The Visitor

Traci was in the kitchen preparing dinner when Alex came home that night. The smell in the house was wonderful, Alex thought. He would miss her cooking, Alex admitted to himself.

It was another quiet meal until Traci finally broke the silence.

"Can we talk, Alex? Please?"

Alex finished the mouthful of food he was chewing, took a drink of wine and pointed at his wife.

"I only have one question, Traci. Why?"

Traci winced at the question. She knew it was coming, but she was sure Alex wasn't going to like the answer. She considered telling him a sanitized version, but she wasn't sure how much he already knew by way of Drew. Getting caught in a lie at this point would probably be the worst thing she could do.

"After Lucy was born I was a little bummed out with the extra 20 pounds I still had on my body, and I guess Magnus picked up on that and started to compliment me and make me feel better about myself. He was a little older than me, and he just had a way of making me feel good just by talking to me. We went out for some lunches, then for some dinners and eventually... well... the friendship turned sexual. I knew I shouldn't, especially since I really did love you, but then the sex was so good once we started. It... wasn't better than what we had, it was different, and since I knew it was wrong, it was very exciting.

"Then I got pregnant, and I wasn't sure who's baby it was, so I knew we had to call off the relationship, and we did. It probably would have been easiest just to abort the baby, but you know I don't believe in that."

Alex took in the story with a stoic face, occasionally sipping his coffee. He expected Traci to give him a sanitized version, and she didn't disappoint.

"Don't you think that after all this time, you owe me the whole truth, not just a cleaned-up version that ignores half the story?" Alex said.

Traci screwed up her face. She didn't expect Alex to want more detail.

"Shit," she whispered. "He was a beautiful strong man, 6-4, with muscles, and he had a nice manner about him. I guess I fell kind of hard for him. Then when I got pregnant, I figured it was probably his, but since his physical characteristics were like my family's, I knew you would never suspect the baby wasn't yours. And, honestly, he was such a beautiful man I really wanted to have his baby..."

That last line was out of Traci's mouth before she could stop herself. She shut up quickly and looked sideways at her husband, hoping he was too upset over the whole issue to really catch what had spilled out of her mouth.

Try as he might, Alex couldn't help but wince at Traci's last remark.

"So when did you find out Drew was your lover's child?" Alex asked.

"My gynecologist did the work on that. He narrowed down the dates and those corresponded to the week that most of the history department went to UCLA for a conference. Do you remember that? Magnus and I slept together every night.

"I was ovulating then, but I knew you would never know where I was in my cycle. You never kept track, and I knew you would never put two and two together."

"So I was a schmuck and a dupe. Perfect," Alex said.

"But you still left out the part where your lover got his own wife pregnant, too, and decided to stick with her and not run off with you. I became a convenient fall-back plan," Alex noted.

"I still loved you, Alex," Traci said. "You weren't a fall-back plan. We had Janice three years later; that's how much I loved you. And you were a great father to our children. We did a good job of raising those kids, and now we're going to grow old together.

"We're so close, Alex. We're 64 years old. Don't screw this up now. Things have been good. Don't ruin everything for a mistake I made more than 30 years ago. Please use your head... and your heart."

"God damn it, Traci!" Alex yelled. "You fuck up and now you're trying to blame me! You've been lying to me for 38 years."

"No, Alex, I haven't been lying to you for 38 years. I did love you then. I love you now. I've never stopped loving you. I know you may not believe it, but it's possible to love more than one person at a time."

"But for a while there, I was number 2. We made vows to forsake all others, Traci," Alex said. "Had I known then what I know now, we would have been history. You broke my heart. You broke my trust."

Traci looked up with tears in her eyes. It seemed that Magnus told Drew everything, and Drew did likewise for Alex. For the first time, she wondered how Drew was taking things. She wondered how Drew and Alex were working things out. She also wondered...

"I know you're wondering," Alex said. "Apparently Lover Boy has dementia, and before he lost everything, he wanted to see his first-born and introduce himself. Seems you two never had a definitive discussion of what you were going to tell Drew about his real father. He even wondered if you had told me and the two of us had decided to raise Drew as ours."

"Dementia. Poor guy," Traci said quietly, tenderly.

"Even I wouldn't wish that on the poor bastard," Alex said. "Nah, I'd feel better if his dick and balls fell off."

Traci pursed her lips, but decided it was smarter not to respond. She realized this was a fight she was not going to win. The best she could hope for right now was a tie, so to speak.

"I apologize for making it so easy for you," Alex said. "Looking back on it now, I should have questioned why a history department secretary had to work late occasionally, but I just had complete trust in you. Complete. Trust. In. You.

"Obviously, I was a fucking moron."

Traci cringed every time Alex said the f-bomb. Up until this point, he tried not to curse at his wife, especially the "big one."

Alex called his son the next day and told him of the previous evening's news, including the fact that Traci tried not to give him all the details. Drew could tell his father was struggling to keep his composure over the phone.

"Have you come to a decision yet, Dad? Remember, you two have a lot of years together, and it would be a shame to see you two split at this point," Drew said.

