A Delicate Truth

by McKnight, Zoe

  “Blair, can you see why your choice of words angered him?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I know, but he has to know it wasn’t so cavalier. I didn’t wake up one day and say, ‘I’m going to have an affair.’ I’d been living with so much anger and resentment for so long. I met him and—”

  I stop myself before I say “and one thing led to another,” because that will only incense Vaughn. I’m treading a thin line. If I make it sound haphazard and random, he’ll be pissed, but if I make it sound the least bit contrived, he’ll be equally angry and peg me sneaky and deceptive. I look to Dr. Lane for help. “I can’t put it in the right words. I don’t know how to explain how it came about. No, I didn’t set out to meet him or do what I did, nor did I casually fall into it. I … I don’t know how else to explain it.”

  “Well Vaughn, let me ask you a question,” Dr. Lane says. “Does it really matter how it happened? The result is all the same, correct?”

  His lips remained pursed. He offers a reluctant nod.

  “So can we agree that discussing the “how” is pointless? Seeing as how it will only cause more pain for everybody?”

  Again he nods. His eyes glued on the prairie dog in the painting.

  “But I think it’s important to talk about what feelings led Blair to that place. Because without addressing it we’ll never get to the root of the problem. Remember, the infidelity was only a symptom of the real issue. Unless we treat the underlying cause, we’ll make no progress.”

  “So the symptoms will keep coming back unless we find a cure? Is that what you’re saying?” Vaughn asks.

  “Exactly.”

  “Meaning it could happen again. Until she’s “cured”? He says with air quotes.

  “Well, I don’t mean it so literally, but something along those lines.”

  “It will never happen again,” I say. “I already know that. I wasn’t happy back then, I am now. I love Vaughn. He’s the only man I want to be with. I don’t see why we need to rehash the past. We’re over that. What we need is to figure out how to move forward.”

  Dr. Lane slowly shakes her head. “But how can you move forward until you address the past? Healing doesn’t work that way.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” I say, “to help Vaughn move past what I’ve done. To let go of his resentment. Not to discuss the past.”

  This session is turning left. I never expected to sit here and discuss the old me and the old Vaughn. I’ve forgiven him and now he needs to forgive me. I don’t dare say that aloud, but that’s the gist of it.

  Dr. Lane takes a sip from her Stanford mug. “I can understand your desire to sweep it under the rug, but trust me, Blair. If you avoid it, it will just resurface. That I can guarantee you.”

  “No, I can guarantee you it won’t. I don’t hold onto anything that Vaughn’s done. I let it all go. To me, it’s as if it never happened. We’re on a clean slate.”

  Again she shakes her head at me. This time with a hint of condescension. “If you really had let it go, you wouldn’t have had the affair. We like to think we have full control over our emotions, that we can will ourselves to forget, but it’s not always the case. Especially with men. Because they tend to keep so much to themselves, all bottled up. They rarely address their emotions. But eventually they’ll rise to the surface and not in a healthy way. You have to deal with it before you can move on.”

  “But you’re the one that said forgiving is a decision,” I remind her. “Doesn’t that mean it’s in your power to forgive or not? That’s what I did.”

  “It is a decision, but that’s the easy part. The hard part is, not letting it affect your decisions moving forward.”

  Vaughn scratches his jaw. “Doc, I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want the details. Just thinking about it makes me want to put my fist through the wall. To think about her with another man … I just wish I could take a pill and forget it. I almost wish I didn’t know, but I do and I’ll always know. Even if I want to forget, I’ll never be able to.”

  Dr. Lane’s curiosity is piqued. She can tell there’s much more to the story. “What makes you say that?”

  Oh, Vaughn stop. You’re saying too much.

