The Moving Finger Writes

Thus, the only substantive concern was whether Sal and I were sufficiently devoted to each other to confront those inevitable tough times without a single thought for our personal well-being. If I had proof, I knew I could put my wife's momentary lapse in my rearview mirror. And... that was the exact point where karma stepped in...

*****

One fine day in late March, a mysterious disease came to Arles. The place dates back to the time of the Phoenicians. Hence, it has seen everything from the Antonine Plagues to the Black Death. So, the ancient stones of the Colosseum just shrugged their shoulders and said, "Here comes another one."

I was aware that people around me were getting sick, and I'm a bit of a germaphobe. As a result, I avoided crowds. But a fellow at the next table in the Arena Café had a coughing fit, and a couple of days later something vile crept into my sleep.

I awoke shivering and shaking to the point where I could barely control my body. I was coughing in a way reminiscent of the guy at the cafe, my head was splitting, and I felt like I was about to shit myself. I stood to walk to the bathroom and collapsed on the floor, too weak to stand.

I crawled to the lavatory and back on my hands and knees. Then, I threw all available covers over me and lay there in the fetal position, shivering. I knew I would die alone, in a strange country, with nobody to relieve my anguish or witness my passing.

I was overwhelmed by fear and sadness. The emotion was so intense that I did something I swore I'd never do. I wept. As I lapsed into unconsciousness, my last words were, "Sally."

There's pain, and then there's what I experienced. I can tell you what Hell is like because I visited its darkest corner. I don't know how long I lay there terrified and suffering. I remember a couple of periods of darkness. That must have been night passing. But I was too delirious to be aware of much. Then a cool hand touched my forehead, and a soft voice said, "I think the fever has gone down."

I opened my eyes and instantly closed them. The daylight was painful. I cracked them open to see two people in the room, Buster hovering behind them looking concerned. The one who had just touched my forehead was female and the other was a man. Both were wearing hospital surgical masks and gowns. They must have been local medical personnel.

The man said in heavily accented English, "Just keep taking care of him as you have. He needs to stay hydrated, and the medicine will lower his fever. Also, try to get him to eat something, soup perhaps. I will visit again tomorrow."

The nurse's voice said, "Thank you, doctor," and footsteps disappeared out of the room. I was half dead. But the thought struck me that the woman had an American accent. That was odd... Buster sat there staring at me, communicating in that uncanny way that dogs do. He was trying to tell me that everything would be okay. It was comforting. Dogs know that kind of thing.

I awoke much later, feeling slightly better. I could tell that it was evening by the shadows on the wall. There was a silent figure sitting in one of my upholstered chairs reading. I said weakly, "Could you please get me some water." The figure jumped to her feet and rushed out into the other room. She returned with a glass of water.

I gulped it down greedily as I tried to figure out who she was. She was masked and gowned like anybody would be to protect themselves from the plague. So, it was hard to discern much about her except for her gorgeous eyes.

They made me think of Sal and the pang of regret nearly accomplished what the disease had failed to do. I said weakly, "Thank you." I was going to ask my guardian angel's name. But the drowsiness hit me like a cement truck, and I lapsed back into sleep.

I awoke on a beautiful Provencal morning. The sun was shining, and I was feeling much better. The headache had disappeared, and the fever had broken. I still had a wracking cough, but I could breathe freely. My mysterious benefactor was roaming around in the other room, and I could hear Buster padding along with her. He sounds like an elephant on the bare floorboards.

She was cooking something that smelled delicious. When I tried to get out of bed to join them, the room began to spin. So, I plopped back down. Buster heard me and ambled in. He looks like a worried old Frenchman, with wide-set eyes, wrinkled brow, pushed-in nose, and dewlaps. I could almost hear him saying surprised, "Monsieur!! You're awake!!"

Then, my savior edged past him. She was humming a familiar tune and carrying a big bowl of soup. She had a mask on, but there was no missing those eyes, that hair, and the magnificent body. My heart leaped out of my chest, zipped a couple of high-speed passes around the room, and finished with a climbing four-point victory roll. It was Sally!

