Is This What I Want? (15 page)

The words of the song he wrote for me flooded my mind.

The great universal coincidence randomly placed us both there. I
went to sit in the back but then I saw your face and I found myself in the front chair.

I saw him singing to me, his strong fingers strumming the guitar. I saw myself swooning as I listened, caught in his web of intense young passion and desire.

He shook his head. “I tried. I really did, Beth. I dated someone over the summer. She was great. I couldn’t find a single thing wrong with her. And believe me, I tried. But I had to end it. She just wasn’t… she wasn’t you.”

“Of course she wasn’t me! I’m probably closer to your mother’s age than yours! You have to find someone your own age, at your own stage of life, really Dave. This could never work.”

“How do you know? There must be people who’ve made it work. If anyone could, we could. We’re so similar, Beth. We understand each other. We feel things so deeply. We want the same things—excitement and intensity, a deep connection. And physically, I’ve never felt so…”

He stopped himself, needing to catch his breath.

My entire body was suddenly on fire. I realized there was nothing to stop me. I had Rick’s permission. I only had myself to answer to now.

Almost every part of me was desperate to give in to the scorching drive right then and there. But the seriousness of it kept my brain hostage, refusing to allow me to walk through the open gate to freedom.

I fumbled to open the car door and stepped into the crisp fall air, gripping my arms tight around my body.

He opened his door, got out, and walked toward me, stopping before he was too close.

“I don’t want to cause you any more pain than you’re already going through.”

I stared at the trees swaying in the wind.

“I’m going to leave you and walk back to school alone, but I need to say one last thing.”

I turned to face him, unable to imagine what he was about to say, afraid it would be something that might melt my resolve.

“We’ll go back to being teacher and student for now. The semester will be over in a little less than two months. I’ll leave you alone until then. You do what you need to do to figure out if you can save your marriage. I’ll be happy for you if you do. Heartbroken for myself, but happy for you. After the final exam, I’ll walk you to your car and ask if you’re still separated. You’ll just give me a simple yes or no.”

He paused. I could do that much. I lifted and lowered my head once to confirm.

“If you say yes, I’m going to ask you on a date. A real date—dinner at a nice restaurant, a walk on the beach after, plenty of time spent talking and getting to know each other better, with no more than a brief kiss at the end of the night.”

My chest ached. I couldn’t envision a more sublime evening.

I repeated the confirming motion.

With that, he turned and walked off, disappearing into the black night.

I COULDN’T SLEEP THAT
NIGHT.
First I woke up in a pool of sweat after a vivid sex dream about Dave, complete with a somnolent but intense orgasm. Then I tossed and turned through a nightmare about Rick getting remarried. At five am, I gave up and started to write in my journal. It was cathartic to get it all out. I cried as I relived what I could remember of the horrendous night in Las Vegas and the stress of telling the kids we were going to separate. Then I went back to the torment of the night before, Dave sharing his plans to ask me on a date in two months.

I wrote without stopping until six am, when I decided to look at my phone. There were two new text messages from late the night before. It was disconcerting that they were from two different people yet said the same thing.

Shelly: Call me as soon as you can.

Jill: Call me as soon as you can.

My attempts to guess what could be going on with my two friends were interrupted by the phone, still in my hand, ringing. I reached for the little button on the side to silence the ringer so it wouldn’t wake Rick. I couldn’t stop forgetting that he wasn’t there anymore. It seemed ironic to see his name on the screen. He was calling, and for a moment, I felt happy about that.

“Good morning,” I said with affection.

“Beth, I need to talk to you.”

The gravity of his tone alarmed me.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s my mom. We got her diagnosis yesterday.”

The seconds before he spoke again expanded and twisted in time.

I held my breath, not meaning to.

“It’s lung cancer.”

“Oh no, Rick, no. I don’t…”

“I know. No one understands. She never smoked, was never around anyone who smoked. It could be related to the factory job she had a long time ago.”

I pictured Lucy, so small, so loving. Not one of the stereotypes about meddling, critical mother-in-laws applied to her. How could this be? How could one person be subjected to so much heartache? A hard-knock youth spent trying to claw her way out of poverty, then a miserable marriage, which she selflessly remained in until her kids were adults; a grown son living with her because he was separated from his wife. And now lung cancer. She was the only person I knew who never smoked or drank, who was actually a virgin on her wedding night. It didn’t make any sense that this benevolent woman, who lived to shower her five grandchildren with love, could be dealt this wretched hand at only fifty-nine years old.

“What are they going to do?” I asked.

“We don’t know yet. We met her oncologist yesterday and he said he wants to confer with his colleagues about whether surgery, chemo, or a combination would work best in her case.”

“I don’t even know what to say.” I wished my degrees in communication could help me, but they were useless. “I can’t believe this. I’m so sorry. What can I do?”

