Rebirth

That said? I'd never seen a couple more in love. And I liked Duncan! He was a hard worker, a good father and husband, and if his laugh was braying? Well, it was a laugh that my sister loved. Good enough for me.

He wasn't smiling when he came over to talk to me. Still wearing his linemen's coveralls and boots, he plopped himself into one of the other kitchen chairs while AnnaBelle whisked kids into the living room.

"Dude. You good?"

I puffed air out of my cheeks in a dramatic sigh. "Well, I'm alive? That's something?"

Duncan nodded solemnly. "Better than the alternative." He fixed me with a pointed expression. "Let's keep it that way, huh?"

There was nothing to say to that, so, again, I nodded. Duncan knew my past. I still had the scars on my one wrist from high school. The first great love of my life had brutally cut out my heart and nearly ended me. My sister knew all about it, too, but AnnaBelle trusted me not to be so stupid again. It wasn't that suicidal ideation hadn't flashed through my mind during any of this. I'd been dropped into a deep well of depression without warning! I wanted the world to go away! I wanted to simply not be, to not have to feel the things I was feeling! But to go through with trying to kill myself? No. I wasn't at that point yet, thankfully. Not yet.

I excused myself and went upstairs to the guest bedroom. My old bedroom was now the girls' nursery. It didn't matter. I was glad for a place to crash where I'd feel safe! Closing the door behind me, I kicked off my shoes and laid down. The familiar scent of 'home' filled my nostrils as I rested, and once again I closed my eyes so that I could simply 'not be' for a while.

***

I woke up disoriented and gasping for air. The room was unfamiliar, and my arms instantly went to touch Gwen's shoulder. Panic struck when I found the space next to me empty, and I sat up abruptly to look for her. Someone had taken her! She wasn't there, and that thought filled me with helpless dread. Was she alive?! Was she in danger or lost somewhere?! In the darkness of the bedroom, I couldn't rationalize her absence!

It took several more heartbeats before reality caught up with me. Someone had taken her from me, I remembered. I hugged my knees to my chest. I wanted to cry again. There were no tears left, though. Cried out from earlier, I was dehydrated and hollow.

It was night, and the house was still. I couldn't hear my sister or her husband, nor were the twins making any noise in their room down the hall. Checking my phone, I saw that it was close to midnight.

I also saw that there were no messages or unanswered calls. Gwen hadn't tried to get ahold of me. Which was fair, I suppose. I hadn't called her either. It still hurt.

Still trying to shake the dream, I send her a text.

JACK: You up?

I sat there with the phone in hand for what felt like an eternity, waiting for a response. It was only a minute or so, but it felt like eons were passing. Outside, I could hear the distant hooting of the barn owl that always seemed to frequent the property. When she replied, it was with a single word.

Gwen: Yes.

I swallowed hard. There was a hard lump in my throat as I typed back

JACK: You alone?

Gwen's next reply took even longer to reach my phone, a good five minutes of pure hell for me.

Gwen: No.

God, my heart cracked again. It was like getting punched from the inside out. That my wife was being honest now of all times was not as reassuring as I'd hoped it might be. It was tempting to ask who she was with, but my depression whispered to me that it was Joe. Why bother asking?

Taking several deep breaths, I thought carefully about what to say before I typed it out.

JACK: Can we talk? I really need to talk to you.

Several minutes passed without a response.

JACK: Please?

She finally sent me a curt reply.

Gwen: Tomorrow.

Bile rose in the back of my throat. Hell, she was going to make me wait. Maybe that was fair since I was the one who had run out of the house, but it made me feel like I was losing more ground with her. Which in turn, made me wonder if I really had any ground with my wife to start with. How much of our marriage had been a lie? Did the woman I love ever have any regard or respect for me? If she couldn't 'give him up,' then why had she married me instead of him?

The bleak answer was simple. Joe was less than stable in his life. He wandered from job to job, didn't own a car, shared an apartment with three other people, and had no prospects for the future. Me? I was employed, had a little money in the bank, and was generally thought of as a reliable guy. The idea that she married me for only for a sense of security was looming uncomfortably close.

Maybe I had never been her husband. Maybe I was a free meal ticket for her, and I'd been too fucking dumb to catch on. The only way I might know for sure was by talking to her.

JACK: Morning? 10-ish? Will get bagels.

Gwen: Whatever.

