She wandered into the kitchen. “How’s it going?” she asked him.
“Good,” he said. The crowbar was being used to pry the old, chipped ceramic tiles off the floor. “Very good.”
“I’m going to have a glass of wine,” she said. “What can I give you?”
“Oh, I’m just fine with water.”
“I didn’t mean I was going to get you liquored up,” she laughed. “I realize you use power tools. But how about a cola or something?”
He looked up from his work, smiling. He wiped a rag across his sweating bald head. “That would sure be nice, thanks.”
She went for a glass in the laundry room where she kept the few dishes she needed since the kitchen cupboards had been torn out and carried away. The refrigerator was purring along in the garage now. She couldn’t actually cook anything but she could get ice and keep things cold. As she looked inside she said, “Hey, have you eaten?”
“I have,” he said. “Had something on my way over.”
“How about Beau?” she asked, and as she did so, the yellow Lab lifted his head and looked at her with those sad eyes that suggested he hadn’t been fed in days, lying eyes that made her laugh.
“Don’t believe a word he says. I always take care of Beau first,” Bob said.
She poured his cola, her white wine. She settled at the table in the nook, still undisturbed and covered with dust. “Could I ask you a personal question?”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Sure. If I get confused by it, I’ll make up an answer.”
“Funny,” she said. “Why did you and your wife separate?”
“Oh, that,” he chuckled. “It’s real simple, actually. She left me. She’s gay.”
Andy actually choked on her first swallow of wine. “Gay?” she echoed.
He laughed. “Don’t ask me the chronology of that, okay? I mean, since birth, I assume, but of course, I had no idea. We weren’t exactly kids when we got married. I was over forty, she was over thirty. It was something she struggled with, spent a lot of time at church, trying to get the cure. I think she just wanted to be like everyone else—live an average life and have children. But that’s really not the way to go.”
“Holy shit, Bob,” Andy said.
“Life’s not easy if you’re gay, even in San Francisco. If your family thinks you’re just being difficult people keep trying to impress that all you have to do is concentrate and you’ll stop being gay. It’s a little more complicated than that.”
“Well, I’ll say,” Andy said, taking a gulp. She wanted to know everything, right now. How’d that work? What made her choose him? How was sex? And the one she couldn’t help, “You didn’t have the first idea? Going in?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “That was stupid of me and wrong of her, I guess. But I understand. I think she was really trying. She had high hopes.”
“Oh, man,” she said, overwhelmed. “I gotta know— How long did it last?”
“The time we were together? A couple of years from the time we met. She’s such a sweet girl. We were good friends first, then decided to get married. I admit, when she first told me she just couldn’t pretend to be straight anymore, I was mad. But I couldn’t stay mad at her, you know? Her life was more of a struggle than mine, so I learned a little tolerance. For a long time there I’d been worried she was sick or something, but finally she just told me the truth, she’d thought she could stop being a lesbian and could be married with children, but it just wasn’t going to happen.” He lifted his head and looked upward as if remembering. “She asked me if it would be okay if she left. And I said of course. What was I going to say? No?”
“But did it... Well, you know... Did it damage your masculinity?”
He laughed. “I didn’t have that much experience with my masculinity,” he said.
“But you were an older guy and—”
She stopped. I’m having this conversation with my kitchen carpenter, she thought, internally appalled. Yet she couldn’t help it. His take on this was fascinating.
“Nah,” was all he said.
“Did you ever hear from her again?” she asked.
“Oh, yes, all the time,” he said. “Once or twice a year now, at least. She’s with someone now, very happy. They’ve been together quite a while. They’d like to have a child together. In fact, I was offered the job, but I declined. They both like me,” he said with a lovable, almost mischievous grin. “She’s still just the nicest, sweetest girl. She always thinks to ask me how I am. And I’m the same as before.”
“Wow,” Andy said. And I thought he was an ordinary workman with an ordinary life. But there was something about him that, in all its simplicity, was deep. Thoughtful.
