Same Old Song and Dance Ch. 02

My eyes flew open as she gently kissed me on my cheek.

"Get away from me," I screamed angrily. "What the hell is wrong with you? Why did you do that?"

"I have never left this house without kissing you good-bye," she said. "And I'm not going to start now. Look at you. You have tears streaming out of your eyes like a river. You don't even want me to leave. Let's just sit down together and talk about this. You're too angry and too hurt to make a rational decision right now and ... I ..."

"Donna, if you don't leave right now, I might hurt you," I said through clenched teeth.

"Fine ... be an asshole," she spat. "You have the right to be hurt. I deserve to have you angry at me. But when you calm down and begin to think about something other than your hurt feelings and ego, call me at Tara's. And tell the kids that I'm visiting Tara because she doesn't feel well. They don't deserve to be hurt and confused by all of this."

"I'm going to tell them the truth," I said. "There have been too many lies around here, and they deserve to know the truth. Once this gets into the court system, and our divorce begins, it will be public knowledge anyway. I want them prepared for any possible fall out. The best way to do that is to tell them the truth."

"Greg, are you out of your fucking mind!" she screamed. "Who said anything about the court system? We're NOT getting a DIVORCE. I know you're pissed at me, but this is carrying things too far. We've been together too long for that. I gave you the best years of my life. I don't know how to live without you. Okay, I fucked some guys. But you're the only man I have ever loved. I am willing to take a polygraph. I had no idea that Sherry and Terry weren't yours. I would have aborted them ..." She suddenly stopped talking as she saw the look in my eyes. "What's wrong now?"

She turned and looked behind her, to see our daughter Sherry standing there with her eyes wide open in shock.

Sherry ran back out the door she had just walked in.

"See what you did," screamed Donna.

"I didn't do shit," I smiled. "But thanks. You've made my job a lot easier. I only have to tell Debbie now. And Donna, you never gave me anything. Wait ... let me amend that. I won't know until my STD screenings come back. But as far as the rest of it. You didn't give ME the best years of your life. I earned them by busting my ass to keep food in our bellies and a roof over our heads. Did you ever once ask for or want anything that I didn't give you?"

"Yes," she hissed. "I just asked you for a second chance, and you keep talking all this bullshit about a divorce that is never going to happen. I read the papers, you know. I know what happens in a divorce. No one wins. I'll get the house and custody of the kids. You'll have to pay me alimony based on how long we've been together, which is a very long fucking time. You'll be miserable, and you won't have money for expensive car parts. Your best possible option is for us to settle this and move on with our lives."

She stared into my eyes. "And then there's the fact that divorced men are always miserable. Any woman can go out and find a man. You're going to become some cranky, pissed off old man who lives alone and hates everyone. You'll spend all of your time drinking and wishing you didn't do this. The years that we've been together will seem like a fairy tale. You'll go over them in your mind, over and over, wishing you'd never found out."

"As I was saying," I cut in. "I never had the best years of your life. I had to share them with a bunch of other guys. The difference is that I was the one who paid for all of it and supported you. So right now I feel like I've been cheated. I was cheated out of a wife who was faithful to me. I was cheated out of a family ..."

"Don't you ever say that shit again!" she screamed. "We have a great family. And no matter who knocked me up, you are the only father those kids have ever known. None of this is their fault. And I don't understand why you just don't see how much I love you and always have. It was only sex for God's sake. And you always got more than your share. Look at your married friends. They're lucky if they get it twice a week. How often do we have sex?"

"I'd estimate that YOU do it every time McDonald's sells a hamburger," I spat. "And getting back to your earlier statements about how miserable I'm going to be. You're wrong. Our divorce is not going to go the way you think it will. For one thing, with my evidence against you, getting the divorce will be a lot easier than you think. I would hate to do it, Donna, but if I have to, I will drag your name through every fuckin' mud puddle in the God Damned state. When I'm done with things, you won't be allowed to walk on the same side of the street as a church, let alone volunteer for anything.