"I haven't come to a decision, although I have to admit it's going to be hard for me to forgive the betrayal of my trust and the silence for all these years. She would have left me...

"But how are you doing? Seriously," Alex asked. "I know telling me had to be hard. I'm sorry you were put in this position."

"Hardest thing I've ever done, Dad. Never want to have to do anything like that again.

"Are we good, Dad? I'm sorry I didn't say anything sooner, Dad. Honestly."

"We're good, Bud. This shouldn't have been your problem at all.

"You do realize that you will always be my son, regardless of what a piece of paper says."

"I do, Dad. And you will always be my father."

"That said, have you visited with your other family yet. You've got what, a brother and two more sisters--at least halves?"

"I haven't visited yet. Maybe I should," Drew said. "You know, up until last year I had two sisters. Now I've got four half-sisters, a half-brother and a fucked up life."

Drew got a second phone call later in the day, this time from his mother.

"Mom, you do realize I'm working here, right?" Drew said with more than a little undisguised disgust in his voice.

"I'm sorry, Drew, for everything," Traci replied quietly. "You know Dad and I both love you very much."

"How could you, Mom? You cheated on Dad, got pregnant and then didn't say a thing to either Dad or me until you got trapped 30-some years later. Damn. That's cold."

"I'm really sorry, Drew. I loved him. I thought we were going to be together, and then his wife got pregnant, too. But your father... Alex was absolutely the best dad you ever could have had. I know that, and so do you."

"I do know that, Mom. I hope you know that."

Divorce papers were served to Traci at her job a week later. Alex received word from his attorney right after it happened, and his phone started blowing up immediately after. He didn't return a call or text, and in fact, got quite a lot done at his office. Knowing what was coming when he got home, he picked up a pizza and six-pack of beer.

He was two steps inside the house when the verbal barrage began.

"Are you kidding me, you selfish bastard?" Traci screamed. "You just had to serve me at my office to humiliate me, didn't you?"

"Truthfully, the thought did appeal to me," Alex admitted. "Why shouldn't you get a measure of shit heaped on you, like me?"

"That's ancient history, and you know it. It was 38 years ago. You didn't know about it, I never took anything from you. At this point, I'm not going to apologize for something that happened that long ago. I'm sorry that you are having a tough time getting over it, but it's time to man up and get on with life."

"I'm sorry, Babe. I didn't realize that breaking my heart had a statute of limitations on it," Alex said.

"You loved him. You were going to leave me for him until his wife got pregnant and he stayed for her. He chose her, not you. That didn't escape me."

Traci fought the divorce. She and her attorney got the judge to order counseling. Alex knew things were going to be tough when the counselor asked him about his hurt feelings after so many years.

"Mr. Norris, you seem abnormally hurt even though this affair was almost 40 years ago," the counselor commented to Alex in the first session.

"Not to me, Mrs. Ryan. I've only known about the affair for a few months now. It's new to me, and the wound is still raw," Alex responded.

"We had a great life together since then," Traci whined. "What happened almost 40 years ago was a lifetime ago. My commitment back to my husband can't be overlooked."

"But she cheated on me for almost a year. That's why she had to recommit to me," Alex said. "Don't cheat. Don't have to recommit.

"She got pregnant by her lover, and if he hadn't decided to stay with his wife, she would have left me. Left me! Had his kid with him! So because he decides to stay with his wife, she comes back to me, keeping everything secret. I was her back-up plan, for God's sakes!"

Alex was practically screaming at this point. His face was red. His anger was palpable to the counselor, and maybe everybody within a quarter-mile radius.

"Mr. Norris. Please calm down. Volume down, sir," Callista Ryan said.

"Aarrgghh!" Alex screamed.

Traci asked the counselor if she could speak first at the next session. She desperately needed Alex to understand that her love for him was real.

"Alex, I apologize for breaking our vows, but I always loved you. And when I recommitted to you, I did so completely, and never once looked at another man. I came to realize my mistake, regretted it and gave you every ounce of my love after that. That's why we had Janice. She was my gift to you, to our marriage."

Alex looked directly into Traci's pleading eyes. He admitted to himself that if he hadn't learned of Traci's cheating, he would have gone to his death thinking he had a practically perfect marriage.

In another time, another place, he would have gotten out of his chair, gone to her and given her a comforting hug. Stopping him, however, was the nagging thought that he did find out about her cheating, her pregnancy with another man's child and her admission that she would have left him if not for Magnus' decision to stay with his pregnant wife. Any of those three should give him good reason to divorce Traci; all three combined seemed to make for a no-brainer... except for the 43 years of absolute love he had given her.

Traci could see the apprehension in Alex's face. He couldn't keep his eyes on hers.

"You would have left me for him," Alex whispered. "He had become your number 1 love, and you would have dumped me if it wasn't for circumstances. We wouldn't have had the last... 38 years of what I thought was a great marriage because you would have been gone, and I would have been alone.

"Yeah, that's love."

"But I didn't leave, for whatever reason, and I rediscovered you, so to speak. You just admitted it, you thought it was a great marriage..."

"But what I thought wasn't true, was it?" Alex cried. "That was a sham. You deceived me. You disrespected me. You can't call it a great marriage if it's based on a lie... a lie of omission.

