Funeral with a View

by Schiariti, Matt

  I’d almost cheated. No. I had cheated. Sandy and I didn’t have sex, but I went too far, emotionally and physically. I’d cheated on my wife as soon as I gave up on her. My betrayal started in that instant when I stopped fighting. It didn’t matter that I’d stopped it before it developed into anything more. It mattered that it had started in the first place. I’d cheated Catherine out of a husband who was supposed to be there for her in sickness and in health, in good times and bad.

  My skin stopped stinging and became numb.

  All the hot water in the world would never erase what I’d done.

  After a time, the warm water turned tepid. Steam curled around me as I stepped out of the shower and tied the towel around my waist, skin pink from the bombardment of heat.

  The couch. I would sleep on the couch, if my conscience allowed it. I told myself I didn’t deserve to sleep next to Catherine.

  I gathered a spare pillow and blanket from the linen closet, almost forgetting to brush my teeth.

  “Dammit,” I muttered, walking back into the wall of superheated air.

  My hand paused over the faucet.

  In the foggy mirror, written in simple, no-frills lettering were the words “Come To Bed?”

  Catherine had snuck in during my shower, left me the message. That it was phrased as a question struck me. She was uncertain. With how we left things before my trip, I understood the sentiment. One hand gripping the edge of the vanity, I swiped away the question mark with the other, leaving a clear patch of mirror. I stared into my own eyes. What I saw was a man determined.

  Never again. Never again would I be anything less than what my wife deserved. Never again would I emotionally check out. From that point on, no matter what life threw at us, I’d be there, better, worse, and everything in between.

  I set my jaw, choked down the current version of myself, the ‘Anti-Ricky’, and walked with a purpose to our room, the pillow and towel left forgotten on the floor.

  Everything was still, and the need to be close to Catherine was overwhelming. I lay next to her, draping my arm over her hip.

  “Hey,” she said, her voice shedding the thickness of sleep.

  “Hey.”

  “I’m glad you’re home safe, Ricky.” She turned over to face me, ambient light glimmering in her eyes.

  “Me, too.” Several moments of complete silence passed. “Cat—”

  “Shhh.” I felt a finger press to my lips in the dark, and I closed my eyes. “I’ve missed you.”

  Three words that said so much more. The subtext was clear. She didn’t only mean my absence during the conference, but the awful times leading up to it. I knew her well enough to read between the lines and absorb the full weight of each syllable.

  “I’ve missed you, too,” I replied after a brief pause. “But I’m back now.”

  She nodded against my shoulder. I felt tears drip onto my skin. Each one erased the numbness left by my purging shower, and I felt the beginnings of life creep back into me.

  “I’m so, so sorry, Ricky,” she sniffled. “For everything.”

  “I know, baby,” I said soothingly, running my thumbs over her wet cheeks. “So am I.”

  Catherine pushed the blanket aside and straddled me with her naked body. The ceiling fan teased at the curtains. A patch of moonlight found its way in and hugged her form, making a luminous outline of her smooth, supple skin. She placed me deep inside, shuddering as her warmth enveloped me. No protection. If she was fine with it, I was fine with it. Consequences be damned. We’d deal with whatever came our way. I believed it from balls to bones.

  Making love that night was like hearing an old favorite song. It doesn’t take long before words you’d thought you’d never remember come to you with startling clarity and familiarity. Once that first note makes itself known, it’s as if you’d never gone without listening to it.

  We stayed silent, letting our bodies sing the familiar tune. Not a word needed to be said.

  Her hips brought us to simultaneous climax, and I lost myself inside her. She kissed me, her tear-streaked face to mine, our sweaty bodies pressed together. She lay beside me, crushing her skin to mine as if she couldn’t get close enough, trembling.

  She’d cried the entire time, her tears raining down on my chest.

  “I’m so, so sorry, Ricky,” she whispered, and I held her tighter. “It’ll never happen again, I promise.”

