"I think two days a week are probably enough."
"I think not. Especially as he travels a lot and he’s often away on Saturdays, and nearly every weekend he brings work home."
"Are you sure he isn’t seeing someone?"
Eric’s question amazed me.
"I'm a million percent positive." I was that sure.
"How do you know?"
"Believe me, I know. I’ve lived with this man for almost fifteen years."
"Let me tell you something from personal experience…"
"What?" I stared at him in amazement. "Your wife cheated on you?"
"No." He smiled at me conspiratorially. "I grazed here and there in foreign lands."
"Are you serious?" I was shocked by his revealing confession.
"I'm telling you this so you understand that ‘working late’ sometimes has the most banal explanation behind it." Tell me about it, I thought.
"Does your wife know?"
"Are you crazy?"
"Don’t you love her?"
"The truth?"
"Only the truth."
"The truth is, I never really loved her."
The waitress arrived with our coffee and we asked for the bill.
We drank our coffee in silence, digesting the words we had spoken.
"Let's go somewhere quiet," he said when we’d finished.
We decided to go to the National Park in Ramat Gan. It was already five-thirty and it was almost dark. The park began to empty out around that time, especially the families with young children. I was afraid of bumping into someone I knew. We went there in my car. He had come to my office with Yaniv and had to go back by taxi.
I remembered my meeting with Hanoch at this park nearly a year and a half earlier.
Quite paradoxically, or perhaps because it was the way I knew, I walked through the park with Eric pretty much via the same route that I’d walked with Hanoch, until we got to the same dark and intimate shed where I’d sat with Hanoch.
We talked all the way there about long-standing relationships, about children and the difficulty of keeping the flame burning. I barely spoke. Eric had a lot to say. He hadn’t really wanted four children. He would’ve been satisfied with two, but they lived in Austria and it was so boring they thought another child would make life more interesting. The fourth child, a daughter, came about due to the constant pressure Marina put on him. She wanted a daughter and Eric agreed to have another child on the condition that it would be their last child, no matter what gender. To their delight, it was a girl, and despite his reluctance, Eric admitted that she was his favorite child.
Eric confessed that he’d had women on the side since returning to Israel. In Austria, he didn’t have time for it. They’d had three small children and he had a regular daily routine of work then home. When they returned to Israel, he began to stray. It was easier. In Israel, unlike abroad, it was more common to get home late from work, which made it easier for him. He hadn’t had many affairs, only three one-night stands, a short fling with a flight attendant he met on a work trip and a one-year affair that ended in heartbreak. He had met a young engineer at the Science Park in Rehovot during his lunch break. She was single, thirty years old, and wanted a family and children. He was willing to drop everything for her, but it was hard to leave a woman with four children. Besides the emotional aspect of leaving his children, he knew that such a step would break him financially. Marina had almost never worked. He earned well above the average, but he was the main earner in their household. In all the years they’dlived in Europe and Galilee, Marina didn’t work at all. Three years ago, when their little daughter was six, Marina began working as a kindergarten helper in a private kindergarten. Though hersalary was welcome, he had no doubt that if they separated, most of the burden would fall on him, and he would have to support two homes.
Until Eric mentioned it, I hadn’t thought about it. Although Itay and I also earned good salaries and our revenue was well above average, divorce still meant two apartments, which was a considerable expense.
As we sat in the shed, I wanted to go back to what he’d said to me in the restaurant.
"You said you never loved your wife. Is that true?"
"I don’t know." He thought for a few seconds and then said, "I was never really in love with her."
"What do you mean?"
"I love and respect her, mainly as a mother for our children. I’m also attracted to her, and it’s good for me to be with her, but I never had butterflies in my stomach when I saw her."
"And do you miss that? Because I’ll tell you a secret: even when there are butterflies, they eventually disappear."
"I know, but I do feel I’ve missed out. It’s as though I married a good friend and not the love of my life."
"You didn’t have a youthful love?"
Eric was silent for a moment, then he said, "She’s sitting here in front of me."
That’s it, the words were spoken. Years of thoughts and assumptions resulted in one comprehensive sentence. He loved me. It was not in my head.
I was silent. I didn’t know what to say. I’d dreamed of this moment for so many years, and now it had come, I didn’t know what to say.
"You’ve nothing to say?" he asked finally.
"I can tell you that it was mutual."
Eric came nearer and grabbed both my hands.
"Do you remember the last time we met at the club?"
How could I forget? "Yes," I muttered.
"Marina was near the very end of her pregnancy. She gave birth a few days later."
"I remember she was heavily pregnant," I confirmed.
"I only married her because she was pregnant." He told me what I’d half guessed at the time. "When I saw you, so beautiful and glowing, I almost left her."
"You're just babbling."
"I am not! I'll never forget that night. I tossed and turned all night. I so wanted to leave her and go to the girl I loved – you. I felt like I was in prison for life."
"So why didn’t you?"
"Why? First of all, I didn’t know if you were even interested in me, and besides, I'm not the kind of man to leave a woman in the lurch like that."
"You didn’t know how much I wanted you?"
"How was I supposed to know? I'm not a mind reader."
"You didn’t notice?"
