Second Life

"To that end," she said, "I have begun dating other men, starting with Tim here. I will always love you, but I love Tim as well, and need to be with him for my own happiness."

No one said anything. It seemed his turn, so Travis simply said, "John Stuart Mill wrote that whatever increases the sum total of happiness is the most moral course of action. Naturally this has to be a good thing."

The silence got even more profound. "I guess what I am saying is," said Travis softly, "that if I have lost your heart, I want you to have the greatest happiness, and to encounter your just desserts. I really don't want to be a cuckold, so I think we should change the nature of our marriage. This post-nuptial formalizes our current relationship. It acknowledges your ongoing romantic affair and states that after this point if our marriage collapses, all of my assets except the house become inaccessible to you. It also states that Timothy, and I have him indicated by name here, will help you out with your car, health insurance, life insurance, daily expenses, and retirement accounts, taking the place of my contributions which are estimated on this line here. It also states that your relationship was not my choice or will. The document also contains a final proviso, which is that if one spouse takes on other lovers, the other is allowed to do so from that point forward."

He handed her the paper. Then he continued: "Also, for bookkeeping's sake, I need DNA samples from both of you to determine who has duties to the children. But if we get this little paperwork out of the way, you can go on your way."

"That's... it?" Dana asked.

"Yeah," said Travis. "I think that about covers it."

She looked shocked. The script had been thrown out the window. Travis felt for her. "Why don't you explain your reasoning here?" he said.

Dana settled down like a hen seating itself for the night. "My spiritual adviser, Angel Rainwater, and I have looked at this through the lens of an enlightened post-modern philosophy. Marriage came about as a property contract, and was used to make women into the property of men, symbolized by sexual exclusivity. This obsolete and frankly primeval state of affairs no longer reflects advances in science, technology, and learning, especially after other relics of that era like colonialism, slavery, and caste systems have fallen. For us to be truly in love, we must both be free, and that means freedom for me to pursue affection where I find it. I must be free to be myself, free to end my loneliness however I must, and free to separate love from sex so that I can receive the erotic nutrition that my body requires."

Travis nodded. His body knew before his mind that she had said her piece, Timothy had gotten his little burst of energy for having cuckolded another man, and that this whole sad affair was going to go into a holding pattern.

"Yeah, me too," he said. "Just sign the papers and you'll have no trouble from me, Dana and Timothy. I wish you all the best."

He made a quick call and got everyone a soda. A knock came at the door, and Allen walked in with a notary from the local bank. Stunned, Dana and Timothy signed, Travis signed, Allen initialed, and the notary clicked her little seal over the papers. Then he took a quick cheek swab from both Dana and Timothy.

"We each get a copy," said Travis. "We good?"

He even did a fistbump with Timothy before escorting Allen and his notary to the car. "This is going into our file," said Allen, and departed.

Back in the house, life took on the same pattern that it had for months, and those months stretched into years. He ate with the kids, and sometimes Dana joined, but he was gone on nights and half of each weekend, although it rarely occurred to Dana to wonder where he went. Sometimes Travis saw anger pass over Dana's eyes for a few moments, but never longing, so he slept well and worried not at all about his choices. As he had observed long ago, most of humanity lived in a state of rage because it suppressed the real world in order to pursue its greatest happiness, only finding out later that just as in the Garden of Eden, this was a devil's bargain: happiness did not equal contentment, or better yet, fulfillment, which only comes from challenging oneself to become greater.

Dana for her part reflected that she had won. She had smashed the patriarchal institute of marriage that had held her back. She had the ability to be the perfect married wife and mother, and also have her illicit and edgy lover. At the school, she became nothing short of legend, the woman so enlightened that she talked her husband into an open marriage and bedded the star of the educational world, at least in their small segment. She did not even feel a twinge of jealousy when gossip passed along a sighting of Travis with an attractive woman at a local kicker bar.

In fact, fifteen years ran by before she took stock again.

At this point, she was spending half of her time at Tim's condominium, and barely noticed when her children went off to college. Candace was graduating in a month, so she sent a card. Robert, who had made it into the university of his choice, left home gladly. Both had fond memories of their father, but would have filled in a question mark if a survey asked about their mother. To them, she was her public persona, larger than life.

Dana had become principal of the South Central High School, and in her time, graduation rates and test results had increased with her progressive program of interventions for at risk students and four years of preparation for the tests that determined who would go on to college. In fact, her school led the state in all of the statistics that mattered, and she was routinely feted in the media. On the day that things came unglued, she had just signed the contract for her first book with a half-million dollar advance.

She and Tim were lazing in the afterglow in his condominium, the late afternoon sun playing over the tribal and avantgarde impressionistic art that lay on his walls like a suit of armor. Books lined the hallways, and his presidential commendation for work with the impoverished and marginalized perched in its frame over the bed. As usual, she had begun with him in her mouth, then had him penetrate her vaginally, after which she offered him her sweet and still tight ass, then he finished on her face while licking her toes. Tim always had a foot thing, and she kept her feet immaculate for him.

