by AnonYMous
This was one of the most difficult decisions I’d ever made, and I didn’t want the wrong lawyer to make it even harder. Jerry and I had a home and a child to consider, so I needed sound legal advice, not something a lawyer had repeated a thousand times.
The other three attorneys wanted to “nail him to the wall.” I didn’t want that, either. As hurt and angry as I was, I didn’t want to destroy the father of my child. He had a right to see Heidi, but I didn’t think he’d want full custody. Most of all, I didn’t want to set a bad example for my daughter by carrying on a long, drawn-out war with her father.
That afternoon, I went to see a kindly older man with white hair and blue eyes, who seemed to peer deep into my soul and see exactly what was important to me.
“The biggest mistake I see women make is rushing into a divorce,” he said. “Unfortunately, sometimes that’s the only thing you can do. I am very sorry you’re going through this right now.”
I took the tissue he offered and asked him what my rights were.
“Can you prove adultery?” he asked. “By that I mean can you furnish some sort of proof that he’s actually seeing someone else?”
“I…I don’t know.” I sniffled. “Her husband said—”
“Unfortunately, that’s hearsay,” he told me. “In this state, you can divorce easily enough. But when it comes to division of property, custody of a child, and alimony, the judge will consider other factors. Proof of adultery can help you in those areas.”
“I don’t know how to get it,” I whispered. “I need your best legal advice.”
“I’m happy to give it.” He smiled kindly. “I want you to go home and do the best you can for your child. Don’t do anything else right now. You need time to get your emotions under control. Can you do something to keep yourself busy?”
I nodded. “I don’t see the point.”
“If we rush this, you could lose out on many things that could be beneficial to you and your child. If we take our time, we can make sure that this is what you need to do, as well as establish just what kind of parent and husband he is. That will save the courts a lot of time.
“It’s not the easiest way,” he assured me. “But it is the best way, because you truly do need time to think about what is important. I have one client who has divorced and remarried the same man three times. I charged her for the first two divorces, but this last one I did for free. I couldn’t believe someone could be that wishy-washy about a relationship.”
He stood up and walked me to the door. “It would be helpful if you and your daughter got into therapy so that you can work through some of the painful issues with a professional. I want you to call me on Friday afternoon every week and tell me how it’s going.”
I left his office knowing that he’d just given me the strangest legal advice I’d ever heard. Although he hadn’t said anything that I had expected him to say, I liked what he’d told me.
The next day, I called a therapist I’d met once at a party. She agreed to see me the following week.
Jerry came home even before Heidi got out of school, probably to make sure I didn’t take her out to dinner again. He was pleasant and acted as if nothing had happened between us the night before.
I went along with it, more for Heidi’s sake than anything else. Inside, I was seething. I had no idea my husband was such a smooth liar.
“How was your day?” he asked.
“Great,” I replied. “And yours?”
“Well, I left early to take care of the Coleman account. I think old man Coleman is losing his mind. He never used to question our judgment when it came to his yearly advertising campaign, but this year, he made us pitch three proposals and he didn’t like any of them.”
Jerry went on and on about the Coleman account. I tried to pay attention, but inside I was screaming, You idiot, do you think I just fell off the last truck into town? I know you were with Linda!
But the truth was that I didn’t know that for sure. I suddenly realized just how difficult this was going to be. For the time being, I needed to sit on my hands and do nothing.
Jerry worked on Heidi’s homework with her after dinner. I fled to my room twice to cry softly into my pillow. The normal family sounds were scraping every nerve I had. I didn’t know if I could handle this much longer.
Once Heidi was in bed, I straightened up the living room before heading to my own room.
“I had a nice time tonight,” Jerry said as he came up behind me. “I guess I’ve been a real jerk.” He put his hands on my shoulders. “You are the most amazing woman I have ever met, and I don’t know why you put up with me.”
Was this a trick question? I stood as still as a post and tried to figure out what Jerry was getting at. He turned me around slowly so that I faced him.
Then he lifted my chin with his thumb. “If you’d give me a chance, I could be everything you want me to be.”
My knees buckled, and I sort of leaned into him as he kissed me. How far was he going to go with this before racing out the door and into Linda’s arms? My lawyer told me to play along, and I was too curious by now not to.
When his hands found their way to my breasts, I suddenly found myself wanting him with an animal lust that can only be explained as a raw, competitive desire to keep my husband out of Linda’s clutches.
I began to tear his clothes from him, murmuring my desire. I wanted to cry and howl in pain, but at the same time, I wanted him. I wanted to feel his love and his heat and his passion one last time.
We never even made it to the bedroom. I raked his back with my long fingernails. I clung to him and demanded that he make love to me. I teased him, tormented him, and at long last, I gave him exactly what he wanted.
Once I’d had my own climax, I immediately felt ashamed and stupid for thinking that what we’d just done meant that he could love me. He was a lying, cheating dog, and I’d just fallen under his spell. I hated him and I hated myself. But I remembered my lawyer’s words.
