She's Gone

"How have you been living here for two weeks without using your charge card?"

She spent a long time not speaking until she finally offered up, "I have been staying at his place."

"So you know where he lives?"

"Of course."

"And you have a key?"

She just nodded.

"How long have you had a key to his place?"

She just shrugged and looked at the floor.

I knew that once I made the accusation there was going to be hell to pay if I was wrong. Still, two fucking weeks is more than any man should be expected to wait in the dark for answers! "How long, Marie?"

She didn't answer.

"How long has the affair been going on?"

She didn't answer the question or deny the accusation. The mind goes numb at a time like that. There would be time later for more questions and more pain.

"Okay, I think at least you own me a look at his place. I want you to take me to where you've been staying."

She looked at me in horror as the panic overtook her. Eventually, she surrendered and just nodded. She gathered her coat and we headed for my car. "I'll drive." I said, "and then I'll bring you back." She seemed surprised by that, but she accepted.

I guess by then the detectives decided it was a personal matter. With one last warning not to do anything stupid, they left.

Marie was silent for most of the drive except when she needed to give me directions. At one point she barely whispered, "They said we may be required to reimburse the police for their time."

I wanted to ask, "Who is this 'we' you speak of?", but I let it drop.

God only knows what my pulse and blood pressure were like. I was barely keeping it together. When we pulled into a short driveway in front of a townhouse, I knew I'd likely find the answers to my questions inside. Marie let us in and as I walked through the living room, I immediately spotted a pair of my wife's shoes on the floor by the sofa. There was a scarf she liked draped over a chair. I wandered down the hallway as Marie called out, "James, please, don't go there!" If ever there were words from a wife that had the opposite effect, those were the words. I entered the master bedroom. Marie's clothing was scattered on the unmade bed and chair, and her makeup and such were on the dresser. It wasn't until I opened the walk-in closet and saw familiar dresses hanging there that the last shred of doubt left me. There was a blue dress that was her favorite, but I knew for a fact that it was hanging in her closet at home. This was a duplicate. And there were a few pair of shoes that appeared to be her size in styles she liked. This wasn't anything she had packed for the trip. These were things that she kept here. There was no doubt left in me now and I knew that if I opened some drawers, I would find her underwear and such.

The room seemed arranged not so much for living as for the occasional overnight visit, a night out for dinner and dancing followed by intimacy and time to sleep in a lover's arms.

I walked back to the living room feeling like a broken man where I found Marie sitting quietly on the edge of a chair, staring aimlessly at the floor. "So, is there anything you need to tell me?"

She just shook her head slowly.

"How long, Marie? It's obvious that this isn't a plutonic relationship. How long?"

She just shrugged as if she didn't know the answer, but obviously she knew and didn't want to say.

"Who is he to you?"

She was quiet for a long time, and then in a weak voice she said, "He was my first. We were together when we were in school."

I wondered if she meant high school or college, but both were sufficiently long ago that I decided it didn't matter.

"How long have you been seeing him behind my back?"

That got a sudden jerk of her head, but she couldn't deny it. She wanted to deny it. She wanted it to be untrue, but we both knew it wasn't.

"We reconnected about seven years ago. It was just lunch at first, then dinner. We went dancing one night while you were out of town. It was a year before we... before we..." She trailed off.

"Before you had sex?"

She nodded her head slowly.

"So, you've been having sex with him behind my back for six years? How do you do it? Do you come here? Does he come to our place?"

That got an immediate response from Marie. Her head jerked up. "I've never had him back to our home! I swear it! I wouldn't do that to you."

I nodded and I was feeling mean. "So, you'll fuck him, but you won't entertain him in our home. I'm glad to hear you draw the line somewhere."

She was mad, but she couldn't deny any of it.

After a long, quiet time she said, "I never stopped loving you. He never took anything from you. I swear it. It was just a few nights every year and you had me forever."

It was a lie taken from the cheater's playbook, and I thought, "What was the point of arguing?" Well, there was a point! "He took at least some of the love you said you had for me. You kept a part of your heart for him. Because of him, you lied to me repeatedly. You took vows with me, but you gave him a part of yourself that you said was only for me. Don't tell me he never took anything from me. He took it all even if you don't think so."

