Though he was never proud of it and knew he was a dick, Mike had turned postponement of truth into an art form he’d learned from his late father. A drinker and a womanizer, Mike’s father lied as easily and as often as he breathed to keep his marriage, family, and job together. Mike learned early how one lie leads to another and justified his own behavior as vital to his survival. Sometimes he amazed himself that he was successful in business, yet such a failure at home. Problem was Mike never considered the latter long enough to do anything about it.
With Kassie, his lies started when he told her about receiving a warning about his relationship with her at Mizzou. The truth was Kassie wasn’t the first affair he’d had with a student, nor was she the last. In his first year of teaching there, he slipped up with a pretty little thing from Joplin. That’s when he’d received the first warning, and what’s-her-name left the school. The second time, with Kassie, he received notice to leave the university. But he begged forgiveness and promised to send her packing. Because he was their sole Italian professor, he kept his position. At least for a while.
Mike had the best of both worlds. Kassie transferred to Simmons College in Boston, so he’d see her during semester and holiday breaks. Except it wasn’t long before he couldn’t control his hormones and got involved again with one of his students. His time teaching at Mizzou came to a predictable, not-so-abrupt, end.
No way could he tell Kassie what happened if he expected to have a place to live if he returned to Boston. He wouldn’t lie. He’d just postponed telling her the truth until such time the lie became a threat to his personal well-being. If it ever did. It was a risk he was willing to take. He concocted a cock-and-bull story, telling her he’d given up his teaching job to be with her. He loved and missed her that much. It worked. She swooned.
Kassie was about to graduate from Simmons with honors and had accepted a junior account executive position at one of Boston’s largest advertising agencies. She was ecstatic at the prospect of having Mike in town for good. What twenty-two-year-old wouldn’t want to bed her ex-college professor?
“You could teach at one of the colleges in town? Or maybe do something brand new? You have your MBA now,” Kassie urged.
She had the right idea as she liked to remind him. But only kind of right. He had no intention of seeking another teaching gig. His reputation would precede him, creating a mess he refused to address with either a potential school or Kassie. Avoiding the truth altogether, he relied instead on his MBA and multi-lingual capabilities and landed a position at a Cambridge marketing agency as a translator. Did they check his references? Nope. He convinced them his time teaching wasn’t relevant to the job, and they bought it.
When he started at the agency, Mike was skeptical about how he’d adapt to the whole Monday-to-Friday, nine-to-five routine and the lack of interaction with students, which he’d thrived on. Yet, he had to be honest with himself, if not with Kassie and prospective employers, it was the interaction with female students that catapulted him into his current predicament. So, maybe, it was better for him this way.
Being back in Boston was great, he had to admit. He moved into a roomy loft near Fenway Park with Kassie. Despite his philandering, Mike was crazy about her. He was drawn to her immediately at Mizzou. She was just too cute when she tried to pronounce Italian words with a slight Boston accent. An excellent and willing student, tutoring her was highly gratifying. Not too experienced in the bedroom. Just as he liked. She’d earned her good grades.
Kassie, his total opposite, intrigued him. He was Italian, she was Irish. There was that. He was serious, she was playful. She loved Boston sports, he could take it or leave it. His father never took him to a Red Sox game, never ever. Mike was a fusspot; she needed some taming.
It didn’t take long. In the early years, she delighted him and attended to his every daily need. She cooked, cleaned, and did his laundry the way he liked it. With regular practice, she’d even become quite the minx in the sack. She’d be the perfect wife.
Attractive, intelligent, sociable, and able to talk baseball, Kassie made Mike look good. Having her, ten years his junior, by his side benefitted his new career and the business he launched. Not quite the age difference to qualify as his trophy wife, he reckoned he was a winner for settling down with her. A solid decision on his part.
He’d sowed his oats long enough before moving in with her and making a commitment. Was she the love of his life? Probably not; there was his college sweetheart, whom he thought he was in love with back then. She was Jewish. He was Catholic. Neither of their parents approved, especially her parents and his father. His mom thought she was darling. When her parents realized things had gotten out of hand between them, they withdrew her from school and whisked her far away from him. So that was that. But it didn’t matter.
Mike’s philosophy was there was always another gal out there. He espoused a saying he’d heard: men don’t marry the love of their lives, they marry the one they are with when they decide it’s time to settle down. So, just a couple of years after leaving his wandering ways in Missouri, Mike took the plunge. Kassie jumped up and down when he proposed. No, literally, she jumped up and down. He thought she’d hurt herself.
Planning the wedding fell into the able and excited hands of Kassie and her mom. Before it exploded into a major motion picture, he hustled them into keeping the wedding small. Instead of spending, or better yet wasting, their limited resources on a huge one-day production, he advocated for a small wedding and romantic honeymoon. Kassie bitched and moaned about not having the wedding she’d always dreamt of, but he knew she’d give in, which she did. She always did.
