Thursday Nights - Conclusion

"I loved your father, Jerry."

"That much? You loved him that much? So much that it didn't matter how many other women he found?"

"To him, sex with other women was a contest. He just wanted to win. Just like that next sales call. He just wanted to win the sale."

"I just can't think that way."

"No son, you can't. You're not the type to win at any cost. You're a lot stronger person than your father was. Cathy's sort of weak, you know. She's insecure. The only time she feels good about herself is when she's with you."

"Mother, I can't be strong for me, and my children, and my wife. I need Cathy to help me, not drag me down."

"You have to talk to her, Jerry. You must, for her and for you."

I dreaded asked my next question. "Mother, how much longer can you stay with us?"

"I'll stay as long as you need me, son. But you have to promise me you will talk to Cathy. I'm not asking you to stay married to her, but you have to talk to her. You have to do that, for yourself."

I started to argue with her, but Mother held up her hand to stop me. "No, don't say anything. Your children need a father who is giving them the attention they need. You're giving too much of your attention to what Cathy did. It's not good for you, or your children."

"Okay, I know you're right. I just need a little longer to get the anger out of my system. I promise I'll talk to Cathy when I'm not so angry."

"That's all I'll ask, son. Now, let's talk about what you're going to do when I decide I need to go home."

I knew I was trying to convince myself that I could turn off more than seventeen years of loving a woman. I was using anger as my excuse, but it was more than that, I was disappointed. Why wasn't I enough for her? I thought we had a good marriage. Cathy was immature when we married, but she had grown up a lot in those first few years. I thought she had matured when we began our family, but many times it seemed like she wasn't much older than our son.

***

Cathy picked up the children on Thursday and brought them home on time. I was working a few hours overtime and didn't see her. She also spent a little time taking the rest of her clothes and some personal things. She told my mother about everything she was taking and said if she took something I didn't want her to have, she would bring it back. I guess she figured I wasn't going to relent and let her come back home. She told mother she'd been served with divorce papers earlier in the day. Mother said she looked like she'd been crying, but was trying to put on a happy face for the children.

It was later Saturday afternoon before the children were back to their usual good humor. They finally admitted that most of the time they spent with Cathy, she was asking them to try to convince me to let her come back home. Becky said she finally asked her mother why she'd left, saying that I'd told all three of them it was a parent problem, not something a responsible parent would discuss with a child. Cathy told them we'd had a fight, like the arguments playmates have and she was waiting for me to get over being angry with her. After that, Cathy was less obvious about using the children as ammunition to get to me.

The first weekend Cathy kept the children she allowed them to stay up very late Friday and Saturday nights. Tina said they spent Saturday afternoon at an amusement park. Tina said it was a birthday party for the daughter of Mommy's boyfriend. Tina also admitted she liked that man better than the one who had gone with them to dinner the previous Thursday night.

I was so angry with Cathy I didn't watch my words the next time she called to arrange to pick the children for Thursday night dinner. "I hope you spend some time talking to your children, instead of dragging them on one of your dates."

"Jerry, I can't always afford to show them a good time."

"They don't need a good time, Cathy. They just need to know you still love them. Have you already spent this month's allowance?"

"Well, yeah. Sherry and I went out a couple of times. Do you think you could send me a check every week instead of once a month?"

Controlling my anger was still difficult. I listened to her talk about some of the things she missed about having her own house and being part of a family, but I finally couldn't stand it any longer. I ended the call before I started yelling at her that she would still be in her own house if she hadn't fucked her boss.

Mother had suggested that she look around for a middle aged woman to be our housekeeper, either as a live-in or for a few hours a day. It didn't seem like a bad idea, but I wasn't interested in someone coming in to our home, taking charge of the whole house, making us do things her way, or trying to be a substitute parent. When I met Mrs. Adams, I decided my mother was a very devious person. Mrs. Adams was the farthest thing from what I expected. She was almost sixty, but had never worked in someone's home before. She was looking forward to being around a family. She spent part of a week with Mother, in our house, and then my mother left to go home.

Mrs. Adams fed the children a snack after school then made sure they did their homework. She prepared supper and ate with us, and then she disappeared to her room. The house was clean, laundry was done, the pantry was full, food was delicious, but she never seemed to be around us for the remainder of the evening. I did not hear my children tell me that Mrs. Adams required something be done a certain way, instead I discovered the woman was asking Becky or Benny how I wanted something done, even how I wanted the towels folded or if I liked food prepared a certain way.

It took me almost two months to discover she was one of my father's old sweethearts. I about fell out of my chair when she told me she had known my father and thought I was a much better man than he had ever been. I must have sat with my mouth open for a full ten minutes when she told me that she and my mother had been friends for almost thirty years. I started getting angry when she began to tell me that her husband had divorced her after he discovered she had been unfaithful. He had had several affairs, but when he discovered she had done the same thing, he had taken their four children and never allowed them any contact with her. Nor would he discuss their problems. He simply divorced her, got custody of the children, and left town. She suspected she might have a number of grandchildren, but had no way of knowing. Her children would be in their thirties, but she had never seen or heard from any of them.

That evening I called Sherry and told her to ask Cathy to meet me the next afternoon in the city park near our home. I didn't want another argument over the telephone, but I thought we might have a few things to say to each other before the divorce was final.

