Confession of an Abandoned Wife - Box Set (Books 1-3)

by Hartstein, Michal

  I was shocked by Guy’s callous directness. "Maybe you could teach me to be less inhibited," I said, and amazed myself again. I didn’t understand why I was trying to convince him to stay with me when I wasn’t interested in continuing the relationship myself.

  Guy laughed. "Hah! You’re cute and it’s a real shame, but you know what I’m like. I'm not exactly a patient man, and certainly not a teacher."

  I was silent again.

  "Sharon," he said in a coaxing tone. "Don’t do this to me. I know I'm sounding kind of like a jerk."

  Kind of, I thought to myself.

  "Perhaps I shouldn’t have done it over the phone, but – hey, let’s get real here – we’re talking about a relationship that lasted less than two weeks."

  "A week," I corrected him.

  "You see?"

  "So I should thank you that you didn’t dump me by text?" I felt like I was returning to my old myself.

  "Ah, c’mon," he growled. "Don’t be childish."

  "OK, fine," I gasped into the phone. "I won’t beg."

  "Hope you feel better soon," he said and hung up.

  I hadn’t told him of my doubts about continuing our relationship, but there was no point in arguing with him. If I’d told him something along the lines of, "You beat me to it," I’d sound no less desperate, but much more pathetic.

  Even though I wasn’t interested in continuing the relationship any more than he was, I was hurt. I had never, ever been dumped. That’s how it was when you married your first boyfriend.

  It was not a pleasant feeling. Once, when I was a student, I was fired for no apparent reason from a coffee shop. The feeling was similar. I saw no future for me at the café, but I still preferred to be the one to end the relationship.

  I continued to sit there in my parents’ living room, staring at the TV. My thoughts wandered.

  Is this what I was looking for, I asked myself. After all, I’d consciously started this set up with Guy. More than that, I really had looked for it. I had really wanted a thrill like this. I had wanted another man to touch me and desire me.

  Was I sorry? I didn’t know how to answer the question. Although I hadn’t enjoyed myself with Guy, I could still vividly remember what led me into the arms of another man. It was not the hand of fate or even a hidden hand. It was the hand of Itay, the hand that had neglected me for years. Despite all the disappointment I felt over Guy, I could not forgive Itay.

  As I studied my feelings and my thoughts, I refused to feel guilty, but I was sorry I’d rushed into an affair with a man like Guy. I realized that, for me at least, the emotional thrill is much stronger than the sexual thrill. I was not in love with Guy. The truth was, I didn’t even like him. His behavior was aggressive, overbearing and thoughtless. I actually looked for some of these features in a man, but, for Guy, everything was about him. I wanted my man to put me in the center. Guy was so self centered that he didn’t even notice that I was paralyzed with anxiety. I may not be a sex kitten, but I sure wasn’t inhibited, as Guy had said. Guy really didn’t bother to woo me. I got carried away going after him because I didn’t know any better. That's how it is with infidelity, I thought. I didn’t want to look too green, so I eventually lay beneath him, almost paralyzed by fear.

  I was reminded of Hanoch. If Hanoch had looked more like Guy, I would certainly have enjoyed sex and definitely been able to let loose. I tried to think if I could have been swept off my feet into a romance with Hanoch. I suddenly realized that external appearance is no guarantee of good sex or sexual excitement.

  Itay’s duty with the IDF ended, and we returned to our not-so-welcome normal routine: Itay returned home late every single day, sometimes working on Fridays, and I felt especially alone and neglected. The fling with Guy slowly faded from my memory. Sometimes I even felt like it had never really happened.

  Too many events were happening in the family to have time to look for another lover. In July, Yarden broke her arm at camp. Despite all the stress of his job, Itay came with us to the hospital and watched with genuine concern over our chick. He came to every orthopedic appointment with us and took care of our little one with touching devotion.

  A week after Yarden broke her arm, Sagit, my sister-in-law, Tomer’s wife, was taken into hospital for bed rest toward the end of her pregnancy. It was her fifth baby, and, until then, all her pregnancies had been completely normal. After a week in hospital, she was released to rest at home.