"My original plan was for us to have a quiet non-public divorce. I was going to give you the house in exchange for liberal visitation rights, and your promise that you wouldn't bring any of your men to the house anymore. That would give you a few years to get your life together and then when Debbie goes to college, we could sell the house and split the proceeds 50/50."

"Are you insane?" she asked. "Where would you live? I don't want us living apart. And you keep talking about custody of Debs. What about the other kids? What about Sherry wanting to have a baby? How do we handle our grand kids? We need to sit down and discuss this rationally."

"Okay, here's rational," I said. "What I described to you, was the old plan. When I got the DNA reports yesterday and looked at them, it threw me into a depression. My new plan is completely different. I'm going for custody of Debbie. That means I'll be keeping the house. It's in my name anyway. Your name has never been on the mortgage, because you've never had a job. If you care so much about me and the kids, you could just sign the papers when they're served, and we can call it a day. You go your way, and I'll go mine. If you don't things are going to turn into a shit storm."

"But what will I do?" she asked.

"Get the guys you've been fucking to all pony up some money to take care of you," I said. "For the past twenty years, they've been fucking you for free, while I paid for everything. The alternative, is that I name them all in our divorce, have them all DNA tested to find out who got you pregnant and sue all of them, for breaking up our marriage and for taking care of their kids for twenty years."

"Greg, that would destroy a lot of families," she said. "It would tear the town apart."

"So, I guess you have some thinking to do," I said. "I won't hold you up." I pointed towards the door.

* * * * * *

Donna

I still had my car. I stopped off at Starbucks, and my credit cards still worked. I bought coffee for Tara and myself. It would be almost like the old days when we used to shop together and hang out. I had helped Tara through all three of her recoveries from her marriages; she owed me at least helping me prevent the ending of mine.

I pulled up in front of Tara's house. It was a while since I'd seen or spoken to her. It was odd. We had been very close all through the winter, and then she had suddenly disappeared. I figured that either she'd been swamped with work or ... Shit ... Tara was working on husband number four. And I knew just who it had to be. The mayor has been crazy about Tara for years. She'd always said that he wasn't her type, but she had allowed him to accompany her to several of the town's functions during the winter.

I wonder if Tara hadn't helped the winter thaw by heating up the mayor's bed. I rang her doorbell, and she came to the door. She invited me in but didn't seem glad to see me.

We chatted for a few minutes, and I noticed that she really wasn't herself.

"Tara, can I crash here for a while?" I asked.

"Why," she asked. "Is your house being painted or something?"

"More like or something," I said. "Greg threw me out. But it's only temporary. We're having a disagreement."

"What type of disagreement," she asked. I decided to go ahead and tell her. She had told me about her husband cheating on her, and I had helped her through that. Before this thing could be put back together I would probably need her support, so I might as well be honest with her.

"I made some mistakes during our marriage," I began. "I've cheated on Greg. I've cheated on him the whole time that we were together. Anyway, Greg found out. I don't think he understands any of it. He hasn't even let me explain to him why it happened. He doesn't believe that I love him more than anything on earth. It also turns out that two of our kids aren't biologically his. I had no idea of that until he showed me the DNA tests he had done."

Tara smiled for the first time since I'd walked into her house. "Good," she said suddenly. "Finally."

"Finally what," I asked.

"I don't have to pretend anymore," she said.

I had the feeling that this was the tipping point. If this was one of those lifetime movies, his would be the part where Tara told me that she's been in love with me forever.

"No, Donna," she said. "You can't stay with me! Have you wondered why I haven't called you or been around you lately?"

"Well until today, I hadn't really thought about it," I said honestly.

"Greg isn't the only person you betrayed," she said. "I know everything, Donna. I know that you used me to hide your cheating. You always told Greg that you were visiting me and a lot of those times you were out fucking some bum, weren't you? Greg is one of the nicest guys in town, Donna. You were blessed to have him. But it wasn't enough for you was it?"

"Tara, I never asked you to cover for me," I said. "Sure, I told Greg that I was visiting you sometimes, but it never hurt you. And it didn't hurt him. How the hell did you find out about this anyway? Who told you, Greg or Terry?"

