Visiting Richard Gronier

His face was serious now, all traces of that disgusting smugness gone.

"How long would it have lasted?" I asked. "I'm assuming this isn't the first time for you."

"A couple more months—two or three, maybe. She was..."

"Shut up—I don't need to hear any more."

We gazed at one another in silence. I knew he was eager to get rid of me, but also at my mercy—he didn't dare just try to throw me out.

"Needless to say, you are not to contact Liz ever again. No phone calls, no email, no letters, no personal visits—nothing. Is that clear?"

He nodded, watching me narrowly.

"If she writes you, you throw the letters away. If she emails you, you delete the messages. If she calls, you don't speak to her. If she comes here, you don't see her."

He nodded again.

"Forever, Richard. I am NOT kidding about this."

"And the pictures?" he asked.

"You'll have to count on my benevolence," I said, and got up out of my chair.

He stood up too. As I started to turn away I said, "oh, one more thing."

I stepped back towards him and smashed him hard with my fist, right in the nuts.

He groaned and fell to the floor behind his desk. I walked around and looked at him, lying on his side with his legs pulled up, gasping in pain, his face contorted.

I waited several minutes, until the pain seemed to be easing and his breathing started to return to normal. Then I kicked him, right in the nuts again, and turned and left the office.

****************

GETTING OVER RICHARD GRONIER

It was Liz's night to make dinner, and when I came into the kitchen she was bustling about, setting the table and playing with three pots on the stove. I gave her the usual hug and said, "hi, honey—how's everything?"

She said, "oh, fine. Bit of a long day. The girls are watching cartoons or something God-awful. You want a glass of wine?"

Her face looked tired, sad. I think she'd been crying, judging from the redness of her eyes, but she'd done a careful job washing her face and reapplying her make-up. If I hadn't been looking closely I wouldn't have noticed it.

Dinner was normal—astonishingly so, considering what my day had been like and what her day had undoubtedly been like. The girls chattered away as always, which helped to make things go smoothly: which teachers they hated, how the boys always hogged the playground during recess, when the next friend's birthday party was.

It was impossible to be unhappy around my daughters. Even for the past horrible month, when it felt as though my entire life was falling down around me, I couldn't help but smile at them, laugh with them, hug them to me. Thank God Karlie was healthy again! Despite everything, I felt lucky.

Liz and I helped them with their baths, read them stories, got them into bed, listened to their excited chatter about Halloween costumes for the following week. It was all the usual.

But once they were asleep Liz didn't know what to do with herself. I don't think she was aware of how closely I was watching, but she couldn't sit still. She turned on the TV, went around the channels, and turned it off again. She picked up her current book, tried reading a few pages, and gave up. I listened from upstairs as she wandered around the kitchen, straightening things, unloading the dishwasher.

When she came back upstairs I said, "honey, is everything all right?" I wasn't trying to trip her up. On the contrary, I had no intention of letting her know what I knew about her and Richard Gronier, and what I had done that day. But if I had ignored her restlessness it might have seemed odd to her.

"Yes, it's nothing," she replied, moving past me into the bathroom with her nightie. "Some nuisance-y things at work, I guess I'm just a little preoccupied."

I let it go. We turned off the light, she offered me a quick peck of a kiss, then rolled away from me. I wondered which of us would find it harder to fall asleep that night. I turned out to be me—within just a few minutes I could hear her even breathing. It felt like another hour before I was finally able to sleep.

Over the next days and weeks I watched Liz carefully. I knew what I wanted: I wanted her to come back to me. I wanted her to realize what she had—with me and the girls—to realize what a dreadful mistake she'd made, and how lucky she was that it was over and her marriage was still intact. I wanted her to love me again, completely, the way she did before Gronier, before Karlie's leukemia, before our lives started to fall apart.

But I didn't know what I'd get.

Despite my careful watching I didn't see anything special, anything different in Liz right away. She still seemed pre-occupied, still gazed aimlessly out the window. The same feeling of unhappiness emanated from her at times, though she always insisted it was nothing if I asked about it.

We made love a couple of times that first week, and the only thing different I noticed was that when we screwed in missionary position, Liz kept her eyes tight shut the whole time—she didn't smile up at me like she usually did. I wondered if she was afraid her face would give something away—or whether with her eyes closed she could pretend I was Richard Gronier.

