Learning How to Live - 3. Lightning

“What do you mean ‘Why’?” Her husband made an exaggerated shrug from his position on the edge of the couch. They sat facing each other from the two chairs set before the bay window at the front of their house; there was a small round table between the chairs that they’d turned to face each other. She sat with her back to the wall exterior wall, the wall the television was mounted on, while he sat in the chair that was placed at the edge of the carpet that marked the separation from the foyer of the front door.

“I mean, why? Why did you have an affair? Why then?” She sat with one leg folded under her and her arms rested on the little accent pillow that was cradled in her lap. She’d gone for a jog and then a swim before she’d come to the house; the plan had been to get all of the energy out so she could make some space for this conversation. It was still insulting that her husband had an affair but she’d gotten about as far with her anger as was likely possible.

“There...there is no why. I didn’t plan it; it just happened.” His hands kept punctuating his words.

She sighed; Jared was not the kind of person that saw things as a chain of little events tied together by cause and effect; she knew that but it was how she saw things. It let her see the impersonal truth of things; she could focus on the facts and the consequences without things becoming overly personal or muddied - It was safe, clean, and there were lots of ways to address whatever the underlying arguments or points of redress were. “Then what’s to stop it from happening again?”

“It’s over. It’s been over! It isn’t going to happen again; I won’t let it happen again.” He was giving his most sincere expression that he could manage; had they been discussing him stealing a cupcake from the fridge in the middle of the night, she’d have found this cute. She frowned, trying to show her patience with getting him to see where she was coming from. This was not about a cupcake.

“Jared, if I had asked you before the affair if you would have an affair, what would you have told me?”

“I’d have said there’s no way,” he said with conviction.

“That’s the problem.” He looked up at her with frustration written all over.

“You want me to promise that I won’t ever let it happen again?”

“While it wasn’t technically promised in our wedding vows, you did already promise me that when you proposed to me.” She raised an eyebrow. “‘You are the only woman I want in my life,’ one might say is a promise to not have an affair with another woman.”

“Yeah, I get it. But I can’t do any more beyond giving you my word.”

She chuckled. “There are plenty of ways: You could geld yourself. You could run to a monastery. You coul-”

“You’re not helping.”

“I’m trying to though. I am trying - very hard mind you - not to be hysterical, not to be angry, not to be a bitch about the fact that you lied to me when you told me that I was the only woman you wanted.” She fluffed the pillow in her lap.

“Then tell me what you want me to do to fix this.” His voice had taken on a plaintive tone.

“Husband, if you are in fact still my husband-”

“Cut it out!”

She scowled and blew out her breath noisily. “Fine. Right now your word means nothing to me. All of your good intentions didn’t stop you from risking your child and your marriage for what we’ll assume was empty sex.”

“It was.”

She rolled her eyes and continued, “You can promise me whatever you like but don’t expect that to mean anything to me for a good while. What I want is to understand what it took to make you jeopardize our marriage; at least then I will understand what to look for in the future-”

“There won’t be a future!” He had his hands over his head again.

“So you say. What I need, if you want us to remain together-” He made an exasperated noise. “-is for you to show me that you really care that you hurt me; that you insulted me. I need you to take responsibility for cleaning up the mess you made. I have faith that you still love m-”

“I do.”

“-e but I need reassurance.” She looked him in the eye. “And, goddamnit, stop interrupting every little thing I say,” she growled. She took a deep breath and flexed her fingers against the pillow. “What I am saying is that I can’t give you the answer for how to fix this; I don’t have one. Even if I did, it would be meaningless for me to hand you a script to follow. You do it. You screwed-up, quite literally; you work to fix it.”

“Fine, but how am I supposed to know if what I’m doing is right?”

“It seems like you know how to use a question; that was a fine example of asking a question.” She smirked humorlessly. “And, to buy my patience, I still want you to explain what happened.”

“Fine, if I’m allowed to ask questions: Why did you run to Roan?” He’d placed his hands on his knees and his voice had fallen quiet.

She raised an eyebrow. “Roan is Greg’s godfather. Why? Should I not have gone to your friend’s house?”

Her husband looked sullen and his face contorted. “Sandra is his godmother and your sister. You even had to pass her house to get Greg from daycare. Why not her? Why did you run to Roan?” She cocked her head to the side appraisingly. What the hell was this about? What was going on with him? Why was her husband this upset?

“Jared? You’re going to have to spit it out. What are you so upset about and why are you asking about how I ended up at what was the most convenient place to sort this out?” She was frowning now and she didn’t bother to stop herself from hugging the little pillow to her stomach.

“I...I need you to tell me why you took Greg, my son, and ran to him when you left our house, me.” He was patently looking at the floor and his face was flushing red.

She felt a sickly chill running up her spine and her head slid over on her neck as she braced herself for where she really hoped this wasn’t going. She measured her words and punctuated them with silence, “I didn’t want to involve my family in such an ugly moment in our business so I didn’t even tell my sister. She doesn’t even know that we aren’t all just fine right now.”

“Fine. Why not one of your friends?” He looked up at her and swallowed. She worked her jaw until it popped.