  “Because I just know, I never will. I just want to be able to look at Blair and see the woman I fell in love with. Not the woman who did what she did. And it’s getting harder every day. When I laugh with her, I feel guilty. Like I’m betraying my better senses. Like I’m being duped. Like I’m falling for her game. When I touch her, I wonder if he touched her like that. I wonder if she’s comparing us in her mind. When her phone rings I wonder if he’s calling. When she leaves the house I wonder if she’s going to meet him. I wish I didn’t. God, I wish I could erase all these thoughts from my mind, but I just can’t.” He pounds a fist into his open palm. “Ya know, I always thought I was mentally strong ‘cause I never let things get to me. I know how to compartmentalize. Put things in their drawer and move on, but I just can’t when it comes to her. It consumes me. It’s all I think about. I try not to let her see that. Try and put a smile on my face and keep it moving, thinking ‘I’ll fake it ’til I make it,’ but this time it won’t work. And every time I look at Morgan, I…”

  “You what?” Dr. Lane slides to the edge of her seat. “What about looking at your daughter makes you so angry?”

  I turn to Vaughn and plead with my eyes. Do not say it. Please, do not say it. You promised. He rubs his temples then looks away. I think I even hear his teeth grinding. The air is thick and heavy. Our skeletons—well, my skeletons—are stationed on the other side of the door, the knob clutched in their bony grip, just waiting for the word. Waiting for the welcome they need to twist the knob and enter.

  “Vaughn?” Dr. Lane says. “Why does looking at Morgan evoke your anger?”

  “Because.” He looks at me. “Because I don’t want to lose my family. Because Morgan is innocent and she doesn’t deserve to be hurt.”

  “And how do you see what happened between you and Blair impacting her?”

  “I don’t want to lose my family. Don’t want to do anything that will break up my family.”

  “Does that mean you’ve considered leaving Blair?”

  “I don’t want to lose my family.”

  There it is. Exactly what Elle said. If he leaves me, he loses Morgan. I’m his only cord to her. Without me, they have no ties. Is this why he forgave me? Is it me he still wants or the daughter he thought was his? I don’t know if I’ll ever know the answer and I’m not sure that I want to.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “Should we talk about it?”

  “About what?” Vaughn says as we pull into our garage.

  These are the first two words he’s said to me since we left Dr. Lane’s office. I’d thought we would walk away feeling lighter and steps closer to mending our marriage but somehow I think we’re further off course. Even from the side I can see that line creased into his forehead.

  “About what just happened. What we talked about today.”

  He shifts the gear into park and turns off the ignition. Without the roar of the engine, our silence is even louder.

  “What’s there to talk about? I just need to get through this my own way.”

  “She said we should work through this together. I want to do my part. Whatever it takes to help you forget.”

  He twists the keys in his hand. “Forgetting is not an option. We both know that.”

  “It can be. We just have to try.”

  “We?”

  “Yes.” I reach for his hand. “We. We both have to try and move past this. For the sake of our family.”

  “You don’t have to try, Blair. Because she’s yours. Your blood runs through her veins. She’ll always be a part of you.”

  I can’t deny his words but I search for something, anything to assure him that he’s not going to lose her, although I don’t know that he won’t.

  The following weeks pass without incident. Dylan’s calls have ceased. I k
now it’s the coward’s way out, refusing to speak to him, but what can I say? What happened between us was wrong. It was misleading. Detrimental to both of our futures. I’m hoping he’ll come to the same realization and let it go. My original goal, to have him drop the suit, is now hanging in the balance. Things can go either way now. Based on his feelings for me, he’ll either be benevolent enough to drop it or he’ll press on, driven by anger because of what happened. He may even think it was my plan to sleep with him, to manipulate him. But how could he believe such a thing? There’s no way I could have faked that. What happened between us was real, we fell into it, the same way we fell into it when we first met.

