Savannah rose, slowly, and with a grace that I’m sure had people often mistaking her for a dancer, slid onto my lap and rested her head on my shoulder.
We spent the rest of the evening quietly talking near the fire, basking in anonymity. Breathing air free of judgment. A place where we could be anybody or nobody. Together. We made love that night until we both collapsed in exhaustion, and again when we awoke.
In the morning I drove the rental car down the side of the mountain, taking each switchback through the forest slowly, nearly coming to a stop at each magnificent vista. We were a third of the way down the mountainside when both of our cell phones began to chirp with missed calls, text messages, voicemails, which both of us, wordlessly, ignored. We didn’t discuss it. We didn’t agree to it. We said nothing. But I couldn’t avoid seeing tears that slowly rolled down her cheeks, the tears that reflected the slanting rays of the sun.
I started to say something, and she simply held out a hand, palm up, toward me. Telling me to stop. And so I shut up, took her hand in mine, and I drove, back toward the tour, back toward our lives. And she cried. And inside, I did the same.
We got back to the hotel at noon. I returned the rental car then finally checked my messages. I’d been trading voicemails and text messages with Karin for three days. It was Saturday, she wouldn’t be working, and I wouldn’t be able to put it off much longer.
We’d managed to keep our conversations short and businesslike for most of the last weeks. She knew, or suspected, about Savannah. I knew about her coming off the birth control pills and seeing a fertility doctor without my agreement. We were at a stalemate, and I absolutely refused to address the subject on the phone from thousands of miles away.
So that day, when I called from my room, I had more than a little tension and anxiety.
“Hello?”
I swallowed, and said, “Hey.”
“Gregory? It’s been a … couple days.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve been busy.” I felt a lump in my throat. Whatever else I was … I didn’t like to think of myself as a liar. And yet, here I was, lying. Because I hadn’t been busy. I’d been avoiding talking to her. Because I was sleeping with another woman. No matter how much of a gulf we had in our marriage, that wasn’t right.
“How is the tour?”
I cleared my throat then said, “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“It’s going well.”
“Gregory ... what’s going on? You don’t sound like you.”
A stab of irritation flashed through me. I wanted to say, of course I don’t. You tried to trap me into having children I didn’t want. I wanted to say, I’m in love with another woman. I wanted to say, I’m leaving.
I said nothing for a moment and simply took a breath because I didn’t want to lose my temper. I didn’t know who was at fault here more or less or what. I knew that I needed to tread very carefully. I knew that whatever she had done, I was the one who had been unfaithful. I was the one who had lied, systematically, for the entire summer.
So it didn’t make sense that I was so angry with her.
But I was. I’d never been so angry in my life.
“I’m just not feeling well. The tour has been exhausting,” I said. I was telling the truth. Just not all of it.
She didn’t answer. And so we sat there, in an uncomfortable silence, for fifteen seconds or thirty or a minute or ten. I don’t know how long it was. I only know it was excruciating. Finally she said, “Call me tomorrow?”
“Look ... we need to talk. Can you fly out here? Tomorrow? Our next stop is in Billings, Montana.”
She hesitated. “You want me to fly to Montana? Why?”
“Karin ... please. I’ll make the reservations. Get the time off work.”
In a hesitant tone, she said, “All right. I love you.”
I disconnected without answering, and then sat down, staring out the window. Wishing.
“I know it seems crazy. But I’ll miss you,” Savannah said.
I took a deep breath and said into the phone, “I’ll miss you too.”
I kept the phone to my ear, though for the next thirty seconds or so, neither of us spoke. My eyes scanned the signs for Domestic Arrivals as I turned into the airport.
“I love -”
“Don’t say it,” she interrupted.
I cleared my throat. “Fine. We’ll talk … tomorrow or the next day, then.”
“Goodbye,” she whispered. She sounded as if she was on the verge of tears, and I knew that I was.
I hung up the phone. I felt unaccountably angry, and I knew it wasn’t fair. It’s not as if it were Karin’s fault. But the anger was there, and it sharpened when I pulled up to the curb and saw her coming out of the door of the terminal, dragging two suitcases.
The thought that ran through my head was this: why does she need two suitcases for a single overnight trip? Which led to wondering if she was planning on staying longer and just hadn’t mentioned it?
Not logical. Not reasonable. But my anger pushed through regardless.
I pulled up to the curb and stepped out of the car, my eyes squinting from the intense summer glare. I’d left my sunglasses somewhere, and I already had a headache coming on. I left the emergency lights blinking, the car running, and walked across the concrete toward Karin.
She looked fatigued. Circles under her sad eyes. Her hair was tied up in a messy bun. She wore a canary sleeveless dress with matching heels. The dress was a familiar one ... very familiar. She’d worn it three years ago, the day I proposed marriage. Irrationally, I felt angry. That dress, along with hair suddenly bleached to look like she’d had it years ago, felt like giant traps.
My stomach tightened as I approached her. She would expect a kiss. An embrace. Something. It had been a long time since we’d been very touchy. But now? After I’d had Savannah in my arms. After I’d felt that … warmth, that outpouring of love, or longing, of our souls touching? After that, just the idea of touching Karin drowned me in desolation.
