Why Won't You Commit?

"You are too harsh, Luke," Mom said. "It's not her fault your sister cheated. And are you sure about that?"

"Well, I'm sure Mindy told you what she saw, didn't she?"

"She did," my father spoke for the first time, giving my mother a dirty look. "You know she did Joyce. Stop trying to manipulate our son. He was there and saw it with his own eyes. And she admitted she has been seeing this Campbell character for years. Not just to Luke but also her husband."

Mom sat back for a minute, then tried to defend Amber again.

"Leave it be, Joyce," my dad said to mom. "I raised Amber, hoping she would be a good woman. But I failed."

"Our daughter is not a bad... person," my mother said, then hesitated in mi phrase, realizing the stupidity of her thinking. "She is just..."

"What exactly is she, Joyce? She has the moral code of a mongoose."

I snickered at dad's comical yet sad description of my sister, earning me a dirty look from Mom. It was no secret in our family that mother had been the one to promote to Amber the feminist notions my sister espoused. And now that her favourite child was openly flaunting her indiscretions, mother Stanton had a hard time making excuses for Amber. Because as we all knew, it was a reflection on mom's thinking.

For years mom had bossed everyone in the house. Dad put up with it by walking away, but I had rebelled as soon as I reached thirteen. Mom and Dad tried to put on a united front with us kids, but it was clear that their two children espoused two opposite philosophies. Choosing between us or not had caused strife and tension until we both left home for college. Now that conflict had returned to haunt our parents. I could tell they were both distraught and gravely pained.

"She is still our daughter William," she replied.

"Right," my father said, looking away. "As fucked up as she may be. I still love her. I just don't like what she has let herself become."

"One thing Mindy said that I agree," I said, getting their attention, "is that many women these days do as Amber does."

"You mean that they cheat?" my father asked.

"Not just that," I replied. "But if they do so, women rarely get caught. In fact, most cheaters don't. One in five if that much."

"Why?"

"Many reasons. Their spouse trusts them. Or the spouse doesn't want to find out. Maybe their spouse doesn't care as they may be cheating as well. And frankly, because cheaters know they are doing wrong and plan their dalliances well. Only the stupid among them or very unlucky get caught.

"And Amber is in the demographic most likely to. She is well educated, professionally successful, and entitled. She has always looked good and loves the attention. Even her business suits for court seem painted on her. Not to mention the high heels and the boob job that cry, "look at me." She hits all the checkmarks, and we all know it. You too, mom."

My mom cringed at the description of her daughter and my challenge in the end. She was well educated and respected in her profession as a therapist. And even though now in her early fifties, mom still received plenty of looks from men. She always had. In some ways, she was an older version of Amber. Both physically and in her professional confidence. I always wondered how she handled that attention. But out of deference to my father, I had kept my nose out of it.

"Amber is a chip off the old block," my father said, going to the bar and pouring himself a stiff bourbon.

I saw my mother flinch at his dig and look away. It was clear that my father had compared his wayward daughter to her mother.

"What was that about?" I asked her.

"Are you going to tell him, or am I?" my father said, downing his drink and pouring another.

"Tell me what?" I asked.

"William, please!" my mother gave my father a pleading look.

He, in turn, stared back at her harshly in a way I had never seen before. My mother's lips trembled, and she collapsed on a chair. She dropped her head on her hands and moaned in apparent despair.

"I hoped you never found out," my mother said in between tears. "But I guess you deserve to know."

"Know what?" I said, looking between my father's stern gaze back to my mother, who forced herself to stop sobbing.

"Years ago, I cheated on your father," she said while sniffling. "You probably hate me now, don't you?"

I sat there stunned. Were all the women in my life stepping out on their men? Not that men didn't cheat, but I wasn't planning to marry one for us to have a family. I realized then how common the issue was. At this point, I was beginning to accept that monogamy, as we had been taught to believe it was but a myth for most people.

But why cheat? Why not be open about it and come to some kind of arrangement. Why lie and betray the person you were supposed to love. But my own mother? Christ! If she could, any woman could, would.

"And why do I need to know?" I replied cautiously.