A knock came at the door. Tim went to answer it, and came back a short while later with a manila envelope. They opened it together.

"It's a lawsuit," said Dana after awhile. "I've seen these before. You're being sued for interference with contract, which looks like my marriage to Travis. It mentions the post-nup, and says that at that time, you accepted the consequences of your actions and therefore will have no problem ponying up money."

"I can't pump out a lump sum like that," said Tim. "My salary is not even that large, and my trust pays out in an annuity, monthly payments. Isn't there a time limit on these things?"

"This is civil court," said Dana quickly. "No statute of limitations." She was shocked that he seemed to be flat broke, but even more that he knew so little of the law, having been an administrator for years. She had read her fair share of contracts and lawsuits during her tenure. Then, a little thought, like a gnat in a silent room, worked into her mind: he was broke because she was not the only one. Her puzzle fit together. The out of town trips -- how many had she verified? The late nights at the downtown office -- had she checked up on him? Those days when she was too busy for lunch -- was he also?

She sighed, and picked up the phone, then dialed her husband.

"Hello?" said a giggling teenage voice.

So that's her, thought Dana. "Can I speak to Travis?"

"Dad, it's for you," echoed through the phone, but it didn't sound like Candace.

Travis came on with a hello, but Dana pushed right to the point: "What's this lawsuit about?"

"Oh, ah," said Travis, with that lazy voice he got when around the kids. "You know, you should just call Allen."

"Daddy, it's your turn," another voice rang out in the background, this time a young boy. Then the phone disconnected.

Dana and Tim just looked at each other.

Time marched on. Looking back, Dana reflected, they needn't have worried about the lawsuit. It was not dead on arrival, but dead after thousands in legal fees that her husband seemed happy to spend. However, it allowed the introduction of evidence into the public record, including the post-nuptial and the DNA tests, which proved the children to be his but more importantly, the semen on her panties from a year prior to be Tim's. While the court declined to pass judgment in favor of Travis, the fact that the case was heard at all introduced new possibilities in law. Legal journals and news-entertainment publications picked it up across the globe, which led to both Tim and Dana taking early retirement at the request of the school board.

With a few thousand of her own spent on private investigators, Dana found out something of her own about Travis. He had wasted no time getting friendly with Agnes, renting an apartment where she lived and paid him a lesser sum in her own cash money. Technically, it was his second home, and he needed it because his marriage had died. After the post-nuptial was signed, he rented a room from Agnes in the new house she bought, paying her with checks from his account that suspiciously exactly covered the mortgage and insurance for the house, but technically were merely rent for the room. All of this seemed completely legal, according to the attorneys that Dana consulted.

During that time, Travis had three more children, a girl and two boys, with Agnes. According to everyone who saw them, they were very much in love. Through a freak of international law, they were able to travel to Indonesia, where he married Agnes as his second wife, since polygamy was still legal. They traveled back through Sweden, which recognized foreign polygamous marriages, and somehow they got a residency permit as man and wife which he was able to use back in the states to ensure that the children's birth certificates recorded them as the products of a legal marriage. The children lived in his second house, with his second wife, where he spent all of his free time as part of his second life. It was not a double life, like she had lived, but a full second life, like he saw their marriage as a bump in the road and just drove around it.

Even more, he had spent like a mad fiend, so even if she could get past the post-nup, there was no money in the accounts, nor in the house, since he had taken a second mortgage out against it in order to buy a boat which was later lost in a hurricane, or (she suspected) sold to drug runners from South America for hard cash. Somehow, he had taken everything. Not that she needed it, Dana thought. After her career as principal came to a screeching halt, she went down to the local coffee shop, Agora, and became a fixture there hammering away on her battered MacBook. She went home each night to Tim, who was working on his own book and needed the whole condominium empty to concentrate, but they were usually too tired for anything but brief conversation and bed.

Eventually she had a book worth of material about her inspiring journey from privileged teacher to defender of the marginalized, and it sold fairly well, since it came out in time for Christmas and all empathy-oriented households bought a copy. She converted her notoriety into a series of speaking engagements, receiving generous consulting fees each time, and wrote articles on a regular basis for a number of forward-looking publications which could not get enough of her story of raising up the downtrodden.

She only met the "other woman" once. Dana had just walked in the door from the Uber ride she took to get home from the airport when her phone rang.

"Uh, I'm calling for Mrs. Travis Denning," said a young voice.

"That's me," said Dana, after a few moments.

"This is the front desk at Memorial Hospital Woodlands. Your husband is here in our ICU, and our visiting hours are --"

She was already in the car. Dana navigated the city traffic, sluggish like the bayous that sliced the town into different districts, and persistent like the humidity that hung in the air and trapped every scent into a melange of exhaust, sweat, perfume, and cigarettes that clung to every surface. At the hospital, she badged herself in with her driver's license, which still bore her married name and status. She walked slowly, dread in her heart, toward room 309 where she was told that Travis was recuperating. A tall and reedy man in a nicely-cut suit also waited at the door.

