Return from Yukon

I wondered if perhaps things had gone farther than Helen had initially intended. The original agreement had probably been for just sex, but as the month had gone on, she had seemed to become more and more Pierre's woman in every sense of the word. She defended him to me. She chose to spend her time with him instead of me: I did more hiking than she did, and that had never happened before. And as she admitted, she still had feelings for him, weeks after we'd come home.

I remembered reading about situations where long-term captives or hostages start to identify with or even fall in love with their captors. I think I even remember hearing about a hostage hiding one of the terrorists who captured her so the police wouldn't find him. That didn't apply here, though, because Helen wasn't a captive, she was a participant. I was the captive.

How could Helen keep saying she loved me, while she planned this kind of pain and humiliation for me, and carried it out for a whole month? I had no idea. I tried to imagine myself doing something that cruel to her, and couldn't. Even if I didn't love her any more, I would have been unable to plan and carry out a deliberate, humiliating betrayal like that.

It seemed there were limits, though. She had stood up to Pierre twice, and he had backed down both times: once when she demanded that he cut me loose, and again when she refused to blow him in the living room while I was there. They must have agreed on some kind of limits when they set this up. I guess that was something to be grateful for, but it was also yet another confirmation (as if I needed one) that Helen and Pierre had set this up together.

What now? I saw no way our marriage could continue. I didn't see any way past such a huge betrayal. That "holiday" and its aftermath would be part of us until we died. Then there was her affair with Jack Fallon, the lying backstabber who cost me a directorship. How could she do all that, and still say she loved me?

On the other hand, I had loved her for years, and I still did, though at that moment I couldn't have said why. We had been good together. We connected on so many levels; I'd never imagined being as close to another human being as I was with her. Before the "holiday," that is. I could see already that she would be a superb mother.

On yet another hand, what if Pierre was right about her? Helen had told me that he was, after all. "She's not the sort to let marriage keep her from opening her legs for other men," he'd said. Helen said that although she would make the most of the experience while it lasted, "when we're back home I swear I'll never have sex with anyone but you." Somehow, his words still carried more conviction than hers. Besides, I thought she swore at our wedding that she wouldn't have sex with anyone but me. I'd seen how well that worked out.

So what to do? When it came right down to it, I thought I should at least give her a chance. After all, she was my wife, and I'd made promises to her, too. I decided that if she was honest with me, and if she was truly sorry for what happened (which she had never once said during or after the holiday), I would give it a shot. I couldn't guarantee the results, in fact I was pretty sure it wouldn't work, but I owed it to her to try. If she insisted on keeping his baby, though, or if she lied, we were finished.

Was I happier now that I'd figured things out? No. Absolutely not. We had done our best to keep each other happy until we had to acknowledge the truth about Pierre's baby. Now I knew that the truth was far worse than I had ever thought it could be. I could see no way back from this.

I came home at the appointed time to find Helen anxiously waiting for me. She could barely wait for me to be seated before she started.

"Sweetheart, I'm so sorry. I don't think I ever told you that, even since we got home, but I am. I've already told you how much I enjoyed it, and I can't deny that I have some wonderful memories, but it must have been hell for you." Helen paused for breath, and steadied herself.

"Yesterday, I didn't like your idea about figuring out my true feelings about Pierre. They aren't, as I think you know, feelings a loyal wife should have toward another man. So I'm part ashamed of them, part not wanting to hurt you, and part afraid of what you'll do. But I have to deal with them somehow, so that I really can put them into the past, and if I can't put them into the past, how can you?

"I've spent a lot of time today thinking. I haven't had time to write anything down, but if you want me to, I'll tell you. The problem is, in order for what I feel about him now to make any sense, I have to go back to the beginning. I know that a lot of this will hurt you, and I'm sorry, but I've thought it over and I think you're right: we both need the truth. Do you still want to hear it?" I knew I wasn't going to like this, but I nodded anyway. I had to know whether she would really tell the truth.