The Friday nine days after my visit to Gronier was Halloween, and the girls were wild with excitement. They could barely eat dinner before dragging me out and down the street for trick-or-treating. As we always did, I went along with them, while Liz handed out the candy to trick-or-treaters at our house.

Between the excitement of the holiday and all the sugar they consumed, the girls were awake until almost 11 pm—thank goodness it was the weekend. Liz and I grinned at one another as we finally got them settled down and into bed.

I was reading in bed when she climbed in beside me. As I turned off the light she said, "Alan? I'm not really in the mood for sex tonight, but could we just ... snuggle together?"

"Of course," I said, and she pulled herself tightly to me, burying her face against my neck. We lay there quietly, comfortably. I thought she might want to fall asleep this way, but after several minutes she raised her head and said, quietly, "Alan, I'm so sorry."

"For what?" I replied, a little surprised.

"I don't know, for everything. For having been so ... distant, the last couple of months. We had the whole nightmare of Karlie's leukemia, and by last summer we were all just exhausted. And then ... I don't know, but I know I haven't been all here for you lately. And I'm sorry."

I was silent, taking in this all-too-partial apology. I knew Liz, and I knew she meant it. Yet I also knew that the reason she'd been so distant was precisely what she wasn't mentioning: her affair with Gronier.

"Thank you, Liz," I said finally. "I have missed you, you know. And wondered if it was something I did..."

"No, no!" she cried, interrupting me. "You've been wonderful. Patient, kind, supportive...." She pulled me closer. "You deserve better, honey. And I'm going to make it up to you."

It felt like a test. To tell the truth, every moment of being around Liz felt like a test: was I going to give in to my rage, to my humiliation and anguish, or was I going to stay on the path I'd carefully chosen? I knew I had to—it was the only alternative to the end of the marriage. It was hard as hell, but I managed it.

"That sounds pretty good to me," I said, and found her mouth in the darkness for a gentle kiss. I didn't dare say anything else—I didn't trust myself to find the right words.

The next night we did make love. It was sweet, but oddly tentative—different from how it had been for months. Liz seemed unsure of herself, eager to please me but somehow afraid, too. It was almost as though we didn't know one another that well, and were worried about doing something wrong.

But Liz was more and more relaxed around me during the day. The humor that was one of the highlights of our relationship—the jokes, the gentle teasing that had been our way of relating almost since we first started dating—began to reappear. And

two weeks after Halloween we had the hottest sex we'd had in perhaps two years.

I'd gotten pretty sweaty raking leaves and cleaning the yard, so after the girls were asleep I jumped into the shower to clean up. To my surprise, Liz joined me. She washed my hair, then dropped to her knees and gave me a fantastic blow job right there in the shower, looking up at me as she took my seed into her mouth. She hadn't done anything like this since the first years of our marriage—it was very exciting.

Afterwards we dried off quickly, then continued to play in the bedroom. I licked between her legs for a while, making her squirm and whimper. Then she pulled me around into a 69, and when I was hard again she rode me cowgirl-style until she'd come several times and I'd shot up into her, gasping with pleasure.

Over the next few months different parts of our relationship seemed to return to normal at different rates. Being parents together came back first, because we didn't have that much fixing to do. Even during the height of her affair, when Liz was distant and abstracted with me, she remained fully involved with the kids—perhaps even a little more so, as if to atone for what she was doing.

Next was probably our sex life. During her affair the frequency of our sex hadn't dropped off very much, no doubt because Liz was being very careful to make sure it didn't. But her interest and involvement in love-making clearly waned. She continued to make herself available, and at times to take the initiative and reach for me in bed.

For me, though, suspecting and then knowing about what she was doing with Gronier, it was easy to see that she was emotionally removed from our fucking. It didn't feel like love-making, like the intimate connection between us that I cherished so much. It felt like casual fucking; and at least some of the time Liz's orgasms were exaggerated, if not faked. She was keeping me happy (and unaware, she thought!), but not enjoying sex with me very much.

After Halloween, her genuine interest in sex with me began to return. If at first it was at least partly about "making it up to me", it gradually became clear that Liz was once again as involved in the love-making as she had been before her affair. She took the lead a bit more—I think she was consciously reaching back to some of the great fucks we'd had in the early, pre-children days and trying to repeat them. But she wasn't just putting on a show to please me—she was active and passionate, and her excitement was real, not faked.

