Quiet Man

The cab to the airport pulled up in front of the hotel at almost straight up 3 PM. Anand carried Vera's bag to the car and put it in the back seat before the pair engaged in a very tearful final kiss... except the kiss was interrupted by a rude man tapping on Vera's shoulder. The pair tried to ignore the pest, but the man was having none of that.

"Vera England. Are you Vera England?" he inquired.

The pair broke their embrace and both sighed in disgust.

"Yes!" Vera rasped.

"Mrs. England, you have been served," the man said as he thrust a manila envelope into her hand.

The embrace was quickly forgotten. Tears sprang from Vera's eyes. She handed the envelope to Anand, who ripped it open angrily.

"Son of a bitch!" Anand yelled. "I thought you said he was a reasonable man, or thoughtful or whatever. You said this wasn't going to be a problem. He had to move awfully quick to get you served this fast."

Vera was crying too hard to be thinking rationally. It was going to be a long flight home.

She wasn't surprised Bryce didn't meet her at the airport. She took an Uber home. Bryce was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee. There was a second cup at Vera's spot. She took the hint and sat down, tears already starting to fall.

"Please, Vera, quit the fucking waterworks. I'm the one who should be crying. I'm the one who's been cheated on," Bryce said.

Vera's head shot up at Bryce's statement. The tears stopped immediately, but her blood pressure was going through the roof.

"It wasn't cheating. I told you what I was going to do," she said.

"Did I actually agree to your plan? No, I didn't. Therefore you cheated. You don't get to set the rules... change the rules in this case," Bryce said.

"It was one weekend out of our entire married lives," she said. Two and a half days out of thousands so far, and many thousands more to come. Do you really want to get divorced over that?"

"Actually, I don't. I think I might have been able to come to grips with this... if it had just been this," Bryce said, staring directly into his wife's eyes.

For the first time, Bryce saw his wife break. She was just starting to do the math in her head.

"How clueless do you think I am? This was hardly the first time for the two of you. This was your first weekend... but you two have been fucking for more than two years, as far as I can tell.

"I've got to give you credit, though. You've been living a double life for at least two years. Perfect wife and cheating whore. I held on, hoping you would come to your senses and give him up, but you crossed the line with your weekend out of time."

Vera felt lightheaded, even though she was sitting down. She took a sip of her coffee to try to gather her wits.

"Why didn't you say anything before this? Why didn't you try to stop me?" she asked in little more than a whisper.

"It had already been going on for quite some time when I found out. I was hoping you would stop because it was wrong... and you love me. Silly me," he said.

"But I do love you!" she claimed. "I don't love you any less. But I love him, too. I have the capacity to love you both. You're my husband, though. You've always been number one."

"No. No. No. There's no number one. That's because there's not supposed to be a number two... or three or four," he said.

"It's just you and Anand... well, now just you. He's gone now, and it's back to you and me," Vera said.

"Well, now it's just you. There's no me in this equation any more, babe."

"Aw, come on, Bryce. He's gone. There's no reason for a divorce," Vera said.

"If he hadn't left, would you have stopped fucking him?" Bryce said.

Vera dropped her eyes. She didn't have to answer.

"Why did you think you could fuck around with him. How did this start?" he asked.

"You know Anand and like him..." she started before Bryce interrupted.

"Liked," he said.

"Okay, I get it. But he's a great guy, and next to you, I think he's the sexiest man I know. And it just happened..."

"And happened and happened and happened," Bryce snarked as his wife looked disgusted.

"We developed real feelings for each other. It wasn't just cheap sex. You know I could never just have cheap sex with someone. I love both of you," Vera said.

"Aarrgghh! That's not how it works, babe. You don't get to love two of us," Bryce said.

"Did I ever take anything away from you? Did I ever turn you down for sex?" she asked.

"Yes, you gave something to him that you promised would only be mine. We made vows. It's about much more than sex, babe. Trust. Respect.

"Now that Anand's gone, I'd just be waiting for you to replace him with somebody else... because you obviously don't respect me enough not to let something... happen," Bryce said.

"I can't see finding a third man in my life to love. Most people are lucky to find one great love, and I've found two. I'm already over my catch limit for my lifetime," Vera said.

"You still don't get it, do you? The one thing I'm not hearing from you is an apology," he said.

"I'm sorry I hurt you. I never meant to do that. But I couldn't just tell you because..."

