still facing away.

I reached up and ran my hand through my hair, trying to get some calm before I spoke again. "Cammie, I'm sorry, please ... please sit down."

She seemed to stand there for several seconds before she slowly dropped back down onto the bench.

Sitting back down, I could see that the next move was mine as she stared off into the ocean. "Look Cammie, I'm sorry, I guess ... well I guess there is still a lot of hurt all around. I think we both came here to get some closure and maybe we still can."

I saw her head nod just a bit so I continued. "Ten years ago we said we would share our stories, but I don't think that reliving the past will help. I suggest we try to have a quiet conversation and then do our best to part on as friendly of terms as possible, then maybe we can both move on."

She seemed to ponder my words for a while before finally agreeing. "Okay, you're right, I'm sorry too."

Again the silence enveloped us and I decided to start with small talk. "When did you get in?"

That started the ball rolling and we chatted for a while about our travels, hotels we stayed in, places we visited, and restaurants we ate at. She asked me about my job and I gave her a brief rundown on how I was doing, then she did the same. The conversation moved around to many different topics from the weather to politics and finally settled into people we both used to know. As with many divorces, friends choose sides and never crossed the imaginary boundaries that that sets up.

But as we talked, I could feel myself getting more and more melancholy. This isn't what I wanted, I didn't want sad, I wanted angry! Angry, bitter, outraged, furious, those were the emotions I wanted to feel, but all I could get was miserable. The more we talked, the farther down I got, this was not getting me the closure I desired and I couldn't figure out why. I wanted to curse her, she had destroyed something beautiful, but as we talked the reality started seeping in.

I hadn't lost my wife and lover, I had lost my best friend and it was killing me. Listening to us chat brought it all back to me. It wasn't her looks or sex or money, she was the one who I could tell anything to and she would be there for me. That's why I fell in love with her and this conversation was just driving a stake through my heart. Closure, hell with that, I just wanted to get away from her so I could wallow in my pain!

But before I escaped, there was one bit of information I needed first. "How are Bill and Karen?" I finally asked, wondering if they were still working together and secretly worried if my old friend had survived any fallout for blowing the whistle on her.

She looked shocked and turned and peered at me strangely. "God, I hoped to never hear those names again!"

Now it was my turn to be startled, my worry increasing for what was once my best friend. "What do you mean?" I asked, fearful of the answer.

She now had her head in her hand as she was looking down at the ground. "Don fired him a year after ... well a year after ... after we were done."

"Well thank God for good old Don." I remarked with as much sarcasm as I could muster. The bastard found out about Bill and actually fired him for revealing their affair. Three more links down the asshole chain, I hoped he rotted in hell!

She missed the sarcasm completely and was still looking down. Finally she raised her head and I could see the tears in her eyes. "Thank God for Don and Tara!" She said and I could tell she was barely holding on to her emotions.

What's this all about I wondered, and who the hell is Tara, but I decide, for now, just to try to get a little more information. "What happened?"

"Bill was so supportive during all the, well during the ... the whole process, and after a while I thought things were finally looking up."

I could see her getting more emotional as she continued. "But then everything started going wrong, just little things, I kept getting in trouble for things that weren't my fault, documents got lost, paperwork was wrong that I was sure was right, money was missing, numbers weren't adding up, staff problems, miscommunications, on and on. It just kept escalating, never seeming to end. Every day was a battle just to keep it all together. It just kept getting worse and worse and I thought I was actually losing my mind; and then suddenly Don caught on."

"Caught on, caught on to what?"

"It was Bill, he was manipulating everything!"

"WHAT!" I said, shocked by what I was hearing.

"Oh my God, the amount of research and planning was incredible, the intricate detail he went into. I was just about to resign when Don started an investigation. It was a massive scandal and Bill even threatened to kill me, on tape no less. They figured out that he was cooking the books in order to steal from the company; he needed my job to get more. Obviously he got fired but he ended up going to jail and will be there for the next twenty years."

I just shook my head, wondering how in the hell my best friend could have turned into such a monster. "Karen?" I asked, wondering if she was a victim too.

"Gone! The only honorable thing he did, she was going to jail with him and he accepted a plea bargain to save her and the baby. She moved and I've never heard from her."

"My God," I muttered, simply stunned.