Between November and about February we probably had sex three or even four times a week, before it gradually subsided to the twice a week that had been our norm for years. But—thank God, thank God—it was real love-making. Liz was all there in bed with me, giving me herself as fully as ever. I hadn't been sure we would ever get that back, but we did.

Interestingly, our day-to-day intimacy as husband and wife took longer to re-establish fully than our love-making. No doubt this was more about me—my anger and hurt and suspicion—than it was about Liz. With each passing day that we did okay, her confidence increased that her affair with Gronier was safely in the past and that her marriage would survive. And she was more able to be fully my wife again, fully at ease with me as before.

Even when we were pretty much "back", though—perhaps six months after the end of the affair—I was still wrestling almost daily with my rage and humiliation, my anguish and even hatred. There were very few days when I didn't have at least a moment of wanting to kill her—just wrap my fingers around her cheating, lying throat and squeeze the life out of her.

How could she have given herself to that slimeball, not once but over and over, for weeks? How could she sweat up the sheets with him, then come home and smile at me and kiss me—and fuck me—like the loving wife she was only pretending to be? How could she lie and lie and lie—how could she take the vows of our marriage ceremony so lightly? And on and on.

But I'd made my choice. I knew what I wanted, and I believed that the course I was pursuing was my best chance of getting it. So I swallowed hard; I occasionally cried in the shower; and I went on about my life.

And I want to be fair to Liz: it got better. Slowly, it got better. I had my old loving wife back long before I began to trust that she really WAS back, but eventually my feelings caught up to the reality. I knew she loved me, knew that she wanted to be with me, knew that her sexual desire for me was real.

Maybe eight months or so after I'd confronted Gronier, we were the happy loving couple we'd been years earlier—before Karlie's cancer, before Liz's affair. And perhaps two years or so after that, I woke up one morning and realized that I was happy. That I felt safe in my marriage again.

So it took a long time; and it wasn't very much fun. But it seemed I had gotten what I wanted.

****************

DESTROYING RICHARD GRONIER

It was a Sunday in April. I was idly turning the pages of the "Style" section of the Cincinnati Enquirer when I saw it. "Local Lawyer to be Named 'Man of the Year'." Damned if it wasn't a picture of Richard Gronier.

Liz was outside in the yards, gardening with the girls, so I had time to read the article carefully. The Ladies' Auxiliary of the Jaycees Foundation was going to honor Gronier for his numerous contributions to charitable organizations in the Cincinnati area. There was going to be a $250-a-head fund-raising dinner in his honor at the end of May, with the proceeds going to the local Boys' & Girls' Club, one of Gronier's apparent charitable interests.

I hadn't thought much about that prick in some time, but my reaction to the article made it clear that I wasn't done with him. I folded up the Style section and put it in the trash—no point in letting Liz see the article—and made a note to myself to give Ernie Mattazollo a call.

"I don't get it, Mr. H.," he said. "You got all the photos you need of that guy with your wife—why do you want to waste your money getting' more?"

"Because, Ernie, I'm going to blow up this guy's life once and for all. I want to send photos and audio to his wife, maybe even to his law firm. There'll be a big public scandal, with any luck, and I don't want my wife's name in the middle of it."

He sighed. "Well, Mr. H., I'm happy to take your money, but I think you're nuts."

It took him less than three weeks. He came up with some marvelous shots of Gronier in the sack with Mrs. Athena Wallace, the handsome, fortyish wife of City Councilman Bernard Wallace. Even better, they'd met when his firm represented the Wallaces in a law-suit involving a commercial property they owned, so Gronier had committed a violation of legal ethics by fucking her.

I've never been happier about spending $6000 in my life. I had Ernie send photos and audio to the heavyweight Mrs. Gronier; to Mr. Wallace; to the managing partner of Gronier's law firm; and to the Cincinnati Enquirer. The results were beyond all my hopes.

****************

Cincinnati Enquirer, May 5th: "Charitable Fund-raiser Cancelled". For reasons never given in the article, the Ladies' Auxiliary had pulled the plug on Gronier's dinner.