  We had tried to stop it before it began. Many times. As much as I’d wanted to retaliate, cheating didn’t come easy for me. Nor did it for Dylan. He tried to create distance between us by passing off my assignment to a colleague. But we could never stay apart for long. One week it would be me, telling him I couldn’t see him anymore. At first he’d say he understood and that as much as he didn’t want to see me go, he knew it was for the best. I wouldn’t get far though, because he’d consume my thoughts and I’d find a “business” reason to contact him. And soon our emails would move past work, to small talk, to “maybe we should meet for coffee,” then lunch, and soon I’d be back in his bed. Other times it would work the other way. He’d call it off. Tell me if he couldn’t have me all to himself he had to leave me alone. I’d pretend to understand and promise not to call or contact him. Then a random text would make its way to my phone. Often times just three words. “I miss you.” It was all I needed to reach out to him. This cycle went on for months until we decided to just stop playing these games and accept what it was. That we were having an affair.

  Vaughn and I go through the motions. Things between us resume a sense of normalcy. Well, as normal as they can be under the circumstances. He vacillates between loving and hating me. I’ve grown to recognize both emotions, even the transition from one to another. When I feel the tension rising, either because his words grow terse or he gets to staring out at space, I leave the room or somehow find a way to get out of his face. When he’s loving me or wanting to love me I make myself available and reciprocate his feelings to the best of my ability. Dr. Lane is helping us little-by-little, even agreeing to see Vaughn alone on the occasions he needs it. I don’t expect to get my life back overnight, I’m simply grateful that he’s trying, whether it be solely because he loves me or because I’m part and parcel of the whole package. Whichever the case, I’ll take it. I know that in a matter of time I can make him love me the way he used to. Until then, I’ll wait.

  I sift through the mail. Everyday expecting some legal papers to show up and rock our fledgling semblance of peace. Every time there’s none, I breathe a sigh of relief. I shuffle through subscriptions, bills and junk mail before I come across a plain white envelope addressed to me. The handwriting is unmistakable. I resist the urge to rip it open right there and then. My heart gallops as I bound up the steps two at a time. I close my bedroom door behind me then sit on the bed and delicately open it.

  Blair,

  You won’t return my calls, so I have no choice but to write. It’s probably better that you didn’t. When you left that day, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I would have said anything, done anything to make you stay. But it’s that kind of thinking that got me into this trouble to begin with.

  I always knew what we were doing was wrong, it went against everything I stood for. But I rationalized it because of how I felt for you, and how I thought you felt about me. I thought your marriage was just an inconvenient reality and that the two of us were meant to be together. Thought that was the path we were on, and when I realized I was wrong, I lost myself. When you told me it was over, I felt like someone kicked me in my chest. Like I’d never laugh or smile again. Like my best days were behind me. And just when I started to think clearly and pull things together, I saw you at the Marriott. Pregnant. With our child. All the progress I’d made came unraveled.

  It’s a place I don’t ever want to revisit. For that reason, I was ready to walk away. I wanted no parts of anything associated with you, even if it was a part of me. To be honest, I was hoping she was Vaughn’s so I could wash my hands of it all. But then I saw that magazine and saw her face and I just knew. Then in person at the zoo and I couldn’t walk away if I tried and believe me I did. Just like I could never seem to walk away from you.

  Blair, I love you. A part of me always will but I see now that we’re not right for each other. And as much as I hate to admit it, you belong with Vaughn.

  So, where do we go from here? I don’t know. The question keeps me up at night. I wish I knew a way to make this all easier for everyone, but I don’t. I’ll walk away from you because I have to, but I won’t walk away from my daughter. If I do, I’ll never forgive myself. So if there’s any part of you which still loves me, please don’t ask me to.

  D.S.

  I reread the letter three, maybe four more times. I try to place my finger on exactly what it is that I’m feeling, but I can’t. Am I sad? Yes, definitely. Sad for him, for me and for Vaughn. Sad that what he and I had is now irrevocably over. This letter is his resignation, his official bow out of the Blair and Dylan saga. The same one we ended two years ago. Although I think we both knew there remained a few unwritten chapters. Chapters I wrote by sleeping with him again.

