by Nillu Nasser
It was obviously him; he wouldn’t be able to deny it. Why had he done this? Was he going to leave me once I confronted him, or would we be able to work through it all? Should I even confront him? Should I leave him?
And what about Aida? Anger rushed back. We had a daughter, a wonderful little girl who didn’t deserve this mess, didn’t deserve to have her home broken because her father felt—felt what? Unfulfilled? Horny? Bored?
My mind raced from one scenario to another as I cycled between rage and sorrow, always coming back to the basic fact that my husband had cheated on me. Despite years spent doing everything I could to create the perfect home for my family, to be the best partner to him I possibly could, my husband had cheated on me.
***
The front door opened and I heard David walk in, whistling a tune he’d probably heard on the way home. His briefcase thudded on the foyer’s ceramic tile, and his suit jacket rustled as he hung it on the coat rack. His footsteps moved into the kitchen, paused, and then he strolled into the living room, running a hand over his short blond hair, unaware of how our lives had changed. Late afternoon sunlight streamed in from the floor-to-ceiling windows, mottled slightly by saplings in the tiny backyard, illuminating his figure.
“Hey, Kase.” He came over to me and kissed my cheek.
I flinched but he didn’t seem to notice. Didn’t notice I’d been crying. Didn’t notice everything was different now.
“Court adjoined early, so I stopped and picked up dinner on the way home. I know you’ve been pretty busy and tired lately. Hope you didn’t cook anything yet.”
I shook my head and bit my lip, still unsure how to bring up the letter, the pictures, the fact I knew he’d cheated on me. My husband had cheated on me. That sounded so harsh, so clinical, so daytime-talk-show trashy.
“Where’s Aida?” he asked.
“With my parents, since we’re supposed to have drinks with the Carvers tonight. I’d really like to skip it though.” After an afternoon of crying, the headache I’d wanted had arrived.
“Alone time for us? I like it.” He grinned and pulled me into his arms, as if everything was fine, as if he hadn’t been taking another woman into his arms.
I pulled away and thrust the letter and pictures at him. Trying not to shake, I said in as level a voice as I could manage, “Someone stuck these in the door today.”
His brow wrinkled, then his eyes widened as he read the letter and saw himself in the photos. Surprise was conspicuously absent; he’d known I would find out, knew of the woman’s ultimatum.
That realization channeled my jumbled emotions into pure rage.
“What’s going on, David?” My voice was as smooth and deadly as ice.
He glanced at me, then looked away and sat down on the couch. He was thinking hard, going into lawyer mode with himself as the defendant this time, weighing his words against the truth and what I’d believe. It meant he was hiding more.
“What the hell is going on, David?”
“Kase, I can explain.” He twisted the letter in his hands.
“Yeah?”
“It happened, and it’s over. I didn’t want you to ever have to know about this.”
“Why were you in bed with another woman, David?” I folded my arms across my chest.
“I’m telling you, babe, it didn’t mean anything.”
“I don’t care if it meant anything or not.” A lie, pure and simple. “Why were you sleeping with someone else?”
He looked down at his hands, at the letter, at his feet, still not at me. “She wanted me to leave you for her. I told her no. I guess this was her way of getting back at me.”
“Yeah, that’s what the letter says. What I want to know is why you were in bed with another woman to begin with.” I glared at him with a bravado I didn’t feel.
He glanced into my eyes and was caught, unable to look away.
“I never meant to hurt you. She was there, and I was stressed, lonely, I guess. She provided an outlet. I don’t know. She didn’t mean anything though. I love you and only you.”
“Who is she?” My voice was still cold, my fists clenched, fingernails cutting into my palms.
“The one in the pictures? She was—”
“As opposed to who, the one taking them?” I pounced on his choice of words; after years as a lawyer’s wife, I’d learned the importance of paying attention to the nuances of someone’s speech. “What do you mean, the one in the pictures? There were more?”
“I swear, they didn’t mean anything.” His voice trembled as he stood and held out a hand in supplication.
“They? How many, David?” I backed away, out of his reach. “How many?”
He stared at me. “Kase, I—”
“How many?”
“Two,” he whispered.
“Two? You slept with two women?” I pressed my arms across my body, clutched my elbows to stop the shaking in my hands as a wave of hysteria threatened to destroy my body.
“Yeah. She makes two.” He nodded at the letter in his hands.
“You slept with two women who weren’t me. When? Why?” I took a deep breath, then another, as my world continued to collapse around me.
“The last couple years or so.” Again in a whisper.
“A couple years? This has been going on for a couple years?” Another deep breath. “Were you going to tell me? Were you going to let me know you were this unhappy, that I apparently wasn’t meeting your needs?”
He came over and placed his hands on my arms. “I’m sorry, Kase. Please believe me. I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking. I was stupid, I know that. I love you, and only you. Please forgive me.” I tried to pull away again but his grip tightened as he stared into my eyes, pleading for me to believe him. “Please, Kasey.”