I reached out and took one of her suitcases, and she put her arms around me. I returned the embrace with one arm and kissed her on the cheek. Because anything less would be … cruel.
I was rigid as I walked her to the car and opened the trunk, then lifted her bags in. By the time I closed the trunk she was inside the car, and I walked around, got in and cranked it up.
“How was your flight?” I asked. For the time being, neutral topics would be best.
She shrugged. “I’ve been through worse. You know I hate flying.”
I swallowed. Of course I knew that. I hadn’t considered it at all when I insisted on her coming out here. I creased my brows, wondering what that said about me. After all, on Tuesday we had a two-day break in the tour coming. I could have simply flown back to Boston then and had this conversation there.
Except ... Savannah and I had made plans for those two days. We’d talked about them ... breathlessly, because we were both planning to slip away from the tour, which would be stopped in Tacoma, Washington. We had reservations in Vancouver, where we could be assured of being away from everyone for two full days.
Two beautiful days.
I’d not even considered going home during those two days.
I’d not considered Karin at all.
I’d not even thought of her.
What kind of person did that make me? I didn’t know the answer to that. Selfish? Self-absorbed? I didn’t know how to reconcile the intense love I felt for Savannah with the fact that I was married to this woman. This obviously heartbroken woman who sat beside me in the car.
We barely spoke the rest of the way back to the hotel. Inconsequential things. I asked how her job was going. She spoke for a few minutes about the very substantial grant the conservatory had just received from the Rockefeller family fund, or Ford, or some other huge foundation.
I pulled the car into the valet parking lane at the hotel and popped the trunk. I checked my watch. It was 5:30 p.m. “Wh
y don’t we grab dinner?”
I passed a five-dollar bill to the porter and gave him my room number. “Please take the bags up,” I said. Then I led Karin to the restaurant.
Five minutes later we were seated in the restaurant at the edge of the seven-story atrium. Our table was off to the side, away from most of the other tables, and most importantly, away from the bar, where several members of the orchestra were having a round of drinks. We didn’t have a performance until the next night, so apparently it was time for some hard drinking.
When the waitress approached, I ordered a margarita for Karin and a gin and tonic for me. Despite my occasional inattention to her feelings, I knew what she drank.
“So ...” she said once the drink arrived. “You were insistent I fly out. Are we going to continue to dodge the subject? Or are you going to tell me what this is about?”
I leaned back, wincing a little, then rubbed the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger. The throbbing in my head was growing louder by the minute.
She shook her head then took a drink from her margarita. “Spit it out, Gregory. It’s not like you to dance around uncomfortable topics.”
I grimaced and said, “Did you stop taking birth control pills?”
She stared at me over her drink and gave a soft, half laugh. “Why do you ask?”
In a very quiet, even tone, I said, “Because we discussed this. We discussed it to the point of nausea. You know I don’t want to have children.”
She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “We didn’t discuss it, Gregory. Every time I bring it up, you make pronouncements. That isn’t a discussion ... it’s not a discussion when you refuse to compromise.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? What compromise is there? Either we have kids or we don’t. There’s no meeting halfway on this topic. And I’ve been clear since well before we got married that I do not intend to have children!”
She leaned close, her face tense, and looked at the tables around us. “Can you please keep your voice down?”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. Then I took another one, because one breath just wasn’t enough. Finally I opened my eyes. She was still there. I tried to think through when this had happened. There’d been a noticeable change in her behavior for almost a year. For several months our sex had taken on an almost frantic quality, and the more she pushed, the more I pulled away.
I hadn’t realized then that it meant she was desperately trying to get pregnant. I only knew that the more she wanted to touch ... the less I wanted to. I knew it and she knew it, but neither of us had actually spoken about it.
“When did you stop taking the pill?” I asked. My voice was ragged.
She avoided my eyes. That was a bad sign. I leaned close, reached out and grabbed her hand. “When?” I demanded.
“January,” she whispered.
I sat back in my seat, feeling as if I’d been punched in the gut. January? She hadn’t even brought up kids again until sometime in March.
I shook my head. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t you say anything?”
She shrugged, still looking away, and then wriggled her hand out of mine. “I didn’t want to talk about it, Gregory. I knew you’d just get scared again. I thought ... if I … if …”
“Scared? It’s not about being scared, Karin. It’s about wanting the same things out of life. I do not want to be a parent. That’s a commitment I’m not willing to make.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. Her next words came out in a whisper. “You’re not willing to make that kind of commitment to me.”
“It’s not about you, Karin. We agreed before we got married. And then when you started talking about it this year, you … I thought we were talking about it. I didn’t know you’d already decided to do it.”
She shrugged. “Not that it mattered.”
“How did this come about? Madeline said something about a fertility specialist? She wasn’t aware that I didn’t know.”
Jesus Christ. As soon as I asked the question, her eyes went red and started to run with tears. Naturally that was when the waiter showed up with our food. Karin quickly wiped her eyes and face, and then made a comment about allergies which I’m sure fooled no one. The waiter put our food down and politely asked if we needed anything else.