Marie wept and I stood silently by. I knew all that I needed to know. I thought about trashing his home, smashing anything breakable, but he wasn't coming home. Eventually, I just gave up. "Come on, Marie. I'll take you back to your lover's bedside." That brought on a new round of tears, but my heart was broken, and I had no comfort to give her.

I drove her back to the hospital and as she got out of the car, she pleaded with me. "James, please, just give me a little time. He has no one. I can't let him die alone. I'll be home soon." That last bit brought a brief sob. "I'll be home soon, and we can get back to our life together. Please! I do love you! I swear it."

I just nodded and dismissed her by telling her he'd be waiting. I think by then she knew we were done. I drove a slow four hours home and I can't remember any of it. I was empty. Two weeks of stress and worry, all those friends and family telling me not to give up hope, and now I find she was with her lover the entire time. I was drained both physically and emotionally.

I did little more than stumble into the house and dropped onto my favorite chair. I don't know how much time passed before the first call came. It was her parents and they wanted to know where I'd been and if I'd learned anything. That was when I realized that I'd run off two-hundred miles without telling a soul. I briefly considered saving Marie the embarrassment, but I guess that I had spent the last vestige of my husbandly love for a woman who had betrayed me for years, so I told Henry and Margaret everything. They didn't want to believe it until I described what I'd found at his townhouse. At this point, it didn't matter if they believed me or not, my marriage was over. I knew that without needing to think about it. It was a fact that welled up from the inner reaches of my soul, crushed my heart, and consumed me. Marie and I were done. She loved another man and I'm not the sort to share. What was worse, she had spent years lying to me, sneaking around behind my back, and giving herself to him. That wasn't a mistake; it was a life of betrayal, and we weren't coming back from that.

I called friends to tell them the news and I spared nothing. I contained my anger as best I could, but I did not lie for her. After using them for practice, I called our kids and tried to tell them in a gentle, but honest way, that I'd found their mother, and that she was with her lover who was dying in his hospital bed. They didn't want to believe it, so I told them about the townhouse. When they asked if I could forgive her, I said, "Maybe someday, but I'll never trust her again." I apologized to them both, but I told them that I was divorcing their mother. Then I forgot that they still had no way of reaching her, and I told them not to tell her. I said she needed whatever time was left to see him off and her rushing home wouldn't change anything. They argued with me, but in the end they understood.

Two weeks later he was dead, and Marie returned home, but I was gone. She was served divorce papers a week after her return. I never left town, I didn't leave my job, and I never hid from her. I just moved to an apartment until I eventually found a place that suited me. I would be close enough to the old house that the kids could visit us both. Marie tried to change my mind; I'll give her that. She would show up at my office or my apartment and beg me to reconsider, but my mind was made up. She would cry and threaten, but it made no difference. It was six years of betrayal, and seven if you count lunches, dinners, and dancing. In the end, it was the lies at least as much as the sex that killed our marriage. When I learned how well and how easily she had lied to me, lying right to my face with a smile, I knew that she didn't view me with the same commitment that I held for her.

It's now been two years since the divorce was final. I don't ask, but the kids tell me that their mother just goes to work and then home. She isn't going out, or so they think. It saddens me that she's suffering so, but I can't help her. To this day I can't tell you whether she mourns for the loss of her first love or for the marriage she betrayed. I'm not doing that well myself. I've not healed, but the pain is slowly lessening. I'm not dating, either, but I have started to notice other women and I suspect that in time I'll dip my toe in the dating pool. I'm a long way from trusting another woman outside a professional setting.

I'll never know why she betrayed me, what she needed that I wasn't providing, or how she rationalized her own behavior. I suppose I could ask, but what would be the point? It was her decision and somehow, she made peace with it at the time.

I've never told anyone this before because I doubt that they would believe me even now, but I never did learn his name. There was a man lying in his deathbed and a townhouse where my wife played house when they were together. That was enough for me. You can't take revenge on a dead man, and I have learned that I can't forgive a wife who betrays me.

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That's the story. No fancy gadgets, no revenge to plan, and no cure for the hurt except time. That's what really happens when your spouse betrays you. There's no steel pipe to the knees and no one gets sold to a Mexican whorehouse. There is just pain and doubt and the feeling that somehow you have failed.