I looked at him, at the man I loved, standing in front of me, and looked away. My gaze fell on a picture of Aida on the mantel. Next to it was a family portrait, then our engagement photos, our wedding. This was my husband, my partner, the father of our child. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
The tears I hadn’t realized were waiting under my eyelids spilled down my cheeks, and my frame was wracked with sobs.
David wrapped his arms around me, his tears mixing with mine.
“How could you?” I whispered, any strength I might have had to fight his touch gone. “How could you do this to me, to Aida, to us?”
“I’m so sorry,” he murmured, stroking my hair. “I’m so sorry, Kase. I’m so sorry.”
CHAPTER 2 – Andrew (Age 34)
~~~
Metallica blared from my cell phone, jarring me from my sleep. I didn’t mind. I was having the same dream I’d had for the last ten years. My unit patrolled a frozen forest and came under ambush from concealed machine guns. An explosion silenced the onslaught, sprayed us all with hot desert sand. When the smoke cleared, every soldier I’d ever lost stood facing me, staring at me with accusing eyes.
No, I didn’t mind waking up at all.
The couch creaked as I rolled over and hit the talk button. “‘Lo?”
“I miss you, Andrew. You know how much I hate being alone.” My girlfriend, Lauren, or probably my ex-girlfriend after tonight. “And I hate fighting with you. We need to talk.”
“It’s—” I checked my watch, the numbers barely visible in the light coming in from outside “—three in the morning. Can’t this wait until tomorrow?”
“Did you even think about what I said?”
“Babe, it’s late. Can’t we talk about this tomorrow?”
“We’ve never gone to bed angry, and I don’t want to start. Come back over.”
I sighed. “Fine, I’ll be there in a little bit.”
I hung up the phone, then sat up and stretched. I didn’t fit on the small couch very well, not for sleeping, at least. I’d stormed out of our apartment after Lauren started screaming. I didn’t plan my exit very well, ending up at my kid brother Jesse’s place, crashing in his living ro
om.
I got dressed and scrawled a note telling him where I was going, then slipped out the door, careful not to slam it behind me. His wife didn’t like me much, wasn’t fond of me crashing there. Normally I would’ve gone to my dad’s place, but he was out of town on business, and his wife wasn’t fond of me crashing there either.
The cool Kentucky air swept over me. It felt good to be outside, just me and the night. I glanced up at the full moon high in the sky as I drove. A poem I’d heard as a kid popped into my head: I see the moon and the moon sees me. God bless the moon and God bless me.
I laughed under my breath. God and I didn’t have much to do with each other anymore.
At the apartment complex, the light in our unit was the only one on in the whole building. Lauren was a night owl, but this late was pushing it even for her. Me, I grabbed sleep when I could. In addition to working four ten-hour patrols a week, I took classes at the community college. Then there was Lauren; pretty high maintenance, she took up a lot of my time.
I hesitated outside our apartment door. When you’d been kicked out of your place, should you knock? Just go right in? Either way, she would find a problem with it.
I knocked.
The door flew open. “Why’d you knock? You live here too.” Lauren’s eyes glittered brightly as she grabbed my hand, pulled me into the room, and nudged the door closed with her foot. She wrapped her arms around me and kissed me as if I’d been gone for days.
I enjoyed kissing her, of course I did, but I had class in four hours and a long shift after that. I disentangled myself from her and plopped down onto the couch.
“I didn’t come back to mess around with you.” A yawn escaped from my mouth. “Let’s talk so I can go to sleep.”
She sat next to me on the couch, legs folded daintily beneath her as if to argue with my sprawl. “I want you to move to Asheville. Why are you fighting me? Don’t you love me?”
“Of course I love you.” Another yawn. “But moving to a new town is a big deal. I like it here.”
“But there’s nothing for us here.”
“Our families are here.”
“Yeah, but I don’t like my family. And no offense, Andrew, but your family doesn’t really like you.”
“My dad likes me.” I frowned.
“That’s not the point.” She sighed. “This head nursing position is a really good thing for me, for us, for our future. I’m taking it whether you move with me or not, but I want you to come with.”
That woke me up. “You’re accepting the job? You said you’d wait until we agreed on what we were going to do. You said we’d figure it out together.”
“Well, when you told me how selfish I was and stormed out, I decided you were right. I am selfish. So I called the hospital and accepted the job. That means either you’re coming with me, or you’re staying here by yourself.”
“You woke me up in the middle of the night to give me an ultimatum?”
“I’ve been worrying myself sick about this since you stomped out. I’ve always tried to put you first, Andrew. I didn’t object when you wanted us to get this crappy apartment, or when you decided to go back to school, even though you wouldn’t have much time for me.” Her lower lip quivered, just enough to be noticeable. “Can’t you put me first for once, too?”
I stared at her. Nine months ago, when I’d gotten back from my latest deployment, I’d resumed my job at the police station. One weekend we’d had a basketball tournament against teams from the hospital and fire station. Lauren had been there. A mutual friend introduced us, we’d started talking, and we just clicked. A lot of people assumed it was just sex, but there was more to Lauren than her looks. She was smart, funny, and great with people. We’d been together for six months, and I liked her. A lot.