"Because, son," my father picked up, "I am not your biological father."

That hit me like a ton of bricks.

"What!" was all I managed to blurt out. "Wait... say that again."

Neither of them said anything. Instead, my parents stared at each other with a mixture of anger, disappointment, and dejection. But mom blinked first and turned away.

"I was young and stupid," my mother said, looking at me now.

"She got drunk and forgot to take her pill," my father said. "She was ovulating when she went to the conference and had her semi-annual fling with whose ever turn it was that time. Why don't you tell him, Joyce? He deserves to know who knocked you up."

The liquor had gotten to my dad, and he was not cutting mom any slack.

"You're my dad," I told him, but I still saw the pain in his gaze. "I thought you were proud of me."

"I am," he replied. "But you should have been mine. Instead, I have had to live with knowing the only child I produced is a social viper. It was not your fault Luke. I have tried to be a good father to you. Ever since you were born and I saw the dark hair. Neither your mom nor I look that way. But I have dark-haired relatives and thought that maybe that was it."

"Luke, please forgive me," my mother went back to crying.

"How long have you known?" I asked both of them.

"When you were thirteen, a friend at work got divorced. During the proceedings, her husband DNA tested their kids. Lucky for her, they were both hers. But she admitted that she had cheated on him once and was worried until the results came back. That got me thinking about you again. So I had you and your sister tested. She is mine, but you have a different biological father."

"Donor," I corrected him. "Don't either of you ever call that man my father or dad?"

"Thank you, son," my father, the only one I had known and wanted to be so, replied. "I confronted your mother after you turned fourteen. I couldn't hold it in anymore."

"I remember you two were cold to each other back then," I replied. "I guess now I know why."

I turned to her. She looked utterly defeated and crushed. Tears were drying on her cheeks as new ones were shed.

"It crushed me to find out, Luke," she said.

"Just curious," I asked her. "Were you cheating on dad all that time? That would be fifteen years!"

"I had stopped before that," she replied as my dad rolled his eyes and put the liquor away.

"Why did you stop?" I asked.

"Because when you went through puberty, you started looking like him. Your voice changed, and you started to sound like him."

"Him... as the donor?"

She did not look up but merely nodded.

"Why did you do it?" I asked.

"It was my fault, Luke," she said. "Nothing to do with your dad. He is a good man. I was caught up in the whole group think of entitlement. That we deserved a bit of fun while we were young and in our prime. We said all kinds of things like that to each other to justify it.

"At first, I just watched others do it. Then slowly, I began to accept it as standard behaviour. Then one day, I said, why not. You only live once. Drinking some for liquid courage, I went with some guy. He wasn't anything special sexually. The thrill was that he was different, new, and forbidden. By that point, I had convinced myself that it was just some fun on the side that meant nothing. But it did."

Dad listened as if he had heard all this before. Letting mom continue, he Looked out the window.

"After the first time and the first man, I thought I would feel guilty. But all I worried about was that William would find out. But your dad and I got along well, and I found a new normal: my home life here and the occasional extramarital vacation of a week away from home. If anything, I had this compulsion to be as good a wife and mother possible when back home. And that came easy."

"It did?"

"It's hard to explain Luke. But it was how I thought back then. I was young and too naïve and self-centered to think of consequences. I could blame college feminism and talk of entitlement, but the reality is I didn't believe I was doing anything wrong deep down. I still loved your dad, so why not?"

"How would you have felt if dad did that to you?"

"I thought about it and figured if he stepped out while I was away, who was I to tell him not to by that point."

"You never thought of discussing it?" I asked.

"We should have," my dad replied. "Because... because I was no angel either."

"What!" I shook my head, not believing my ears.

"It's why I never confronted your mom. When she was away, I had an affair with one woman, a neighbour. When she moved, a coworker took her place. Then a mother from your soccer team."

"What the fuck!" I blurted out. "You two are something else. How did you manage to stay married after that?"

"After the DNA test, I realized that how we were, how we lived, had to change. So not only did I confront your mom, but I confessed to my own infidelity. What was the point of us living a lie and hiding it after that?"