"That's why I say, if it wasn't for Tara, I know I wouldn't have made it. She even stayed with me on and off for a while just to make me feel safe."

I leaned back into the bench, speechless at her story. But as I tried to get a handle on all of it, little thoughts started picking at my brain.

"It took months but I finally got things settled and back on track. It's only been the last year or so that I've been able to ... well get on with my life. " She said with finality to her story.

I was still bewildered by her story but that tingle in my mind was starting to get larger, but first up I needed a couple answers. "Cammie, who's Tara?"

She looked at me for a few seconds before recognition came. "Tara is Don's wife, she was just his girlfriend when ... when we split up."

"So she was his girlfriend when we -?" I asked, trying to put this all together.

"They got married right after we, well when it was final I guess." She replied and I could see she was avoiding the word divorce, just as I was. Why we both were doing that was just another little thing that had me puzzled.

Again, the silence enveloped us as we both seemed deep in our own thoughts. As for me, my head was spinning, none of this made any sense. If Don had a girlfriend then why would he have an affair with Cammie, and then Bill, how did I not see my best friend's issues and what did it all mean?

Abruptly I turned towards her and she sees me and turns also. Now for the first time in all of this we are actually facing each other directly. When I look in her eyes, I see the same dull, lifelessness that I saw when we first met. I reached for her hand and she looks at it as if I have a disease but then after looking back into my face she takes it gently.

"Cammie, can I ask you one question?" I asked solemnly, holding her hand tightly.

She looks puzzled for a second and then starts shaking her head. "Mark, we have to leave it, you said it yourself."

"Cammie, please I need your agreement here, one question, look me in the eye and tell me the absolute truth no matter how the chips fall. I swear no more fighting, no accusations, no argument of any kind, just one question that's all I ask of you."

She hesitated for a long time as she searched my eyes. I could see a thousand emotions pass across her face and the internal struggle was clearly weighing on her. Finally she realizes that my eyes haven't left hers and so she nods slightly. "Just one question ... all right." She whispers, so faint I can barely hear her.

I look away at the ocean for what seems like forever as I try to get all of this straight in my head. Even though the idea that my mind is trying to grasp is so far out in left field as to be virtually unbelievable at any level, I still need this one question answered. I turn back to her and muster every bit of courage I have in my body, even though I said it won't matter, now that it is on my lips, I realize that nothing else does. I gently squeeze her hand and ask the question that I am scared to death to have her answer, even though I know that whatever she says, it will cut me deeply.

I took a deep breath and plunged forward. "Did you have an affair, when we were married?"

She should have seen the question coming but I can see it still upsets her. She jerks her hand away and turns back to the ocean and I can see she is thinking about all the implications, all the fights, all the troubles of the past. She's obviously playing it out in her mind and what the ramifications of her answer might be, but deep inside I know she can't possibly fathom what I'm actually considering.

She's stalling but I'm determined not to speak, I'll sit here all day until she answers. I can see she is obviously scared to death to get into this again. So I reach over and cover her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze and I can tell that she makes up her mind. I can see her summoning up her own courage and she turns back and locks her eyes on mine. "As God is my witness Mark, No, I never ever, EVER, had an affair with anyone at any time, at any place during our marriage. I never even kissed another man until after our divorce was final, and I certainly did NOT have sex of ANY kind with one!"

I looked away and after releasing her hand, I just stare off into the ocean. Quickly I rise from the bench and walk forward to the edge of the rocks lining the seashore. I pace back and forth trying to get a handle on my suspicions and one question looms huge, is it even possible?

Could she be lying? Doesn't seem like it, I decided. Her answer was complete, left no wiggle room, not a hint of evasiveness, no play on words. Then could Bill have, no that's not possible, is it? She said the planning HE went through. The intricate way HE manipulated things, it just can't be, can it?

I can tell that she can't understand what is going on with me and so she gets up too. I feel her walking up behind me, I realize that my question has probably made her think. She must be wondering why I asked it now and if I asked her, maybe she deserved to ask the same of me.

"Mark?" I hear her ask to my back, but I recognize in her tone the question she is really asking.

I turn back to her. "No" I answer firmly, "Never."

