She shut up. What was the point? Why preach about adultery to a man who’d been a born again Christian for nearly two decades? He knew better.
Brian nodded, opening and closing his hands toward her, as if to say, Well, yes, but what can I do now? He looked dejected, like he would do anything to escape the office, rewind the events of the winter, and travel to a different space and time.
Too late.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Well, she’s gone now.”
“Gone?”
“She resigned. She came in late, turned in her letter, gathered her things and left. I haven’t heard from her since.”
“And you probably won’t again,” Tracey mumbled.
“What did you say?”
Tracey refused to repeat herself. She sat stiff in the chair, her arms across her chest. Where were they going to go from here? She was glad she had more insight into how everything happened, but she didn’t know what to do next. Sure, she envisioned a future with Brian in an intact, loving family. She was relieved her husband had the sense to end the affair quickly. But on the flip side, every cell in her body throbbed with anger.
Brian got up, moved away from his desk and stepped toward her, his arms open to embrace her. Tracey crossed her arms tighter and leaned away.
“Don’t touch me.” Her skin had turned cold and her stomach churned. She rubbed the goose bumps emerging on her arms.
He rubbed his hands over his face as he moved away.
She wiggled to try and relax her rigid shoulders. A headache was forming and the harsh fluorescent light in the room made it worse.
“I was wrong and I’m sorry and—” he started.
Tracey stopped him. “I know where you’re going and don’t even ask. You were sleeping with your nurse. Your nurse! You can’t push us past this and go on like before!”
“I’m not trying to speed you past your feelings. I’m asking you for forgiveness because I need your forgiveness.”
She couldn’t say yes or no at that moment. She stood up and leaned forward. Her stomach did a double-flip, then a half-twist, and the slightly-off kilter feeling propelled the contents of her belly out of her body and onto the floor in front of his desk with a wet splat.
“Whoa!” He jumped back. “Are you all right?”
Tracey pulled back from the mess and sat back down, grateful she’d managed to keep liquid bitterness from splashing onto her pants and boots. “No, I’m not.”
Brian backed away, walked over to the door and gestured toward the hall. There was a rest room outside.
“I guess I’ll get something to clean up this mess.” He mumbled. She rested her back on the chair and closed her eyes, concentrating on keeping the sick feeling down. “I guess you will.”
11
Tracey was two days past the affair revelation when her mother called to talk. Still weary and in a foul mood, Tracey didn’t want to chat with anyone, but what could she do? She’d been in the middle of preparing Sunday dinner when Tyler answered the ringing phone. She frowned as she slowly took the phone receiver from him and said hello.
Alice got right to the point. “You ever find out what my son-in-law was up to?”
“Yes, I did.” She cleared her throat and grabbed a knife to trim the fat off the slab of steak laying on the cutting board in front of her. “And he did. And it’s over now.”
“Are you all staying together?” her mother asked.
“For now we are,” was all Tracey would say.
Alice offered her wisdom. “Then you two are staying together for good. If you were really upset, you would have left him five minutes after you found out the truth. So, he got a little off-course, but he didn’t get away with it. That should be enough to scare him away from ever trying it again.”
Tracey rolled her eyes, said goodbye, and hung up fast. She turned her attention back to cooking. Her wounds, as raw and bloody as the meat beneath her hands, were too fresh for her to think about what staying together with Brian meant.
To say Tracey was angry was an understatement. Her own rage actually frightened her. Anger bubbled up like hot lava inside of her at odd moments of each day, forcing her to sit down and gain control of her emotions. She endured it by staying silent. Other than venting during her phone calls to Monica, Tracey simply refused to talk about the affair with anyone. Not her other friends. Not Charla or anyone else in her family. Not her life group. Certainly not Pastor Downes. He would probably ask about those assigned exercises, and Tracey didn’t have the heart to tell him there was no way she could force herself to dig that boring marriage fixer-upper book out of the bottom of her purse.
Every time she bent her knees to pray, she couldn’t find the right words to offer up for her and Brian. She’d ask for peace, grace, and mercy, but that’s all she could manage.
It turned out there were way too many questions to ask him at one time. And each time he answered two of them, three or four more flooded her mind. She’d ask whenever he was alone with her, which was not often because they slept in different rooms now. The room they used for a house office contained a small black convertible futon. Brian slept there, night after night. It became a pattern neither Tracey nor Brian was willing to break. When Brianna noticed and asked about it, Tracey quickly changed the subject. If Tyler noticed, he didn’t say anything. The cold iciness of the abrupt end of February gave way to the long blustery weeks of March. Snow and ice melted away from the streets, but the chill in the air remained. Brian and Tracey lived together. And apart.
One night Tracey showed up in the office after the kids were in bed and sleeping and after Brian had taken a shower and changed for bed. She stood awkwardly next to the small black futon.
“What was the sex like?” Tracey asked.
“Physical,” Brian said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Honey, I don’t want to dish out explicit descriptions to you. It was a connection that happened three times. I can tell you what we did wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.”
“Talking about it bothers you?”
“Yes.” He stood up from the futon and sat down in front of the computer, reaching over to click on the monitor. “And dwelling on it bothers me even more.”