I shook my head, trying to grasp all my parents were telling me.

"Look, son," my mother said. "We are not perfect. We know that. But we still loved each other. Now I get it. Some people equate love with exclusivity. Fine for them. But not for us. But we went off the rails in not being honest."

"That's what I thought earlier when you sprung this on me. I get that some people don't agree on exclusivity. But why lie and cheat?"

"There is a thrill to it Luke. I can't explain it otherwise," my dad replied.

My mother nodded in agreement.

"Luke, I know you don't want to hear this, but you need to. You are not a child anymore. We wanted to have this talk to you about this earlier, but we kept putting it off and then you got married. After the way you found out she was cheating on you, we put it off."

"And by then," my dad continued. "You had gotten bitter, and to be honest, you didn't want to hear anything your parents had to say. Do you remember how I tried talking to you once after you found out about your ex? You cut me off."

"Anyway," my mother continued. "Now you know. So just listen, OK?"

"Go on mom."

"So, back to me and after my first time. The day after my first hook up, I must have been acting strange because one of the older women in the conference approached me. I confessed as she listened quietly.

"Then she told me that it was common at these conferences. That most people were married and just saw it as an opportunity to have some fun and escape their regular lives. Not to mention the ego boost from the attention they received and the enjoyment of pure sex.

"She advised me that the chances of complications were substantially lower so long as I stayed away from company men from our town branches. And I did just that. I also noticed that the men from our company never hit on us local women either.

"I was still processing it on that first time, so I didn't do anyone else then. But in the time between conferences, I had sorted it all in my mind. Things were good at home, so why not have fun when away?

"By the next time I went to a conference, I didn't even give it much thought. It was a matter of just who I wanted to be with. We girls would sit having drinks staring at men at the bar giggling at who was better looking. Some of the women would dance with men and let the men feel them up. Usually as a precursor to going upstairs in the hotel.

"The smarter women kept their distance on the dance floor as they made arrangements to meet the man later by giving him their room number. They would leave separately and did not let people know who they were doing or if they were."

"I assume that is what you did," I cut in.

"Yes, but why do you say that?" mom asked.

"You are too smart to flaunt your infidelity," I replied. "I would be safe to say you didn't cheat here in town and waited for your trips. Just as that woman told you to."

My father laughed. That surprised me after all he had endured. But then I reminded myself that he had been a cheater as well.

"He has you figured out, Joyce," he said. "Joyce Stanton is too intelligent to leave loose-ends. When she was not drunk, that is. You could place your mother in the unlucky cheater category who got caught by chance. Unfortunately, you were the by-product, and I went from just a cheater to an unwitting cuckold.

"YOU ARE NOT A CUCKOLD!" I found myself raising my voice. "You didn't ask her to go fuck around. Cuckolds do that voluntarily. You and I were cheated on."

It still hurt that my ex-wife had cheated on me. The cuckold tag is often tossed at men whose wives cheat. It's victim shaming and man-bashing, as women who are cheated on are treated as victims. At the same time, the men receive scorn for what their wives did. I was not too fond of the use of that word. In fact, I hated it.

"What about me Luke?" my mother asked.

"What about you?"

"Well, your father was cheating on me as well. We both victimized each other by our deceit. Stop being judgemental of us and listen. You may learn something from our mistakes."

While I was cheated on and had to live with that embarrassment, I had no children with my ex and didn't have to suffer the humiliation of raising another man's child. I could only imagine what my father had felt. At that moment, I was reminded how I had caught my father staring at me at times, only to smile at me when I asked why. He could say, "we parents do that," and leave it at that. Poor dad.

"Why? Why did you stay?" I asked him.

"By then, I was in love with both you kids. I stayed for you two. Raising you and your sister became my mission in life. Divorce, when you have children, is not much of an option for men. You are forever on the outside of their lives. That's not good for them. No matter what the pro-divorce people tell you, kids are scarred from divorce. They don't "adjust." That's what divorced people tell themselves to ease their guilt.