Without saying a word, Sal bustled up to the bed, plopped down on the chair, dipped a big spoonful of the soup, blew on it, and shoved the spoon toward my mouth. She said conversationally, as if the situation was the most normal thing in the world, "You have to eat this, it will help you regain your strength."

I was so thrilled and astonished that I popped my mouth open like a baby bird, and she shoveled that soul-satisfying substance into it. She continued to spoon, and I continued to eat and before long I had finished the entire bowl. Not a word was said throughout that utterly bizarre period. But there didn't need to be. She was there, and everything was right with the world.

After I'd finished and she'd deposited the bowl in my little sink, she came back and sat down next to me. I reached my hand toward her. She took it lovingly in both of hers and sat there staring at me with a "what am I going to do about you" look on her face. I got that look a lot from my mother growing up.

Finally, I said, trying to sound nonchalant, "Not that I'm complaining, but how did you get here?"

Sal added just as casually, "I was in the neighborhood. So, I thought I'd drop by." That was so vintage us. Neither of us ever wants to look like we take things too seriously.

Continuing our little subterranean mating dance, I said, "Well, I'm glad you did, because you saved my life."

My wife laughed and said, "No, it was actually Buster who saved you..." Buster!!??

Sal said fondly, "Yes, Buster broke down the door and went to warn that grim Frenchwoman that you were in trouble. You have something called COVID, it's a global pandemic."

I could imagine Madame Defarge's reaction when, after a lot of crashing upstairs, the Hound from Hell showed up on her doorstep doing his best "Timmy's fallen in the well" imitation. She might've tried to slam the door. But Buster muscled past her and then pushed her up the stairs by continually ramming his snuffley snout in her flabby old butt crack. It was Buster's way of moving people along.

Madame Defarge was the one who'd called Sally. She had Sal's number because she had insisted that I give her somebody to call in case I absconded. Sally had done the rest. She was on an eastbound flight that evening and making the arrangements to save my life by early the next day.

My wife had arrived in the morning, and by noon she had the emergency service at Joseph Imbert Hospital on the case. They were flooded with patients, and I wasn't in the high-risk category. So, they sent a doc over to assess me instead of admitting me. The doc decided that I wasn't critical, so he told Sal to take care of me at home.

He gave Sal all the necessary instructions and medications for fever and pain, left some protective gear, and promised to drop by occasionally. Then, Sally sat heroically by my bedside for the next forty-eight hours, nursing me through the worst of it. It didn't escape my notice that she was also risking her life to do it.

Recalling my earlier musing about marriage, I wondered, "Would I do the same thing for her?" Slam dunk! It was a no-brainer!! I would have gotten to Sal's bedside even if I'd had to row across the Atlantic. It wasn't anything I would even have to think about. We were devoted to each other. That much was obvious.

It was weird, really. We were in a strange country, in an unfamiliar setting, and I was recovering from a cage match with the grim reaper. Yet, it was as if we were under a comfortable blanket of familiarity and deep affection. The disastrous events from our past paled compared to the profound danger Sal had rescued me from. It was a different reality now. Fate's fickle judgment had made the choice.

Sal was her usual energetic and witty self. But she had changed underneath the hood. Sally was more comfortable inside her skin. She was more profound, more thoughtful, and contemplative. My wife's breezy intelligence and spunky self-confidence had matured into a newfound personal strength, a view of the world that lacked her earlier pretensions about achievement and success.

Like me, Sal had been tossed into the fiery cauldron of separation, and at first, it had left her rudderless. She just sat home reminiscing about the good times. But Sal had also dissected the qualities that had made those good times possible and dredged up the personal flaws that had led to her downfall.

Sal realized that she'd lost track of the essential truth that maintaining a good marriage supersedes life's lesser obligations. She said sadly, "I was measuring achievement using the wrong yardstick. I should have put equal effort into ensuring the success of our bond as man and wife."

I got it... most people are far too inexperienced to think much about the future when they marry. I mean... guys don't look at a hot member of the opposite sex and think, "That woman has excellent long-term potential as a life's companion." Instead, they marry based on a mix of physical attraction and how much the other person fits their current interests.