“I know. I know you love Mom too. There’s nothing to do at this point. Kelly and I are just… we’re just trying to get over the shock of this.” His voice quivered.

I pictured Rick’s poor sister Kelly, with three young kids to look after, now dealing with her mother’s lung cancer.

“Oh my God, Rick, this is terrible. I want to help somehow.”

“Well, she wants to see the kids. She misses them. I miss them. She doesn’t have much energy, but now that we know her condition isn’t contagious, is it okay if the boys stay here tonight? I know it’s a school night, but I’ll make sure they go to bed early and I’ll get them both to school tomorrow. I’m taking the rest of the week off so I can be with her at all the doctor visits.”

“Of course. Do you want me to bring them over?”

“No, I’ll pick them both up from school.”

If we weren’t separated, I’d be going too. I’d be included in the time spent at Lucy’s bedside and the discussions about treatment decisions. I wondered if Lucy and Kelly no longer saw me as a part of their family or if my family member status was just somehow on hold. How did these things work? I had no idea.

“Okay, sure.”

“I have to go. I want to do some more research online about the disease and treatments.”

“Right, yeah. Rick?”

I wanted to say, “I love you.” I wanted to say, “I’m so sorry that you have the pain of our situation in addition to this new, unimaginable pain.” I wanted to say, “Can I come see your mom? Tell her how much I’ve always admired and appreciated her?” I wanted to say, “Come home, and I’ll comfort you with hugs and kisses and a shoulder to cry on.” But none of that would come out. Why? Pride? Fear of rejection?

“Nothing. Just… let me know if there’s anything I can do, please.”

“I will.” Click.

I sat in stunned silence thinking about it, wondering if the treatments would work and when she would die, which led to thoughts about when I would die, when Rick would die, and my parents. We were all going to die, but that’s something you’re not supposed to think about. Not until someone in your inner circle is diagnosed with cancer.

I didn’t want to tell anyone. I didn’t want to think about it until I knew more. Maybe she could beat it.

“What’s wrong with you? Why are you moving so slow?” Sam sneered as I cleared the breakfast dishes from the table.

“I’m just tired. I didn’t sleep well. Go get your things together for school. Your lunch box is ready. Don’t forget to put it in your backpack.”

After dropping Sam off at school, I wanted to call Shelly on the car ride home, but Jack had other ideas.

“What day today?” he asked, and I suspected where he was going with it.

“It’s Wednesday, why?”

“What time is my school?”

“You go to school from eleven to three.”

“I don’t want to go today. I stay home with you.”

“Jack, we’ve been over this. I know you have fun at school. There’s no reason for you not to go.”

Really, there was no reason for him to go, other than the fact that if I let him stay home that day, he’d think there was a chance of persuading me to do it again the next day and every school day after that.

“Mama has things to do. School is good for you. You learn things and you play with your new friends.”

He rolled his eyeballs up as far as he could, made a fish face, and crossed his arms. My phone rang and I hoped it was something that would take long enough for Jack to forget the conversation. I put my earpiece in and accepted the call.

“Are you alone?” Shelly asked, as if she were about to divulge top secret FBI intelligence.

“I’m in the car with Jack, but you’re not on speaker. Is everything okay?”

“I was wrong about Max. I found a naked picture of her on his computer yesterday. I don’t know why I believed him. I mean with the baby coming, I think I couldn’t handle the idea of…” She faded out and our connection was lost.

I waited for her to call back, feeling guilty that what I felt was mostly relief. Deep down, I had known the truth. I had even been avoiding her because I couldn’t stand to hear about all the gifts he was buying for her and how affectionate he was being. The classic signs were all there.

I thought back to a conversation Rick told me about long before. He met a private investigator on the golf course. “Get a lot of business catching cheating husbands?” Rick asked him in a joking tone, but the man’s demeanor turned solemn.

“Never made a penny off it, actually,” he said. “I get calls from suspicious wives all the time. I tell ‘em I’m the only PI who won’t take their money, who’s gonna give it to ‘em straight. It comes down to this: If you feel in your gut that it’s happening, it most likely is. You don’t need me. When he’s not looking, check his phone, his computer, his credit card receipts. He’ll slip up. They all do.”

The phone pulled me back to the present.

“I’m sorry it took me a while to call back. I just, I can’t stop crying.”

“I’m so sorry, Shelly. Will Max go to Carly with you? You were the one who recommended her to me when I was on the other side of this whole mess and she’s helped so much.”

“I don’t know if he’d go. I haven’t even confronted him yet.”

“You haven’t?” I didn’t want to sound too surprised, but Shelly was the type to speak her mind when and how she wanted to, at least with me. Maybe it was different with Max.

“I know,” she said with a touch of shame. “I’m just afraid of how it could change everything. Right now, while he doesn’t know I know, I can at least pretend everything’s okay, for the girls, maybe until after I have the baby.”