"Okay, here goes, but please, always remember that I love you." She took a deep breath. "After the first night with him, you remember I didn't want to talk to you about it? That was because I didn't want you to hurt any more than you already did," she began calmly. "You see, I really did enjoy it, quite a lot, and was looking forward to it again the next night, but I knew telling you that would devastate you. It only got better. He learned my body, and used what he learned to please me. I truly didn't know I could be made to feel so good, and every night was better than the last. I tried at first to keep my voice down so you wouldn't have to hear, but after the first couple of nights I just couldn't. It wasn't physically possible.

"Still, at that point, it was just sex. Great sex, yes, the best of my life, but only that. It started to change the second week we were there. I began to fall for him. I still loved you, and looked forward to the day when we would go home and everything would be like it was before. The holiday would be a sort of time out of time: when we got home, it would be as if it hadn't happened. It would have nothing to do with our lives going forward. Meantime, though, I had begun to... to like him. Not like I love you, of course, but I certainly didn't hate him, like you must have. Then you told me your escape plan.

"I already knew that I wanted to stay and have sex with him for the entire month, so I didn't want to escape, but I thought if I told you that, you might do something foolish like trying to leave by yourself. So I told Pierre about your plans. I'm ashamed of that, but it was the only way I could think of to make sure we wouldn't get away. I'd already told him what I'd decided if, or really when, I got pregnant. He knew you hadn't made love with me, so he told me to make sure you did that night in the tent.

"I was surprised to find how much I wanted the feeling of your body on mine, and your arms around me: far more than I cared about the actual act, or what Pierre wanted. I know you were ashamed of coming so quickly, and I was ashamed of being so loose, but that didn't matter. What I said that night was true: in those few hours, you gave me the love I'd been missing. Then the next night, he forced you to watch him give me the best sex I'd ever had in my life."

I don't know how I kept from exploding. I knew I had asked her to tell me this, and I knew she was trying to be honest, but I could feel my face turning red and the veins popping out in my neck as I tried to restrain myself.

"I'm sorry, Darling. I know this is hard for you to hear, but you were right, I need to tell you the truth for both of our sakes." She paused to give me time to cool down.

"The next day, you'd seen for yourself that I didn't want to be rescued, so I could finally tell you what had been true from the first night: I loved the experience, I was having a fantastic time, and intended to make the most of it for the rest of the month. Then you and I would go home together and resume our love.

"Then you killed him. You did this incredibly brave, clever thing for me, to rescue me, and I... I wished you hadn't."

Helen looked away from me. She must have been frightened by the look on my face.

"Please, Sweetheart, there's only a little more. I loved what he was doing to me, and I wanted those few more days with him, and I thought you knew and accepted that. I know you were afraid he would kill you and take me, or kill us both, but I knew him well by that time, and I was absolutely certain he would not. Anyway, I grieved for him. I even went out and picked a few wild flowers and put them by his head."

Helen heaved a deep sigh. "I'm sorry you had to hear all of that, but I needed to tell you, even the parts that make me seem like a complete slut, because you asked for completeness and honesty. I've done my best.

"I do still have feelings for him. The memory of the sex is fading, but if he were to appear in front of me now and want me, I don't know if I could tell him no, though I know I'd try. I get sort of tender or wistful when I'm thinking about him, but that's fading, too. I do keep the little statue he carved to remember him by.

"Darling, I love you. The feelings I have for Pierre are no threat to you, or to our marriage. Even if I wanted to act on them, I can't: he's dead. They're fading, as I said: as you and I make new memories together, they crowd out the ones with him. It was never love with him; just great sex and a sort of respect and tender liking that could have grown into something more, but never did. You're the only man I want. That's been true all along, and would still be true even if Pierre were alive. The question is, can I still have you?"

That was the question, wasn't it? As appalling as the last half hour had been, I saw two signs of hope: she seemed genuinely sorry, and she had voluntarily admitted to having told Pierre about our escape plan. She had no way of knowing I already knew that; she confessed it on her own. There was one more test.

"Helen, when did you decide that you would willingly have sex with him, even if there were no force?"