  I'm very fond of Sagit. Objectively, I should be able to find a common language with Oded’s wife, Orit. Oded and Orit were not completely secular like me, but were so-called ‘lightly religious.’ Orit studied chemistry and worked for the Teva organization; Oded studied economics and business management and was a bank manager. They had three children, two daughters and a son, and lived not far from me in Givat Shmuel. They were much more like Itay and me.

  In contrast, Tomer, my little brother, was very religious. He studied in a Hesder Yeshiva, combining his religious studies with army service. Immediately after his release, he married Sagit. Tomer never attended university because he became a father a year after he got married and had to support his family. It was a fact that kept my mother from sleeping soundly to this day. The fact that he found a relatively rewarding and good job as a warehouse manager for a food importer didn’t appease her. She wanted all her children to earn a degree, just like in every respectable Jewish home.

  Sagit did actually have a college degree. Before she got married, she studied speech therapy at Tel Aviv University. That, obviously, does not encourage my mother. If anything, it's frustrating that her side is the least educated. I couldn’t swear to it, but my feeling is that my mother blamed Sagit, to a certain extent, for the fact that Tomer had no college degree. For if she were a supportive wife, like Orit for instance, she would have pushed Tomer to get his degree.

  Although I got married three years before Tomer, Tomer’s eldest daughter, Tzofit, was a year older than Shira, my elder daughter. While I had two daughters, Tomer and Sagit had five children now. They lived in a small settlement in Samaria in a spacious, but modest home.

  I really loved the serenity and tranquility that this lovely couple spreads around. They didn’t give in to the fast pace of life. They managed to ignore their pressing and demanding environment and live their lives in peace, although their starting point was better than others. My parents are relatively wealthy people, and Sagit’s parents are even wealthier, but the modesty with which they live did not imply in the slightest that they had strong financial backing to lean on.

  When I heard that Sagit needed to rest, I saw the long weekend trip to my brother’s as a sacrifice. The religious life was foreign to me, but I decided that this was a very small sacrifice for my favorite sister-in-law. In any case, I could hardly do anything else with Yarden to look after since she was still in her cast.

  I drove over with Shira and Yarden on Thursday afternoon. I took some food that my mother had made, some food from a caterer (kosher!) and lots of good spirits.

  Sagit lay there, knitting and reading books. Tomer played with the kids, and I made enough food for the entire battalion, whom we were supposed to eat with on the Sabbath. On Friday morning, Itay came and served as a kindergarten teacher instead of Tomer so he and I could polish the whole house.

  The Sabbath was lovely, with lots of laughter and childhood memories. I had fun chatting with Sagit, who, after a week and a half of lying around, had finished two books and recommended one of them. Sagit enjoyed the fresh company, Tomer enjoyed the girls, the girls enjoyed their cousins and Itay, who was known to enjoy all things traditional, enjoyed the Sabbath atmosphere and the ‘fresh air’ he inhaled all weekend.

  We returned to ‘civilization’ on Sunday. Itay went straight to work, and I went home with the girls.

  I had a glimmer of hope that maybe something was going to change, that maybe Itay would have absorbed a little of Tomer and Sagit’s tranquility and not just the clean, mountain-top air,
but, unfortunately, I was wrong again.

  In August, all the summer camps ended, and I was hoping we would seize the opportunity forced upon us to take the girls to a holiday village in the Netherlands. I really wanted to go, and I was even willing to go with Oded and Orit, who had already planned the trip in great detail and were eager for us to join them so they wouldn’t be alone.

  I knew that Sagit, who was now released from bed rest, was due in August and that the help I would get from my mother would be limited. I thought that fun family time could, perhaps, restore some of our spark to us. But Itay did not agree with me. He had already missed a lot of important working days because of Yarden’s injury and had no more vacation days to spare.

  September arrived and I was exhausted and irritable. Shira started second grade and Yarden started at the city kindergarten.

