The Proposal

by R. R. Banks

  Hearing the man at dinner repeating what he had heard about my wife's skill in the bedroom was too much. I couldn't get past that. I couldn't pretend that I didn't hear it or that maybe he was talking about somebody else. There were too many details, details that nobody else should know about her. I did something that night that I’d never done before and approached my superior to say that I was sick so that I could go home. I couldn't wait several more hours to confront her. My suspicions, and the anger behind them had been building up for so long that I felt as though I might explode if I didn't get a chance to talk to her about them. Despite that, there was a part of me that was trying to talk myself out of my suspicions as I drove through the base back towards our house. There was a voice in the back of my mind that was trying to call me down, trying to tell me that I needed to turn back around and go back to work. That voice told me that rumors were just that. Rumors. It didn't mean that they were true, and it didn't mean anything more than that the men around me were vulgar and inappropriate. That voice was trying to protect me. It was trying to convince me that I hadn't given up my life and my future for a woman who would do this to me. I hadn't sacrificed everything to get married far too young and join the military when I had never had any intention of serving before, so that I could take care of her and our child, just to be disrespected and humiliated like this.

  I already knew that that voice was full of shit by the time I got home. There was a car sitting in front of our house that shouldn't have been there. I knew exactly who it belonged to because I had seen it sitting there countless times before. It had taken up that spot. It had sat there in front of my house many nights, but every time it had been there, I had been in the house. That was because that car belonged to my best friend.

  I pulled up behind Patrick's car, and I was out of my seat belt before I had even turned off the engine. The sound of the car door slamming was explosive in the still air and I knew that inside the house they could hear it. They knew that I was coming. But I didn't care. I wanted them to know that I was there. I wanted them to feel their stomachs turn and their hearts drop. They hadn't even bothered to lock the front door.

  I stormed into the house and the first thing that I saw was my tiny son sitting in the middle of the living room floor, staring at the TV. He was wearing nothing but the little superhero underwear that he had just graduated into from his diapers. In front of him was a paper plate, Cheerios overflowing onto the carpet. He was picking each up with his little chubby fingers and putting them in his mouth as his eyes eagerly took in the cartoon playing out on the screen in front of him. He jumped slightly when I came into the house and looked up at me. His eyes were wide, but then they narrowed as his mouth curved up into a smile.

  "Hi, Daddy," he said.

  "Hi, buddy," I said. "Shouldn't you be asleep?"

  He shook his head.

  "I'm watching cartoons," he said.

  He said it with the same seriousness as someone would report that they were in an important business meeting and I nodded in agreement.

  "Where's your mama?" I asked.

  "Playing games in the bedroom," he said.

  I felt the color drain out of my face.

  "What do you mean?"

  "She's playing Monopoly," he told me.

  I knew that he didn't know what Monopoly was. I didn't even think that we owned a Monopoly board. I patted him on the head and leaned down to kiss his soft hair. Just then I heard a door open in the back of the house and I stomped toward it. I turned the corner into the hallway just in time to see Valerie and Patrick coming out of the bedroom. Patrick was still buttoning the buttons on his cuffs and Valerie's hair was tousled. I felt like I had swallowed a molten rock. My body started shaking and spots danced in front of my eyes.

  "Garrett," Valerie started.

  I held up a hand, wanting to stop her, not wanting to hear another word come out of her mouth. If I could have had my way, I never would have heard her voice again.

  "How could you?" I asked.

  I was struggling to keep myself as calm as possible. I was very aware of my son in the front room and I didn't want him to hear the screaming that was bubbling up inside me. I fought to control myself, but I could feel that control cracking even as I stood there and stared at them. Patrick and Valerie exchanged glances as if each thought that the other would somehow have something to say that would make the whole situation better.

  "It isn't what it looks like," Patrick finally said.

  "Seriously? That's the best you could come up with?" I asked. "I expected more from you."

  "What do you mean?" Valerie asked.

  "Don't play dumb," I said. "It didn't work for you in high school and it's not going to work now."

  "Actually," Valerie said, "it seemed to work very well for me in high school."

  I felt heat creeping up the back of my neck and my fist clenching beside me.

  "You think it worked out for you because I knocked you up and had to marry you?"

  "That's all you think of me, isn't it?" she asked.

  I couldn't believe the indignant reaction on her face. It was almost laughable.

  "Are you seriously going to stand there, still smelling like sex and act like you're the one who's been so offended?" I asked. "You're enough of a slut to fuck my best friend while I'm at work and my son is sitting in the living room watching cartoons and you have the nerve to act like you're some sort of innocent little girl who I led astray?"

  "Don't you talk about her like that," Patrick said, taking a step toward me.

  "I can talk about her any way that I want to," I said. "This is my house. She's my wife. Not that that matters to you at all."

  "Don't blame him," Valerie said. "It's not his fault."

  "Oh, really?" I asked. "Did someone drag him over here and shove his cock inside you?"

  "You don't have to be so disgusting," she said.