She considered a moment. "It happened sort of gradually, really. There isn't a single moment I can point to. The first night, I didn't have time to dread it. The second day, I'd begun to look forward to it. Then by the second week, I had decided that I wanted to stay the whole month, with all that implied. I'm sorry I can't be more specific. Does that answer your question?"

"Yes, it does." I turned away from her so she wouldn't see the tears in my eyes. She saw them anyway.

"What's wrong? What's the matter, Sweetheart?"

I sighed and faced my wife. "All right. I won't be nasty about the divorce. You can have..."

"What? Divorce? I did what you wanted, I told you what I felt. I was completely honest, even though it made me sound like an awful wife, and I hated hurting you, but I did it because you asked. And now you drop this on me?"

"Helen, when you told me how you scuttled my escape attempt, and how you wanted to use my love for you to protect his child, I had hope. It hurt like hell, but you were being honest. I knew you were, because I had already figured all of that out. So I asked one more question: a question with a specific answer, which I know. If you told the truth, we might just possibly have a chance. If you didn't, we were finished. You didn't."

We sat in silence for several moments before she spoke.

"Darling, you remember we talked about my getting pregnant, and we talked about aborting if I were sure it was Pierre's. I know you're sure he is, and I must admit that despite my hopes, I feel he is, too. I know you said you wouldn't raise his child. But he has been growing inside me for months now. Even if he's not yours, he's part of me. I can't kill him; it would tear me apart. I will carry him to term. I ask one thing of you." She paused and swallowed nervously.

"In another few weeks, I can have an in utero DNA test done. Please don't decide anything, please let us stay married, until then. Once we know for sure that he really is Pierre's, you can do whatever you want: divorce or just leave. I'll probably give him up for adoption, anyway. I know there's next to no chance the baby is yours, but if he is, I know you'll want to do right by him. So please, can we stay together until we know for sure, and make the decisions then?"

What she said made sense. If the child was mine, though neither of us believed that was possible, I would support him. Did that extend as far as staying married to his mother? I didn't see how that could happen, but it wouldn't hurt to wait a few weeks and decide then.

"All right, I'll wait. What I said about Pierre's child still goes. Even if the child is mine, that doesn't mean we'll stay married." Helen nodded sadly. "There's one more thing. If there's to be any hope at all for our marriage, you need to think about your actions during that month -- the ones you've told me about, and the ones you haven't -- and their impact on me. Then I want you to think about how you could possibly do those things, and still say that you love me."

In the days that followed, Helen redoubled her efforts to show her love for me. She was almost frantic, and it was about to drive me crazy. We still shared a bed, and had sex occasionally. After all, she was still my wife, and I didn't see why I should have to go without. Besides, I had begun to worry about what she might do if I moved out of our bedroom.

One afternoon, I came in hot and sweaty from doing yard work to see Helen sitting at our kitchen table. Her strong, beautiful shoulders shook as she sobbed. She had one of the baby furniture catalogues on the table in front of her, and was slowly ripping each page into small pieces as her tears fell onto the pictures of happy babies. I knelt next to her, pushed away the catalogue, and folded her hands between mine.

"I've destroyed everything, haven't I?" she murmured.

I'm not a wimp. I have killed a man, with malice aforethought. But at that moment, I wanted nothing more than to take my wife in my arms and tell her no, she hadn't destroyed everything. I couldn't do it, because as far as I could tell, she had.

"I wanted this. So much. So very much. With you. Only with you, always. Yes, even then." She forced the words out between her sob-caught breaths. "And now..." She gave a strangled cry, and ran out of the kitchen. I heard our bedroom door slam, but the closed door couldn't block her wrenching sobs.

Tears stung my own eyes as I cleared the sodden scraps off the table and put them in the trash. She sounded like I had felt, every day and every night for a month, while she had her "fabulous" time. Did I feel better because now she knew what it felt like? Hell, no. I'd taken my revenge on her lover. That mattered, but justice didn't seem very satisfying just then. Was I capable of going out and have a "fabulous" time while she was suffering like that? No. All I could see was that now there were two miserable people in our once-happy home. I wished that somewhere in the world, there was someone who could tell us how to not be miserable, but I was pretty sure there wasn't. We had only ourselves. We clung to each other that night like two shipwrecked sailors with one lousy plank between them, as we watched the wreck of our once-beautiful marriage sink beneath the waves.

