THE AFFAIR

by Davis, Dyanne

  “I don’t know if I should accept gifts from you, Chance.”

  He started toward me, laughing, his face glowing with amusement. “Michelle, it’s no big deal. It’s not like I’m giving you a contract for your soul”

  He was teasing me, his smile warm and inviting. “Come on, please. Open it.”

  I tore away the wrapping and spotted a bundle of books dealing with reincarnation and other psychic topics. The one that caught my eye seemed to deal with regression therapy.

  “Have you read all of these?” I asked in amazement.

  “Yes, and many more. I’ve been through regression therapy a number of times. Now I don’t need it. The memories come to me as clearly now as what I had for breakfast this morning.”

  I saw him hesitate. I was wondering why. So far he’d done nothing to prove he wasn’t some middle-age hippie. Then for some reason I thought of Jim Jones, that preacher from the seventies who’d led all those poor people out of the country to a supposedly better life and forced them to commit mass suicide. Would this thing with Chance end with my death?

  “What is it, Chance? Why are you looking at me like that?” I was more than curious now.

  “Would you like me to take you through a regression?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “I can fill you in on our lives. Would it be possible for us to have dinner together tonight?”

  “I’m having dinner with my husband.” I glanced at the wedding ring fitting snugly on my finger, a symbol of my life and the choice I had made. “It was nice seeing you again, Dr. Morgan. Thanks for the books.”

  “Larry, do you believe in past lives?” I waited as my husband paused long enough in his eating to give me a quizzical look.

  “What is all this talk with you lately?”

  He was watching me intently. I could tell he wanted only to eat and go home, maybe make love and watch a little television. I could be opening up a conversation that I wouldn’t know how to handle, yet I still wanted to pursue this avenue of thought.

  I glanced around the crowded restaurant wondering if there were any other conversations going on that paralleled what I wanted to discuss with Larry.

  “I’ve just been thinking about fate and our lives. I was just wondering if this life we have… You know…is this it?”

  I caught the look on his face, the one that said I was going over the edge. I decided not to give up, not yet. “Honey, don’t you ever want more than what we have now?”

  He was eyeing me strangely. “I have everything I’ve always wanted, Mick. I thought you did too.”

  LET IT GO. I heard the inaudible warning, but chose to ignore it. “I’m not talking about material things,” I said to my husband. “I’m talking about us, our spirits. I want to know what happens when we die. Is right now all there is? Were our lives predestined? Do we keep repeating lives until we get it right? I want to know what you think.”

  He smiled at me. At that moment he looked so much like the young boy I’d fallen in love with. The years had been more than kind to Larry. He was more handsome now than the day we married. Big beautiful brown eyes that sparkled with love and mischief, dimpled cheeks and thick brownish hair with red highlights that was softer than our grandchildren’s. He cut an imposing figure with his six feet of male energy. He was still trim but more muscled. And he never failed to elicit looks from adoring women. That never made me jealous. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Larry loved me.

  “Honey, don’t you ever wonder?” I persisted. I wanted just once not to be told that I was being silly. I wanted to discuss this and I wanted to discuss it with my husband.

  Larry smiled at me. Then his smile turned into a full- fledged grin. That was one thing about Larry that I loved. His smile was always so wide and warm. It made me feel special when he turned it on me as he was doing now.

  “You know I deal in evidence, honey. Show me proof that we’ve lived before and I’ll let you know.” He hesitated. “Don’t tell me you believe in that stuff. You never have before. Why now?”

  “How do you know I’ve never believed in it? Maybe I just didn’t mention it to you.” Thoughts of my dreams flashed before me. Maybe I’ve always believed, I thought, and was just too afraid to admit it. I was still too afraid to admit it.

  “In all the years we’ve been together, I think I would know if you believed in anything so kooky.”

  He turned his attention then to his steak. “I talked to the kids today. Erica and Roy were wondering if we might like to keep the grandkids for a couple of weeks so they can spend some time alone.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  I amazed myself at how easily I could switch gears. I still wanted to know my husband’s opinions on reincarnation, but he’d effectively slammed that door. Now I supposed I was to pretend some sort of enthusiasm for caring for a spoiled three-year-old boy and an even brattier five-year-old girl.

  “I told them we’d love it, but I needed to check with you, to see when you can take some vacation time.”

  “Why would I be taking vacation?” I stared at him with what I hoped was innocence in my eyes.

  “To keep the kids of course.”

  “I don’t recall your mentioning this to me, nor did our daughter call and ask me. She asked you, so I assume that you will be the one taking vacation time.”

  “My God, what’s wrong with you?”

  Larry slammed his fork onto his plate and then hastily wiped his mouth with a linen napkin before tossing it across the plate in disgust.

  “Are you going through the change?” he asked.

  “Why are you asking me that?”

  I was so proud of myself for being able to sit there and talk in a rational tone of voice even though inside I was crying. I hated feeling guilty because I didn’t want to keep two rowdy kids with absolutely no discipline. They were my grandchildren, but still.