“Doesn’t she want a divorce?” Andy heard herself ask.
“I think it’s kind of irrelevant,” he said.
“Well, how do you know? You might meet someone someday.”
“Aw, I sort of doubt that. A little late in the game for me. But I have her phone number. If I called her and said something about that, there wouldn’t be a problem. We had an agreement when she left—real simple and nonlegal, you know. The date of the split, the assets—which were as close to zero as you can get. I scrounged up a couple thousand dollars to help her get on her feet and she was so grateful for that. We’re good.”
“You gave her money, too?” Andy asked.
“Well, she had to have some walking-around money. It’s not easy to start over, especially around here.”
“Bob, I think you’re pure gold.”
“Me? Nah, anyone would’ve done that. Like I said, she’s a real sweet girl. I’m just so glad to know she’s okay.” He looked at her closely. “Understand?”
All she could think was, I want to be like you. That pure. So undamaged even though he’d gone through a potentially devastating experience. “Sounds like you’ve completely forgiven her. For lying to you, for trying to have a straight life at your expense.”
“Mrs....Andy, it didn’t cost me anything to forgive her for that. I just assume everyone is doing the best they can. Besides, she’s a good person.” He looked at her and asked. “How are you getting along since...you know.”
“Since the TV and motorcycle went away?” she asked with a laugh. “I’m still kind of numb, I guess, because I haven’t had much of a reaction. My son was relieved—he hadn’t been getting along with my husband too well the past couple of years. And I know this is going to sound kind of silly, but it’s nice you’re working here. Makes me feel less alone.”
“Yeah, that’s the hard part. All of a sudden, alone. My wife, she might’ve been a lesbian, but she was, most of all, a great friend. We had a lot to talk about every day.”
“Well, I’m used to being alone. Bryce traveled in his job so he was gone several nights a week, anyway. And when he was in town, he wasn’t the homebody type—he was more the party-boy type. Thus the divorce.”
“I’m awful sorry, Andy.”
“Thanks,” she said. She got herself a refill of wine. “I’m going back to my room to watch TV—holler if you need me. In fact, I’m going to invite Beau if that’s all right?”
“He’s probably got sawdust and stuff on him.”
“I’ll ask him to shake. Beau. Wanna watch some CNN for a while?” Beau got to his feet and wagged his tail. “That’ll be nice,” she said to Bob. “A guy I can trust on the bed, watching TV with me.”
“You enjoy him. He can be a real good friend.”
“You can come and find him when you’re done. I’m not going to bed or anything. I’m only in the bedroom because it’s quiet...and there’s no TV in the family room.”
Three hours later Bob knocked softly on the bedroom door, which stood ajar about an inch, and Andy sat up with a start. Beau was sitting upright on the bed, wagging and making a noise that was a combination whine and moan. “Come in,” she called.
Bob gingerly pushed the door open and Beau bolted off the bed to go to him. “He make a goo
d TV buddy?”
“He put me to sleep,” she said. She stretched. “That was great.”
“It’s his best trick. See you tomorrow night.”
“Thanks,” she said. That might be one of the kindest men I’ve ever known, she thought. Too bad he’s...Bob.
three
GERRI BOOKED HERSELF and Phil for three emergency sessions with a crisis counselor. She chose a woman she’d used through CPS, a woman she thought was very good even though her instincts said if her heart was in it, she’d have selected a man who could understand Phil. But she didn’t want Phil to get understanding—she wanted his head on a pike. And at this point, Phil would’ve taken counseling from Gerri’s mother had she been alive, he was that accommodating, that beaten down with guilt and remorse...and hope. He would do anything to make this go away.
She scheduled them for three evenings running, from two days following his apologetic admission. They told the kids they had meetings. She had no idea what he had to say at the prosecutor’s office to leave work on time for a change. She secretly hoped he had to say, “I cheated on my wife and if I don’t go to counseling with her right now, I’m getting thrown out of the house.” She wanted him to feel her pain. His claims of great guilt and remorse weren’t doing much for her.