I can see her frustrated expression and I know she doesn't believe me. She stands straighter and I can see her fists clench and I know that the explosion is imminent. "BUT BILL ... -" and just as the words leave her mouth she stops and stares at me before realization strikes her. Like the waves crashing over the rocks before us, the possibilities hit her and she just stands and stares at me. The seconds pass as all the implications work through her and then the tears start rolling down her cheeks. "Oh God ... oh God no ... oh God, no, NO, NO!" she screams out.

I can see her starting to totter and I guide her back to the bench, both of us sitting again. Taking her hand once more, I speak in as calm of voice as I can manage. "Tell me why you thought I was having an affair?"

It takes her a while to get ahold of herself and I can tell she is assembling her thoughts before she tells the story. "Bill started making little comments about how beautiful your new intern was and how you two got along so well." Her voice cracks as she laid it out for me.

She pulled out a tissue from her pocket and wiped at her eyes as she continued. "At first it didn't bother me but he kept at it, he was so subtle and then it started gnawing at me. Then you and I started growing apart, maybe because it did start getting to me, and that made it eat at me even more. But suddenly he stopped, which at first made me happy but then made me suspicious."

She took a deep breath to gather herself and I just gently held her hand. "Then one day I asked him how the football game was on Monday night and he looked at me strangely and said he was home with Karen. I thought it was a coincidence that she called me a couple days later and in the conversation confirmed it."

I could tell she was getting more upset so I just let her sit for a minute. "It happened a couple more weeks and then when I confronted him, it seemed like I had to drag it out of him. He assured me it was all innocent, though he wasn't really reassuring now that I think about it. He said he would find out what was going on and get back to me. A couple weeks later, he broke the news ... you were having an affair."

"Why did you believe him?" I asked, although I already suspected the answer.

"He had pictures of you going in and out of a hotel with her."

I just stared at her as I tried to figure out how the hell that could be. Suddenly the light went off. "Oh my God Cammie, that was Amy, she was an intern."

"But the hotel?"

"It was just an offsite meeting, in fact it was on a Monday and I told Bill about it because I was going to be late to the bar. He knew in advance and must have taken the pictures that day."

"But the girl, why would an intern go to a meeting?"

"Hell, I don't even remember, who knows after all this time, probably she made the slides, sometimes we took 'em along, and sometimes we didn't, that's why they're interns."

"Oh" She said but I could tell she wasn't totally convinced.

"Cammie, do you remember when we went to the football game that fall?"

"Uhmm, yeah I guess."

"Do you remember that I told you the tickets came from an intern's boyfriend who was this huge linebacker for Nebraska?"

"Vaguely ... okay."

"That was her boyfriend and now her husband! I even went to the wedding. Believe me, if there was one girl on the face of the earth I wasn't going to touch it was her! Cammie, I never had anything to do with her, she was just a kid."

She was shaking her head.

"What else?" I asked.

"Bill made me promise to keep him out of it, he thought you were wrong but you were his best friend."

Now it was my turn to shake my head. "How could we have been so blind?"

"What about you?" She asks as she wipes away the last of the tears.

"Almost the same! Bill kept making comments about you and Don, how close you were, how you were always together, on and on."

"Oh God, I can't believe it!"

"Oh, it gets worse! Then on one of our Monday Football nights, which we were ALWAYS at by the way, I drug it out of him about the affair. He said he would find out for sure and then the next week he had pictures."

"Pictures, pictures of what?"

"You in Don's car and the car parked in our driveway."

"Jesus Fucking Christ, that bastard rented a vette, just like Don's and took me for a ride, I remember him taking pictures."

"But did you go home with him?"

She shook her head violently. "Hell NO, Bill was a friend then but there was no way I would ever go to the house with another man alone."

I thought for a second before it came to me. "You weren't in the picture, just the fucking car! Christ all he had to do was drive to our house and park it there, then take a picture!"

"Mark I swear.. -" She started before I interrupted her.

"Fuck! Bill was late the last night and said you were together at the house. No, wait ... he didn't say it, he just didn't correct me when I said it! I assumed he had taken the picture that night but it would have been dark, the picture he showed me was in the daylight, I was so mad I didn't even think it through, and he took the pictures with him so he wouldn't be implicated but he also didn't want me to look at them when I was calm, man I'm a fucking idiot!"