Seeing the Signs

"I do understand, Jan. I would have been surprised if you had reacted differently. It would have been a pleasant surprise for me, that's for sure, but a surprise nevertheless."

Then he stood up and prepared to leave my life forever. "I'm not going to attend the workshop this morning. I'm anxious to get on the road with the car. I just wish that I had met you before you met Brad. He's a very lucky guy and I just wish I could change places with him, even for just one night. Have a good life, Jan. You deserve it."

We shook hands, then Brad turned around to go. I dropped my head, staring at my coffee.

Suddenly, I feel myself turning as two strong hands grab the arms of my chair and pin me in place. Two eager lips find mine and my heart begins to race. I find myself returning his kiss for a few seconds. Then, as his tongue begs for entry between my lips, I come to my senses and push him away. "No, Steve! No," I scream

Without a word, he turns and walks out of my life. I find myself getting angry at him for what he did. I just shake my head and begin walking to my final workshop, alone.

After the workshop, I hop in my car and head home. I'm feeling better as I head to the house where Brad and I have been so happy. The house where, together, we nurtured our children and created a happy family. The house where, a few minutes from now, I'll sit down with my husband to face the problem that has been tearing him apart. Finally, he will have my undivided attention. The attention that I've been dividing between two men for way too long. The attention that he deserves.

When I arrive, I see that Brad is already there. As I walk through the door, I can smell the aroma of fresh coffee. I follow my nose to the kitchen. There's a large warming sack in the middle of the dinette. It displays the name of our favorite taco place. There are four settings around the table complete with name tags. Brad is at the head of the table, as usual. I usually sit just to his right, but my name tag is at the other end of the table. Randy will be to Brad's left and Mandy to his right. It isn't lost on me that I'm as far from Brad as is possible.

As I take this all in, I ask, "What's this all about. I thought it would just be you and me."

He answers, "This affects everyone. At my urging, the kids have arranged to get here early today so they can participate."

"I'm surprised that they will be here. I thought we, you and me, should talk first."

His answer was a blow to my heart. He said, "You're the one I'm surprised to see. I figured you would be on the way to DC first and then on to Europe. I was betting on Steve. I was sure that he'd won. The question is, why are you here?"

I couldn't believe my ears. I yell, "What does that even mean? What in the world are you talking about? What's all of this talk about winning? Why are you so hung up on Steve? He's on his way to DC. I'll never see him again, nor do I have any desire to do so. You and our children are all that matters to me!"

Just then the front door opens and our children enter the room

BRAD:

This is the day that I will confront Janet with the evidence of her infidelity.

It will happen at noon, and I'm prepared. I have made hundreds of presentations in my life, but this will be the hardest one, by far. How do you tell your children that after all of these happy years, they will become children of a broken home? Even college students like the comfort of home on occasion.

How does a man lay out the evidence of his wife's affair? How do I go about exposing the evidence of her adultery? How will Janet react? How will Mandy and Randy take it? This will be more than difficult.

We start with lunch. I make sure everyone has tacos, chips, dip, beans, rice, and tortillas. There's a big jug of tea and a full carafe of coffee too. Around the table are worried and baffled faces.

After some small talk as the meal is distributed, it's time for me to begin. I need to quit delaying and get this show on the road.

I start by telling them that this is going to be a difficult time for all of us. I say that I understand that everyone thinks it has something to do with my job, and it does, in an oblique way. So, I start with the change in my job. I tell them that I have accepted a company assignment in Saudi Arabia. I will be gone for a month. At the end of that time, I will have a chance to extend it for an additional month, at my discretion.

At that time, Janet spoke up. "This is preposterous! How could you do this without consulting with me? I can't let you go off for a month or two by yourself in a foreign land. How can I get that much time off? I'll probably have to quit or apply for early retirement! I think they treat women like crap over there. Jesus, Brad, have you lost your mind?"

"Don't worry, Janet. You'll be staying right here. I'm not allowed to take anyone with me. That's part of why it's attractive to me. I need some time to process all that's happened and decide how to proceed. I need time to myself to make some very hard decisions that will affect everyone here today."