It's only afterward that life, red in tooth and claw arrives - careers, babies, mid-life crises and all. That's when the two people in the marriage have to adapt or fail. The problem is that adaptation requires the conscious knowledge and acceptance of the necessity to grow and mature the marriage together.

Of course, the willingness to do that requires those two people to be totally dedicated to the other person's well-being. That's what the term "faithful" signifies. Nevertheless, life's demands can take your eye off the ball, and - what the heck... your spouse has always been there. So, you assume that they always will be.

That's a very naïve assumption at face value. Because the conditions that brought you two together will inevitably have changed, and you are different people. Therefore, you have to make a conscious effort to adapt and grow together. Otherwise, folks get seduced by new and more compatible people, or the marriage will collapse out of sheer monotony like a deflating balloon.

Boredom wasn't a problem for Sal and me. Nonetheless, we should've paid more attention to the prospect of seduction. Being intelligent and levelheaded, Sal didn't believe anybody could EVER maneuver her into a position where she would betray me. That is, of course, until it happened.

Sal's assumption that she was immune to any form of sexual conquest was an arrogant notion on her part. But it was understandable. She'd been shooting down chancers since she'd reached the age of consent, and besides, Fuller was her boss. He was familiar. No matter the situation, there was no chance my wife would EVER surrender the booty to him.

Maybe it was because Fuller got some kind of voyeuristic thrill out of getting Sal fucked. Or perhaps he just wanted to hang the horns on me. Whatever the explanation, he had walked right through Sal's defenses because she didn't recognize that she needed to have them up. The upshot was the death of our old marriage.

There was a painful lesson to be learned, and Sal had clearly learned it. So, it was time to begin the slow process of rebuilding better and stronger bridges. My recovery was measured in weeks, not days, and Sal needed a place to sleep. I only had a single bed in my little flat, and it made sense to keep me isolated. So, Madame Defarge kindly rented us the other one for an exorbitant price -- of course.

It was on the Colosseum side of the building, which was neither scenic nor cheerful - given that there was a giant structure blotting out the sun. But Sal really only needed it at night. The rest of the time she was with me,

She would wake me to give me my medications. Then we three, Sal, me, and Buster, would kill the day together. Buster, being mostly French, was quite the ladies' man. So, he did everything but kiss Sal's hand whenever he saw her. Then he would follow her wherever she went like a sweet little puppy dog ... pant-pant-drool-drool.... It was hilarious.

Sal said, "I think your dog has a crush on me." I laughed and said, "Of course he does. He's French."

I was at the stage in my recovery where I could go for short walks, and the weather was ideal. So, we would stroll down to the Brasserie des Arenas or the Café de la Paix, sit at the outdoor tables, and talk. I was feeling well enough to tackle the only worthwhile topic: our current status as man and wife.

As a means of easing into that thorny patch, I asked, "Did you just drop everything and leave?"

Sal looked at me like I'd just asked her the world's dumbest question and said, "Of course I did!! COVID was all over the news. I knew that you were in grave danger, and you are my husband. I HAD to get to you as fast as I could."

I said, "But didn't that cause problems for you at work?"

She said like she couldn't believe I was that dense, "I repeat... you're my husband... Who cares about work?" Now THAT was a new feature in my wife's personality...

I said, "What did Fuller have to say about it?"

Sal smiled wickedly and said, "He was fired for cause a month after you left. His wife's father is on the Board of Overseers. Apparently, the old man received some very compromising videos documenting Lawton's moral turpitude. They walked him out of the office in front of everybody."

My wife added playfully, "And Herb Pullerman is being indicted by the Feds for tax fraud. He wanted the University to return his gift to help cover his legal expenses. But that became a non-starter after his MeToo scandal went viral."

Sal added, her satisfaction evident, "Apparently, there was a bushel of harassment charges that he'd paid to cover up. So, the University felt justified in keeping his money. They're obviously NOT going to put his name on the building either - as he planned."

I thought, "Wow!! Twenty-six million is a lot to pay for a one-night stand!! Even if it WAS with the hottest woman in the greater Boston area."

Sal stopped and said teasingly, "You didn't have anything to do with that, did you - you bad boy?!"