  My heart jumped into my throat, the events of the conference picking their way through my brain with ragged, gnarly claws.

  “Never again,” I said, caressing her bare back and shoulders as she drifted off to sleep, our limbs intertwined. “Really really.”

  CHAPTER 53

  The rock skipped twice before the water consumed it. I picked up another from among the countless thousands which dotted the shoreline of Mercer County Lake. It was warm in my hand. I ran my thumb over its surface, smoothed from time and the elements, all of its jagged imperfections erased by the constant attention of nature.

  Dusk was closing down for the day, ready to make way for the nightshift. Stars had already begun to poke through the pastel sky. They twinkled faintly, as if stretching their legs prior to a big performance.

  It would be dark soon and the park would close until the dayshift punched its timecard.

  I’d texted Bill a few days after getting back from the conference, too much of a coward to call or show up at his house, asking he meet me at a certain place at a certain time. As of yet, he was absent. I couldn’t blame him if he didn’t show up. With the way I’d been acting, I’d have stood me up, too.

  The stone whizzed through the air, jumped off the water twice, and sunk into the blue.

  “You never could get the hang of that.”

  Bill’s shadow grew large in front of me, eclipsing my own. With a flick of the wrist, he sent a stone sailing to the water on a flat trajectory. It hit the surface at a shallow angle, once, twice, three, then four times.

  “That’s how it’s done, Rick. All in the wrist, man.”

  “You always were better than me,” I admitted.

  He shrugged his massive shoulders, stretching the fibers of his black T-shirt to their limit. “Just at skipping rocks. And football. And pool. But not at anything that counted for shit. Try another one.”

  I used my wrist this time. Three graceful skips.

  “That’s more like it,” he said. “You’ll be better than me in no time.”

  “Doubt it.” I shoved my hands in my pockets. My fingertips throbbed from the gnashing I’d give them as I waited for Bill to show up.

  “You didn’t drag me out here to skip rocks, Rick.”

  “No.”

  He shifted his weight nervously from foot to foot. Bill was cagey, about ready to pace or bolt.

  “How are things with Angela?” I said, drawing an amorphous pattern in the stones with the tip of my sneaker.

  “Angela?” He looked surprised.

  “Yeah, Angela. Cat told me you talked about her a lot over the weekend.”

  “Right. Yeah. They’re okay I guess.” Another shrug. “We’re talking again, so that’s something at least.”

  “Good. That’s good. Better than nothing, right?”

  “Could be worse. What else did Cat have to say?”

  “Nothing, really. Just that you got together and talked. Why?”

  “Just curious.”

  I picked up another stone, but let it fall to the ground.

  “I’ve been a shit, Bill,” I eventually said.

  “You’re entitled.”

  I allowed myself the ghost of a smile. There was no way he’d deny it. I knew him too well to have expected that.

  “I didn’t mean what I said.”

  “Sure you did.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “How long have we been friends, Rick? Don’t answer. I’ll tell you. We’ve been friends long enough for me to know that you’re a shitty liar.”

  “Shittier than
I am at skipping rocks?”

  “And football, and pool. Yes. But,” he said, looking out over the water, “you were right. I don’t like to admit it, but it’s true. You know me.” Stepping into it, he wound up and flung a golf ball-sized rock out over the lake, where it landed with a large plop fifty feet out. “Good with numbers, bad with people.”

  “Things have been so screwed up lately. I haven’t been myself.”

  “I know.” Of course he did. I was sure he and my wife had discussed me plenty while I was away. Why wouldn’t they? I’d treated them both like crap. Cat didn’t give me the blow by blow of their get together, but those were blanks easily filled in. I refused to be angry about it, because I understood the need to vent. With all my puking over the years, there was no way I’d point a finger at either of them for having a Ricky Is a Douchebag bitch session. “You and me both,” he added.

  “I shouldn’t have taken all this shit with Cat out on you.”