"Brad, honey, you're scaring me. I've never seen you like this! You've always let me help you work through your problems."

"I've never been like this before. Maybe because I've never had to deal with my wife having an affair before. Infidelity and adultery were just empty words to me until this month. Now they are real and they're devastating. My problem has very little to do with my job. My problem, Janet, is you!

Voices were raised all around the table. It was pandemonium. I held up my hands. "This is hard enough without comments and questions. Please let me finish and then you can tell me anything or ask me anything."

I start by telling them that I intend to concentrate on hard-evidence. I said, "While I have my internal observations and opinions, how does one prove something like an 'emotional affair?' How do you document changes in sexual behavior, like a wife asking her husband of many years to use a condom? It's hard to account for that when the husband had a vasectomy years ago. The only explanation I can think of is that she's trying to hide something; perhaps what's known as 'sloppy seconds.'

Voices were raised around the table again. Once again, I raised my hands until things quieted down. Then I told them it would take much more than a lunch meeting to go through everything I had seen and what I had felt in my heart. "That's why I'm concentrating on hard evidence. You will see photographs, videos, and laboratory reports. There will be no conjecture."

I started by placing five photographs on the table. I told them these were printouts of pictures that I took with my own iPhone. I told them the story of how I happened to be there. I told them how much it hurt me watching them together. I stressed that it looked exactly like a couple on a date.

The pictures showed Janet and Steve having lunch together at the Hilton restaurant. They were at a table for two. One picture showed her touching his shoulder, with a look of awe on her face. The next one showed them holding hands. The next one showed him feeding her a piece of his chocolate cake. Another one showed her sharing a piece of her carrot cake with him. The last one showed them leaving together through a door that was beneath a sign saying, "To Hotel Rooms." A clock was also visible. It read 12:50.

Janet interrupted loudly, "We were going to the Convention Center!"

Ignoring her, I pointed the remote and clicked. Our kitchen television set came to life. It was showing a video of Janet and Steve coming through that restaurant's back door and walking down a hallway with rooms on both sides. It followed them until they turned a corner to the right. The video timestamp read: "Wednesday, October 7, 12:52 pm." As that video faded, it was replaced by a similar video of them coming back. It was timestamped: "Wednesday, October 7, 2:07 pm."

Janet sang out, "We were looking at the place where we were going to make our presentation!"

Randy said, "For more than an hour, Mom? How long is your lunch break?"

"It takes time to get used to a new venue and to develop a plan to use the equipment in the best way possible. If you want to do a good job, you have to produce a detailed plan. That's what we did. Even we were surprised when we realized how much time it had taken," squealed Janet.

Mandy asked me how I obtained those videos. I asked her if she remembered Jim Slayton, the guy that I worked with on the Chicago project. She said the name rang a bell, but she didn't remember him. I told her that during that project, we got to leave early one time because we couldn't proceed until some needed equipment arrived. He tried to call his wife to have her meet our flight at the airport. He couldn't reach her, so when you and your mom met our flight, we took him home. I thought you might remember him since you were in the car too.

"Oh, now I remember. He must have called a dozen of her friends and colleagues trying to locate her. He was a nice guy, but I remember now that he was pretty worried. He was ready to call the police and report her as a missing person."

I asked if she remembered what had happened to his wife. She said if she ever knew, she'd forgotten. I told her the story about Jim finding out that Lois was spending the weekend at Branson, Missouri with another man.

"They were attending country music shows and participating in 'other activities' for that whole weekend. That ultimately led to Jim getting a divorce. While he was going through that process, the private investigator that he hired introduced him to the signs of infidelity. Jim was constantly talking about them. He said that he observed many of those signs in the behavior of Lois quite a while before he caught her. If he'd known the signs sooner, he might have saved his marriage."

I went on to say, "I remembered those signs when I started seeing them in your mom's behavior. I got Jim aside and confided in him. He told me not to waste a second. He gave me the phone number of his PI, Ray Sampson, and said to call him immediately. I made the call. I saw him that same day. He took the case. The first thing he did was procure the security footage from the Hilton for the locations and dates that I gave him. What you just saw came from that Hilton security footage."