Take the honeymoon destination. She wanted to go to Ireland in honor of her father who had died when she was a little girl, but Mike had no desire to go there. Boring! Wouldn’t they have more fun in Italy where he spoke the language, and she could practice in real time? She suggested they do both, Ireland then Italy. Nope. That wouldn’t work either. He couldn’t take that much time off from work. Italy it was. In retrospect, Mike would label their honeymoon, fantastico. Good food, good wine, some sightseeing, lots of sex.
When they returned from Italy, they settled into routines of married life and budding careers. Children were not on the agenda. At least not on his agenda. In fact, he never remembered them talking about having kids. Nevertheless, Mike feigned his happiness when their birth control failed and Kassie got pregnant, and likewise his despair when she miscarried. Poor Kass.
Kassie’s close call shook Mike to the core. What the hell was he doing? He didn’t want kids. He couldn’t visualize himself as a father, especially if he was anything like his own. And he couldn’t tell Kassie now they were married. What an ugly confrontation that would be. Time for him to be proactive and covert if he was to prevent World War III.
He planned it carefully. Once when she was out of town for a week on a business trip, he had a vasectomy. After that he played along with the game of trying to get pregnant again. Kassie was tested and everything was fine with her plumbing. Mike refused to be tested. No way he’d jerk off in a cup.
“Let’s keep trying. Isn’t trying the most fun anyway?” he’d say.
Kassie didn’t share his humor and reminded him oral sex wasn’t the answer. Maybe not, but at least it was sex.
He watched her sadness deepen into depression but was hamstrung on how to help. It seemed there was nothing he could do to get her out of her funk short of telling her the truth, but that could be a death knell to his marriage.
“What about adoption?” Kassie pleaded.
“Don’t even go there. End of discussion,” Mike said, unwilling to explain his reluctance.
Instead, Mike had a brilliant idea even if he said so himself. He was tired of working for someone else. He would start his own marketing firm, and she should be his partner. Ricci and O’Callaghan. Didn’t that have a phenomenal ring to it?
“Kass, your strengths would complement my weaknesses.” Whatever thos
e were. “We could create something special together and watch it grow.” He deflected from the real issue.
“I’m sorry, but starting a business is no substitute for a having child. Maybe for you, not for me.” She’d argue until she wept. He launched the business without her.
Mike reached out to Kassie’s mother for divine intervention. She’d always been a vocal supporter of his. Fortunately for him, she interceded, encouraging Kassie to seek counseling. The shrink must’ve worked as Kassie went back on birth control pills, which she didn’t need, and she never raised the prospect of having children again. Mike was good with that. Thank you, Patricia O’Callaghan.
Too bad she’d died last year. She could’ve been an advocate for him if this diagnosis was discouraging. He feared he’d need all the help he could get with her daughter.
When he returned from another escorted, yet successful trip to the bathroom, Mike’s dinner tray was waiting for him. Mac-and-cheese with peas, lime Jell-O, dry crackers again, watermelon cut into one-inch squares. He hated the pits. Water and milk. No coffee or even tea. Not quite an appetite inducer, more like an appetite depressant— to match his mood.
Oh, how he longed for a cigarette. Not going to happen that day. Had he had his last? Not if he had anything to do with it.
12
It’s Complicated
“Thanks for saving a towel for me.” Kassie teased Chris as she turned on the water for what would be the second shower of the day for both of them. “You used three! You’re worse than a teenager!” They laughed as they climbed into the tub.
“Wash my back, Chris.”
“I’d rather you wash my front.”
Kassie turned to comply and saw the reason for his request. She followed the flow of the warm water streaming down between them, kissing his sweet wet lips, his slightly hairy chest, and so on, and so forth.
“Again, my dear?”
Just as they wrapped themselves in the hotel’s thick, white terry robes, there was a knock on the door. “Room service.”
“Perfect timing,” Kassie said as she sat on the disheveled bed towel-drying her hair.
“You are perfect, KO.” Chris leaned down, lifted her chin and kissed her on his way to answer the door.
“Great. Thanks. No, I’ll do it,” she heard him say.
“Do what?”
“Open the wine. Pinot grigio, okay?” Chris wheeled in the dining cart.
“Sure. Just a smidge for me. I have to go see Mike.”
“You certainly know how to take the wind out of a man’s sails.”
“Sorry about that. Let’s eat. I’m famished. What did you order for me?”
Somewhat satisfied in one way, they ate the Caesar salads Chris had ordered, his with chicken, hers with shrimp, in almost relative silence. A toast to his arrival in Boston and to their future, more kisses and touching, her breast, his thigh.
“I think you were right,” she said.
“About what?”
“Your note. The one you left at the desk. You are one horny toad.”
“Me? Look in the mirror. I meant it. I love being part of you, and it’s been a month. What do you expect?”
“I wouldn’t want you any other way.” She leaned across and kissed him long and hard.
“So you’re gonna go home and give him the news?”
“No. Not today. They admitted him. He’s there ’til Monday, I think.”
Kassie stood and paced around the room. She’d wanted to give Chris the Reader’s Digest version of events, but as the story poured out of her for the first time, she realized how outraged she was.
“Mike said he’s got Stage Three chronic kidney disease. What the heck is that? I looked it up.”
“And?”
“I read the symptoms and I’m no doctor, but it sounds like him. I think he’s right.”