"Neither one of them," she said. "I found out on my own. Just like I found out that you screwed Jason didn't you? And probably Bobby too, right?"

I nodded my head. "You may as well throw in Sam too, but that was before the two of you were married," I said. "Tara, I'm really sorry, but I was jealous of you. You've always been so beautiful. Except for Greg, no one ever looked at me twice. And look at us now. You're thirty-six and gorgeous. You can have any guy in town. I'm forty eight and getting fatter every year. The only man I have ever loved no longer wants to have anything to do with me."

"Why the hell would you ever be jealous of me?" she asked. "I can't take credit for how I look. It was just the luck of the draw. I was always jealous of you. You have a beautiful home. A husband who worshiped the ground you slimed over and three great kids. You have everything any woman would want, including me. I've been married three times, and none of them worked.

"Sam and I got married, and he joined the military shortly afterwards. The truth is he joined up to get away from me. Bobby's car accident was no accident; he was drunk as a skunk. We were having problems. And everyone in town knows that I tried my ass off to stay married to Jason. I even kept quiet about him beating the crap out of me. He'd probably still be beating me if my dad hadn't found out. And I didn't even love Jason. I just wanted to be married so badly that I put up with it.

"You had it all, Donna. You fucked it all away. What are you going to do when you're old and lonely? You know what you're going to miss most? It's not going to be nights on the town or dumb ass parties and ceremonies. You're going to miss those winter nights in front of that big assed fireplace, when the two of you used to snuggle up on that couch, and he rubbed your feet. I was always so jealous of you. I cannot believe you fucked that up."

"It's not over yet, Tara," I said. "I'm not letting him go without a fight."

"Well good luck fighting," she said. "But as much as we were friends, I'm one of the single women here in town that is hoping you can't patch things up."

I checked into a motel and hated it. There's a really big difference between being in one of these places for a few hours and having to live in one. I called Greg that evening, and he wouldn't speak to me. He did put Debbie on the phone, and I got to talk to her.

Apparently, Debbie was the only one who didn't know what I had done. I could hear Greg, Terry and Sherry's voices in the background having a very heated discussion. Although I couldn't make out their words, it was obvious what the topic of discussion had to be. I decided to give Greg the space he needed and some time.

After a couple of days, locked in that motel room, I needed to get out. I remembered my volunteer church group had a meeting that afternoon. I decided to go, just to see some familiar faces. It was a colossal mistake. For one thing, Tara was there. And even though she didn't mention my situation, her seeming disdain for my presence was notable.

About halfway into the meeting, when we had just opened the floor for new business, she knocked on the door. She stepped into the room, and every eye was drawn to her. She was tall and slim and blond. Her shoes probably cost as much as a good used car does. And the legs that extended upwards from those shoes were worth even more.

She smiled as she approached us and then looked around the table before her eyes settled on me. I thought that perhaps she was a representative of some charity that needed our help.

"Donna Martin," she asked. I nodded. "I'm sorry," she said. "I need proof. It's protocol."

My curiosity got the better of me, so I showed her my driver's license.

"Thank you so much," she smiled. She cracked her gum and smiled, revealing the whitest teeth I had ever seen. The woman could have been a model or a movie star. She handed me a file folder, and I took it wondering what the hell it was. The woman mesmerized everyone at the table.

"You've been served," she said softly. And turned to leave.

"I have no idea what that means," said one of the men at the table. "But I wanna be served too!"

I looked at the first page and knew immediately what had happened. Greg was pushing for his divorce. I slumped back into my seat, and the tears began to flow.

I knew it was time for me to get into the fight. I spent the rest of the afternoon finding a lawyer. I spent the evening trying to speak to Greg, who wouldn't take my calls. I went to my daughter's house, hoping to enlist her help.

I knocked on the door several times and although both, her and Mark's cars were in the driveway; no one answered. Finally, Mark came to the door. He couldn't look me in the eye.

"Donna, she doesn't want to see you," he said.

"Mark, I'm still the same person I was a few days ago," I told him.

