Reaching Toward Freedom

I sometimes thought that Carol had missed her calling. She could have been a great, no-nonsense therapist. I nodded and she left momentarily, then returned with a fresh cup of coffee. "Try not to throw this one." She was smiling and her smile was infectious. For the first time, I felt like someone was on my side.

I spent the rest of that day working on my list. I'm guessing that Carol must have deflected anyone trying to see me because it's rare that I don't have anyone coming to me for instructions. I wrote and I scratched it out, then I started again.

I finally decided to get organized, opened a spreadsheet on my computer, and started my list there. Thinking, typing, ordering, editing, reordering, I explored my options. Somehow, the keyboard settled my mind and the emotions that had overwhelmed me were held in abeyance. My rational mind took control. The longer I thought and the more I typed, the clearer my thoughts became. I had options! I would not be a cuckold! If she felt that our committed life was in the past, then I could put it more completely in the past than she was expecting.

It was time and there was no putting it off. Carol had stayed late in case I needed her, and as I was walking out, she said, "Bill, when you get home, turn on the recording app on your phone and record the conversation. You may want to play it back later." Like I said, she was always three steps ahead of me when I needed her.

I left my work at the office for the first time since I could remember and drove home. All I had was my list and the knowledge that I would not be a damn victim in this. Sheila had obviously made up her mind, but I also had options.

As I approached the house, I took deep breaths. My mind was organized and now I needed control of my emotions. I would approach this like any other problem at work. I would be rational, calm, and thoughtful, then I would make my decision once I had all the information. That lasted all of fifteen minutes if that long.

She was waiting for me in the living room. I entered, dropped into my chair with my notes, and I waited.

"Are you over your little snit?"

"God damn bitch in hell..." I thought.

"Can we talk about this rationally without you yelling and threatening me?"

Very calmly, or as calmly as I could manage, I said in a monotone voice, "I have never in my life threatened you. I would appreciate it if you would acknowledge that fact before we start."

She looked perturbed and changed her tactic. "Bill, you know I love you. Look at the life we have built together? We have a lovely home, we're comfortable, the kids are grown and in college, and you have to admit that I've been a good wife to you. It's time. I need the freedom to explore new horizons."

"New horizons? You mean new dicks for Sheila!" I thought. My mind was screaming, but I kept my mouth shut. This was when I needed to learn what she intended to do.

She seemed a bit put out that I hadn't agreed with her. "As I said, I've been a good wife to you, but now I want a little excitement in my life." She dropped her gaze for a moment, and then raised her head. "I've met someone. You don't need to know who he is. I intend to explore a relationship with him. I'm not in love. I just want that thrill of getting to know someone and having new experiences."

That last statement took all the self-control I had in me. "So you're intending to have an affair, is that right?"

"Yes, Bill."

"And has this affair already begun?"

That seemed to catch her off guard, but I can't imagine why. It was an obvious question that she should have anticipated. Then I saw the resolve in her face. "No. I wouldn't do that to you." She was lying. I could see it in her face.

"So exactly what have you been doing with this man?"

She was flustered. I guess she expected me to become enraged before the conversation got this far. I reminded myself to thank Carol for her cool head and planning.

"Some lunches, a few dinners, and we went dancing once. That's all."

"Well, I don't remember being out of town, so I'm assuming the dinners and dancing have something to do with those late nights you've been working?"

She had the decency to blush, but she said nothing.

"So you are already lying to me. It's just a matter of degree."

That seemed to anger her, but she still said nothing. I could see the defiance building in her face.

"So exactly how do you see this working?"

She seemed to gather her resolve and then proceeded on what I came to think was a prepared script. "Well, we thought that things could continue as they have for the most part."

"We?"

"Yes, Geor... I mean my friend and I."

"So you and George have been planning this together? Sounds a lot like an affair to me."

She was getting angry and for the first time in my adult life I didn't care.

She began by repeating herself, a sure sign that she was working off a script and I began to wonder who had written this script. "We were thinking that things could continue as they have for the most part. I might sometimes get home a little later than usual."

I stared at her hard. "Say the words, Sheila."