"Your lapse of judgment--as you called it--would have resulted in a divorce if I had known about it. How dare you! We took vows! Didn't they mean anything to you‽"

Alex broke down at that point, the first time Traci had seen him cry for anything other than the death of his parents. It was starting to dawn on her that Alex was as devastated as if this just happened recently. Apparently, the counselor had read the situation the same way.

"Mrs. Norris, although you would obviously like this situation to be resolved quickly, your husband has a lot to digest, and it's all fairly new to him. And at this point in your lives, it looks like this reconciliation could be a slow go. It might seem to be better than the alternative, but going into your retirement years with this between you? That's going to take both of you working very hard to overcome. If one of you is not committed..."

Traci looked hard at Alex. Alex caught the turn of her head, but he shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know, Traci, honestly. I can't answer that," Alex said. "I know the question to ask is 'would I be better off with or without you?' but I keep getting two answers. After all this time, I know I would be better off with you, just for the convenience alone, but it's not about convenience, is it? Can I live with you, knowing that your choice was another? Knowing that you lied to me for 38 years? Knowing that everything I thought was true for the last 38 years was an illusion?"

Traci asked all three kids to call Alex and urge him to stay married. Drew told his mother flat out he wouldn't interfere in his father's decision, but both girls were not shy about calling their father in support of their mother. Alex graciously told both daughters that he would give their request serious consideration, but he couldn't guarantee to them what his final decision would be.

"Please, Dad, don't break up the family for a 40-year-old mistake. Let it go," Lucy said after making her pitch.

"Luc, can I ask you a question?" Alex asked. "If Robbie were to cheat on you, would you forgive him easily?"

"After I cut his balls off? Yeah, probably," his oldest answered.

Alex was shaving a few days later when the answer was almost literally right in front of his face.

"Yeah. You're right," Alex said to his reflection.

Alex asked to go first at the next counseling section.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Ryan, but I now know that I can't stay with Traci, and we should stop these sessions," Alex said.

"Pardon me, Mr. Norris?" the counselor responded. " What caused this epiphany?"

"I did. Well, actually my reflection," Alex noted. "I came to the conclusion that there was no way I could ever look at myself in a mirror again if I let Traci spit on me and just took it."

"I didn't spit on you. It was never like that," Traci whined. "I love you."

"You were going to leave me; leave us. If that's not spitting on me, I don't know what is. You didn't leave only because his wife got pregnant and he decided to stay with her. So the decision to stay with me really wasn't yours. It was his."

Traci dropped her eyes to the floor. She shifted her eyes quickly to Alex, then to the counselor before again looking back down.

"Mrs. Norris?" the counselor asked.

"It... it sounds harsh, but I guess it's true," Traci hissed almost under her breath.

"But what about all those great years? Don't they count for anything, Mr. Norris?"

"She got a do-over, but I got lied to. And we won't even talk about Drew, will we?"

"You're making a horrible mistake, Alex. I love you and you love me," Traci reiterated.

"When it comes to this marriage, obviously it won't be my first mistake," Alex said.

Traci scrunched her face at that comment.

"I don't want a divorce! I don't want a divorce! I don't want a divorce!" Traci shrieked.

Traci didn't get what she wanted, and at 64 she wound up living in a small apartment in a senior housing addition. She was quickly on her way to becoming a bitter old woman. Even her grandchildren weren't too thrilled when Grandma Norris came to visit.

Alex also wound up in a small apartment, but in a regular section of the town. He decided he was going to use his retirement years as a do-over. He bought himself a Harley-Davidson Road King, and after retiring, spent the spring, summer and fall on the road, taking in the sights. He was a good amateur photographer, and would occasionally submit a photo to a magazine and earn a few extra dollars.

Although Alex hadn't been a single man in more than 40 years, his adventures in dating occasionally were aided by the fact that single men in their 60s are far outnumbered by single women in that age group. It also helped that Alex wasn't expecting to find hot, gorgeous women for a night of wild sex. Since he was in pretty good condition for a man of his age, however, when he did date, his partners seemed pleased with his performance.

While Alex enjoyed his occasional sexual liaisons with different women, he noted he missed the familiarity that he enjoyed with Traci. He missed the cuddling and snuggling that would always follow a lovemaking session with his ex-wife. Of course, he realized that most of his hook-ups were purely fucking, not lovemaking.

Drew was pleased that his father was enjoying his "do-over," although he, like his sisters, would have preferred Alex stayed married to his mother. Drew was much more understanding of the decision than his sisters, who sided with their mother on the issue. Considering Alex went through with the divorce with no hesitation, neither daughter wanted to push their father very hard. While Grandma Norris wasn't big on the grandkids' lists, Grandpa Norris was a superstar with his laid-back attitude, longer hair and cool motorcycle.

Drew waited until Magnus died before getting in touch with his other half-siblings. As he explained to Alex, he would always consider Alex to be his real father and Magnus an interloper. His half-siblings from Magnus, however, were not responsible for what happened, so he had no problem contacting them, especially after Alex told him he had no problem learning about the rest of his family.