“I didn’t want to have to deal with involving my friends in my marital problems and, quite likely, then have to involve them in the progress of its repair.” She lowered her tone. “If that isn’t enough for you to end this line of questioning, the next thing out of your mouth had better be a direct accusation.”

He swallowed and glanced out the window before turning back to look at her somewhere below her nose. “Did you sleep with him?”

She cackled.

--
Jared winced as he heard Cheryl laugh. The humorless, imperious, mocking sound echoed through the entire house. It pierced his control over the sick mass of fear inside of his chest and embarrassment boiled his insides. “Don’t laugh at me! Just answer the question!” He heard his voice break.

As abruptly as it started, she stopped and stood; the lap pillow she’d been holding bounced off his chest. “Time out.” He heard the twisted sound of her voice as she’d spat the words; he sat where he was, watching her stride across the room to the bar, while his stomach roiled.

She walked behind the bar and shuffled for a bottle of bourbon. She slammed a highball glass down on the counter and winced as the shock of the impact ran up her arm. She scowled at him and jerked the bottle in his direction. He nodded. She grabbed a second glass and he even winced as she slammed that down on the counter next to the first.
She poured a finger into each glass and slammed the still open bottle down on the counter. Her face was a snarl as pushed his glass across the bar. With a long noisy breath, she picked up her glass and swirled the amber liquid around.

“Please...I’m sorry. Please?” His voice sounded alien to his own ears, a pleading whine that barely filled the silence. He was doing all he could to keep the images that had plagued him all weekend out of his head. He’d done his best not to lose it the moment they’d started this conversation. He couldn’t take any more of this feeling eating away at him.

She made a disgusted sound and sipped from her glass. “No.”

“...no?” his voice remained as small.

“I said, ‘No’, Jared. I have never slept with - never thought about sleeping with your…’friend.’” He frowned and looked away from her face at the sneer when she’d said the last word. He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, forcing himself to find some kind of control over his body.

“I went to Roan out of kindness to you. I knew he wouldn’t even think twice about making sure that you were alright.” She had one arm wrapped around her chest with the one holding her glass resting atop the first; she stared at him over the rim of her glass. “He’d bend over backwards, without making any sort of fuss, just to make sure that you would be able to spend time with your son. He’d even wade into the pool of shit you’d created to try to cool me down and maybe even figure out how to help you make it better.” She raised her voice. “All of which, I might add, he actually did for you AND the man still made time to keep your son thinking the whole thing was damn vacation!” She had been shouting by the end of her statement. She took another sip and swallowed it before resuming. “Anything else you want to accuse me of?” her voice was nearly unrecognizable with anger and he closed his eyes rather than face it.

He thought about their son, the little orange tips to his high-top fade hair style and swallowed against the press of the bile he felt in his throat. She’d already said she hadn’t slept with Roan. Wasn’t that enough? Did he have to drag his family, his heart, through the tar of his nightmares any further? He heard her glass settle on the counter softly and he looked up at his wife...the look in her eyes left real doubt if the woman behind the bar was still his wife.

She held his gaze and visibly swallowed. “Since I don’t think I can forgive what I am very certain you want to say right now, let me say it for you: Greg is your son. You don’t deserve him to be but he is.” Her eyes trembled as she searched his face then she seemed to deflate and dropped her head.

“I-”

“No! Don’t talk. If you care about your family, about me - at all, you won’t say another goddamn word before I leave this house.” Her voice was low but steady; it carried in the empty room. He watched her silently, barely breathing. “I know that you don’t hear yourself - that you don’t understand how five minutes ago you couldn’t wait to cut me off to tell me how much you love me and that this is behind us, yet here you are five minutes later calling me a whore.” She raised her head and glared at him. He felt like she was daring him to speak; he didn’t.

“Well, I am sorry to disappoint that imagination of yours but I am not a whore - an idiot, yes, without question, but not a whore. New rules: You will not speak to me in any form or fashion until you can come up with whatever the hell you believe will solve this moment. You will not speak to me until you have told Roan, directly, what you have just implied you thought about me, him, and your son.” She pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes.

“I will not live with you; I don’t deserve to see the man that promised to cherish me look at me like a whore - You can stay here and I will find some other place to go or you can leave and I will stay here, for our son’s sake. I will come home to get my effects and the rest of Greg’s at lunch tomorrow. If you want to stay, do nothing. If you want me to stay, get your shit out of here before I get here. You can see your son on the weekends; don’t call me. Have whomever you can find it in your heart to trust to call me and they can come get him.”

She put the cap back on the bottle of bourbon before looking up at him again. “Unless you want divorce papers here in the morning, nod to let me know you understand what I am saying.” He blinked and swallowed then nodded slowly. She walked from behind the bar, grabbed her coat from the closet, and walked out the front door.

He rubbed his hands together when he heard the engine of her car as he felt the wet drops falling against them.

---
“We need to talk.” Cheryl stood in the door to her and Greg’s bedroom. Roan sat with the toddler in his lap on his couch in the living room. He was reading Pinocchio from an illustrated book to a very heavy lidded Greg in a Pokemon onesie. He looked up and nodded but didn’t stop what he was reading. “You also might want the little one to sleep with you tonight.” He looked back at her more seriously, holding the question on his face.