“Why’d they admit him?”
“Good question. Observation, monitoring, more tests, I guess. From what I’ve read, Stage Three can last for years and be managed through diet and drugs.”
“So what’s your plan now? I’m here for you, babe, because of you,” Chris said, gesturing toward his bags lined up against the wall blocking the door to the adjoining room.
“Well, I have to go to the hospital. I promised to bring him some of his things. Then I’ll come back here for the weekend,” Kassie said, gesturing toward her bags in the living room area of the suite.
“And the divorce?”
“I’m not giving up on that. Neither should you,” Kassie said as she dressed. “Just a temporary delay. Once he’s stabilized, I’ll tell him.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I am. Mike and I are done. Don’t you see this whole kidney thing personifies what’s wrong with our marriage? He lied. And it sounds like he’s been hiding this from me for what a year, two years, more?”
“Listen to yourself.” Chris paced.
Kassie zipped her jeans, swung her hair back and out of her eyes. “What? I’m his wife for chrissake.”
“Come on, haven’t you been lying to him? Hiding me, us, from him?”
“That’s different.”
“How’s that?” Chris poured himself another glass of wine. Kassie refused his offer of a refill.
“There are certain things husbands and wives are supposed to share . . . in sickness and in health, I think that’s how it goes. Had he told me he was having kidney problems, maybe there would’ve been something I could’ve done to help. Before now.”
“What about for better or worse?” Chris challenged her thought process.
“Don’t do that. Don’t twist my words. I didn’t tell him about us because WE weren’t ready until now to do anything about it. You know that. Why would I hurt him if WE weren’t for real? If Mike had been honest with me about his health sooner, maybe I could’ve been honest with him sooner. Now he’s made it more complicated. Don’t you, too.”
“I’m not. Just pointing out the obvious.”
“Since when did you become so moral? Seems you’re breaking a few rules here. Adultery, coveting your neighbor’s wife?”
“He’s NOT my neighbor.”
“I know,” she said, backing down. “It’s not about you.”
“Let’s keep it that way. Okay?”
“That’s my intent. I’d divorce him even if you weren’t in the picture.”
On the verge of tears, Kassie moved into his comforting arms and buried her face in his chest. Was that applesauce she smelled? She scooped up her purse and waved the room keycard at him.
“I’ll be back. Please don’t judge me. And call housekeeping. We’ll need fresh towels, lots of them.”
13
Real Friction
There was just enough drive time between the hotel in Waltham and the hospital in Boston for Kassie to reprogram her brain from lover to wife. Once upon a time they were one and the same. Life was simpler then.
Their honeymoon period lasted about three years. Climbing the ladder at work, they’d saved enough money to buy their first home in Cambridge. A small, two-bedroom, white cape with black shutters, a one-car garage, and central air conditioning. Nothing could be finer. When they weren’t working, they spent their downtime together, furnishing and decorating their new home, and luxuriating in their most favorite purchase, the waterbed. It was always warm; they were always hot.
Kassie got pregnant in their third year. She was over the moon at the prospect of having a child and, by all appearances, Mike seemed to be as well. While in the bathroom coping with morning sickness, she’d overhear him on the phone bragging to his friends at the office. Later in their marriage she’d wonder whether he ever wanted a child, or was getting her pregnant years earlier mere confirmation of his manhood?
Devastated when she miscarried in her fifth month, Kassie learned something she never suspected about Mike while they were dating or in their first few years of marriage. He wasn’t there for her. Oh, he did husbandly things like taking her
to the doctor’s and the hospital for a D&C. He bought her red roses and stocked the kitchen with comfort food while she convalesced, but Kassie did the cooking and cleaning.
“I’m sorry I lost our baby, Mike.”
“Don’t be.”
“I miss the baby fluttering inside me,” Kassie said, massaging her tummy and expecting some level of consolation in return.
“That will pass,” he’d said, leaving the room without validating Kassie’s grief or giving her any reassurance they would try again soon.
For Kassie, the emptiness didn’t pass, and before long she slipped into a deep depression.
“Both of them abandoned me,” she cried to her mother.
“Both? Who?”
“The baby and Mike.”
“Poppycock. You can’t fight Mother Nature. And Mike loves you, you know that.”
Kassie once thought that was the case; after the miscarriage she wasn’t so sure. And why did her mother often take Mike’s side? She’d even taken up his mantle encouraging her to seek therapy.
“You need to snap out of this funk, KO,” her mother mothered. “Mike needs you to get on with your life.” No one asked Kassie what she needed.
So she gave in. She couldn’t fight them both. Off to therapy, for years, even now. Kassie had a lot to work out besides Mike.
Once her doctor told her she could try again, Kassie wanted to get down to business, half expecting this would help lift her out of her blues. Mike accepted the invitation back to the marital bed, but seemed more interested in the physical act, not the potential baby-making outcome.
Where had Mike’s passion gone? He no longer caressed her thighs or whispered in her ear what he wanted to do to her. They had sex, but they didn’t make love any longer. She recognized the difference. One satisfied the body, the other the soul. Her soul starved to near death.
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