Tracey still had questions. Was Lisette more flexible? More exciting? Did she satisfy him in ways Tracey could not? Then there was the safety aspect of her husband’s escapades.
“Did you use protection with her?” Tracey asked.
Brian nodded. Tracey read his body language. The rigid set of his bare shoulders. His back positioned straight in the chair. He didn’t want to talk anymore.
She left.
Days and nights passed like that. Tracey asked different questions. Brian would answer using as few words as possible.
March dragged on. Brianna’s dance recital came and went. So did basketball games for Tyler. They were still a family. Ever since the big reveal, Brian worked and came home every evening right on time unless an emergency didn’t permit it. He was still apologetic. Every Friday evening, he brought her a fresh bouquet of flowers and placed them on her nightstand. But in the house, they saw each other and didn’t see each other. They spoke to each other, never really saying anything. She didn’t say anything about forgiving him. He didn’t ask. He looked tired and forlorn most evenings. Tracey still cooked his meals and served him. Did his laundry, picked up his dry cleaning, and had his car serviced. A glorified housekeeper. No personal connection at all. It was like they were standing across a cold, icy lake, looking at each other from different shores, wondering who was going to care enough to jump in and swim across so they could be together again.
By late March Tracey decided it was time to stop moping around the house. Sure, she and her husband were barely speaking but the rest of her life didn’t have to be on hiatus. So one blustery Saturday
morning she called Monica and drove out to pick her up so they could go walking down by the Art Museum.
Out of the car and onto the sidewalk, Monica moved more briskly than Tracey. Sweat beads dotted Tracey’s forehead and she wiped them away with the back of her hand. No talking from either of them for the first twenty minutes. Monica barely broke a sweat by race walking—typical for a woman who worked out regularly. Tracey looked at her, pumping her arms to her side, her head raised high and her feet moving steadily, hitting the pavement so evenly it was like she was marching to a beat.
“You want to slow up a little bit?” Tracey puffed, reaching down to pull the drawstring waist of her pants tighter.
Monica smile and walked even faster. “There are pregnant women at my gym who run twenty miles a week. What’s your excuse?”
Tracey rolled her eye and pushed her white Nikes to hit the pavement even faster. She struggled to keep up with Monica’s pace. “You’re getting on my nerves!”
Monica grinned, nodded, and took a sip from her water bottle. “Keep up. We’re in training now anyway.”
“Training?”
“Yes. The Sickle Cell Walk-a-Thon is in the Fall and you and I are going to walk it and finish at the same time. If you start walking now, you’ll be able to walk it fast. We’re going to walk this for Mark,” Monica said.
Mark Bonner was Monica’s baby brother. He died four years back of complications from Sickle Cell disease shortly before his thirtieth birthday.
“I’m down with walking it. But can I walk it slowly?” Tracey puffed.
“Nope. You are going to walk fast,” Monica said, still pumping her arms hard.
They were two miles away from where they started when Monica slowed down. They’d reached an area with a bench under a red sugar maple tree. Monica gestured toward it and Tracey nodded gratefully.
“You were trying to kill me back there!” Tracey groaned.
“No way!” Monica shook her head. “I wasn’t going fast enough, and we were only walking. When is the last time you went to the gym?”
“The year after Brianna was born. After I lost the baby weight I never went back.”
Monica made a face. “Every woman needs a daily exercise program. Even if all you do is walk for forty-five minutes a day. You need to get your heart rate up every day.”
Tracey looked out over the withered yellow grass. Right in front of where they sat, two black squirrels played, chasing each other back and forth. She had to admit, the fresh air hitting her lungs felt great. And the squirrels made her smile. She was out with a friend. She was alive. She had a family. How was it possible to feel thankful and free and scared and confused all at the same time?
Tracey sniffed. “Brian gets on me all the time about having a daily workout. Or, I should say, when he talked to me regularly, he would tell me.” She shrugged. “Guess it is what it is.”
“It is what it is?”
Tracey took a sip of water. She turned the bottle over and over in her hands. A clear bottle with hot pink writing on it that said SturdyGirlCycling. “I can’t stop reading blogs and articles about adultery. I read sometimes an affair happens once and it’s over, but then sometimes it happens on and off through the whole relationship.”
“Men are a trip.”
“You’re telling me!” Tracey agreed.
“You know, being single isn’t the worst thing in the world. At least when I close my door at the end of a night no one’s coming through it later to hand me a basket of lies,” Monica said.
Monica did not lack attention from men. She received phone calls from men on the regular, and often went out to restaurants, plays, concerts and museums. She even flew down to South Beach once, when a Cuban man she met during a conference sent her some tickets to fly down and visit him one summer weekend. She always told Tracey she enjoyed the dates. But they never amounted to much more than a collection of dates. Often, Monica would find the man wasn’t interesting enough for her to consider as more than a friend. She said it kept her out of trouble. And it certainly kept her away from the realm of broken hearts and bitter tears.
Tracey chuckled. “I married for better or for worse. Single is not an option.”
“Cheating isn’t a deal breaker for you?” Monica asked.