I wasn’t sure if it was love, if she was The One, but I would never know if we ended things now. “Fine. I’ll go.”
She lunged forward and tackled me with her small frame. “I knew you’d say yes!” She covered my face with kisses.
“The things I do for you....” I picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, but I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
***
When I returned to the apartment the following night, tired from a long shift of routine patrols and endless paperwork, the door wouldn’t open. “Lauren?” I pounded for her attention. “Everything okay?”
“Just a minute, hon.” She grunted as I heard something heavy slide across the floor.
The door opened, barely wide enough for me to squeeze through. Half-filled boxes littered the living room and kitchen, and extended into the bedroom.
“Packing already?”
She didn’t look up from the cabinet she was emptying. “Yeah. I guess I forgot to tell you I start in a week.”
“A week?” I sat down on the one empty kitchen chair. “A week. How am I supposed to find a job in a week? And what about my classes?”
“I’m sure they’ll transfer. And you’ll find something. Cops are always in demand.”
“You said last night you always put me first.”
“And you said last night you’d put me first, for a change.”
“What about us? Can’t we decide this together?”
“I thought we did.”
“A week.” I shook my head. “Couldn’t you have given me some warning about this?”
She paused and stared at me, a stack of Tupperware bowls in her hands, her expression unreadable. “If you don’t want to be with me, just say so.”
What a loaded comment. “You know I want to be with you, baby. It’s just that I have to transfer units too. And the Guard’s not big on that. Tons of paperwork.”
“So stay.” She slammed the bowls in a box and reached up to empty the next shelf. “It’s only a few hours to Asheville. You could come visit me on your days off.”
“I don’t have any days off, not between work and class. You know that.”
“Well, then, I guess either you move, or that’s it.”
“I can’t believe how unconcerned you are about this.” I stood and paced the small kitchen.
Lauren walked over to me, leaned up and kissed my nose. “You’re so sexy when you’re mad.”
“Don’t try and change the subject.”
“Fine.” She leaned against the counter, arms folded across her chest. “I care, really I do, and I want to be with you. It’s just that this is a really big career move for me. I feel that if I don’t take it, I—we—are going to be stuck in this shithole town forever. You understand that, right?”
I nodded. I’d grown up in a shithole town too, and I understood what it was like to be stuck there. I’d gotten out, but most of the people I’d grown up with were still there. Still stuck.
“And who knows, maybe this’ll be a great opportunity for you too. Don’t you wanna see the world?”
“I’ve seen the world, and quite frankly, North Carolina doesn’t really count when I’ve been all over Europe and the Middle East.”
“We could get a little cabin in the mountains.” She came over and wrapped her arms around my neck, pressing her body close to mine. “We’d be all alone, able to do whatever we want, whenever we want. Just the birds and the bees watching.”
Smiling in spite of myself, I leaned in and kissed her. Lauren had a way of defusing our fights, of winning me over to her opinion. Her body, warm and soft in my arms, fit comfortably, perfectly against mine.
I kissed her again. “I want to move with you, babe, really I do, but I just don’t think I can be ready in a week.”
“I can’t postpone this. They need someone immediately.”
“So what do we do?”
“I’ll miss your kisses.” She emphasized her words by hungrily pressing her lips to mine.
“You’re not helping.” Not that I was either. Her sensuality was addictive.
“No, guess not. We can figure it out later.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
*
**
After my last final of the semester, I headed back to the apartment one last time. All the stuff I’d kept for the two months that I’d spent here while Lauren started her new job in Asheville was securely stowed in the U-Haul trailer downstairs. Time to take the plunge, to follow my girl to a new town.
“Ready to go, Lucky?”
The cat eyed me from her carrier, the only thing left in the place. She wasn’t big on change either. Or Lauren. And Lauren wasn’t big on the cat. I’d taken Lucky with me the first few times I’d gone to visit her, but she’d put an end to that after the feline threw up in her purse. She maintained the cat had done it on purpose. I secretly agreed. Lucky despised every girl I’d ever brought back to my place.
Lucky bitched the entire drive to Asheville. Towing a trailer through the mountains with a yowling cat wasn’t the worst experience of my life, but it was pretty fucking close. I hoped I’d made the right choice, that moving to be with Lauren was worth it, that Asheville could feel like home, maybe even be the place to start a family. Hope flared up before I could stop it. It had been fifteen years since I’d felt this way, since I’d let myself think about kids. Ever since.... I shook my head, locking down that train of thought, and focused on driving.
I made pretty good time, considering I was towing an eight-foot trailer through the Blue Ridge Mountains, and arrived in Asheville an hour early. I pulled up to Lauren’s apartment building and parked beside her car, a little red Ford Fiesta. Leaving Lucky in my truck, I knocked on Lauren’s door. She’d given me a key, of course, and this would be my place too now, but it wasn’t mine yet. No answer, so I knocked again, pounded maybe. Her car was in the lot. She had to be home.
Nothing. She’d given me the key, so I might as well use it.
“Lauren?” I called as I let myself in. “I know I’m early and you said to call as I was getting close, but my phone was dead. You.... Who the fuck are you?”