  “Well, look at you.” He pointed a long slender finger toward my face. “You’re talking nonsense about past lives and now, when I ask you to keep the kids, you behave as if I’m asking you to commit murder.”

  “I have a job, Larry.” One look into his eyes and I knew what was coming before he spoke one word.

  “That’s not my fault, now is it?” Larry shouted. “I’ve never asked you to work. In fact, I believe I’ve asked you more than once to quit that damn job. It interferes with our plans too often. Every time we plan a trip to visit one of the kids, you have to work.

  If I didn’t know better I’d think you’d rather work than take care of our grandchildren.”

  “Have you ever thought that maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do? I would rather work than take care of those two spoiled, obnoxious kids.” I smiled, then said, “You know what, I’m not going to. You volunteered, you take care of them. In fact why don’t you go to Arizona and keep them there. I don’t feel like rearranging my life.”

  “Don’t tempt me, Mick. I’ll do it.”

  I laughed out loud and felt my spirit soar. “You really don’t hear me, do you? I’m not kidding. I’m not taking one moment of vacation time to baby-sit so Erica and Roy can have time alone. They created those little monsters, let them deal with them.”

  “They’re our grandchildren, Mick. Don’t you love them?”

  “I’m not sure.” I looked at the shock on his face and decided to go all the way. “I know I don’t like them. They have no respect and they’re destructive.”

  “They’re babies.”

  I thought about that for a second. “You’re right, they’re babies. Maybe I shouldn’t blame them, but their parents aren’t babies. I don’t like them very much either. Have they ever offered to pay for one thing those two have deliberately destroyed?”

  “They don’t have the kind of money we have.”

  I knew what Larry was doing. He was trying to play on my sympathies. He was working me, to get me to agree to do what he wanted. If his burst of anger didn’t work, then he was
going to try to guilt me into it.

  Why not? It had worked for twenty-six years. I never wanted to make waves. I was forever treading lightly. I always gave in. But for some reason, not tonight. Maybe not ever again.

  I stared at him hard before asking, “Larry, did either Erica or Roy ever once clean up the mess their kids made of our home? No, I’m serious. I don’t want them here.”

  His smile that I loved was gone now. He was wearing his stern look as though I were one of the witnesses he was trying to intimidate.

  “This isn’t the way for you to have a good relationship with the kids. They need us. They need our help and the least we can do is be there for them.”

  “No, the least we can do is nothing.” I took a sip of my wine, feeling unnerved now. I felt as if I were walking on a dozen eggshells, still trying to prevent a crack. Yet I felt a strength surging through my veins I hadn’t felt in years. I knew I wasn’t backing down. Something in Larry’s eyes told me he knew it too.

  “What am I going to tell them?”

  “Tell them the truth.”

  “You want me to tell Erica that her mother doesn’t want to help her, that she doesn’t want the kids in our home because she doesn’t love them? Would you like me to tell her that you don’t love her either? Mick, she needs you. This is crazy.”

  “Tell her whatever you want.” His jaw went slack. This was not the wife he knew. “Let me know when you plan to leave,” I said. “I think I’ll make plans to do something special for myself while you’re gone.” Then I dug into my food with gusto. I wanted to laugh at my husband sitting there in disbelief.

  I ate every bite on my plate, then ordered dessert and coffee. The tight band that had existed around my head and my heart was gone. I felt free and by God, it felt good. I was being reborn into the Michelle I wanted to be.

  Chapter Four

  I listened to the quiet as Larry got ready for bed. We had barely spoken since leaving the restaurant. Erica, our eldest, was now twenty-three and still daddy’s little girl. At seventeen, she’d gotten pregnant and broken her father’s heart.

  As for me, it was the beginning of my countdown. I was glad when Erica married Roy and moved to Arizona. With only four more to get out of the house, I felt there was now an end in sight to my life sentence of motherhood.

  Before I knew it, all the kids were gone. If only they would actually stay away. It seemed that every other week one or the other of them was coming to visit. Then they started having babies and began bringing them by, leaving them first for hours, then for days.

  Larry cooed over the babies then went off to work. I was always the unasked, designated caregiver. Nevertheless, I had done it. Up to now, I had been forced against my will to repeat the caregiving part of my life.

  I’d talked to Larry a dozen times about saying no to the kid’s frequent visits and their dropping off their children, but each time he’d laughed off my words with kisses, telling me that I was being a grouch, that he knew I loved having them there. Well, I didn’t.

  I was thrilled when Shannon, our youngest, left home for college. Within a year she was shacking up with her boyfriend. She thought we didn’t know. We went along with the deception because our agreement with Shannon was that we’d totally cover her college and living expenses, as long as she remained on her own. No live-in boyfriend.

  When we found out, neither Larry nor I wanted to confront Shannon. She was getting good grades, and we wanted her to have an education.

  “Are you coming to bed?”

  Larry had reappeared in the door of the family room. I was not following my usual modus operandi. By now I was usually in our bed rubbing his back, not wanting to feel the silence building between us.