  There was one good thing I got from the vacation-free summer: I had enough time to look for a nanny for the girls. I decided that instead of going to an after school program each day, they would return home, eat home-cooked food and get some personal attention.

  Through a friend from work, I found Ahuva, a very experienced nanny and a great cook.

  After a few days of acclimation, I discovered a new world where I did not have to rush home every day to pick up the two girls; a world of hot, delicious food every day, including the Sabbath; and a home without clothes that needed folding.

  After a week, Itay and I were deeply in love with Ahuva and, a week later, Shira and Yarden were ready to sell us in exchange for her.

  While life was beautiful and much simpler now that the broken pieces, births, and holidays were over, I was left alone more than ever. Itay, realizing that I needed less help, chose to invest his own free time at work and not with me.

  My hope had been that the free time Ahuva gave us would help us restore our relationship, but when I realized that it was not going to happen, I concluded that I was still ‘open to offers,’ as they say, but I decided not to act aggressively and recklessly as I did before. I decided not to look for an affair, but to let it find me. If it came, it came; if it didn’t, maybe Itay would regain his senses and we would return to our glory days.

  As a first step, I decided to delete my fake account at The Marker Café. I had no patience for long and tedious chats and realized that I was no longer interested in a quickie like I’d had with Guy. I was not built for such a dating site. If I was single, I might have signed up with a dating site and tried to meet a man to go on dates with, but to search online for a lover suddenly seemed despicable and cheap. I decided that I would meet my lover in the good old-fashioned way.

  I clicked on my alias account at The Marker Café after a two-month absence. I was amazed by the dozens, if not hundreds, of individual requests. It turned out that the pictures I’d posted had made quite an impact. I received hundreds of ‘likes,’ mostly from men, and one of the photos had caused a wave of reactions, some flattering and some sarcastic, which left my profile in the spotlight for over a month. I hadn’t bothered to sign in, and I didn’t know I'd become so popular. At first I thought it would be a shame not to check out any of the calls I’d received, but I decided that before I sank into the pool of comments and messages, it was best to not even get in the water. With one quick, decisive motion, I selected all the messages and deleted them, and then I deleted the pictures. My profile was empty and lonely, and I swore to myself I'd never enter it again.

  Now I had all the time and convenience in the world

  to start an affair. Little did I know that I wouldn't find a simple affair. I'd risk my entire family to fall in love with a man unlike any other, a love unlike any I'd ever felt.

  PART 2

  My Love Affiar

  CHAPTER 12

  After months of searching, as soon as I stopped looking, love found me.

  Several years ago, Aunt Leah, my mother's sister, was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was a horrible and scary year, and, thankfully, my aunt recovered, mainly because of early detection. Since then, I’ve made sure I go every six months or so to a specialist health professional for a thorough examination. My family learned firsthand how important it was to catch these things in time.

  At first, I went to a nice surgeon who was recommended to me; Dr. Steinitz’s clinic was only around the corner from the office where I was doing my internship. It was a stressful time, and I tried to focus my whole life around the office where I worked. After I got my license to practice law and went to work somewhere else, I still stayed loyal to that doctor. But after Shira was born, I realized that my home was now the center of my life, so I searched for, and found, a doctor whose clinic wasn’t far from my house.

  The first time I went to Dr. Menachem, Manny, Michaeli's clinic, I was a bit bothered by the fact that I’d gotten an appointment so quickly. I'd gotten used to waiting a long time for doctors, so the fact that I’d gotten in the minute I called for an appointment bothered me. I thought he might be a new doctor or an intern.

  The chairs in the waiting room were empty, and the secretary wasn’t in yet, so I knocked on the door cautiously, afraid that a strong knock would crack the door.

  "You may come in," Dr. Michaeli shouted from the other side of the door.

  I walked in with an embarrassed smile. Dr. Michaeli must have read my mind, so he smiled back. In fact, he almost laughed and explained that people usually waited a long time to see him, but fortunately for me, the two patients ahead of me had canceled their appointments.