*****

I arrived at the park a little early. I didn't see Cathy's car so I walked toward the picnic tables. There were only two tables in the small park. A woman was sitting at one of the tables so I headed toward the other. I was surprised when I heard the woman call my name. To say that I was shocked when I saw it was Cathy is an understatement. She looked different. She even sounded different. She was letting her hair grow and she wasn't wearing any make-up. She'd also lost at least ten pounds.

"You look good, Jerry. I always liked that shirt."

As I sat at the picnic table across from her, I told Cathy, "Thanks, I've always liked this shirt, too. Are you okay?"

Cathy shrugged her shoulders and then nodded. "I understand the divorce will be final in about ten days."

"Yes, that's what my attorney told me."

"May I ask a favor, Jerry?"

"You can ask," I told her, but I didn't promise I would answer. I was prepared to tell Cathy there was no chance of reconciliation. Almost everyone I knew had told me I should try to keep my seventeen year marriage together. Most thought the break-up was because I had found someone else that interested me. A few of the men I worked with told me to convince Cathy I wouldn't do it again so she would come home, and then they offered a variety of ways to hide my next affair from my wife.

"Will you give me a year to get my shit together? I mean, will you not get married to someone else before I've had a chance to show you how sorry I am? I need to do something good with my life."

"Why?"

"I just think that after seventeen good years and only a couple of months when I did something horrible, maybe I could ask you for that amount of time."

"I don't know if I can promise that. I'll think about it. How's that?"

"If that's all I can get, I'll take it."

"Why are you asking for a year?"

"After Sherry's divorce, she started seeing a counselor. She talked me into going to a group meeting a few times. I'm learning a lot about myself."

"Is that good?"

"Yeah, it is. It's really good. I think we weren't very good for each other. I was more like another one of your children, rather than your wife."

"Do you really believe that?" I couldn't resist the question. I'd been giving the same thing a lot of thought, but I wasn't sure how to tell Cathy she still needed to grow up.

"I didn't at first, but I do now. I was always waiting for you to tell me what to do next. I didn't like to make decisions or discuss them with you. It was just easier to listen to you and let you be my parent. I liked it that way. There were a few things I insisted on, like continuing with a dead end job, when I should have listened to you, but I was doing it the easiest way I could. The job was easy because the company always told me what to do."

"I guess both of us could have used a little better judgment."

"Maybe, but it was more of a habit we got into and it was never going to be different, because I wasn't going to change."

I looked at her as she was talking and saw she wasn't unhappy about what she was saying. "So, you think living on your own will help you grow up?"

"Yes, it's hard but I'm trying. After that confession, you're not going to keep me from seeing the kids, are you?"

"No. I'm even willing to let you spend more time with them if you like. I know they would enjoy it."

"Thank you."

We sat and talked a while longer. Cathy eventually told me that her decision to have sex with her boss was like finally getting the toys in the department store window. She had admired all the toys for so long but had promised she would never touch any of them. She had finally taken the risk to hold one and play with it. She may not have been aware I understood when she tried to make a joke that she wanted to play with some of the other toys in the window, too. I wasn't too sure I agreed with her analogy, but I didn't tell her that.

She could not tell me she hadn't enjoyed the sex with Wayne Westland. Part of the attraction was going behind my back to see him and me never knowing she had done it. She admitted it was childish, but it had been fun, too. She talked about when she first started wearing lipstick. She would wipe it off before she got home so her parents wouldn't know.

Cathy asked if I would support her while she got a college education. She was asking for full support, more than just some help with tuition. I suggested that it was a little late to start renegotiating the divorce. She should have gone to college when we first married, or one of the times during the past seventeen years when I had suggested it. She also wanted to make sure I would allow her to see the children even if she needed to change the schedule because of what she had going on in her personal life.

The longer we sat and talked, the more I wondered how Cathy had managed a home and three children. Maybe that was the whole problem. She hadn't managed. She had always asked me what to do about everything, except the part of her life she didn't want help with, her job.

As I stood to leave, I noticed Cathy's car pulling into the parking lot across the street. The windows were rolled down and loud rap music was coming from the radio. One of the front fenders had a minor dent. The man driving looked like he was in his late twenties or early thirties. I didn't recognize him and he didn't seem to know me, but he did look me over pretty good. I wondered if he was her newest toy.

I started to go back to the picnic table to ask Cathy if Fat Cock Wayne had been replaced. I really wanted to tell her, to her face, that the kids and I would just learn to get along without her. They had one stable parent. If the other one wanted to act as if she were a playmate who found other friends, they would get over it.

When I left the city park, for the first time in several months, I didn't feel like I'd been a total failure as a husband. I knew that I was still a young man with a lot of life ahead of me. I understood I now had more responsibility for my children and there were many times I would wish they still had their mother as part of their every day lives. However, I also knew what they needed to feel cared for and loved.

If Cathy did as she wanted to do, she could have a full life too. In that year she had asked me for, she could be a completely different person or she wouldn't have changed, it was entirely up to her. She knew I wasn't going to put my life on hold to see if she could grow up. I had made that clear. She admitted it had just been something to say to get my attention. I accepted it was similar to a child being naughty so they would be caught, reinforcing that their parent was giving them attention.

I had three of the most wonderful children a man could ever hope to have. I was going to enjoy every day of their lives as long as they wanted to stay near enough for me to do that. If there were any other benefits of being a single parent, I would discover them in time and enjoy each one.

THE END