As I've mentioned, Gwen knew me too well. She knew how to hurt me. My nose was running. Wiping it on the back of my shirt sleeve, I pushed forward.

JACK: Ok. Ten with bagels. I love you, Gwen.

No reply came at all. I waited for an hour, huddled there on the bed and staring at the phone in the hope of a reply, but there was nothing. Realizing that she wasn't going to respond, I let myself collapse prone on the bed in misery.

I'd already lost her, I told myself. Despair told me that I never had her to begin with and that my life was a lie. Old self-doubts and fears seeped through the floorboards of my brain to obscure any light of reason. I stayed in that bed, paralyzed by the crippling anxiety that I thought I had defeated long ago, and I started to question whether or not ending it all might not be such a bad idea after all.

I hadn't had thoughts like those in quite a while. Depression is a bitch, but I thought that I'd beaten it for good. Duncan's clipped words lingered in my ears. I'd promised that I wasn't going to do anything that stupid, but I had to wonder now: was it really that stupid? To escape the pain? To escape the lies? To escape myself and let life go on without me? Who in this world needed me, truly fucking needed me?

Towards dawn, one of the twins woke up and began to cry. The household began to stir. I could hear my sister's husband bumping about and going into the nursery and casually conversing with whichever of his daughters was troubled. AnnaBelle's sleepy voice echoed down the hallway. Her family was waking up around me and it wasn't long until the smell of coffee wafted into the room.

Life went on. It didn't matter if I was there or not.

I forced myself out of bed with a heaviness that weighed down my every motion. I hadn't slept decently, I was emotionally wrecked, I was still wearing the same work clothes from yesterday, and I was terrified at what new revelations the day was going to bring. I wanted to die.

But there was the promise of bagels.

Maybe the bakery would have those french toast ones that I liked. Maybe they'd have poppy seed bagels that would give me a contact high! Wasn't there something about people getting positive results on drug tests from poppyseeds? Either way, there would be bagels. And sometimes it's the smallest things that keep us going.

Exiting the room, I nearly crashed into my sister.

"Hey, dumbass! I was about to wake your sorry butt up." Taking a step back, she looked me up and down. "Christ, Jack, you look worse now than you did when I picked you up."

Not trusting my voice, I gave her a sickly grin.

"Shower," she insisted firmly. Placing her hands on my shoulders, she turned me around and pushed me in the direction of the bathroom. "You know where everything is. Get cleaned up. There's a robe on the back of the door. Toss your clothes out into the hallway, and I'll wash them."

I dutifully obeyed. It was nice to have someone give me some sort of direction! The warm water cascaded down across my body as I sat in the tub beneath the spray, the spray drumming on my head to help drive out any thoughts. It was meditative. It did nothing to ease my heartbreak; the hollowness remained. But the steady tattoo of water hitting me helped to not think about it. I was under the shower for a good half-hour before I reluctantly conceded that I had to get moving. The house had one other full bathroom, but I didn't want to hog all of the hot water.

I came out dressed in a white terry cloth robe that I was pretty sure my sister had swiped from some hotel. In the kitchen, AnnaBelle had both of my nieces in highchairs and was doing her best to try and get them to eat. Duncan was standing by with a cup of coffee in one hand and a mop in the other.

"Now, you see," she cooed to my messy nieces, "If you don't eat, you end up looking like Uncle Jack there. You don't want to end up looking like Uncle Jack, do you?"

I grinned sheepishly. On my way out of the bathroom, I had glanced in the mirror. The shower had only marginally approved my state of being.

My sister gestured over towards the fridge. "You slept right through dinner last night. There's a plate in the fridge for you: chicken with rice and beans. Sit and eat."

"Thanks, twerp." The food was popped into the microwave sans tin foil. The clock informed me that it was seven-twenty. "Can we get my car this morning? I have a few things I should probably take care of."

"Already done, Jack," Duncan reassured me. He took a sip from his coffee. "We did it last night while you were asleep."

One of the twins sputtered, spraying some sort of baby food all over her tray and the floor. The other twin giggled and did the same. Both parents took it in stride.

"You going to go talk to The Bitch?"

It seemed that Gwen's new nickname from my sister would be 'The Bitch.' AnnaBelle never did forgive or forget easily, so that name was probably going to be applied to Gwen for some time regardless of what the outcome was.