But he made it home on time to go with her. They held it together pretty well during the session. Phil seemed to struggle but tried to answer the counselor’s questions. Gerri thought, for a prosecutor, he’d make a lousy witness. Judges wouldn’t accept answers like, “I don’t know what I was thinking, what I was looking for,” or, “There wasn’t anything missing in my marriage that I was trying to make up for, I was just extremely tempted and I failed.”
As was typical of marriage counseling, the real bloodletting and fireworks came later, after the session. Usually in the car on the way home, probably to the great entertainment of cars passing by.
“She’s trying to get me to fight it out with you, take shots at your choice of sleepwear as the thing that drove me to it,” Phil said.
“She’s just saying it wasn’t the affair, it’s what was going on in our marriage,” Gerri fired back.
“Bullshit! There wasn’t anything going on in our marriage that hasn’t been going on for over ten years! It was the same! It’s always been a busy marriage, one full of pressure, stressful jobs, kids, horrible schedules, tight budgets. And you’re not asking me if the marriage has been satisfactory lately. It’s been the same!”
“If I asked, you’d say whatever you had to because now you’re scared you’re going to lose everything!”
“I was always afraid of losing everything! She’s trying to get me to say I’m just a little boy who wanted to come my brains out!”
“Well, didn’t you say as much? Isn’t that what ‘extremely tempted’ means?” Gerri railed.
“I’m saying I don’t know why! Seven years ago, for whatever reason, I didn’t have much willpower, much restraint. I never once thought, ‘Gerri’s not putting out so this is okay.’ I had accepted how we were.”
“Accepted how we were? You’re blaming me!”
“Jesus, I’m blaming us! I knew this was going to come back and bite me in the ass, but I couldn’t help myself—I was tempted because it felt too goddamn good to have someone actually tempted by me! You and the counselor want to hear me claim you’re a frigid wife, that I’m just an irresponsible asshole! Goddamn it, Gerri, I’m not a player. I have never been a player.”
“You son of a bitch,” she blustered at him. “Like it was my fault! Not wanting you enough!”
“Come on, don’t go there,” he said meanly. “You know as well as I do that for the past ten years, sex in our bed is rare at best. We’d have to get sex therapy to get up to once a month!”
“I know it’s real rare for you to make any effort!”
“How many no, thank yous do you think a husband can get before he figures out that’s not on the agenda?”
“Oh—so that’s your story now? That I said ‘no, thank you’ too often and damaged your frail little libido? That I drove you to the other woman?”
“Listen, the most love I feel in that house is when you hand me my list of chores and praise me like a puppy for doing as I was told. Aw, Jesus, we don’t need a therapist to help us say cruel things like this to each other! Christ!”
“Well, maybe if you’d fucking hold up your end, I wouldn’t be so tired at the end of the day!”
“See what I mean? Why don’t we just rent a cabin in the woods and fire insults and accusations at each other? It would be cheaper than a hundred bucks an hour! And it sure as hell isn’t helping put us back together! You want to know all the ways you were a less-than-perfect wife? Wanna tell me all the ways I failed as a husband? Because I’m sure the list is long and ugly for both of us!”
When they got home, they separated in silence, holding back the rage in front of the kids. Given they were teenagers, they were mostly oblivious. Jessie asked Gerri, “You mad about something?”
“Just worn out from a problem at work, honey,” she said. “Be patient with me.”
“It’s not, you know, that menopause thing?”
“No! It’s not that menopause thing!”
By the end of the week, a mere five days after the affair came to light, Gerri told Phil, “It’s time. I need to go to counseling alone, you need to find your own counselor, and we have to separate.”
“You’re giving up?”
“I don’t know. If I can stop hating you, maybe we can work it out. But right now, I’m just in too much pain.”