She tried to act confused, but she knew exactly what I was saying. "What words?"

"You might be getting home a little later than usual because you will be at his place, and you want to take your time having sex with him."

At least she had the decency to blush again. "I suppose."

"Okay, I get the picture. What else?"

Again, she wasn't expecting me to move her script along so quickly.

"I think we'd like to go away occasionally for a weekend. It wouldn't be often, and we wouldn't go anyplace where anyone would know us. It will never come back at you from anyone we know."

I thought about how the best laid plans... and I laughed at my own joke.

"What's so funny?"

I shook my head. "Nothing. Are you still going to try to convince me that you haven't already been having sex with this George?"

She gave no response, but at least she didn't repeat her lie.

I was working my way down the list that Carol had me prepare. She wants an affair. Check! She's been meeting with him behind my back. Check! She's been lying to me. Check! She's already having sex with the guy. Big check! And she wants to start going away for the weekends with him. That brought me to the bottom of the list. The option I had listed there was DIVORCE! Game over.

"Let me give you a little gift, Sheila. I'd like you to pack a bag and go to him tonight. Spend a few days with him and then we can talk again when we're both calm."

"But I want to stay here and work this out with you, Bill. I am still your wife, and I always will be."

I looked at her and began to imagine my hands wrapped around her throat as I squeezed the life out of her. "No, you want to leave tonight and spend a few days with your fuck buddy. If you don't go, I'm not sure what I am going to do."

Now the fear I saw in her eyes was palpable. I suppose she finally realized the level of anger that was inside me. I looked at her and I know my eyes narrowed. With a monotone voice and using the last shred of control I had within me, I said, "When you take away a man's self-respect, you take away his control of his emotions. You don't want to be here tonight, Sheila. You aren't safe."

I didn't need to tell her twice. She went to her room and ten minutes later she left the house with a small suitcase and drove away.

I was a basket case and just sat in my chair until the sun went down.

The boat slowed and the sails were luffing. The motion stirred me from my thoughts. The wind had backed to the east. The foresail was still trimmed to port and was backing while the main luffed. The sails are the means of propulsion and when they back it's like hitting the breaks - the boat slows and the autohelm loses steerage. Once the boat stops answering to the helm, the backed foresails will turn the boat away from its proper heading and the sailor can do nothing but go with it until the helm recovers control of the boat's heading. There is no dreaming when the boat needs attention, so I tossed the last of my drink over the side, dropped my glass on the cockpit sole, and released the foresail sheets. I had responded in time and there was still enough steerage to alter course, so I turned northeast and set a new heading. I had sailed far enough offshore, and my new heading put me back on my earlier course, although I was further east and out of danger from the lee shore. I trimmed the main and then the genoa until the boat was once again settled into a comfortable rhythm on the new heading and dropped into the cabin to pour myself a new glass of iced tea. For a minute I wondered if the storm had moved inland as it often does in the mid-Atlantic states. No matter. When at sea you deal with the reality before you and prepare for what is coming.

There was work to do at sea, but it was nothing compared to the struggle of those last weeks at home, and I chuckled to myself as I briefly remembered the mess I'd been in the morning after Sheila's departure. Then I said a brief prayer of thanks that my father had taught me long ago that you never drink alcohol while the boat is in motion. You can tie yourself to the mast and drink yourself into a stupor once you're at anchor, but while you're sailing you stay stone cold sober.

I took my glass back to the cockpit sole and made myself comfortable. The sails were drawing well, the autopilot was maintaining the set course, and the seas were building slightly, but they were nothing that Voyager and I could not handle. For a time my mind was free of the pain and the crippling sense of inadequacy that I had lived with the past few weeks. Looking aloft at the sails, I placed my hand on the main sheet to feel the force that Voyager harnessed and thought, "There is power there and there is grace and beauty. The sails drive my boat forward. There is no hesitation or uncertainty; there is only forward motion into a future of my own making." There were no other boats nearby and feeling confident in my decision to leave, I let my mind drift back to the weeks before.