I pushed Jerry aside, grabbed my clothes as gracefully as I could, and hurried from the room.
“Where are you going?” he called after me.
“To sleep! Oh, and thanks. I’m really relaxed now.” I know he heard me close and lock my bedroom door.
The next morning, as soon as Jerry had gone off to work and I’d dropped Heidi off at school, I began packing up his clothes, carefully putting all of his things into boxes. I called my attorney and thanked him for his advice. I was ashamed of myself, and I cried a little when I told him what had happened the night before.
“I have to get him out of this house before I lose my mind,” I explained. “Do you think I’m an awful client?”
“No, but don’t divorce him just yet. Asking him to leave is a different matter entirely. I think you’re very wise to take this step.”
I took a break in the afternoon and called my friend, Tina. “Can you take Heidi overnight?” I filled her in on what was going on between Jerry and me. “I need some time to get him out of the house. I’ve had it with him and his sneaking around.”
“I understand,” she said softly. “I hated having to ask Kirk to leave, but even though he said he was working on getting his life together, he never quite managed to be committed to the marriage. I can take Heidi for as long as you need me to.”
“Just overnight,” I told her. “I’ve already packed up his things, and I just don’t want her to be here when he picks them up.”
I picked up Heidi from school and took her straight to Tina’s house. There was no use in having her see her father’s things sitting on the front porch. I wanted to spare my child as much hurt as I could.
“I don’t know why you’re doing this!” Jerry screamed at me when I explained that he had to take his things and go. “You don’t just throw out your family because you’re tired of them!”
I tried to compose myself. “I’m sure Linda will take you in.”
Suddenly, my husband’s outrage evaporated as he started to
pick up a box. “How’d you find out?”
“I have my ways,” I replied. “The point is, you lied to me, and I feel as if I’ve wasted the past few months of my life on a man who will never love me.”
He carried the first box to his car and placed it in the trunk. “I might be able to love you. I’m pretty screwed up in my thinking right now. As soon as I get Linda out of my system, maybe then I’ll want us to be a real family.”
Was he kidding? What kind of family would we be? I’d be carrying around bitterness and resentment while he might still feel the occasional flicker for Linda. Worse, he might decide that because I was a long-suffering wife, he could have any woman he wanted and a family, too.
“I hope things work out for the two of you,” I stated flatly. “Good luck.” I hurried inside and leaned against the door, sobbing. He hadn’t even tried to deny his affair with Linda.
The next few days were difficult but not unbearable. In many ways, it was a relief not to have to deal with Jerry and his lies.
Every morning after I’d bring Heidi to school, I’d peruse the employment ads in search of just the right job for myself. I had a college degree, but it had been so long since I’d been a part of the workforce, I wasn’t sure it was going to do me any good.
I tried to keep our schedule as normal as possible for Heidi’s sake. I even went to the library on my regular day. The titles of the books I checked out spoke volumes about how I felt.
I had a book about financial security for divorced women, a book about getting revenge, a book about why women stay in dysfunctional relationships, and a novel that promised to remind me of my first love and the passion of a first romance.
“I don’t know how we’re going to get by,” one of the librarians was saying to the one checking out my books. “She just quit. She didn’t even bother to put it in writing.”
“Tough break,” Beth, the librarian said. She gave me a quick smile. “The librarian we hired for the children’s library lasted four months and then quit on us.”
“Why?” I asked.
The two women looked at me as if I’d asked something outrageous.
“It’s a really tough job,” Alma explained. “You’re constantly straightening books, telling stories for story time, and trying to keep one step ahead of the kids whose parents just drop them off and leave them here after school so we can babysit them.”
“Why not organize an afternoon program with activities for those kids and charge the parents for it?” I suggested.
“Who’d run it?” Beth asked. “We can’t even hire someone to work a regular nine-to-five around here. Nobody wants this job.”
“I’d take it,” I heard myself say. “I’d love to be here working with books all day long.”
Alma snorted, “You’d burn out just like everyone else. Besides, you have to have a degree in—” She paused. “Well, you have to have a college degree that is compatible with library work.”
“Would elementary education do?” I asked.
Beth nodded vigorously. “It sure would.”
“Hire me,” I said. “Give me six months. I promise I won’t disappoint you.”
Alma spoke first. “Bring us a résumé, and I’ll see what I can do.”
Becoming a part of the library staff was a dream come true. I’d always secretly imagined working in a library, and despite what Alma and Beth said about the work and the patrons, I loved everything about it. The best part was that the library wasn’t far from Heidi’s school, so she came there every day and did her homework while I finished up.
“There you are!” Drew walked up to me one afternoon as I straightened the shelves. “How are you doing?”
“Very well.” I grinned. “I love my job here, and Heidi and I are doing great.”
“I’m glad.” He smiled sadly. “Linda filed for divorce last week.”
“I’m so sorry.” I felt bad for him because he was so sad and so hurt by this whole thing. He’d clearly loved his wife with all of his heart, and she’d taken that love and trampled it.
“Is there anything I can do?” I asked.