  “Everybody’s got their limits. Like I said, you’re entitled to be a dick once in a while.”

  “Still, I feel bad for not being there for you guys when you needed me.”

  Bill heaved a monstrous sigh. “Take off your martyr dress, Nancy. None of us were. People fuck up. It’s what we do, some worse than others.” A pause. “You have to stop acting like everything’s your fault all the time, Rick. No offense, but it’s pretty annoying.”

  “I know. You’re right.”

  “It happens. Even broken clocks are right twice a day.”

  “This is a serious conversation,” I said, hoping to ease some of the tension.

  “It is.”

  “It’s like, all mature and shit.”

  “We should knock it off,” Bill suggested.

  “We really should,” I agreed.

  “People will come to expect it from us.”

  “All the time.”

  “We can’t have that.”

  “No way, no how,” I said, hefting another rock, smooth as glass from the wind and elements, and thought about the fight it must have put up over the years to maintain its jagged form only to be worn down to something better, something closer to perfect. It brought to mind all the trials I, we, had been through. Maybe all the pain we experience as people is meant to do the same thing to us as the wind and rain did to the rock I held in my hand. To make us better people than we thought ourselves capable of.

  I told Bill as much.

  He looked at me seriously.

  Then burst out laughing.

  “Are you shitting me?” he said once he’d gotten his wind back. “Have you been watching Tony Robbins again?”

  “I’m being serious, asshole,” I said, laughing.

  “Well stop it. Enough’s enough for one day.”

  Our conversation trailed into silence. Before it dragged on too long, I said, “We okay now, Bill?”

  He gave me a fist bump. “Yeah, we’re okay.”

  The rumble of a quad driving over the hill behind us interrupted our bro moment. A park ranger yelled down at us.

  “Is that Bill Henly? What in the ever-loving Hell are you doing in my park?”

  Bill smiled. “Be back in a second, Ricky. I know this guy.”

  After a few minutes of conversation, the two shook hands and the ranger took off.

  “Come on, Rick,” Bill hollered, waving me up. “I bought us some extra time in the parking lot before they kick us out.”

  By the time we made it to his Nissan 300 Z, night had fallen. The stars were brilliant, shimmering pin pricks in the sky.

  “Can’t believe how bright they are tonight,” I said, leaning against his car.

  “Ambient light usually kills them. It’s not so bad out here in the sticks.”

  “You learned that on Nat-Geo, didn’t you.”

  “Yep. Careful. Don’t scratch the paint.”

  I turned around and leaned my elbows on the hood. “Better?”

  “Much.”

  “I did something stupid this weekend, Bill.”

  “Must’ve been going around,” he mumbled.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. So, this stupid thing you did. Let me guess. You got hammered at the conference and dove into the hotel pool naked?”

  “That would’ve been better, but no. I hooked up with my boss.”

  Bill went dead silent. With the parking lot light situated directly behind us, his face was in total shadow.

  “You fucked her?” he finally said.

  “No.” I gave him the Cliff’s notes of everything that had happened between me and Sandy. “I could have had sex with her, but I pulled back.”

  “You’re a better man than I am, Rick. That’s a fact.”

  “I’m a scumbag is what I am. I have to tell Cat.”

  Like a faceless specter, Bill grabbed my shoulders. “You’re not telling her anything.” His voice was harsh and unyielding.

  “If you know me half as well as you say you do, you’ll realize I can’t not tell her.” His grip tightened. “Bill ...”

  He let go, but reluctantly.

  “Look, Rick,” he said. “I know you have this weird compelling need to get shit off your chest, but trust me, telling Cat about you and Sandy is going to put you in a world of hurt. You don’t want to go down that road, not with you two just getting back on your feet again.”

  “She deserves to know the truth.”

  “The truth is overrated.”

  “That’s cold.”

  I heard him sigh. “You know what I mean. What does Sandy mean to you?”