"What happened?" she asked.

"A one in a thousand accident," said the other visitor. "Metal fatigue in the joints of one of those wells started to shake, and your husband here spent what he had to have thought were his last moments" -- here he choked up a bit -- "pushing other workers out of the way. He could have gotten off the platform, but he refused until he threw the last man out and could jump. It came apart, and he caught a few large pieces of metal, but thankfully, just glancing blows. These are the accidents that we can't make go away completely, and they scare me to the point where I wake up in the night worrying. Thank God he was there. Travis is a hero today, and forever, for all of us."

A nurse let them in. Travis was conscious but was on heavy pain medication. It was easy to see why: more of his body was cast than not. The well-dressed man stepped inside, and handed Travis what looked like a large coin.

"Cordell? How'd you get here?" Travis spoke slowly, words oozing out of his mouth like smoke, probably from the pain medication.

"You did a good thing today, Travis," said the man. He turned to the nurse: "I'm Cordell Williams, CEO of McReady Oil & Gas. This man's a goddamn... he's a hero. Please let me know if there is anything we need to do."

"Good seeing you, Travis," he said. "Get well sooon, y'hear?"

Travis smiled and gave him a thumbs up. As Williams was leaving, a woman pushed through the door. She was tall, early fifties, and had auburn hair with radiant blue eyes.

"Hey honey," said Travis. Dana felt something, but nothing like her heart being ripped out. She began to sense, however, that here she was more of a spectator more than anything else.

"I came as soon as I heard," said the other woman. "How bad is it?"

"I'm bruised all over, a few broken bones, and the shock caused my heart to stop for a few minutes. No big deal. But I think I've died and gone to heaven now that I see you!"

Three children -- all a shade of blonde mixed with brown, like their father -- crowded in and spoke at once. The nurse let in a younger woman, tall and with the same observant eyes as her father.

"Hey, Candace," he said. "Thank you for coming. My heart overflows seeing all of my people here. Oh by the way, everyone, that lady over there is Dana, my first wife. Say hello, she don't bite."

Dana had not even recognized Candace. The beanpole she had raised for years had blossomed at college, but had always made excuses for not coming home. To her shock she saw a large gleaming engagement ring on Candace's left hand. Candace just nodded at her, as if embarrassed by her presence.

"I'm Agnes," said the attractive woman just a few years short of her age, and Dana shook her hand. Agnes saw a walking parody: an older woman with dayglo pink hair, multiple piercings, and a permanent grudge set in the angle of her jaw. Dana saw a woman glowing with the love of her family, and a husband she knew would never stray, someone who had found a challenge in living to make herself better, a person who climbed mountains instead of painting them in the vivid colors of critique.

Agnes was talking: "I'm glad to finally meet you. Travis told us how much he enjoyed his seven years with you. You should probably get ready for the media storm, since Travis saved a dozen men and one woman from certain death by holding that platform together. It reminds me of someone else, many years ago. You know when your father died saving his employees, he was not alone. Another man died keeping others alive, but he was only the CPA. He got ten people down that protective stairwell before the bricks took his life."

Dana turned to her in horror. They were linked? Agnes went on: "That man was my father. I was only a baby then, but every day I held my head up high. He saw the darkness coming and he stayed a man. He never blinked in the face of death. Today, the world proved to me what I always knew, which is that Travis is a similar man, one of the spirits that make life worth living. He's with us through an act of God, just about, because there was no realistic likelihood of him surviving what he did. But I'm so glad he did because I want to grow old with him, die with him, and be with him in spirit if there's an afterlife, and with the amount of love that has near burst my heart over the past fifteen years, I think there may be. I want to thank you, Dana, for keeping him safe for me. I couldn't live without him." Tears filled her eyes and she looked away.

Exhausted, Dana opened the door to the condominium with her keys. It took her a moment to adjust to the shock: the walls and bookshelves were bare.

She toured every room, turning on the lights, to find that there was nothing anywhere. No trace of Tim remained. On the kitchen counter she found a note:

Dana,

The book advance came in. I always wanted to go to the beach to write, and I didn't want to drag you down. I sold all my stuff. I've gone to Costa Rica. The condo is yours. Thank you for many great years.

Tim

The feeling of not love, nor hate, but irrelevance that she had experienced in the hospital came rushing back to Dana. It seemed as if everyone had just sidestepped her and moved forward. Travis had no anger toward her, but if he had love, it was not a love he cared about, since he had moved on to his second life and never looked back. The deception had been faultless for years. And now Tim, the one she thought would be her true love and eternal companion, had taken off for, what? Cheap beers, local prostitutes, and a vintage typewriter on the beach as he posed his way through another book.

It was all fake, she realized. The life she made false had become a pretense that Travis used to cover up his own pursuit of a better life. The love she had with Tim was always at his convenience, and she had no illusions about being his only bed partner during those years. It took decades, but she had nothing. Her book would eventually go out of print, her speaking engagements diminish, and she could come back here to this empty place and be empty, as she now felt she had been her entire life.