Cincinnati Enquirer, May 11th: "Prominent Cincinnati Firm faces Suit". Mr. Bernard Wallace, Cincinnati City Councilman, had filed a suit for legal misconduct against the firm of Parker & Medoff. No details were given, and the firm refused to comment.

Cincinnati Enquirer, August 18th: "City Councilman Wallace Seeks Divorce: Local Lawyer Cited". Bernard Wallace was divorcing his wife, and guess which prominent local lawyer was mentioned in the article as her alleged lover?

Cincinnati Enquirer, September 10th: "Gronier Dismissed from Firm". Parker & Medoff announced the firing of Richard Gronier, citing "improper conduct". No further details were given. Gronier could not be reached for comment.

Cincinnati Enquirer, November 11th: "Councilman Settles with Law-Firm". Parker & Medoff reached a financial settlement with Bernard Wallace in his law suit against the firm. Neither side would reveal any of the details, but an anonymous source suggested that the amount of the payment to Wallace exceeded $2.4 million.

Cincinnati Enquirer, December 2nd: "City Council Bars Firms from Contracts". A bill introduced by Councilman Bernard Wallace passed the Council unanimously; it banned the law firm of Parker & Medoff from doing any work for the city for a period of five years. Gronier's alleged misconduct was mentioned in the third paragraph.

Cincinnati Enquirer, December 29th: "Lawyer to Leave Area: Was Involved in Parker & Medoff Scandal". Anonymous sources said that Richard Gronier, facing a disciplinary hearing and possible disbarment, was moving to California. The article mentioned his recently-concluded divorce from Mrs. Elizabeth Gronier, a descendant of the wealthy Vanderbilt family.

****************

I resisted all temptation to leave the newspapers out on the kitchen table, folded to any of these articles. Liz didn't read the paper every day, but that wasn't the point anyway. My aim was not to rub Liz's affair in her face; it was to destroy the son-of-a-bitch who had seduced her. I imagine that she must have heard or read something about him, because a number of the articles were on the front page, but neither she nor I ever mentioned it to one another.

And after the final article, there was no more news about Richard Gronier. I'd had my revenge, and it was pretty damn sweet.

****************

RE-VISITING RICHARD GRONIER

Life was great, and it stayed pretty great until the girls were 17 and 15. There'd been no recurrence of Karlie's leukemia; in fact both girls were healthy and athletic, stars on their soccer and basketball teams. They got good grades, generally told us where they were going and when they'd be back, and all in all were terrific kids. Liz and I regularly told one another how blessed we were.

In April a guy named Tom K. Bernardo joined the staff of the Medical Center, and for a few weeks I heard a lot about him from Liz.

She told me laughingly that "he seems to think he's God's gift to women. He's already come on to Marcia, asked Alexa out on a date three times, and flirted with all the secretaries in my office."

"What's he like?" I asked, instantly a little uneasy. My absolute trust in Liz had been lost a long time ago, and it wasn't ever coming back.

"Good-looking enough, I guess. Rugged, sort of, with a strong jaw and dark eyes. But honestly, he's so conceited and aggressive! He acts like he expects to glance at a woman and have her fall into his arms. Several of the senior staff are already a little ticked at him."

For the next four weeks or so I heard an occasional story about Tom K. Bernardo—"not just Tom," my wife said, "he insists on being 'Tom K.', can you believe it?"

Apparently his aggressive attitude towards the women he worked with was becoming a problem—not so much a joke as an increasing annoyance.

And then Liz just stopped mentioning Bernardo at all. When I asked her about him once, she just waved a hand vaguely and said, "oh, he's still around. I don't seem him so much these days—we're not on the same Compensation Working Group anymore." And when I persisted, asking whether he was still bothering women on staff, she said only, "not that I've heard."

She was clearly eager to drop the subject, so I let it go. But I didn't stop wondering, and worrying.

The phrase "once burned, twice shy" certainly applied in my case. I watched every move Liz made, and it seemed to me she was falling into the same sort of preoccupied, distant manner that had characterized the weeks of her seduction by Richard Gronier.

She clearly had something on her mind—even the girls noticed at dinner a couple of times, and teased their mom about being so absent-minded. Karlie joked to me, "maybe a little Alzheimer's, dad? Should we find mom an assisted-living facility?"