“Another round of drinks, please,” I said.
So we sat in strained silence for another ten minutes while our food and then drinks got situated. I toyed with my food and sloshed the ice in the bottom of my glass around. When the waiter finally returned with the second round of drinks, I tossed half my gin and tonic back in one gulp.
“Tell me about the fertility specialist.”
She tossed back half of her own drink. Then she said, “I went to the doctor in March.”
“That’s why you finally talked to me?”
She nodded. “I knew you’d eventually see the bills. From the insurance company.”
I can’t imagine why she thought that. I never looked at them. She could have been seeing a hundred doctors and I would never have known it.
“So you went to the doctor. And what happened?”
She didn’t look me in the eyes. At all. “As it turns out, I’m infertile. Completely. I cannot have children.”
As she said the words, she stared at the floor somewhere to her right. And she began to shake. Violently. I leaned forward, utterly conflicted. What the fuck did I say to her? Was I sorry she’d been unable to trap me into being a parent? Did I express sympathy? I was sympathetic to her pain. I think? Actually I didn’t think I’d ever been so confused and conflicted in my life. About anything.
When I didn’t move to her, didn’t move to comfort her, she buried her face in her hands and began to sob, silently. I sighed, furrowed my eyebrows, and thought. Hard. I was her husband. I should comfort her. But honestly I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to touch her. I didn’t want to give her any out. I didn’t want to give her any impression that I could forgive her for what she’d done.
But who was I to judge? Who was I to not forgive her? I’d spent the last several weeks committing adultery. And I had no intention of stopping. Whether she let me say the words or not ... I was in love with Savannah Marshall. So I sat there, impassive, paralyzed, and unable to respond with a touch or any words of comfort or anything at all as my wife fell apart three feet away from me.
Right there, at that moment, is the closest I’ve ever come to hating myself.
In between sobs, she looked up at me, her expression desperate. “Can we go somewhere else? Please?”
I waved down the waiter, and said, “Can we get the check please, right away?”
Five minutes later we were standing at the doors to the elevator. Karin turned her back to me, arms folded across her chest, looking out toward the front door of the hotel. I stood there feeling exposed at the bottom of the seven story interior atrium. From where I stood, Karin and I could be seen from the doors and windows of virtually every room in the hotel.
Savannah was on the sixth floor, and I could see her door from here. Could she see me? Was she wondering at this moment what was passing between Karin and me?
I didn’t want to think about that. My life was segmented out, compartmentalized, and the part of me that performed in the tour, the part of me in love with Savannah, had nothing to do with Karin. Having them both in the same place was beyond disturbing ... it set my entire body on edge with tension that I felt deep in my gut.
I jerked a little when the doors opened. We stepped in and stood on opposite sides like strangers. The door closed, the bell rang, and the elevator began to move.
Finally the excruciating, painful wait was over and I was unlocking my room. A room, which, thankfully, I’d not shared with Savannah. Because while I might be a complete bastard, an adulterer, a liar … I still couldn’t conceive of them sleeping in the same bed. The idea of it, the secrecy, the lies … they made me ill.
The bellman had placed Ka
rin’s bags in the corner. I stood near the window, which overlooked the darkness outside, pacing, as she slipped into the bathroom to prepare herself for the night. My eyes darted around the room. Looking for anything incriminating. Condoms. Anything that belonged to Savannah. I knew there wasn’t anything; we’d not shared this room.
But I couldn’t slip my guilt into a drawer and hide it. I couldn’t erase the stain of lies and manipulation. The rage I felt over her betrayal was real. But not as real as my own betrayal.
I sighed, staring out the window.
I thought it all through. What would happen if Karin and I divorced? Savannah and I could be together when that happened. But would she ever be able to trust me? After all ... I’d cheated on my wife. Would she ever be able to trust that I wouldn’t do it to her? Did a relationship founded on a lie stand any chance of surviving?
My heart told me yes. My heart told me that Savannah and I were meant to be together. But in the back of my mind, doubts screamed at me that I’d doomed our love from the start.
I jerked when Karin opened the door and stepped out of the restroom. She’d dispensed with her long t-shirt nightgown, instead wearing some sheer silky thing. Crap. I felt my mouth dry, instantly. There was no doubt what she had in mind as she walked toward me in her bare feet, eyes meeting mine.
I coughed and then muttered something about going to brush my teeth. Then I slipped by her, into the bathroom and closed the door. I turned on the water, all the way, and leaned on the counter. What the fuck was I doing? How did I end up in this place? In a hotel room with a woman I was married to, while the woman I loved was one floor, a thousand feet and a million miles away from me?
I closed my eyes, because I didn’t like who I saw in the mirror. I didn’t like it at all. Then, finally, I slipped out of my outer clothes, brushed my teeth, and slid on a heavy bathrobe.
When I opened the bathroom door, the lights in the room were off. I could hear her breathing. I walked toward the bed. She would be on the side closest to the window, so I slid off the bathrobe and got under the blanket.
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