Tracey gazed out over the grass. No more squirrels at play. “I always thought it would be, but there’s so much to consider. The kids. The time we’ve invested in our relationship and our home. We’re a family.”
“I see,” Monica said. “At least you didn’t tear him to shreds. If it were me, I don’t know. I’d have packed his things and thrown him out the house.”
Throw him out. Divorce. Yeah. All those thoughts had crossed Tracey’s mind a million times, but there was no point in putting him out now. He’d stopped the affair by himself, repented, and apologized. Putting him out would tear apart their family, and she’d only be doing it out of anger, not because she didn’t love him or want to understand him. Still. Tracey doubted her husband’s desire for Lisette disappeared overnight. Brian liked Lisette’s motivation and passion for life. Passion. Just thinking about it stirred up the hot lava feeling in Tracey’s chest. She pushed herself up from the bench.
“Let’s walk, Monica.” Tracey grabbed Monica’s arm and tugged her to her feet. “It’s better if we walk.”
They picked up the pace, moving from a slow stroll into a race-walk. Tracey looked at the pathway curving in front of them and quickly assessed she was not fit enough to continue the way Monica could.
“We’re going uphill now?” Tracey asked.
Monica had already quickened her pace and pulled away from Tracey. “Absolutely. That’s the only way to get there.”
“Get where?” Tracey muttered, moving her feet faster. “And why does it have to be uphill? Are uphill battles a way of life?”
Couldn’t life be simpler? Or could she at least grow more prepared for the challenges ahead of her, like she was while she walked? The two moved uphill, putting one foot in front of the other. Tracey forced herself up the steep incline her bestie climbed with fury. Why keep going?
She answered herself five minutes later when she reached the top of the hill. Because when you stop, you’re dead. The climb gave Tracey an epiphany. She caught up with Monica and stopped her for a second.
Tracey puffed. “Charla told me about this place in Westchester, where uh … there’s classes … stuff for women. She said it spiced up her marriage.” Tracey took a few seconds to catch her breath. “We need to get the ball rolling again. Someone has to. It might as well be me.”
“And you think this place can help you?”
“I don’t know. It’s something new. It can’t hurt.”
Monica smirked. “Let me guess, I have to come along?”
“What else is a bestie for?”
12
The Romance Place. A simple neon sign perched above the door stated the name and ensured no one mistook it for an office building. Heavy, dark glass doors and tinted windows kept the inside a secret from prying eyes. When Charla pulled open the door and ushered Tracey and Monica inside, the sweet aroma of vanilla, strawberries, and honey floated through the air so rich Tracey yearned to nibble on it. And the music. Gentle strings. Distant bell chimes. Water rushing. The music enveloped Tracey like a warm cashmere blanket. Instant relaxation.
Tracey and Monica traipsed in behind Charla, whose hair was now a short, chic cap of platinum-colored curls. She led them down a wide hallway. Wrought iron wall sconces held flickering faux candles that provided enough light to keep the women from bumping into each other. Tracey stopped when she reached a carpeted staircase. A huge store stood on one side, right before the staircase started.
Tracey rushed over and looked into the store. “Char, what’s in there? It’s beautiful. Is that a fireplace burning on the side wall?”
&nbs
p; “That’s the Love Shop,” Charla said. She stopped a few paces behind Tracey. “We’ll go in there later.”
“Forget the fireplace. What’s a mahogany sleigh bed doing in the middle of the floor?” Monica peered over Tracey’s head.
“That bed is for sale. But it’s been for sale for as long as I’ve been coming here,” Charla said.
“Oh I know! We get to see live demonstrations, huh Charla?” Tracey teased.
Charla linked arms with Tracey and guided her away from the glass doors. “What kind of a freak do you think I am? It’s just a sales gimmick. When you touch the sheets and pillows on it and feel how soft they are you’ll probably buy some.”
“This looks like something out of 1001 Arabian Nights. I love the smell,” Monica mused.
“The candles. I buy some each time I come here,” Charla said.
They climbed to the top of the stairs where Charla led them down another hall before opening a heavy wooden door. Tracey stepped inside and took a look around. She’d expected a dark room. A stage. Maybe couches or something. Instead she stared at a large dance studio. Overhead fluorescent lights. Hardwood floors. Mirrored walls. Two straight-back wooden chairs propped against one wall. In a corner sat a large wicker basket filled with fabric, scarves, and several different colored feathered boas. Another corner held a pile of plush pillows. Tracey twirled around staring at everything. Nope. No poles.
Women of various ages and races milled around toward the back of the room, hanging their bags and coats on hooks and changing their shoes. Talking. Laughing. Tracey’s eyes widened when she realized she saw only three women who looked to be in their twenties. The rest appeared to be in their mid-thirties and mid-forties. Some looked to even be in their fifties. Maybe they were attempting to get their groove back, too?
Charla tapped Tracey on the shoulder, knocking her out of her thoughts. “Did you bring your heels?”
“Yeah.” Tracey unzipped her shoulder bag and pulled out a pair of tall black high-heeled shoes. “If I have trouble dancing in them, do I have to keep them on?”
Broken Together Page 8