"Because you knew it was wrong!" he interrupted.

"You're not sorry for the affair, are you?" Bryce continued.

"Honestly, I'm not, Bryce." Vera said. "I love Anand. I loved our experience together. Like I said, having two men to love and who love me back. I wouldn't trade that."

Bryce shook his head in disbelief. He expected remorse and guilt. He got neither, much to his shock.

"What about Liza?" he asked. "She didn't know about this affair, did she?"

"Didn't? Oh, no!" Vera said. "Don't. Please don't tell me you told her. She didn't know.

"Oh, my God, she's going to hate me!"

"Yeah, about that," Bryce said.

"Why did you tell her?" Vera asked. "She didn't have to know."

"She did have to know. We were her friend as well as his. You don't keep secrets from friends.

"And why shouldn't she know, if this was such a pure love, practically a love story for the ages."

Vera balled her fists in frustration. She glared at her husband.

"You're making this sound cheap and tawdry. It wasn't like that," she rasped.

"I'll bet Liza disagrees with you, as you know I do," he said.

"They've got the two kids, Bryce. You're going to blow up their family," she said.

"That's only if Liza agrees with the way I view things. If she agrees with your view, I guess you're in the clear. But if she agrees with my view, it still wouldn't be me blowing up their family. I didn't sleep with her husband," Bryce said.

The phone call from Anand to Vera came the next day when Vera was at work. Liza apparently didn't have enough time yet to have divorce papers drawn up, but when Anand showed up at what was supposed to be his new home in London, his wife wouldn't even let him in the door.

"I can't believe your husband did that to me!" he bellowed into the phone. "I thought we were friends."

"Yeah, well I guess he thought his friend shouldn't sleep with his wife for the past three years," Vera said. "I've been trying to explain it to him, but he's not buying it. He's being a real hard-ass about this. He's never before not given me my way on anything."

"I guess this is a little bigger than the color of the living room walls," a disconsolate Anand said.

It took a week before Vera's parents called Bryce. He and his in-laws had always had a good relationship, which became stronger when his own parents died in a car accident.

"Have you considered counseling, son?" his father-in-law asked. "The two of you have 10 years in. Weren't you considering starting a family soon?"

"Yeah, well I guess that's never going to happen now," Bryce said.

"Oh, no, son. Don't let something small mushroom into something fatal," his father-in-law said.

"Something small?" Bryce questioned.

He quickly figured out Vera hadn't exactly been forthcoming with her parents. He knew the rest of the conversation wasn't going to be easy.

"She said the two of you disagreed about something. She didn't seem to indicate it was anything vital," his father-in-law said.

"What we disagreed on was her ongoing affair with her former boss. Did you know they had been fu... sleeping together for more than two years?"

Ralph Carville gasped on the other end of the phone. It's a shock when someone tells a father his little girl is a cheating slut. Bryce next heard him ask his wife if she knew about their daughter having an affair. He heard her stammer, but didn't hear an answer.

"Damn, Faith! He's family. How could you do that to him?" he heard Ralph ask his wife. "How long have you known? Shit, woman!"

An incredibly recalcitrant Ralph got back on the line.

"I'm sorry, Bryce. I didn't know, but apparently my daughter and my wife have been keeping secrets from both of us. I know I didn't raise her to be a whore.

"An affair for several years? And she thought you were going to go along with that? Damn, I raised an entitled slut. Again, I'm sorry, Bryce."

"We all are, Dad. Good night."

Bryce couldn't believe Vera fought the divorce. It was all over when Vera's attorney suggested marriage counseling and the judge giggled.

"Really, Mr. Liston. I am well aware that Mrs. England conducted a long-term sexual affair with her then-boss. I have to assume that Mr. England didn't want that. Quite honestly, only a moron would accept that after what he's endured."

The divorce was final six months later. The only bone of contention in the split was the dog, Hank. Bryce assumed the dog would go with him, but Vera insisted the dog go with her because Bryce had given her the dog as a gift. Bryce had finally given in, but when he was moving out of the house, Hank jumped into the shotgun spot in Bryce's car. Vera called the dog repeatedly before physically lifting the big dog out, only to watch as the dog jumped back in.

"Keep the fucking dog, you bastard!" Vera said.

Bryce noted to himself that this was the first f-bomb he had ever heard Vera utter.