“Where do you expect me to go? Our finances can’t withstand another residence.”
“I don’t care. Stay in the city, come out for dinner, visit on weekends, whatever. But I can’t fight about it anymore. There’s just no explanation for what you did and I can’t get past the betrayal. You just have to give me some space and time.”
“If that’s what you want,” he said. “But I still love you.”
“Well, I don’t love you right now. I want to, but I can’t love a man who can do what you did without even knowing why. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel safe again.”
“Fine,” he said. “This weekend we’ll tell the kids.”
“I don’t agree with that,” she told him.
“We tell them what they’re old enough to understand. That’s what we do in this family. In fact, you wrote that rule. You’re the social worker.”
“I don’t think they’re old enough to understand,” she said.
“Yes, they are. They’re not old enough to sympathize and it’s not in their experience, but they’ll know what we’re talking about. They’ll know that what I did was wrong, that you being out of your mind angry is reasonable.”
She shook her head and a large tear escaped. “Why did you do this to us, Phil?” she asked in a desperate whisper.
“I can’t explain. I’ve had nightmares about this for over five years. If we’re not stronger than one indiscretion, then I completely misjudged us. I thought, given all we’ve had to handle, both personally and professionally, if it came to this, we’d find a way. We’ve seen families through murder that didn’t give up this fast.”
“One two-year indiscretion!”
“Do you have any idea how many times, during those two years, I put my arms around you and held you? How many times you told me not to get any ideas? God, Gerri, I remember when the kids were little and we were both exhausted from work, the house was collapsing, everyone was screaming they needed something, and we still snuck away from them, locked ourselves in the bathroom and—” He shook his head. “I don’t know when that stopped happening for us, but it stopped.”
“Why didn’t you say anything? Before it was too late?”
“I thought I had.” He looked down for a long moment, then looked up again. “Never mind. It wasn’t because of you. It was me. I should have found a way. But then, I didn’t know it was going to be too late...”
/>
There was a very small part of her, remembering those days so long ago, that wanted to say, It was me, too, let’s see if we can get it back. But she said, “I’ll tell Jessie if you’ll tell the boys.”
He gave a nod. “Sunday,” he said. “Then I’ll go to the city.”
“You’re going to drop it on them and leave them with me?”
“No, of course not. We’ll tell them, separately. I’ll stay through the evening and when the house quiets down, I’ll head out. I’ll handle as much of this as I can, but it’s your decision for us to live apart and we don’t do that to our kids without them knowing the reasons.”
* * *
At five o’clock on Sunday, Phil knocked on Jed’s bedroom door and said, “Hey, bud, I have to talk to you about something. Can you come with me?”
“Where?” he asked, getting up from his reclining position on the bed.
“We have to go somewhere away from the house so I can talk to you in private. Just come on, you’ll have the details soon enough.”
They walked a couple of short blocks to the neighborhood park. Phil sat on the top of a picnic table, his feet on the bench, elbows on his knees, head down. Jed stood in front of him. “Come on, man,” Jed said impatiently. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Your mom and I are having some problems,” Phil said. He felt his eyes begin to water, his throat threaten to close. “Serious problems. Oh, Jesus, this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
“Come on, Dad! You getting divorced or something?”
“I hope not,” Phil said, and watched his son deflate, as if all the air had just been sucked out of him. “It’s my fault. I want to tell you why, and I need your help with Matt. He needs to know the facts, but he’s kind of young to understand.”
“You’re shitting me,” Jed said in a panicked breath. “Oh, man, you’re shitting me.”
“Several years ago—over five—I broke the oath. I cheated. I don’t have an excuse—it was wrong. I never wanted to lose your mom, lose my family. I never wanted another woman, but I guess I was weaker than my hormones or something, because I cheated. Your mom just found out and she really wants to kill me right now. She’d like us to be able to work things out, but she’ll need some time to decide if she can forgive me.”