Randy said, "Looks like you were as serious as a heart attack, Dad. That must have cost you some big bucks."

"I was ready to spend everything necessary to save my marriage. Now, however, I question if it made any difference."

I noticed Janet's face. It was red. I wondered if she was embarrassed or mad. I quit thinking about it and clicked the remote.

Another video began playing. I explained that this was the first one filmed by the PI. It showed another "lunch date" at the Hilton. The timestamp showed the date as: "Thursday, October 8, 12:15 pm."

I pointed out that the night before, I had begged Janet to see Steve only in her office and only during duty hours. That would, of course, preclude lunch dates at the Hilton. I continued, "This video proves that she completely ignored my request. It shows her complete lack of respect for me. As you can see, they're sharing a booth with another couple. Steve is holding her hand. He makes a point of showing her rings to the other couple. The expression on his face shows that he's bragging about being with a married lady. He was smug. He was the big man that was making her husband a cuckold."

Janet interjected, "He wasn't bragging about me being married. The guy had asked if we were 'an item,' and Steve said we couldn't be because of the rings. It was the opposite of bragging. Being there had nothing to do with a lack of respect. It was solely work-related. Everything was connected to our upcoming presentation. I've never disrespected you, honey."

Next came a video stamped: "Friday, October 9." Once again, it showed an additional Hilton "lunch date." I pointed out that the biggest difference was the time. It was a late lunch, starting after 2 pm. Then came the security footage of them walking down the hallway at 2:50 pm. It shows them coming back at 5:30 pm. I pointed out that they spent two and a half hours together.

Once again, we heard from Janet. "We were doing an equipment check. We found some problems and fixed them. We also did a practice run of our presentation. Once again, no time was spent in Steve's room. Not even a second."

I went on by mentioning that the next day, Saturday, Janet informed me that she'd invited Steve to our weekend cookout. "I was flabbergasted! She didn't confer with me about it, she just announced it. I considered it just one more sign of her lack of respect, which was an item high on Jim's 'signs of cheating' list.

"So, on Sunday we had a guest at our cookout. I spent some time with Steve and I could see how Janet could be attracted to him. He was younger than us, probably by at least a decade. He was good looking and he had a good gift of gab. I talked with him about the army. He was impressed that I had been a member of the famous first division, known as: 'The Big Red One.' He was amused by their unofficial slogan: "If you're going to be one, may as well be a Big Red One!" He was a nice enough guy, but I was pre-programmed to not like him.

"He joined in the meal preparation and played some lawn-games with us. Then came a surprise. The general had just contacted the two of them by phone right in the middle of our cookout. He asked them to include the newest system, I think it was the G11, in their upcoming presentation.

"Janet suggested that they go into her home office and strive to determine if they would be able to make the required modifications to their presentation in the amount of time that was left. She did deign to ask me if it would be alright, knowing full well that I wouldn't make an ass of myself by objecting. Talk about a well-laid trap!

"I will say this, Janet made sure that the blinds were up and the door was open. We could see everything that was happening in her office. I was able to plant a small recording device in there while they were explaining the general's request to everyone. It picked up one conversation that I considered to be important." I played it for all to hear:

[Janet, do you think we should be doing this? Do you appreciate the risks we're taking? If we don't get this right, we'll cause problems for everyone.

Steve, the risk is mostly mine. I'm the one that has the most to lose. I'm confident we can pull this off. Don't be a worrywart. I will be especially careful. Nothing will go bad. This isn't my first rodeo. I've been through this kind of thing before. Not exactly like this, but very similar.

Wow, Janet. I assumed this was probably a first for both of us. I feel better knowing that you have experience handling this kind of thing. I can learn from you.

Wow, what a beauty!

Thank you, sir.]