  I let out a mirthless laugh.

  "Yes, because I'm the disgusting one in this situation."

  "That's it," Patrick said. "I've had enough of your mouth."

  "Aw, I wish that you had said that to Valerie about twenty minutes ago. That could have saved us all a lot of shit."

  Patrick surged toward me before I had a chance to process what was happening. He smashed into me and I hit the ground, quickly regaining control and flipping him over onto his back. Valerie screamed as my fist made contact with Patrick's face and he returned the blow. He bucked against me and I landed on my side beside him. We both scrambled to our feet and continued to tangle. I could taste blood on my lips and felt the skin on my knuckles burning where it had split over the bones. The sound of Valerie screaming and Jason crying in the background blurred, but it was my son shouting for me that brought clarity to my mind and finally took me away from pummeling Patrick. I stood and backed away from him, realizing for the first time that we had made it all the way into the living room. Awareness of what was happening settled over me. I could hear my own breath in my ears, each hard draw accented by the sobs of my son. There was blood on the carpet. Tears flowed down Valerie's face.

  Her hand was wrapped around Patrick's arm.

  "Get out," I said.

  My voice was low again. Calm and controlled. The emotion gone.

  "What?" Valerie asked.

  "Get out. Leave your rings here. You don't need them anymore."

  I expected her to say something. Anything. But she remained silent as she took the rings from her hand and dropped them to the carpet at her feet. She walked back into the bedroom with Patrick at her heels and returned a few moments later carrying a bag. She didn't pause to say goodbye to Jason before she left. As soon as the door closed behind her, I dropped to my knees. My son ran into my arms and I cradled him to me, rocking him until I didn't feel the tears on my neck anymore. I wouldn't say it, but I knew that it would be like that moving forward. Just us.

  Present day…

  That day had completely changed the way that I thought a
bout women and relationships. I knew that my son now shared those perceptions, and while I hated to think about why, I didn't necessarily think it was a bad thing. I knew very well that day wasn't the only bad day in my marriage. It was a culmination of months of arguments, and I knew that he had witnessed too many of them. Even at his young age, he knew that there was something that was happening between the two of us, and he knew that even though I had been the one to tell Valerie to leave, it had been his mother's choice to walk out of the house without him. I couldn't expect that it wouldn't influence him. I couldn't expect that his perceptions of women and relationships would not be molded by having watched his mother cheat on his father, and then being abandoned by her. It was only natural that this would lead him to be distrusting and even somewhat critical of women. I could only hope that having witnessed that, I encouraged him to better protect himself and not get into the situation that I had.

  "You know that you should be more respectful of her," I said. "Regardless of what you think about her, she is your teacher."

  "I know," he said. “I told you I tried to apologize."

  "Did you actually try to apologize, or did you say you were sorry so that you could try to get out of the detention?"

  He shrugged.

  "Does it really matter? I said that I was sorry."

  I nodded.

  "Well, I would rather think that you actually did feel bad for being disrespectful to her."

  "I do, Dad. But I kind of feel like she deserved it. She's been on me since my first day. It's not like I said that I just refused to go to a detention. I had a perfectly good reason."

  "All right," I said. "I'll call the principal back in the morning and explain the situation to him. I'll tell him that I think that the teacher needs to have a little bit of flexibility and give you some wiggle room considering that you are new and trying to get involved in the school. I'll tell him that you and I had a talk and that I've handled the situation, but that I think that it's very important that you are given the opportunity to participate in the baseball team as much as possible and request that nothing be done that will compromise that participation. I'm sure he'll understand and defuse the situation with this Miss Martin."

  Jason nodded.

  "Thanks, Dad. I'm going to go to my bedroom and do some homework."

  "Sure," I said.

  He got up and walked out of the room. I started cleaning up the remnants of dinner. I remembered what he had said about the other guys on the baseball team saying that he was only going to get a spot because I was the fire chief. I knew that wasn't the case. Jason was talented and would be able to get a spot regardless of who he was. I knew, though, that if he thought that he was getting any kind of special treatment because of who I was, it would only backfire.

  I put everything in the kitchen and then decided I would try to fit a couple of hours of straightening up the house into the evening. I was going through boxes and chastising myself for the truly nonsensical way that many of them had been packed and labeled when I realized that more than two hours had passed, and I hadn't heard from Jason again. I grabbed one of the fortune cookies that had come with our dinner and walked down the hall to his bedroom. I knocked on the door.

  "Hey, buddy. I was just checking on you. Want to see what type of mystical amazement your future holds? I have an enchanted pastry that will tell you."

  There's nothing but silence from the other side of the door. I turn the knob and opened it, immediately realizing that the room was empty. His window was standing open, the curtains fluttering slightly as if to underscore the predictability of the situation. I sighed and mumbled a few creative obscenities before heading to put my shoes on.