  From the first second I saw him, I liked this doctor. There was something about him that very few doctors had: He was human, and spoke to me, the patient, on my level. Maybe it also had to do a bit with his appearance. If I’d seen him on the street, the last profession I’d pin on him would be ‘doctor.’ If I didn’t know what field he worked in, I’d have guessed that he was a mechanic, but not one of those bastard mechanics who just look for ways to screw you over. I’d have thought he was one of those mechanics with a big heart and a cozy, but dilapidated, little garage.

  First of all, he was a big man in both height and weight. He grew bigger - heavier - every time we met; then, every six months or so, he’d shrink. The truth is that ‘shrinking’ wasn’t a good description. It wasn’t like he became as thin as a bean. No, from a mountain of a man, he became a normal, well-built man. Another fact that surprised me was that he didn’t wear glasses. All the doctors I've ever known wore glasses, and I assumed that anyone who studied medicine was predestined, along with studying anatomy, probing internal organs and reading large books of very close text, to have his corrective eyesight prescription increase.

  Apart from his bodily dimensions and the fact that he had great vision, Dr. Michaeli also had a calm face. That's the best description I could give. He didn’t have the intense look or the copious wrinkles of other doctors who tried to convey the message: I am your last chance of staying alive. He looked at his patients and spoke to them on their level. If he ever said anything in mystical, professional language, he immediately translated it into something understandable and never gave those sitting in front of him a sense of insignificance… He never made me feel small.

  On the next occasion when I came to see Dr. Michaeli, I found that he, too, like other doctors, had a line of patients waiting to see him. But in contrast to other physicians – who, as soon as you came into their office gave you the sense that you, personally, were responsible for any delay, wouldn’t let you tell them about your ailments and eventually kicked you out of the clinic with a pile of prescriptions that you have no idea when to take and orders for tests that you have no idea where to go to have done - Dr. Michaeli always had all the time in the world. And in spite of all this, his line wasn’t much longer than anyone else’s.

  Every time I came to see him, he was interested in how I was doing. Before he began to question me about my health and things that bothered me, he always showed a genuine interest in my work and daughters. I, in return, would compliment him
on how well he was looking. I found out that his wife was ill and that he’d probably had to find out first-hand the effects of neglecting himself physically. I liked his openness and the fact that he didn’t create a doctor-patient distance between us. I had no idea if he was as open with the rest of his patients; I'm pretty sure he was nice to everyone, but, over time, I felt I was getting a little bit of special attention. I had a feeling he had a little crush on me.

  Because I had a source for comparison in Dr. Steinitz, I could say with certainty that Dr. Michaeli did not do anything different. The test was the same. I arrived and, after being asked a brief list of medical questions, I took off my shirt and bra, lay down on the examination table and the doctor massaged my chest with skilled movements. Then I sat up, raised each arm in turn and the doctor repeated the test from other angles to feel for any lumps in the breast tissue.

  I always made sure not to look at Dr. Michaeli’s face, and he, in return, turned around and went to his seat immediately after the test was completed. But even though I never looked at him during the test, and although, physically, the exam was the same as Dr. Steinitz’s, I always had the feeling that there was something beyond just the exam. I had a feeling that Dr. Michaeli enjoyed touching my body. At every meeting, that feeling grew stronger and stronger until I found myself entranced by the feel of his hands on my chest.

  For Rosh Hashana of 2008, we spent the first evening of the holiday at my parents’ house. Aunt Leah was there too, and I remembered that I hadn’t visited Dr. Michaeli for over a year. I’d made an appointment approximately eight months earlier, but his secretary called the day before and said that Dr. Michaeli’s wife had died and my appointment was canceled. I preferred not to wait until the doctor returned to work, so I made an appointment with Dr. Steinitz. I’d just had a huge papilloma on my back, and I was nervous… I wanted to see a doctor as soon as possible. Since then, nearly eight months had passed, and I’d missed my regular checkup.