“Shelly! Until after you have the baby? That’s what, like four months away?”

“Yeah, so. You don’t understand, Beth. You’ve never been in this position. I have to think about my girls first, all three of them.”

I let out a little gasp and tried to sound excited. “A little girl? Oh Shelly, that’s wonderful. You won’t have to buy any new clothes!”

“No, it’s not wonderful and you know it. Max didn’t want a third child. But since he had no choice, he thought he at least deserved a son. But screw him. Me and all my girls will be all right in the end, with or without him.”

“I didn’t mean to question your choice. I understand if you want to wait to do anything about this. I mean, was it just the one picture?”

“Yes, I need to find more evidence and buy time to think about what to do, you know?”

I understood, but I could never do it. I wouldn’t be able to pretend for that long.

“Crap, I have to get to a PTA meeting. Can I call you back later?” she asked.

“Of course. I want to know more and I want to help. I hope I didn’t sound unsupportive.”

“Just trust me to deal with this my own way, okay?”

“Yeah, definitely. Sorry.”

I didn’t know how I could back her decision not to say anything about the situation for four months. What if Max was having unprotected sex with this woman and gave Shelly a disease? What if that disease put the baby at risk? I wanted to find a way to ask these questions soon without hurting her feelings or making her angry.

As I pulled in the driveway, my melancholy mood worsened. Images of Lucy shriveling away in a hospital bed plagued me. Thoughts of Shelly staying in her marriage indefinitely with this other woman in the picture infuriated me. I needed something to distract me.

“Mama? We going inside?”

“Sorry, I’m so sorry, Jack, yes, of course. Mama was just thinking about… nothing. Let me get you unbuckled. Want to watch one of your shows while I call my friend, Jill?”

Jack was all set up with a show, various snacks, and an array of toys for when he got bored with the show, which could be anywhere from five to twenty minutes. I snuck off to the bedroom for the call.

“So what’s going on? Are you okay?”

“Well, I hadn’t run into her since that night in Vegas. I wanted to call but I didn’t know what to say. And I didn’t want to start lying to Connor again. So I did nothing. But I knew I’d run into her.”

“Uh huh.”

“It was yesterday afternoon when we picked the kids up from school.”

So this woman’s kids go to the private school, I noted.

“It was awful, Beth, there was a big group of moms and we were all talking about the kids and… she just blurted it out.”

“Oh my God!” I pictured the stupefied expressions on the women’s faces when they heard that two moms from their school had sexual relations with each other in front of their husbands. I envisioned one of them fainting as her Coach bag fell to the ground, the one next to her refusing to reach out and catch the woman lest she break an acrylic nail.

“How could she? She actually told them…”

“Not that, Beth! She didn’t say that! She just announced to everyone that we ran into each other in Vegas and had a blast together. Then she added, ‘and what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right Jill?’ with an exaggerated wink, and it was clear that it all meant nothing to her.”

I wished what happened in Vegas could have stayed in Vegas for me too.

I didn’t know what to say to Jill. I really didn’t understand her. Not that I couldn’t understand a woman being in love with a woman. I couldn’t understand how easy it was for Jill to fall for someone, while at the same time, she could have casual, meaningless sex with other people.

“I’m sorry, Jill. I know you were really struggling with your feelings about her.” I disappointed myself, but it was the best I could do.

“Beth, if I ask you something, will you tell me the truth?”

Shit, shit, shit
, was all I could think.

“I can try.”

“Do you think there’s something wrong with me? I mean, you’ve been careful not to express any judgment about the things I’ve told you, but I want to know what you really think. I respect you. I look up to you. I know you mess up sometimes, but compared to me, you’ve got your act together.”

Everything really is relative, isn’t it, I thought.

“Um, well… sometimes I think… hmmm.”

“Just tell me the truth,” she demanded. “You’re too nice all the time. I’m asking you to tell me!”

“Okay, yes! I do think there’s something wrong with you. It’s not that it’s bad to do what you do, but it doesn’t seem healthy. It seems destructive—to yourself and to the other people involved.”

I waited for her response, wondering if that would be the end of our friendship again.

“Go on. I know you have more.” I did, but I didn’t want it to be hurtful.

“The whole swinging thing… I have to admit that hearing about it was a turn on. But I don’t see how it could be a sustainable lifestyle for a married couple with kids. I mean, it’s only natural for attachments to develop. Look at what happened with you and… Jane Doe.”

She was silent.

“And you know about oxytocin, right?”

“Yeah, I know.” She started to sound a bit like a child being scolded.

“Well, we’re talking science here, not morality. It truly is a bonding hormone and it’s released by physical intimacy—breastfeeding, sex, any kind of touch, even cuddling with a pet.”

This time I waited, I needed to know if I’d gone too far.

“I get it. I get what you’re saying.” She seemed sincere. “I want to ask you something else. Will you please try to keep an open mind?”