I looked at her as innocent as a newborn lamb and said, "You might very well think that; I couldn't possibly comment." I've always wanted to use that Francis Urquhart line. Sal laughed so loud that she startled Buster awake.

I said, now thoroughly puzzled, "If Fuller's out of the picture, then who's your new boss?"

Sal said in a voice that didn't match her words, "I am." She looked ill-at-ease and unhappy.

I said, "Well, congratulations, that's what you've been shooting for since we first got together."

Sal said ruefully, "I almost turned it down. I knew how I'd gotten it... even if nobody else did. And frankly, I'm still thinking about quitting." That was astonishing. Had the angel on her right shoulder finally won the arm-wrestling match with the devil on her left? It was one more sign that good things were in our future.

Then my wife paused and added sincerely, "If this promotion represents the ruination of my marriage, then I am seriously thinking about finding a less high-profile position - someplace where I can do a little good for society."

Of course, those last words guaranteed our marriage would survive. My only concern with the old Sal had been that she was too driven. If this version contemplated turning down her dream job because it might impact her marriage, she had radically changed. So, I took her two beautiful little hands in mine and said, "That is never going to happen."

I added with a teasing smile, "We've only known each other for a couple of weeks, stranger. But I think I might like you. Maybe we ought to go back to Boston and build a life together."

*****

In a trial, the crime is always the crime. But the situation leading up to the offense and the behavior during and afterward dictates the sentence. I was certain Sal had NOT planned to get fucked on that sadly auspicious day. But Sally is a very sexual woman, and her asshole boss had pimped her to Herbert J Pullerman to close a business deal.

Fatso pushed the right buttons, and my wife behaved like a slut. That momentary lapse was what had condemned her. But Sal had realized what she'd done and taken steps to set things right. That was on her own initiative, well before she had been discovered.

More importantly, she was forthright and honest after being discovered. Sal had made no excuses. She accepted my terms and treated our situation with grace and respect. There'd been no complaints or pleading. And she had shouldered the burden of our separation without fuss.

Finally -- and I don't know why this was so important -- Sal had remained loyal to me while we were apart. I realized that she must have had endless opportunities. And yet she'd kept the faith.

I hear you saying, "I doubt that." Well, besides the fact that I knew my wife, and she is a terrible liar... I also know many other people - every last one of them a busybody. They would happily rat Sal out if they as much as SUSPECTED that she'd been keeping a secret boyfriend. I mean, what's the point of coming over here if the people back home will blow up your story? Sal was anything but stupid.

Sal told me that she knew she had to get her overpowering need to achieve and her traitorous urges under control. That is if she wanted to stay married. So, it was her ONLY goal during our separation. More importantly, both Sal and I were in entirely different circumstances now.

Dropping everything to nurse a guy who had effectively walked out on you was evidence of her commitment to me. But that still didn't address how we would return to being an everyday couple.

We had parted for a reason. And even though the equation was balanced on the side of reconstituting our marriage -- thanks in no small part to Sal herself. It took a painfully long time before we returned to normalcy in our married life. Specifically, even though we were living together, we were NOT having sex.

That was particularly difficult for Sal, given her hot-blooded nature. Nonetheless, sex had been the original casus-belli, and it was someplace neither of us could go -- YET. I loved her. She loved me. And we quickly reestablished the personal habits that married people have. But it seemed like Herbert J Pullerman would show up and turn it into a three-way whenever we got something started.

I couldn't get the explicit pictures of her fucking that fat pig out of my imagination. Did she do the same things with Fatso that she did with me? What did she do differently? Was she hotter with him -- more abandoned? Was he a better lover? How often had she come with him?

And for Sal's part, she was so ridden with shame that she couldn't relax -- couldn't get into it. I'm not sure whether it was because she could read the anger on my face. Or because she was genuinely inhibited by the dark experience, she had gone through.

We both tried. God!!! Sal's so gorgeous she could give a stone idol a stiffy. But we couldn't ever get the motor to stay running. So, in the end, we would both roll over facing away from each other -- she would cry, and I would seethe. It would be an understatement to say that both of us were under a lot of stress.