I woke sometime after dawn that morning after our second confrontation. I was a mess. Is this what death is like? I felt disoriented and confused. As the fog in my head began to clear and the events of last night came screaming back at me, a splitting headache consumed my brain. My gut felt like I'd been mugged, but I was both the victim and the assailant. In time, I let my legs fall over the edge of the bed and I pulled myself into a sitting position. Staggering into the bathroom, I took a long look in the mirror. It wasn't a pretty sight. I was a stranger to this type of drinking and could count on one hand the number of hangovers I've had in my life. I won't even attempt to describe what was in the toilet and I hoped that I'd left it all there and not scattered on the carpets and floors around the house.

I heard the phone ring and practically jumped out of my skin! "Shut up!" Yeah, that'll work. Eventually, the ringing of the phone stopped which left only the ringing in my skull. I took a bunch of aspirin and sat on the edge of the bed. Slowly and with immense pain it all started coming back to me. The confrontation, the yelling, the slamming doors, it all came back. Fuck!

I knew I needed a shower and a toothbrush to get the taste of cat litter out of my mouth. I stumbled back to the bathroom and began the process of getting clean still running on my own personal autopilot. In time, between the aspirin and the shower, I began to feel human again. Once I gathered my clothes from the night before and dropped them in the hamper, got dressed, and stumbled down the stairs to the kitchen, I was finally starting to think straight. I needed coffee. I was hungry, but the thought of eggs unsettled my stomach, so I grabbed two of those boxed pastries that taste like cardboard and dropped them in the toaster. Twenty minutes later I started feeling like I could finally take control of my broken life.

The phone rang again, and it was Sheila's sister, Bertie. What kind of person names their kid Beatrice in this day and age? Bertie and Sheila... Their parents should do time for child abuse.

I picked up the phone and said, "What?!"

The outburst didn't buy me anything. "What's the idea of kicking my sister out of her own house? Who the hell do you think you are?" She went on for a time. I put her on speaker, so I didn't need to hold the weight of the phone to my ear, and I just let her go on until she was exhausted.

When she was finally done, I said, "Are you finished?" She wasn't and my question just ignited a new round of profanity. So having no interest in listening further, I hung up on the bitch.

The phone rang again, and I let it ring.

Ten minutes later when it rang again, I picked it up and said, "What?!" Well, it didn't work the first time and it didn't work the second time.

"What's the idea hanging up on me? Who the hell do you think..." I hung up again.

Two minutes later the phone rang, and a very much chastened Bertie said, "Okay. I'm calmer now. Can I ask you why you think you can throw your wife out of her house?"

I just said, "Put Johnny on."

"What?"

"I said put your husband on. I will explain it to him." I knew Bertie and I knew Johnny, and I knew it was time to share the pain.

Johnny picked up. "Billy, what the hell is going on?" He always called me Billy and he was the only one who ever did. I liked Johnny. We could be men together when we needed to and kids together when we wanted to. Johnny was a standup guy.

"Johnny, I need to tell you something and then you need to think about it. Sheila dropped the bomb on me last night. She announced that she is having an affair and she intends to continue it. She's already fucking the guy and she wants to start spending more evenings and some weekends with him. Plus, she wants me to be okay with it."

There was silence on the other end as Johnny digested what I'd told him.

"Billy, that doesn't make sense."

"You want to hear it from her own mouth? I recorded the conversation."

Johnny must have thought about it, because it took a bit for him to get back to me. "Maybe. How about I come over and we can talk?"

I told him to pick up some beer on the way over and that I was fresh out of bourbon. He was there thirty minutes later. I told him the story from the very beginning, and I played the recording. The recording was rough, and it hadn't picked up Sheila's voice as well as I would have liked, but it made him a believer.

It was then that I began my scorched earth campaign. "Johnny, you've known these two sisters for as long as I have. Would you say that they keep secrets from each other?"

"They never have."

"So do you think that Bertie knows that Sheila has been having an affair?"

He straightened up and for a moment he seemed to be staring off into space. Then he turned back to me and for once I saw a level of anger that gave me hope.

"You heard her ream me out about kicking Sheila out of the house? Do you think she didn't know why?"

