Chapter Eighteen
A week later, I was more of a wreck than I had been the night Scott told me about my husband’s affair. I suppose it had taken that long for it to fully sink in, even after the school principal advised me that Wes had handed in his resignation the day before he left. I couldn’t believe no one at work had mentioned anything to me. I suppose they thought I knew.
At first, I was in a state of denial, believing that Wes would wake up from this insanity, realize he’d made a terrible mistake, and come home. Then we would be able to pick up the pieces and begin to repair our marriage.
When he finally did contact me, he did so by text, which had been especially cruel because that didn’t give me a chance to vent my anger or ask any questions.
Was he ever coming back? What about our house? I couldn’t afford the mortgage payments on my own. Did his parents know?
But he continued to ignore my calls. All he said in the text message was this:
You probably know where I am by now, and I’m sorry for blindsiding you like this, but I thought it would be better than dragging things out. There was no way for either Angie or me to make this easy on you, or to let you down gently. It was going to be painful no matter what, so I think this is the best way—to avoid a scene—then we can all move on.
I was so shocked and angered by his text, I began to hyperventilate in my kitchen while fighting the temptation to smash my phone against the wall.
Then he sent a second message:
But it can’t be a total shock to you, Claire. You knew I wasn’t happy. For that reason, I think a clean break is better for everyone because I’m not going to change my mind. Please stop trying to contact me. It’ll only make things harder on you and me both. Again, I’m sorry. You’re a good person, Claire, and I feel terrible about all of this. I know it wasn’t your fault that you fell off that horse. But I’m not coming home. I just need to move on. We’ll need to get a divorce. Let’s just get this over with, without any drama. You should probably get a lawyer.
My blood pressure hit the roof. I’m lucky I didn’t have a stroke right there, because the way he was messaging me—as if I were being unreasonable for trying to contact him—made me lose control.
My cheeks burned and I gritted my teeth until my jaw ached. I let out a deep, guttural scream and finally threw my cell phone against the wall.
By some miracle it didn’t break, thanks to the protective pink rubber case that Wes had bought me for Christmas. Had he known I was going to throw it against the wall a month later?
Heart racing, blood pounding in my ears like thunder, I stared at my phone on the floor. I thought about what Wes had done. Then I marched over, picked it up, ripped off the garish pink protector, and smashed the phone repeatedly on the kitchen table top, wishing it was his stupid, selfish head.
I broke the screen and felt satisfied at last. But only for a few seconds, then I burst into tears and collapsed on a chair.
My brain was functioning at hyper-speed. Thoughts were bouncing around inside my head like rubber balls. I quickly typed a message through my tears and the broken glass: Just tell me this. Is she pregnant? Is that why you left with her?
He responded immediately: No, she’s not pregnant. We just need to be together. You wouldn’t understand. I’m turning off my phone now.
I stared at his message with disbelief. He thinks I wouldn’t understand? Does he believe I have no concept of love or passion, or how charismatic Angie could be?
It was a low moment, one of many during those first few weeks. I could barely remember half of them. I just remember the anger and the tears.
One bright spot was my sister Bev, who was constantly supportive and sympathetic. As soon as I called her that first night, she had come over with Leo and never left. She moved in temporarily, so that I wouldn’t have to be alone while I came to terms with the situation.
I was grateful for her presence, especially at night when fantasies about my future were bleak and pathetic. I imagined myself as the forever lonely, barren wife whose husband left her for another more beautiful woman who could give him a child.
I had other fantasies, too, where I confronted Angie and told her how cruel she had been, and how much pain she had caused. I told her I would never forgive her, not as long as I lived, because she was a wicked, rotten husband-stealer who deserved a lifetime of karmic unhappiness.
I wanted her to feel pain, too—to regret her actions, and to suffer with excruciating guilt, and never escape the shame over what she had done to me.
Looking back on it, I realize that my anger only caused me more intense levels of suffering. Had I simply accepted it and “moved on,” as Wes had suggested, I might have spared myself a lot of heartache and rage. But I simply had to go through that firestorm. I had to let it run its course. Only then, could I recover and let it go.
But I wasn’t there yet. Even after a month, I was still heartbroken and pathetic.
And Bev, now almost twenty-weeks pregnant, was still living with me.
When her apartment lease came up for renewal a week later, I asked her to move in with me permanently, because she would no doubt need help with her baby when the time came.
She was hesitant because she didn’t want to be a burden, but I wanted to be there for my sister, just as she had always been there for me. And I think, deep down, I wanted the opportunity to bond with her baby, and be a good auntie, because I feared it might be my only chance to have a child in my life.
* * *
“I just want my husband back,” I confessed to Bev one evening as we sat on the sofa re-watching a first-season episode of Downton Abbey. “I keep dreaming that he’ll show up at the door and tell me how sorry he is, and that he made a terrible mistake and he still loves me, and that Angie could never take my place. Then I imagine how upset and heartbroken she would be when he left her. She’d throw a tantrum and be miserable in Toronto. She’d die alone with a bunch of cats.”