“Hey!” Greg thumped on the bottom of the book to get him to start reading again.

He looked down. “I’m sorry I stopped, buddy. Are you OK to bunk with me tonight?”

“Yeah.” Roan frowned up at Cheryl and nodded before finding his place in the story once more. He heard the door to the bedroom shut quietly.

---
Now what?

Chasing after Greg was a joy but it was a lot of work at times, he thought as he sat gently tapping the child’s back in his room. The some kind of turtle lay between a pair of heavy pillows in Roan’s king-size bed and had gone quiet a short while ago. He’d discovered that the gentle drumming put the kid to sleep like a dream before Greg had even learned any words; he’d also found that it soothed his own nerves to do it too. There was just something deeply peaceful about watching the child drop his various ideas and excitements and then his studious gaze under Roan’s hand. He felt at peace; connected. Like he had a purpose in the world and this little person trusted him beyond all else to fulfill it. He frowned and shook his head as he stilled his hand just watched the child breathing.

He knew something awful was about to happen with Cheryl. She’d not said a word to him when she got back from her meeting with Jared before telling him that they needed to talk. She’d gotten back probably three hours ago and gone straight into her room and closed the door. The weekend had been rough for everybody...well, maybe not Greg; still, such as it was, she and he had a comfortable dinner together last night. He’d cooked and they’d eaten on the patio so they wouldn’t wake her son. Cheryl had been her usual self; they’d laughed and joked about moments they’d had in the last few years. She hadn’t brought up anything of the anger he’d seen on Friday or the protectiveness - that’s what he’d chosen to call it, of Saturday morning. Their breakfast this morning had been really light hearted too; she’d found music to play and alternated dancing with her son or herself when Roan had stood holding the toddler while he pushed the french toast around in the pan after he’d asked to help.

But now...he felt the hollow in his stomach of a bad conversation - this was the “It’s not you, it’s me” call kind of setup. He thought about the embrace with Jared at the park. He’d been startled by the gesture; for Jared to be so convinced that Roan was the enemy or a bad guy was troubling and he’d tried to just give the man his space with his son. It hurt to see Jared like that...it had hurt more to be excluded from the father-son time. He’d lost Jared, Greg, and, worse, the time with the two in combination. Then the man hugged him. Roan lowered his head. He’d needed to be hugged. And now...now here we are again - All of these ups and downs were wearing him the fuck out.

He clicked on the monitor by the bed and walked quietly out of the room. He found Cheryl standing in the corner of the deck, right where she’d been on Friday night. “Hey,” he called from the threshold, “can we not do this out here again? I feel like I’m being trained to expect trauma on my patio.” She turned and nodded to him.

“Where to?” He led them to the sectional in the living room and took a corner.

“Do you need anything to eat? Can I get you something?” he asked. She shook her head and curled up in the opposite corner, her feet tucked beside her on the cushions. He sighed. “Alright, then what are you and he going to do to me?”

“Roan, I-”

“Cheryl. I don’t like break up conversations. This is between you and your family but you are acting like you need to protect my feelings - That hurts more.” He cracked his knuckles and watched her expectantly as she ran her tongue over her teeth and considered what she wanted to say next.

“Jared and I are separating and I cannot stay here.” He pressed his lips to a thin line and nodded, waiting. “Greg and I will leave tomorrow and I don’t know where we will end up. I can’t give you the details but Jared is free to tell you.”

He looked down and cracked his neck. “So things got worse in some way that involves me and now you are going to go somewhere else and...am I no longer welcome? Am I no longer allowed to see Greg?” His body was limp and his eyes were unfocused.

He heard her make a sound like a gasp but he couldn’t bring himself to move. “I...don’t know. Jared will have to talk to you about that.” They sat in silence for some time before he could bring himself to speak.

“Have I done something wrong to hurt or upset you?” His voice was flat and the muscles of his abdomen were trembling as if he were freezing.

“No. You’ve done no wrong against me or to me; I have nothing but respect for how freely you give of yourself and your time.”

“Fuck him,” he whispered to himself. He stood up and blinked to clear his eyes; he could taste the salty tang as one of the tears ran to the corner of his mouth. He stepped toward the stairs that lead to his bedroom; he paused and looked to see Cheryl’s eyes and grimaced. “Thank you for letting me say goodbye to Greg.” He saw the tears run down her face too then he turned and walked up the stairs to his bedroom.

It was early morning when he’d finished getting Greg dressed for daycare; he buckled Greg into the back of her SUV while she went to check once more that she hadn’t forgotten anything. He stood limply at the open door to the garage when Cheryl loaded up their bags. She went to get into the vehicle and stopped with her hand on the handle. She frowned and shook her head before walking to him and hugging him tightly. “I don’t know what’s going to happen but know that if Jared and I don’t make it; you are always welcome in Greg’s life.” She pulled back. “And, I hope, that you’ll find it in your heart to let me be in your life as well.” He nodded and squeezed her.

Then he watched them pull away.