"You are judging Reggie for staying with your sister, but he is doing the right thing. If he left, his kids would be without him, and some other guy would be in his house. Near his kids Luke. A stranger near his kids. I was not going to do that to you and your sister. So I stuck it out."

"Luke, your father, is an exceptional man," my mother said.

Dad looked away, but she stood and hugged him from behind.

"I don't deserve him," she said, still crying. "I realized what a shit I had been the day you got sick and ended up in the hospital. You were too young to remember."

"I remember glimpses of that," I said, thinking back.

"I was at work, and your father was home with you. You had a fever that spiked to 104. He took you with him to the hospital, leaving a neighbour to watch your sister. At the hospital, I watched as your father cried and prayed for you to come through it. I felt like shit for betraying him.

"Then his brother needed a transplant. Your father gave him his kidney. Luke, I have been in awe of your father for years. But I don't deserve him."

"You are right," I replied. "You were disrespectful. What did dad do to you that you thought it was acceptable for you to go with other men when away from home?"

"Nothing," she replied. "I was a spoiled and selfish young woman."

"Does your age excuse it?" I snapped.

"No," she replied. "But it explains it. I was so full of myself.

"After William told me about the DNA test, I crumbled," she continued. "I couldn't face him and just cried. I can't tell you how many times I begged him to forgive me. It took us two years of therapy to get to be intimate again."

"Do I need to know this?" I asked.

"Yes, you do," my father replied, speaking for the first time in minutes. "You know, son. I get it. You went through something similar but not having children for you to stick around for; you ditched your ex and moved on. But I can see that it has left a deep mark on you. You don't trust women, and you don't forgive them.

"You probably look down at me for staying married to your mother. But in doing so, I raised you and your sister from inside the house. Not as an occasional visitor.

"No. I can never forget what happened, but I forgave your mom just as she forgave me. She fucked up. Royally. But she had her come to Jesus moment and came to her senses. She said she was wrong right away and begged me not to leave and to forgive her.

"She did this knowing I had cheated on her as well. I looked at myself then and was thankful I hadn't gotten any of the women I had been with pregnant. It could have happened to me too, so I decided some compassion and understanding was in order.

"I know she gave in to the cheap thrill notion of the other men while out of town. It has not been easy to get over that. But being a man is often about swallowing your pride to face your obligations. And that is what I did.

"It took me some time to get past it... if you can get past such a thing. The anger comes up from time to time. I tell you, this crap with your sister has peeled back an old wound."

I was about to say something when dad continued facing mom.

"Joyce, I know Amber is your pride and joy, but defending it pissed me off. Unlike you, she is unrepentant and thinks doing whatever she wants is her right. To be honest, she disgusts me. I don't want her in the house anymore. Reggie and the girls can visit, but not her. You can go see her on your own time."

"I understand," mom said, wiping her eyes with a tissue. "I'll work on her William. But you need to remember that she is our daughter. If you can forgive me, maybe you can forgive her. Please!"

I could tell my dad was not all on board, but he nodded to her.

"You have a point. But remember this. You and I asked; we "asked" each other for forgiveness. We admitted we had been wrong. Our darling daughter thinks it's her right to do as she pleases because the law gives her that option. You didn't do that Joyce. Why didn't you?"

"You know why," she said with a loving smile.

"Because, unlike Amber, you have a conscience."

"It's not too late to help Amber find her's is it?" Mom replied. "Just because our kids got older doesn't mean our obligation to them is over. Right?"

"She may be too old for a spanking, but she will get a verbal lashing for sure."

"I'm with you there," mom replied, hugging his arm.

"As for you," my father said, pointing to me.

"What did I do?" I protested.

"I understand your ex cheated on you. Hearing from the cops that she had that asshole's dick in her mouth must have been gut-wrenching. When I showed up at the hospital, the two cops who brought you over laughed about it openly. The woman cop was worse than the male, making gagging sounds. Good thing you were in the room with Lyn when that happened and didn't see it."

It was my turn to flinch.

"Still," my father continued. "You still carry that with you, son. Lyn cheated on you, not Mindy. What your mom and your sister did is not your problem. It's mine and Reggie's. And what I did is your mom's."