"You had me scared."
"How?"
"You were so young… so religious. I didn’t know how to read you."
"I wasn’t so religious. I’m not religious at all these days."
"That’s how you seemed to me."
"I was also not so young."
"As I recall, you’re at least ten years younger than me."
"Ten years minus a week," I corrected him and he looked at me with a shocked expression.
"How do you remember that?"
"I remember a lot of things."
"I can’t believe it," he said, and without giving me time to react, he put his arms around me and started kissing me.
This whole situation was surreal. It was almost an identical copy of the meeting I’d had with Hanoch. I remembered how I’d gotten scared and run away.
This time I had no intention of running away.
I had waited for this moment for fifteen years.
I was not the same girl, scared of the touch of a stranger. Eric was no stranger, though. He was the knight of my erotic dreams of the past fifteen years.
I clung to him. He had a pleasant smell of aftershave mixed with the sweat of his body. He tasted good, like the coffee we had only recently finished. I leaned against him, and I ran my hand down his neck.
"My Sharon," he said and sighed. I smiled back at him. Our faces were so close. Our eyes never left each other’s. I licked my lips. I wanted to taste more of his flavor on my lips. His eyes broke away from mine and watched my lips and then went back to my eyes. "I think I've been in love with you for almost twenty years," he said. "I admit… I didn’t remember exactly what yo
u looked like, but I kept imagining you, and I thought about how it would be if my life was with you."
"You didn’t look me up on the Internet?"
"I didn’t think of it," he admitted. "And the truth is that even if I had looked for you, to me you’re Sharon Sagiv, not Moskovitz."
"I looked for you," I admitted, looking down. I was embarrassed. "I couldn’t find you."
I looked up, staring into his eyes. He had burning eyes, like Manny’s after I danced for him in Eilat. He got up and pulled me to him. Standing, it was easier for him to hug me and stroke my back. He stroked my cheek and continued to kiss me passionately. I devoted myself to his touch, to his big pleasant hands. He was tall and manly, and I felt comfortable in his strong warm embrace.
"I have to have you for myself," he whispered in my ear. "I’ve waited for you for so many years that I can’t wait one second longer."
"Okay," I said in surrender. I wanted it too. I, too, had waited for this for years.
"I have a beautiful apartment in Tel Aviv. It belongs to a Jewish couple we knew in Austria. They use it mostly on holidays and during the summer, and during the rest of the year I maintain it for them and make sure it’s rented out."
We walked back to the car, walking side by side without speaking, without touching. For both of us, it was a secret affair. Cheating.
The walk to the car allowed the effect of the adrenaline that washed over me to fade away. Thoughts replaced the excitement. Eric was exactly what I was looking for. Also unavailable. Also looking for love on the side. We had both dreamed about each other for years. But what about Manny? What about Itay? Could I so easily give up on Manny's great love and turn to Eric, who in fact, beyond the big attraction I felt today, had nothing in common with me? Was I ready to start a ‘safe’ romance like this and betray Itay in the long term? Even though I was looking for an affair, since I’d stopped seeing Manny I had felt some relief. I found it hard to lie.
We reached the car. In silence, we got in. Eric realized that I was uneasy.
"Sharon," he said as his big hand stroked my hand, holding the gear stick, "we don’t have to."
I looked at him. His look said it all. He wanted me. The words didn’t fit his eyes. He wanted me to say yes.
"I want to," I said. I had trouble saying no to his gaze.
His eyes sparkled and a small tear wet his cheek. He was excited, and I was excited by his excitement. "I'm glad," he said in a trembling voice.
"Where do we go?"
"I'll direct you." He kissed me on the cheek and motioned to me with his hand where to go.
We were almost in Tel Aviv when my cellphone rang. It was Ahuva. I motioned for Eric to be quie,t and I answered the phone.
"Sharon…" Ahuva's voice was choked with tears.
"Is everything all right?" I asked anxiously.
"My husband," she cried, "he was in a car accident."
"Oh, dear," I said with a start and looked at Eric. He was stunned. It was not a phone call we’d expected. "Where’s Jacob now?"
"He's in the emergency room at Wolfson," she gasped. "I want to go to him."
"Obviously."
"I know you're in meetings till late," she said, and Eric looked down. I was embarrassed too. "But I couldn’t reach Itay, and I'm going crazy with worry."
"Don’t worry. I’ll drop everything and come home," I said and hung up.
I let Eric off at the first bus stop I saw and went home.
I was confused. On the one hand, I was angry with Itay, who, as usual, wasn’t there when he was needed, but on the other hand, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that maybe it was fate. Maybe I had just been saved from an affair with Eric.
The question was whether I wanted to be saved at all.
CHAPTER 20
When I got home, I was flooded with feelings of guilt. If I hadn’t gone with Eric, I could have been home hours before and released Ahuva to go and see her injured husband. Ahuva called from the emergency room with an update. Jacob had a broken arm, but otherwise everything was fine. She even said she’d come to work as usual. The guilt subsided and was replaced, like so often before, with feelings of anger at Itay.
He only bothered to call home when it was already late in the evening.
I recognized the number. “Itay?”