"Yeah. I'm going back over about ten. Figured we'd have a sit-down, try to figure out where... I don't know... where things went wrong, I guess. And if there's any chance of fixing it."

"Do you want to? Fix it?"

My brother-in-law's question made me squirm in my chair. "I don't know." Helplessly, I shrugged. "On the one hand, we've been married for six years. Known each other for over eight, almost nine. It's hard to throw that all away, you know?"

"And you still love her." My sister was no fool.

"Yeah. Yeah, I still love her."

The microwave beeped, and I took the plate out carefully to then sit at the table with them. It smelled wonderful! My belly groaned a little at the thought of eating, but the fact that it was one of Duncan's dishes (not my sister's, AnnaBelle couldn't cook water) made the idea of eating appealing. It tasted as good as it smelled.

"On the other hand," I managed after my first bite. The weight of the statement I was about to make caused me to hesitate. Saying it out loud was hard! "On the other hand, from what she said, she's been sleeping with him for longer than that. Probably close to ten years, I figure. Which means she's been lying to me the whole time."

AnnaBelle's eyes went wide in astonishment and fury. "Ten years, Jack?! She's been fucking around behind your back for ten years?! And you never noticed?!"

That was the wrong thing to say. What little appetite I had vanished, and I put down my fork gently on the plate.

"In fairness," her husband chided smoothly, "we didn't notice either, AnnaBelle. And that's a long time to keep a secret like this without anyone finding out. Plus if she's been sleeping with this guy before she even met your brother, there wouldn't have been any change in her routine for Jack to notice."

My sister relented. "I'm sorry, Jack. I can't believe the little bitch has been getting away with it for that long! If I find out that someone knew about the two of them all this time, I'm going to fucking cut them, I swear it."

The twins were getting restless with all of the commotion and were making 'pick me up' motions towards their mother. She began to wipe the toddlers' faces and fingers clean as she continued speaking. Grinning like a shark, she wiggled her nose against one of her daughter's and then the other's. "Would you like to help mommy cut a bitch? Yes, you would! I know you would!"

The parents cleaned up after their children as I sat there and picked at my food. I ate some more but only because my sister was staring daggers at me.

"I've got to get to work, Jack," Duncan informed me. "You need to stay here tonight again, go ahead. But remember, that's your house, too. Don't let her run you out of it."

AnnaBelle nodded. "We've got to get going, too. The twins have a playdate today at eight-thirty, and we need to get a move on."

"You want me to help get them ready?" I offered sincerely.

She shook her head. "No. I can manage. You should get a breath of fresh air before you go see her, though.."

I nodded. My breakfast half-finished, I wrapped the rest back into the tin foil and put it away. Duncan tossed me my car keys. Giving my sister a hug where she sat, I kissed both of my nieces on the crowns of their heads.

"Jack?" my sister called softly as I went to get dressed.

"Yeah?"

AnnaBelle hesitated for a moment. "Don't do anything stupid. Ok?"

I gave her a lopsided grin. "I promise."

***

Joe, Duncan, and now AnnaBelle; all three of them had cautioned me against doing anything that I might regret. The only trouble was that there were a large number of things that could be considered stupid. Leaving Gwen alone and crying the day before could have been considered stupid!

Was I going to kill myself? It lingered in the back of my brain. The depression whispered sweet, seductive reasonings into my ear about how this world might not be worth living in if a person could be deceived for so long by a loved one. It argued that no one would really miss me, not in the long term. No one needed me. Gwen clearly had Joe. AnnaBelle had her own family to take care of. My friends? Well, the D&D campaign could go on without me just as though I had moved away. As for my friends on social media, was I really anything more than a blip on their phone screens?

These were familiar refrains that I thought I had put to bed several years ago. I hadn't felt the need to see a therapist since my last year of college! Nonetheless, there they were.

Would beating the shit out of Joe be stupid? It had the potential of making me feel better or at least make me feel less helpless. Then again, he might win! How would that look? I know that losing would make me feel all the more pathetic! What if he had me arrested for assault? What if I killed him? Could I kill him?

Then there was Gwen. What was stupider: giving her a chance or divorcing her? The card that the trucker had given me was still in my wallet. Would it be stupid to call him first or was it worse to wait?

I morosely sat in the local park for about an hour before I finally got going. Meeting with Gwen, at least, wasn't stupid. It had to be done before anything else, and as much as I dreaded getting the answers to the questions that plagued me, there really was no avoiding it.