  Larry’s silence would generally break down all my defenses. He’d never shout, just turn away until I would turn to him, touching him, caressing him, making love with him. And somewhere between my first touch and his release I would utter my acquiescence to whatever problem had come between us.

  I thought of the books Chance had given me. I didn’t want to go to bed and be ignored until I came around. I wanted to remain where I was, within myself, knowing I didn’t have to give up two weeks’ vacation time to Erica, the spoiled daughter that believed it her due. She was not the monster of my making; she was Larry’s.

  “Are you listening to me, Mick? I’m going to bed. Aren’t you coming?”

  “No, I think I’m going to read for a while.”

  His legs moved apart and he squared his shoulders. “This is Wednesday, you know.”

  For the last several years we’d gotten into the habit of making love on Wednesday and Saturday. It didn’t matter what was happening, or what plans had been made. Wednesday and Saturday were our high holy days, not to be messed with.

  “I’m not in the mood.”

  If Larry had glared at me, I probably would have felt better, more justified. But as it was, he just stood staring at me, as if he no longer knew who I was.

  “Fine. Goodnight.”

  He kissed the top of my head, his lips closed and cold. This was only the second time in our marriage that I’d stood up to Larry for what I really wanted. The first time had been when I was pregnant with Shannon.

  Larry’s anger over finding my secret supply of birth control pills had led to that particular pregnancy. I’d cried while trying to explain to him that I didn’t want any more children.

  I had not considered my actions a betrayal but he had. So for weeks I had turned to him in bed each night and initiated lovemaking without the benefit of any protection other than praying not to become pregnant. It didn’t work.

  When I found myself about to become a mother for the fifth time, I took a step even I didn’t believe I was capable of. I went to an abortion/Planned Parenthood clinic, paid my money and three days later, I sat there crying, waiting my turn.

  I was alone and afraid. Afraid of burning in hell and afraid of ending my marriage if Larry found out. I alternated between being sorry and making plans for my life alone. A part of me welcomed my husband’s anger. I would be free.

  Somehow Larry had intercepted a call from the clinic reminding me of the time and came before I was taken in. It surprised me that he wasn’t angry, merely sad. He pleaded with me not to abort the baby. In exchange he talked with the doctor, took my appointment and had a vasectomy on the spot.

  He never wanted to talk about what had almost happened. The doctor convinced him that I could still be in the midst of post partum depression from my last pregnancy. No one listened to me. No one believed that was not the case.

  For once, I had taken matters into my own hands. My defeat, I had another baby. My minor victory, I would have no more.

  Larry walked toward the stairs to go to our bedroom alone and I opened up the book, Is This Your Only Life? by William Davis Jr.

  Four hours later I was still reading, engrossed in the concept of past lives. Even without regression therapy I believed. This surely couldn’t be the life I was destined for.

  I wanted to find my life. I wanted to feel what I’d felt in the arms of a stranger and it had nothing to do with sex.

  I didn’t want to go to bed. I didn’t want to give in and I didn’t want to feel my husband’s silence. I couldn’t remember a time that we hadn’t slept in the same bed when we were home. We did everything in that bed, our reading, our fighting, the little that we did, and our making up.

  Now we were in different rooms and for the first time I knew we were not on the same path. I had just taken a major step away from Larry and from our life.

  A small part of me wanted to turn back, to beg his forgiveness, to be what he thought I was, but after reading that book I could no longer pretend that marriage to Larry was my destiny.

  “Are you sure this is what you want?”

  “Yes, honey, I’m sure.”

  “It’s not too late for you to change your mind and come with me. You know Erica’s pretty peeved. She mentioned the fact that yo
u rarely visit and she thinks you don’t want them to come here.”

  We were standing in the airport. It had taken nearly a month for Larry to believe that I was actually not going to be the one going. He was the one taking two weeks vacation and leaving for Arizona to care for two of our grandchildren.

  He was making a last ditch effort to change my mind and if he couldn’t do that, he was bound and determined that I would be miserable while he was gone. He imagined I would be consumed with guilt. He was wrong.

  “Honey, believe me I do hope you have a wonderful time with the kids.” I looked at him long and hard. “And please don’t make any excuses for my not coming. Maybe for once you could tell them that their children are destructive and unruly and until they’re older and have been taught how to behave, I would prefer they remain in Arizona.”

  He looked at me, his eyes filled with skepticism. “Will you go see Dr. Payne while I’m gone and have a physical?”

  I couldn’t help smiling at him. I had betrayed my husband for the second time by not playing my part. He was confused. He had every right to be.

  “I’m not sick.”

  “Will you do it for me?” he asked.

  This was a small thing he was asking. I almost said yes to his request. But this new me that had been evolving for the past two months wouldn’t allow it. I no longer wanted to do anything, no matter how small, just because it would make someone else happy. I smiled at my husband but didn’t answer.

  “What are you going to do while I’m gone?”

  “Oh, there’s a lecture I want to attend.” I left out that it was on past lives. “And I might go to the movies, or out to dinner. Who knows? I have two weeks. I think I’m going to look for something very important that I lost.”