I stopped the playback and began speaking. "What did we just hear? Well, first we heard Steve voicing some concerns about their affair. She strived to put his mind at ease by admitting that she had the most to lose. She's right! She was risking her marriage, her family, and probably her job. Then comes her most damning disclosure. This wasn't the first time for her. As she put it, it was not her 'first rodeo.' She knows the ropes and can keep it concealed. That statement does it for me. What I'm dealing with is just the tip of her cheating-iceberg. I've been clueless. How many times? For how many years?"

Janet jumped up immediately. "Wrong, wrong! You have it all wrong. None of this conversation had anything to do with an 'imaginary' affair. It was all about our presentation. Steve was saying that when we have to hurry our preparation like this, there's a chance we could disseminate inaccurate information. Even worse, we might unintentionally divulge uncleared, top-secret data. That could get us prosecuted! But I have made presentations like this in the past. I'm experienced in getting it right. He was relieved to hear that from me. I stressed that since we were both working from my notes, I was the one with the most to lose. He wouldn't be divulging anything except what he'd learned from me. So, it was, indeed, my risk, not his. That's what that conversation was all about.

"Next, when he said, 'What a beauty,' he was looking at a picture of Dad's old Karmann Ghia. I knew what he meant. My answer was meant to insert a touch of humor. Guess it wasn't funny.

"This whole conversation has been completely misunderstood. It had nothing to do with Steve and me in any way other than professionally."

I looked at her and remarked, "So you say."

She looked at me with anguish and yelled, "Your mind is made up. You aren't even listening to me. You prefer your fiction to my truth."

I replied, "Janet, most things are exactly what they appear to be." Then I mentioned that the next sign came on Monday evening. It was October, 12, the day that Janet was conducting her factory tours. I'd seen the new slacks that she bought for that occasion. When she came home, she wasn't wearing the slacks. She was wearing a short skirt. She went straight to the bathroom and jumped in the shower, another major sign. She'd left a sack at the front door. I investigated and found her slacks in the sack. The crotch area was covered with a sticky white substance. I hoped it wasn't what I suspected.

"When she left the bathroom, I noticed she had thrown her panties in the wastebasket. They were in worse shape than her slacks. It was the same sticky-white substance. I put them in a sack and stored them in my toolbox. I finally had some 'hard-evidence' for my PI. When I told him about it, he asked if I could give the evidence to him so he could get it analyzed by a lab. I complied with his request."

At that point, I placed the lab report on the table. It identified the sticky substance as semen. The report stated that they found a DNA match in the CODIS database. It traced the DNA to an army captain by the name of Steve Snow. I watched as Randy and Mandy read through the report. They both turned to Janet with questions and comments flying. She just ducked her head and murmured that the report wasn't right. She kept repeating that it was just tapioca pudding that she had sat in during lunch. It was just tapioca pudding.

Randy said, "So, you're saying this laboratory has mistakenly identified tapioca pudding as sperm? Is that your story? Are you serious, Mom?"

As Janet sat there stuttering, I played the next video. It was more damning than the previous ones. It started with them having breakfast at the Hilton. Then, it showed them entering the hallway. The timestamp showed: "Tuesday, October 13, 7:42 am." This time, it followed them down the hallway and around the right-turn. It plainly showed them entering room #156 just past 8 am. I laid a copy of the hotel registration on the table. It showed that room #156 was registered to Steve Snow. The video continued showing them leaving the room and heading to the parking lot at 10:55 am.

Janet shrieked, "No, no, no. That's not right. That was when we were giving our presentation. We spent that time in the Convention Center." She was sobbing.

The next video brought outright bawling from Janet. It showed her and Steve in her car. She drove into our garage at 11:33. The video showed them backing out of the garage two hours later.

Janet was crying openly while trying to talk. We heard, "It's not what it looks like." We heard that said time after time. Over and over she moaned it. I was reminded of the old days when the phonograph needle used to get stuck and play the same thing over and over.

Finally, I had to speak up. "Janet, you can tell us that it's not what it looks like until hell freezes over, but we saw the evidence. You spent the morning in Steve's room. Then, you spent the afternoon with him at our house. Our house should have been sacred to you. How could you use it in that manner? You chose to desecrate our family's sacred place."