The morning line at the local coffee shop was short enough, thankfully. If I'd had to wait any longer, I would have started to fret! But with tea for me, coffee for her, and a bag of bagels to go around, I drove back home to my unfaithful wife.

It was just before ten when I pulled into our driveway and entered through the attached garage. I found Gwen sitting at the kitchen table, looking pensive. Her long black hair was tucked behind one ear, and her arms were crossed defensively against her chest. She wasn't wearing her robe this time. Now it was an old T-shirt and sweatpants, an outfit that was a far cry from her usual attire. Nothing was said as I placed the coffee in front of her. Sitting down on the other side of the table, I opened the bag of bagels and pushed it a little towards her.

"We need to talk," I started softly.

Gwen snorted. "You didn't want to talk yesterday."

A fair point. She was angry. Fuck knows why she was the one who was angry; I was the one who had been betrayed in all of this! But I resolved to keep calm.

"No, I didn't. Yesterday I was... I had to get away. I had to think."

"You left me! You got upset, you got angry, and then you up and fucking left me here crying!"

It seemed that Gwen was determined not to make this easy on either of us. I took a sip from my tea, wishing I had put more honey into it.

"Can you blame me?" My question was blunt but not cruel. "I walked in to find the person I'm married to is fucking one of our friends, and then she tells me that she's been sleeping with him the whole time we were married. How the hell was I supposed to react, Gwen? What did you want me to do? What did you expect was going to happen if and when you two got caught? I'm sorry if I left you when you needed me but I was hurting. You hurt me. I'm still hurting from it." I gave her a hard stare. "What would you have done?"

She settled back into her chair petulantly, looking down at the table. "It doesn't matter now, I guess." Gwen glanced up at me from beneath her dark lashes. "So what do we do now?"

"All depends, I suppose." Pushing my tea to the side, I leaned forward and rested my arms on the table. "You said you still love me. That true, Gwen?"

The smile on her face was burdened with sorrow as she replied, "I never stopped loving you, Jack."

OK, so that was a start. It was like a lance going straight through my chest, but it was a start! Next came the heavy question. Really, it was less a question and more of a clarifying statement, but it would do. "But you also love Joe."

"I... " My wife wasn't able to meet my eyes. It took her a few tries to get out any kind of answer for me, and her voice was soft. "I do. Just not in the same way. It's hard to explain, Jack."

"So, what? The sex is better?"

"No!"

"It's not better?" I pressed.

"It's different, is all!"

"His cock didn't look any bigger than mine."

Gwen rolled her eyes, still not quite looking at me. "Fuck, Jack, it's not about size. Guys care about that a hell of a lot more than women."

I wasn't giving in. "So he is bigger."

Finally, she made eye-contact, a flat stare filled with annoyance. "Yes," she confirmed sarcastically, "his wang is twelve-feet long and as thick as my thigh. He can fuck ten women at once with it. Is that what you want to hear, Jack? Will that make you happy?"

"Gwen, just give me the fucking truth!" I was losing my patience. "Why have you been seeing him all this time? What wasn't I giving you? Was it not enough sex? Was the sex not good enough? Did I not spend enough time with you? Was I taking you for granted? Am I not desirable enough for you?"

At each question, she shook her head, causing her long hair to flounce with the motions. "No, no, no! What, you think marriage is just a permission slip for who gets to fuck me, Jack?"

"No! Maybe it sets up certain expectations, Gwen, but I thought marriage was a relationship built on trust! Now I'm finding out that the whole foundation that I had thought was there is a stinking lie! So before we go any further, I want to know why!" My voice had been getting louder, but restraint I reigned myself back. "Is it so much to ask?"

Gwen was quiet for longer than I would have liked, but I didn't go any further. I gave her the time to think about how to frame whatever response she had coming.

"He's not bigger than you," she admitted. "You're about the same size. You might be a little thicker, actually." My wife took a deep breath, forcing herself to continue. "And we never laughed at you, Jack. Joe and I never made fun of you or put you down. We just never... It wasn't talked about. You weren't talked about. Neither of us thought you'd ever find out. We didn't want to think about you finding out! You were happy; you didn't have to know! We were happy, you and me. Joe and I were happy. You and Joe got along. So we let things go on as they had been."