“Do you want to listen to me cry?” He shrugged his shoulders, and I could tell that he was very close to tears.
“I’m due for a break,” I told him. “Meet me across the street at the coffee shop in ten minutes.”
He was there, sitting in the back at a table, looking even more forlorn than he had in the library.
“I want her back,” he sighed. “I know that sounds crazy, considering what she’s done, but I really want her back.”
He began to tell me more about their marriage than I wanted to know. I had been angry with Linda for what she’d done to me. As I listened to Drew, I began to really hate her for what she was doing to her own husband. He wasn’t the greatest looking guy on the block, but he was loyal and that seemed like a sexier trait to me than anything else.
“Drew,” I interrupted, “it seems to me that you’re going about this all wrong. You say you want Linda to love you, but you want her to do all the changing.”
“Yes—because she’s been unfaithful. She broke her marriage vows.”
“Drew, you have to accept responsibility for getting involved with her in the first place and for loving her. You need to work to improve yourself and your life. You can’t change her any more than I can change Jerry. I love him, but my love isn’t strong enough to make him want to act like a married man. I have to work on improving my own life.”
Drew shook his head slowly back and forth. He finally looked up, his eyes shining with tears. “I know you’re right. I just don’t know where to start.”
“Did you read the books I recommended?” I asked.
“Yeah, I don’t know if I understood them, though. All I figured out is that men and women do not think alike.”
“That’s a start.” I laughed.
We went back to the library, where I heaped his arms full of books and told him I’d meet with him in two weeks so we could review what he’d learned. Then I watched as he ambled from the library, his grief evident in his walk.
Two weeks later, Drew showed up right on time, wearing an old plaid shirt and some work pants that had seen better days. Jerry was a very sharp dresser, and I knew that appearance can not only make a person more attractive, but it can help them feel better about themselves.
I decided to bring this up to Drew. “I think you’d feel better if you wore some of your better clothes sometimes.”
“I’m not sure I have any,” he replied. “Linda used to buy my things. Every Christmas, she gave me four pairs of work pants and four new shirts.”
I could feel my heart turning even harder against Linda. What kind of woman honored her husband by giving him a lousy gift like that? It wasn’t even a gift, because she was spending his money on things he needed for his job.
“Would you like to go shopping?” I asked.
He hung his head. “I don’t know.”
“Saturday morning,” I told him. “Heidi will be with her father all weekend, and you and I will go shopping.”
“I hope I can afford all this,” he said, smiling.
I laughed and told him I knew of some discount stores that would have clothes in his size.
On Saturday morning, Drew knocked on my door. I nearly laughed aloud when I saw him. He was in a cowboy shirt, a cowboy hat, and well-worn jeans. They weren’t exactly the clothes I’d had in mind, but there was something attractive about him.
“These boots hurt my feet,” he remarked as he walked me to his truck. Like a true gentleman, he opened the door for me and I slid in. It was evident that he was very proud of his truck because he kept it in excellent condition.
“Why are you wearing boots that hurt your feet?” I asked.
“These were my dating clothes when I met Linda.”
Now I understood—they were the best clothes he had. I thought it was really sweet that he had gone out of his way to look nice for me. I took him to a shoe
store first, where we bought him three pairs of shoes: black ones, brown ones, and running shoes.
“These are like walking on air,” he claimed as he bounced around in them. “Very nice.”
His childlike enthusiasm made me smile. We headed to a big department store.
“Cora, are you gonna dress me in a Craftsman suit?” he joked.
“You just wait.” I grinned. “You’ll be beating women off with a stick.”
He sighed, “I’m not interested in beating women. I miss caressing a woman and doing things for a woman.”
I imagined those lovely, large hands caressing me. I hated Linda for what she’d done to him. How could she have ever left a treasure of a man like this for someone as insensitive as Jerry?
When Drew came out of the dressing room in new jeans and a soft wool sweater, I nearly fainted. The beaten-down Drew who shuffled when he walked had been replaced by a playful, sexy man who looked much more confident.
“I think we need to get you a few sports shirts—and maybe a sports coat,” I added.
“I’d like to buy a suit,” he said as he gazed at himself in the mirror. “Could you help me pick one out? I want to go to church.”
“Church?” I went to church as often as I could, which lately hadn’t been too often. But I had never heard Linda mention that they attended church. I said this to Drew.
“Oh, she never cared much for religion. I guess you might think I’m silly, but sometimes I sneaked off to church while we were married. I just didn’t want to fight with her about it. I pray every day, too.”
We found him a nice brown suit. I picked out two shirts and a couple of ties. We also learned that we are of the same faith, and I promised Drew to go to church with him the following day.
What a day that was! Drew came to pick me up, and we arrived right on time. We had to squeeze into a crowded pew near the back. We were sitting so close I could feel the heat radiating from Drew’s body. I could smell his aftershave.
I tried to pretend that I wasn’t feeling anything, but when we knelt to pray and he placed his hand over mine, I had a strong longing for this man.