  Not only am I sad, but I’m sorry. For giving him a false sense of something, for opening his closed wound. I keep hurting this man, only each time I slice him with a sharper blade. He’s in Philadelphia right now, mending a heart broken thrice over and here in New Jersey, one story below me, sits another man making a strenuous effort to move past the pain I’ve caused him. Next door lies the little girl caught in the middle, clueless to all of the strife surrounding the right to be her father. And here I stand in my bedroom, the purveyor of it all. The black widow who’s trapped not one, but two men in her web. I have no desire to cry or to sleep or even to swallow a dose of prescription pills. Instead, I sit on the balcony in the cold November air and absorb the pain. The raw, unadulterated pain. My only prayer is that ‘this too shall pass.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  It is the third Thursday of November. I’d opted for a quiet Thanksgiving at home, but Vaughn insisted we have guests. He believes a house full of people will lighten the sullen mood that’s settled between our walls. Dr. Lane seconded the motion, saying that holidays are often difficult when couples are in a bad place and the distraction would probably do us good. So, I coordinated some last minute catering to host dinner for our family and close friends. As soon as the curtains were drawn, Vaughn and I took our places on stage, and resumed our long-running roles as happy husband and wife.

  The night winds down. After everyone has had seconds and thirds, I give Larry, our twenty-something-year-old bartender, permission to leave early.

  “Cool! I’ll just finish making this last drink.” He fills a glass a third of the way with Bombay Sapphire.

  “You head out and enjoy your holiday. I’ll give it to them.” I take the glass from his hand. “Who’s it for?”

  He points to the far end of the room. “Her. By the window. In the pink sweater.”

  I follow his finger and my eyes land on the aforementioned sweater. A pink cashmere sweater. The same one I complimented Norah on when she first arrived.

  “Her? Are you sure?” My eyes sweep the room, hoping to find another woman wearing pink. There are none.

  “Yup. She’s been drinking gimlets all night.” A proud smile crosses his face. “It’s my job to remember what people are drinking.”

  I sniff the glass, hoping my senses will tell another story. But sure enough I smell the distinct odor of gin.

  “Something wrong? Did I do something wrong?” he asks.

  No, I think to myself, I did something wrong. I should’ve told him not to serve her any alcohol, but I didn’t think I needed to. Norah’s been doing so well, or so I b
elieved. Since she’s come out of rehab, she’s been a different woman. Her spirits have lifted, she appears focused and finally on stable ground. Ashley reported that Norah’s mood swings were gone, and they’ve been on a steady track of rebuilding their relationship. Even she and I have been getting along better.

  Why tonight? Why would she choose tonight of all times to fall off the wagon? I always thought those things happened in a dark room somewhere when people are alone and depressed. Not on a holiday when they’re surrounded by family and friends. Why now?

  I assure Larry that all is well then give him permission to leave.

  After everything we’ve been through. After all of the promises and apologies, she’s back at it. Forty-two days, twelve steps and thirty-thousand dollars—all down the drain. I watch her in the corner, laughing and joking with Vaughn’s brother, James. He hasn’t a clue that he’s standing beside an alcoholic. One who’s been lying to all of our faces.

  “What’s wrong?” Elle asks, as she refreshes a drink for Luke. “Who are you staring at?”

  I hold the glass in my hand up to her nose. “Norah’s.”

  She inhales. “What? Are you serious? I thought—”

  “We all thought.”

  Elle shakes her head sadly. “What are you going to do? Are you going to say anything?”

  I don’t have an answer for her. I won’t cause a scene on Thanksgiving. Not in front of everybody. My mom would only deny it then ask me if I’m sure it’s Norah’s glass and if I’m positive it’s gin. And the last thing I want to do is embarrass Ashley in front of her new boyfriend. If he sticks around he’ll find out soon enough just how dysfunctional her family is.

  “No, I’ll talk to her tomorrow,” I tell Elle. “I don’t want to ruin the night.”

  “I never would have guessed. She seems sober.”