"Maybe you are, Donna," he said. "But a few days ago, we didn't know the kind of person you were. Sherry is confused and hurt. She no longer knows who she is. It's bad enough that you lied to her for her entire life. The same way you lied to poor Greg, but she was at your house to ask you something about cooking and heard you telling Greg that you would have aborted both her and Terry. Donna, you're not the woman, we thought you were. What kind of woman, doesn't know who the fathers of her children are? What kind of monster says that she would have killed her own children under any circumstance?"

"The kind of woman who loved her husband more than life itself," I spat.

"Yet you cheated on him since before you were even married," he said. "Do you have any idea of how badly you've hurt him? How badly you've hurt all of us? Go away Donna."

He closed the door and left me standing there. I went back to my shitty motel room and sat on the lumpy bed, thinking. I missed my comfortable home and my big, soft, comfortable bed. But more than anything else I missed Greg.

I missed his smile when he looked at me. I missed his furtive looks, when the kids were around, and he was planning something naughty. Greg was awful at being sneaky. And I think they always knew when he would slip up beside me and while standing with our sides pressed together, he'd grab a big handful of booty.

Some people are glass is half-empty types. Others are glass is half-full types. My Greg is a completely different paradigm. He's an 'if we took what we have in this glass and put it in a smaller one, it would be running over the sides' type.

And that was what he had always done with me. When I was younger, he proudly crowed about me being the cutest girl in the county. Sure, I was never beautiful, like Tara or my son, Terry's new-found friend Lana. But I had that country girl with chipmunk cheeks kind of cuteness. Greg had also played up my lack of attributes, by bragging about how slim and sexy I was.

After Sherry was born and my figure filled out a bit, he praised my still slim but curvy body and noted that my slightly thicker legs, were the sexiest around. After Terry was born, Greg decided that he liked short curvy girls. He was the first person in our town to point out that even a dog likes a little bit of meat on its bones. Then after Debbie was born, and I began complaining about my size, I began to notice that Greg seemed to have developed an inability to keep his hands off of my ass. He started giving me what we're supposed to be foot massages that always seemed to end up with him pulling my panties down and massaging and then licking my ass and eventually fucking me doggy style. He usually spent about thirty seconds on my feet, a couple of minutes on my thick legs and a half-hour or so on my ass.

Of course, that lead to renewed interest in anal sex. Fortunately, we had always occasionally done it, so he wasn't surprised at how easy it was to get his dick inside of my ass. That should have served as a warning for me, but it didn't.

And now when I was at the lowest point of my life, I was alone. Over the years, men had come and gone. Some used me for years at a time and others only once. But when those things ended, I never missed any of them. It was only sex. But after only a few days without Greg, l felt as if my life was over.

I also wondered that would become of our family. Sherry was clearly so hurt and so angry that she didn't even want to speak to me. Terry already wrote me out of his life. Of my three children, the only one I had a chance to salvage a relationship with was Debbie.

My lawyer had asked me several questions when we sat down and had our talk. One of them was what I would consider a total win in the divorce. Then he asked me what I could live with. Then finally he asked what I would consider an abject loss.

My answers were telling. I told him that a win would be for us to emerge from this with Greg and my family back together and happy again. As much as I hated to admit it, I could live with my kids hating my guts and Greg, and I managing to stay together. Even if it was a case where we were only together because he refused to surrender custody of Debbie. I knew that Greg loved me and with any amount of regular contact between us, I could get him back. An abject loss for me would be living my life without Greg.

"You need to re-assess your goals," he told me. "I can help you to secure your finances going forward. I can help you fight for custody of your younger daughter..."

"Why only Debbie," I interrupted.

"Two reasons," he said in a very emotionless voice. "The first is that the older two are over eighteen. They can do whatever they please no matter what you want. The second is because as you pointed out, they are not your husband's children, so he really has no rights as far as they're concerned."

I sighed and nodded.

"But the most important thing for you to remember is that my functionality is to assist you with the legal system and the laws and practices that govern the marriage termination procedure. I can put you into situations that will force you and your husband together for short periods of time, but I can't force him to take you back. It's the same-old song and dance. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."