  One good thing about living in a town as small as Silver Lake was that it didn't take long to find someone when they wandered off. Especially when that someone was a teenager who couldn't drive and didn't know but so many people. That meant it took less than an hour to find Jason behind an old abandoned grocery store, sitting on the cold pavement with his back against the bricks and a paper-wrapped bottle in his hand. It was a scene that looked all too familiar. It wasn't that particular store or that particular parking lot, but it was playing out just the same. It was the same early antics that I had gotten into. I pulled up in front of him and climbed out of the car.

  "Jason, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

  "It's okay Dad. It's in a bag."

  His voice was distinctly slurred, and he hadn't bothered to stand up.

  "It's not public decency laws that I'm concerned about right now. You're not allowed to drink when your sixteen no matter how much you cover up the label."

  Of the three other guys who had been in the alley with Jason when I arrived, only one of them had stuck around and I looked over at him.

  "Who are you?" I asked.

  "Marvin," he said.

  "Well, Marvin, were you aware that Jason here won't be allowed to legally drink for another five years?"

  "No sir."

  "And how many years will it be until you are allowed to legally drink, Marvin?"

  He looked at me for a few seconds, his eyes widening as though doing the math was just too much strain for a brain that was currently floating around in cheap beer.

  "A few," he said.

  "I'll tell you what," I said. "Since you had the balls to wait here with Jason, I'm not going to say anything to your parents or anyone else. But keep in mind that as the new fire chief in town, I have connections. I don't want to find you back behind this store, or any other store for that matter, again. Do I make myself clear?"

  He nodded.

  "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

  He looked at Jason who seemed to be trying to climb to his feet.

  "Night, man," Jason said.

  Marvin took off down the alley and I reached down to grab my son's arm and pull him to his feet.

  "I seriously can't believe you," I said. "We have that whole conversation about how important your opportunities are and how you're going to show more respect and then you sneak out of the damn house to come out here and drink. "

  I was fuming as I pushed Jason into the passenger seat and slammed the door. I didn't say anything else to him as I drove us back to the house. When we got back in, he turned and looked at me.

  "I'm sorry, Dad."

  "I don't want to hear it, Jason. What the hell is wrong with you? I uprooted our entire lives to come out here and try to give you a chance, and the thanks I get is that we are in town for less than a week and I'm already getting calls from your school and finding you drunk in an alley. You were getting into so much trouble in our old town that I just knew that by the time you were eighteen you would be in jail or worse."

  "You mean worse like I could be a father?"

  I wanted to be mad at him, but there wasn't any anger in his voice. Instead, he sounded sad. I took a breath, trying to let all the stress and tension out of me before I spoke again.

  "Jason, you know that's not what I mean. I got into all of this same shit and even more when I was your age, and I've seen the type of damage that it could cause. You saved me. I'm alive because you came along. But I don't want that to be the same for you. I brought us out here so that we could try to start a new life away from all of that."

  "I'll try, Dad."

  "I know you will."

  "Are you still going to call the principal for me tomorrow?"

  He suddenly sounded like a little boy and I let out a sigh.

  "Yes, I'm still going to call the principal for you tomorrow."

  He smiled.

  "Thanks."

  "It's time for bed. And you better be there when I check on you."

  "I will be."

  Jason went down the hallway into his bedroom and I waited until I saw the light coming from under his door turn off before I went and took a shower. I lay in bed half an hour later, my fingers flipping my phone over and over on top of the blanket beside me. I wanted to call Gwendolyn. I couldn't get
her off my mind and the unexpected message that I got from her earlier in the day had only made me want her more. There was something incredible about her and I couldn't seem to get enough of her. I couldn't wait to see her again, and yet there was something inside me that was hesitating. I knew that the way that I had handled every relationship in Jason's life had molded his distrust of women and the negative perceptions that he seemed to have of them. So, what did it mean that I didn't feel any of those things when I thought about Gwendolyn?

  Chapter Eight

  Gwendolyn

  The next morning, I stopped by the coffee shop on the way to work to treat myself to a fancy drink that I could barely pronounce but that made me feel like an adult when I sipped it. I was taking one of those ultra-heated foamy sips as I walked toward my classroom when I heard Mr. Jefferson calling my name. I turned around to look at him and saw him gesture for me to follow him. He looked uncharacteristically serious and I felt a sense of dread that even the fancy coffee couldn't fix. We walked in silence toward the office and he closed the door before gesturing for me to take my seat across from his desk.

  Was this it? Was I about to get fired? What could I have done that would justify me not even getting through a whole year of teaching?

  I sat down and settled my bags at my feet. I thought about putting my coffee down with them but figured that if I needed to make a dramatic and indignant exit it would be better if I didn't kick the cup over and send the coffee splashing across the carpet. Instead, I held it in my lap, cupping it between my suddenly cold palms as Mr. Jefferson walked around the desk and took his place in his chair. He folded his hands on the desk in front of him and let out a long breath. There was a strange silence and I briefly thought that he might have forgotten why he brought me into the office and now thought that I had come in for a visit. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be the first time that that had happened. I was starting to tell him that I needed to get to homeroom when he opened his mouth to speak.