"Sharon?" Itay said, sounding surprised. "I thought you were going to be late today."
"Where are you?" I asked angrily.
"Work," he said in an innocent tone.
"Why didn’t you answer your phone?"
"I was in a conference call with colleagues in Holland. I left my cell phone on my desk."
"And you didn’t think that maybe you might be needed - maybe in case of an emergency at home?"
"Has something happened?" he asked in a worried voice.
"Yes, something’s happened," I said sharply.
"What?" His voice was already desperate.
"Ahuva’s husband was injured in a car accident."
"Oh no! What happened?"
"He was crossing the road next to his work and a motorcyclist ran into him and knocked him down."
"How is he?"
"He has a broken arm."
"That doesn’t sound good. He’s not a young man."
I wasn’t prepared for my well-prepared speech to turn into a talk about Ahuva’s husband’s condition. I changed my tone again and said angrily, "The question isn’t how many weeks Jacob will be in a cast, but rather why, when you know that I can’t get home early, you don’t take your cellphone with you everywhere! That’s exactly what it’s for."
"Sorry," he said softly. "It wasn’t intentional."
Obviously it wasn’t intentional. After all, he wasn’t used to being connected to what was happening at home.
"So did you have to take off from work? Did you have something important on?"
I knew that Itay wouldn’t suspect in his worst nightmares that I’d been on my way to cheat on him, but still his innocent question mademy stomach turn over.
"No, I made it work."
"Great."
"No, Itay, it’s not great," I said impatiently. "You can’t expect me to carry all of the responsibility for home and the girls. How many times have I ever asked you to stand in for me?"
"Sharon, if you knew how much pressure I’m under, you wouldn’t attack me like this." Itay moved into attack mode. "In the worst case scenario, my mother or yours could have come."
I decided not to answer. These conversations exhausted me. I wanted to call Eric at that moment, but I knew he was probably at home, and I didn’t want to put him in an awkward position.
The next morning I had a hairdresser’s appointment. I hoped the morning queue would be short, but unfortunately, when I arrived, there were already two other customers.
"I'll be right with you," Ruthie, my hairdresser, promised as soon as I sat down. "You want some coffee?"
"No thanks," I replied sourly. "Where’s Yafit?" I asked about Ruthie's assistant.
"She’s in bed with the flu. I’m really sorry, honey, but I really will be with you in a second. Don’t worry. You won’t leave here later than you planned on."
I picked up one of the magazines lying on the dresser and began to flip through it disinterestedly.
"So what was I telling you?" The girl next to me, with dozens of rollers in her hair, turned to Ruthie.
"You were telling me about Keren Weissman."
"Yeah..." she said in a sweet, confidential tone, "Her husband caught her with Rammy Drory."
"With Rammy Drory?" The customer sitting in Ruthie’s salon chair, her wet hair full of pins, almost screamed in shock. "Isn’t he her neighbor?"
"Yes... They live right in the same building," replied Curlers with pleasure. "They probably met in a tenants’ meeting." The three of them giggled.
"But how did he catch her?" Ruthie was interested.
"That’s exactly the point of the story. Her husband was suspicious and hired a privat
e investigator."
"A private investigator!" Ruthie and Hairpins were in shock.
"Yes!" Curlers smiled. She clearly relished every piece of gossip she was passing on.
"Wow." Ruthie looked impressed. "I haven’t heard of anything like that yet in our neighborhood."
"Just because you haven’t heard about it doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened," said Hairpins knowingly.
"That’s true," Ruthie replied, nodding, trying to remember the last time she didn't know about a piece of juicy gossip going around the neighborhood.
"I’d like to remind you," Curlers said, waving her manicured fingers at them, "I have long said that, in my opinion, Keren was seeing someone on the side."
"I don’t recall you saying that," Hairpins pointed out.
"Neither do I," Ruthie added.
"You just don’t remember. That was almost a year after the Independence Day ceremony in the school. I was sitting right next to Keren and her husband, and when Rammy went past, they weren’t able to look at each other. They actually blushed. I'm sure I told you about it."
"Maybe." Ruthie rolled her eyes and switched scissors. "I don’t remember anything like that."
"Since then, I’ve been studying them all the time, and I’ve had a feeling about it."
Hairpins was looking impatient now. "But how do you know about the investigator and all?"
"Everyone who lives in their building heard about it," said Curlers with a wicked smile. "The building shook from her husband's shouting."
"What did he shout?"
"Mostly cursing and swearing."
"In front of the children?" I asked, joining the discussion.
"No. He had enough sense to wait for the kids to go to school, and then he started the show. Yelled and yelled and finally took a suitcase and left the house."
"Really?" Ruthie stopped cutting Hairpins’ hair and gave Curlers a shocked look. "Where did he go?"
"I don’t know… maybe to his parents’. What’s for certain is that they’re getting divorced.”
"How do you know?"
"Keren herself told Efrat, who told me. Turns out that her husband was willing and has already started divorce proceedings."
"It's unbelievable." Ruthie shook her head in disbelief. "They were such a perfect couple. They always went everywhere together."
Confession of an Abandoned Wife - Box Set (Books 1-3) Page 16