A couple of days later, I came home to an empty house. Helen had left a phone message.

"Darling, over the last couple of weeks, I've done what you asked. It's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. The results are in a box on the kitchen table. I just can't be here when you open it: knowing how you'll feel, would kill me. I'm at Sarah's until tomorrow night. I'll call and check in with you; you can call my cell or call her any time. Her number is on the refrigerator." There was a long gap in the message. "I... I love you, Darling. I love you, and... I'm so... sorry..." She trailed off, obviously in tears, and I heard the click of the ended message.

I changed my clothes, got a beer, and sat down at the kitchen table. There was a plain brown box there, about letter size, and maybe 15 cm deep. I took the lid off the box.

The first thing I saw was a mass of shredded paper, but with one piece left nearly whole: it was headed "Yukon Adventures." The next thing I saw, nestled in the paper, was the nude statuette of Helen. It had been horribly scarred and mutilated, and one leg had been broken completely off.

I had been concerned when Helen tore up the baby furniture catalogues. I was no shrink, but that didn't seem to be the sort of thing a healthy human being would do. As I gazed at the mutilated statuette, I became seriously worried.

I called Sarah's number. It wasn't until Helen's friend answered that I realized I had no idea what I wanted to say.

"Is Helen there? Is she okay? I'm worried about her," I finally blurted out.

"Worried about her? What's that supposed to mean?"

"This is sort of hard to say. The last few days, Helen has been acting... well, not like herself. Not in control of herself. I've seen her sitting and ripping paper into little pieces. I just found out that she took something that... that she valued, and she just mutilated it. I'm no shrink, and I don't know how to say this politely, but I'm afraid she might, well, do something to herself, or the baby. Harm herself. You know?"

"What do you want me to do?" She sounded more shocked than sympathetic.

"I don't know, just maybe keep an eye on her? Be alert for anything that looks wrong? Anyway, I wanted you to know so that if something happened, you could get help for her."

"Yeah, I can do that. And thanks for letting me know. I'll keep an eye out."

She didn't sound exactly friendly, but I was somewhat reassured, and hung up. With a sense of foreboding, I went back to the box. Under the shredded catalogue was a letter, several pages long.

"My Sweetheart, my Darling," I read.

"Forgive me, but I must call you that while I still can. In a few days, the test results will confirm what we both already know. Then our marriage will end, and my fondest dream will die forever. The dream of raising a family with you, of growing old with you, of using my last breath to tell you I love you, which I've held close to my heart ever since you asked me to marry you, will be killed by the certain knowledge that I am carrying another man's child. I know I've been driving you a little crazy these last couple of weeks, as I've desperately tried to show you how much I love you. I think I've been a little crazy myself, but trying to stuff a lifetime of loving acts into a few weeks will do that.

"That night when you came back and we talked, I had hoped that perhaps if I didn't tell you everything, you could forgive me for the things I did tell you about (difficult as that would be), and perhaps my dream could survive. Now that I've finally thought about how my actions affected you, which I should have done from the beginning, I realize that was a fool's hope anyway. At any rate, there is no longer any reason to hide anything from you.

"One more thing before I start, the most important of all. I know it's a cliché, but I never stopped loving you. The day after Pierre made you watch us, I told you I loved you, and that I wanted us to be back at home, and just like we used to be. That was the truth. My dream might have been put on hold for a month, but it, and you, were still and always, first in my heart.

"I don't expect you to understand this. I'm not sure I understand it myself, but you've figured out and understood so many other things I thought you wouldn't, that there's a little part of me that still hopes you can somehow understand this, too.

"In order for you to understand, then, I must begin with the trip to Scotland my father and I took when I was eleven. I've told you that it was the best two weeks of my life before I met you, and that I've always wanted to do it again. What I didn't tell you about was my fantasy.