  “Mean to me?”

  “You like her? Have a crush on her? What?”

  “It’s none of that. Yeah, I like her. She’s become a friend.”

  “But …?”

  “But that’s it.”

  “You sure?”

  I took a deep breath and told him the truth. “Yeah, I’m sure. Just friends. I was hurting, alone … it got out of control.”

  “It was only a kiss, Rick.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  Bill shook his head emphatically. “That’s where you’re wrong. It is the point. It’s the whole goddamn point. It meant nothing. A kiss isn’t the end of the world.”

  “Still—”

  “There are worse things.”

  “Maybe.”

  “No. Not maybe. Let me ask you this. Would you want to know if Cat had kissed someone else?”

  It only took a moment to contemplate the question. “Probably not.”

  “Exactly my point,” he said, holding up a finger. “You swallow this, Rick. You find a way to live with it and forget about it. It never happened. Understand?”

  “I’m not sure I can do that.”

  “You find a way. Dig down deep and stow that shit in a locker somewhere in a dark corner. We screw up all the time, but that doesn’t make us scumbags. What happened doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, man. It only means you’re human.”

  I’d never seen Bill so adamant about anything before.

  “Don’t go and screw up a good thing, Rick,” he continued. “It meant nothing. You made a mistake, plain and simple. Let it go.”

  Sighing, I shook my head and looked up at the sky. I felt the weight of the infinite blackness. The stars seemed brighter and more active against the dark backdrop.

  “It looks like they’re talking.” I nodded to the sky when Bill gave me a questioning glance. “The stars.”

  “Which is something you shouldn’t do,” he said. “Not about this. I’m not kidding, Ricky. Don’t do it.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. You’re probably right.”

  CHAPTER 54

  About a month had passed.

  Things at home were better. Much better in fact. They weren’t perfect, never would be, but the tension was gone. Catherine and I were close again, emotionally and physically. We discussed where we’d been and where we were going. We’d begun trying for a baby again, going so far as to schedule an appointment with
Dr. Ann to go over the details of genetic testing. Laughter and intimacy filled our home, having returned from their overlong sabbatical. They’d been missed. To sum up, I had my wife back, my best friend back, my life and marriage back. I felt as if I could finally breath.

  There is, however, always a ‘but’.

  I felt as if I could finally breath but for Sandy and that damned conference.

  In my quieter moments, when I found myself idle and alone with my thoughts, my betrayal sprung from nowhere, a dark Jack In The Box intent on startling me into an admission of guilt. Fighting my instinct to tell Catherine about what I’d almost done and did do bothered me like a persistent itch between the shoulder blades.

  It was clear to me that I wasn’t the only one trying to cope with the post-conference consequences.

  The climate at work had changed in those subsequent weeks. Gone was the chummy relationship Sandy and I had enjoyed prior to finding ourselves in a heap of limbs and discarded clothing on that hotel floor. Other than business conversations, we didn’t speak. No more movie quotes lobbed back and forth, no more idle banter. Nothing. Those things were replaced by short-lived smiles and furtive waves when we ran into each other outside of meetings.

  I was ashamed by what I’d done.

  Sandy was embarrassed by it.

  There was no way I’d talk to Catherine about any of this. The more I thought about it, the more I knew Bill was right, no matter how shitty it was; a lie of omission is still a lie. In order to close that chapter of my life, I’d have to clear the air with one Sandra Colbert. Things couldn’t continue on their current path. I’d learned the hard way that my work life bled into my home life and vice versa. Not good. Not good at all.

  That Monday took its sweet time arriving. The whole weekend had been tainted by the prospect of approaching Sandy, and I spent most of it pacing and chewing my fingernails to the nub. My odd behavior hadn’t gone unnoticed, and when asked about it, I’d given Catherine flimsy excuses about stress at the office. Not a lie, but not the complete truth, either. My stress was work-related. It just didn’t have anything to do with my actual job.