He was hearing every word. I knew this man, so when he said, "I fuckin' hate a cheat!" I knew I'd made my point. Bertie wasn't going to be bothering me again. She had her own problems to deal with.

I took a moment from my thoughts to look aloft, then I went to the low side of the boat to get a better look at the jib. The wind was settled, and sails were drawing well, so I sat back on the cockpit sole and resumed reliving the days that led to the end of my marriage.

Unfortunately, the argument that ensued at Johnny's house that night resulted in him throwing Sheila out of the second house in as many days. When the knock came at the door and I opened it, there stood Sheila asking if she could come home. I did the mental arithmetic and figured I had control of my temper by then. Besides, my course was chosen.

"You can stay under two conditions."

She nodded, but there wasn't a hint of remorse on her face.

"First, you need to tell me if you've ever entertained your fuck buddy in this house?"

She was quick to respond. "No, I'd never do that to you."

"But you'd fuck him somewhere else, right?"

She had no answer to that.

I had anticipated this and was already preparing for my bachelor life, so I said, "Second, I've moved into the guest room. You can keep our bedroom until the divorce is final."

"But..." she started.

"I'm not interested in hearing anything from you. You can sleep here, but don't you dare bring that asswipe into my house. Do you understand me?"

She became defiant, but she nodded yes and went to her room. I didn't see her again for the rest of that night.

Sitting alone in the living room, I decided to take advantage of her self-imposed isolation and continued working on my list. Following Carol's lesson, I put my mind into work mode, picked up my laptop, and began a new list. There were bank accounts, investments, retirement accounts, the house, cars, college tuition, and on and on... A man's life can become complicated after fifty years. I knew enough of divorce to know that I'd lose half of everything and more if I wasn't careful. Sheila worked, but she didn't make what I made. The house was largely paid for, and we had created tuition funds for both kids, so I felt their college educations were secure. My retirement would take a hit. I'd negotiate the house, but I had no intention of living there again.

It soon became apparent that there were only a limited number of things that I could do legally. Any attempt to hide money was going to fail. The short list of things I could do came down to just four things: I could split our simple savings, move some of what we owned into storage in the hope of keeping it, get out of town, and file for divorce. In the end, I surrendered any thoughts of revenge and decided I would settle on freedom and an equitable distribution.

In the morning I split the bank accounts and canceled the joint credit cards. That gave me the resources I needed to make a new start. Then I canceled her phone. That was to get her attention. The investment accounts were in our joint names, and I couldn't do much without her cooperation. The lawyers would handle that. The advantage to my being unable to split those accounts was that she couldn't do anything, either. So that also meant they were safe. The divorce would deal with them. Then I rented two single-bay storage units in town. I was surprised that night as I checked off items on my list. There really wasn't a lot more I could do, so I began to think about preparations for my new life.

The increase in commercial traffic headed south out of New York stirred me from my thoughts. Those big ships can come up on a fellow faster than you might think, so it was time to get my head back in the game.

It had been a long day, but by evening I'd made my destination. I struck sail outside the cut at the Manasquan River and found a comfortable harbor just inside shortly before the sun went down. I never like entering a harbor for the first time after dark; it's too easy to lose your bearings. Still, it had been a great, if very long, day and my mind was clear for the first time in almost a month. The wind had held, even if the seas had grown, but I'd made excellent time. I picked up a berth and paid the harbor master for his trouble. I was two days out and I needed a shower and a shave. Then I needed a good meal. Sailing cleanses the mind and the sea can be primal. Together, they leave a man thinking of basic things like food, drink, a hot shower, and a comfortable place to sleep. I had one and went in search of the other three.

The marina provided showers for boaters. The good ones usually do. Feeling refreshed, I found a place a few blocks from the harbor that offered fish and chips with a good local IPA, and that ticked off the last two items on my list for tonight. I felt content and tired as I walked back to my boat. It had been the second very long day, so I hit my bunk. My last thoughts were of the next day. I suspected that the storm would reach me, and I'd stay in harbor while it blew over. I took some comfort in my safety and was immediately asleep.