“Sounds like quite a revenge fantasy.” Bev raised the remote control and paused the episode. “But seriously, Claire? You’d take Wes back after what he did to you?”
I buried my forehead in my hand and groaned. “Oh, I don’t know. I just want him to come back and grovel, and I want Angie to get what she deserves.”
“If he actually did that,” Bev said, still pressing me, “would you really take him back?”
I thought about it for a moment. “Part of me would love to kick him to the curb, just to give him a taste of his own medicine. But he’s my husband. We’re not the first couple to go through something like this, you know. Infidelity happens. That doesn’t make it right, but good people sometimes make mistakes, and some couples make it through and come out of it even stronger on the other end.”
Bev said nothing. She simply watched me while I continued to ramble, working through my feelings, trying to rationalize what I wanted.
“I just always imagined that Wes and I would grow old together,” I explained. “And remember… We were under a lot of pressure over the past year. Most of it was my fault because of the infertility issues. I was the one pushing us to see a doctor and to have sex every time I was ovulating. But doesn’t everyone deserve a second chance? And forgiveness?”
“You always did have a forgiving nature,” Bev replied. “You don’t hold grudges. You didn’t even hold one against Shelly Cartwright in the sixth grade, when she elbowed you in the parade, just as you were about to throw your baton. She made you drop it, then she threw hers and got all the applause. You cried your eyes out that night and said you’d hate her forever.”
“I did hate her for a while,” I said, “but then we ended up being really good friends in high school. I figured that we were just kids back then. She’d matured.”
Bev raised an eyebrow. “You’re a better woman than I am—because I still hated her, even years later, when you were besties.”
I inclined my head. “Are you saying that if I took Wes back, you’d always hate him?”
Bev stood up and went to the kitchen to fill Leo’s food bowl. He followed and began crunching on his dinner.
“I don’t know,” Bev replied. “Maybe. I guess I’m just not as forgiving as you.” She returned and sat back down. “But it doesn’t matter how I feel. It’s your life. But think about it this way. I admire your desire to forgive. I think it’s very honorable. But maybe you can forgive him without actually taking him back. You can just bury the hatchet, let your ego wallow in the pleasure of knowing that he regretted it, but then move on without bitterness, and find someone else who would never dream of being unfaithful to you, or hurting you like that.”
I rested my arm along the back of the sofa. “You don’t think people can change? Or learn and grow from their mistakes?”
She gazed out the dark window for a moment. “I do think people learn from their mistakes, but certain mistakes take too great a toll on others, and I think the offender’s lesson should be the loss of what they didn’t value enough. Then they really learn something.”
“So you think that if I took him back, I’d be depriving him of the lesson he needs to learn?”
“Yes,” she said firmly. “That’s exactly what I think.” She sipped her water and shook her head at herself. “Although…I do believe in second chances, just not in Wes’s case. Not after the way he handled everything—first, letting the affair happen, and then just leaving without ever talking to you about it, and sending those awful, heartless texts. It was selfish and mean, and conniving. What does that say about what’s inside his core?”
“He is an ass,” I finally agreed. “But at least he’s still paying his half of the mortgage. It comes out of his bank account every two weeks and so far, he hasn’t stopped those payments. Thank God for that, because he knows I can’t afford it on my own.”
Bev raised an eyebrow. “I hate to be the pessimist here, but I doubt it’s out of the goodness of his heart. He’s probably still paying it because he intends to claim his half of this house in the divorce. You may be in for a fight there.”
I sighed with resignation. “You’re probably right.”
“Of course I am. So how would you ever be able to trust a person who could be so calculating and cruel? He didn’t care about your feelings at all when he walked out. Is that the kind of man you want raising your children?”
While I considered all of that—and decided that no, he was not the man I wanted as a father figure to my children—Bev raised the remote control and pressed PLAY. Leo entered the living room and lay down on the floor at her feet.
I returned my attention to the television for a moment. Then I looked out the front window at Scott and Angie’s house across the street. There was a light on in the living room, and the porch light was on as well, but I knew it was the timer because Scott was not at home.
He had left me a phone message a few days after he broke the news to me about Wes and Angie. He had called to let me know that he’d accepted a consulting assignment in Munich, and he was leaving right away.
“Not to sound like a cliché,” he said in the voicemail, “but I’m going to throw myself into my work.”
I had recognized the pain in his voice, and I understood why he was leaving. He needed to escape this nightmare.
Sometimes I wanted to escape it, too, and get out of this house where I was surrounded by all the things that Wes and I had bought together, and all the memories. It was impossible not to think of the betrayal, every single day.
I never called Scott back, but I had sent him an email to let him know I understood.
He emailed me back and asked if I would check on his house once a week to make sure no pipes had burst.
I agreed and he dropped off a key. I wished him well at my front door, and hadn’t heard from him since.