The Affair

by Colette Freedman

  “He always did have a hard time making decisions.” Kathy looked over her shoulder, a peculiar expression on her face. “You love him, don’t you?”

  “Yes. I do.” Stephanie was unable to resist snapping back with, “Do you?”

  Kathy turned back to the window. She could see Stephanie reflected in the glass. She had thought about this question long and hard, asked it again and again, because, in the end it came back to this one simple question: Did she love him? Even after all he’d done, even after the pain of the last few days?

  “Yes.”

  The word hung in the air between the two women.

  She turned to look at Stephanie. “Would I be here if I didn’t?”

  There were tears in both their eyes now, and they were staring at one another with intensity. This conversation should not have gone this way; Kathy should have shouted at Stephanie, called her names, and walked away. Stephanie should have watched the wife drive away and felt victorious. Right now, both women were experiencing the same emotion: fear.

  Stephanie felt her heart begin to trip. Her mouth turned to cotton. Kathy couldn’t love him . . . didn’t love him . . . Robert had told her that Kathy didn’t love him . . . but was that what Robert believed or what he wanted Stephanie to believe? She unfolded her arms and reached down to touch the back of the chair, feeling that if she didn’t grip onto something she was going to fall.

  “I still love him.” Kathy swung back from the window. “Despite what he’s done. He is my husband. My children’s father.”

  Stephanie was standing frozen by the chair, staring intently at Kathy, horrified by what she was hearing. She was listening to a woman in love. In love with the same man she loved.

  “He’s betrayed me, betrayed eighteen years of marriage, betrayed his children who idolize him. I don’t want to keep him out of spite, like Jimmy Moran’s wife. If he wants to go, if he truly wants to go, if he is so desperately unhappy with me, then I love him enough to let him go. There’s no point in asking Robert what he wants to do; he’ll only tell me what he thinks I want to hear. . . .”

  Stephanie was nodding.

  “So, let me ask you. Do you want him? Do you want him so badly that you want to take him from me?”

  Stephanie felt the room sway around her. Kathy wasn’t supposed to love him. That’s what she’d always believed, right from the very beginning, from six years ago: Kathy didn’t care for Robert. Didn’t love him.

  But Kathy did.

  And Stephanie did.

  Stephanie loved him with all her heart, loved him because he was kind and gentle, made her laugh, cared for her, looked after her, was thoughtful, considerate, and had asked her to marry him.

  And Stephanie had allowed herself to fall in love with him because she firmly believed that he was available. She believed that his wife no longer loved him.

  Would he have made the same offer to Stephanie if he thought otherwise? Would he have had an affair with her if he thought that Kathy still had feelings for him?

  She didn’t want to think he would have.

  It was easier—much easier—to believe that Robert had betrayed Kathy almost by accident than to accept that he’d gone out to have an affair with someone who might be able to send extra business his way.

  Stephanie took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves. How would Kathy react if she knew that Robert had asked her to marry him? He’ll only tell me what he thinks I want to hear. Was that what had happened on Saturday? Had Robert been lying to her?

  As he’d lied to Kathy?

  No, he hadn’t, he couldn’t. This was the man she loved, the man who said he loved her. The man who wanted to marry her. That was the truth.

  “Do you want him?” Kathy asked the question again. “Do you want him so bad that you want to take him from me?”

  The doorbell rang before Stephanie could answer Kathy.

  CHAPTER 43

  The door opened just as he hit the bell for the second time. Behind the brightly wrapped Christmas presents, the helium balloon, and the bunch of flowers, Robert Walker brushed past Stephanie with a cheery “Merry Christmas, sweetheart!” and bolted up the stairs into the living room.

  He stopped in surprise. There was a woman standing with her back to him, outlined against the window.

  “Oh, hi. You must be Izzie . . . ,” he began.

  And then she turned to face him.

  CHAPTER 44

  There are moments etched in the memory.

  Moments of passion, of pain, victory, and terror. Especially terror. When all else fades, the fear remains. When Robert Walker strode into Stephanie Burroughs’s living room and found his wife waiting for him, he experienced one of those moments that he knew, instantly and instinctively, he would carry with him to his grave.

  His mouth opened and closed, but he couldn’t draw breath. It was as if he had been punched in the stomach, and his heart started beating so hard he was sure it was going to burst.

  There was movement behind him, and Stephanie came into the room, stepping around him to stand by the kitchen.

  Robert looked from Kathy to Stephanie and back again, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. A score of reasons, excuses, and stupid possibilities flashed through his head in a single moment.

  Until only the truth remained.

  Kathy knew.

  And that brought with it an extraordinary sense of relief.

  No more sneaking around, no more furtive phone calls, no more clandestine meetings. No more lies.

  “Kathy . . . ,” he began.

  Kathy crossed the room in two quick strides, stepped up to him, and slapped him hard enough across the face to rock his head back. She’d never intended to hit Stephanie, but she’d always known she was going to strike him. That was never in doubt. Her hand stung, and she relished the blow.

  Robert backed away from Kathy and turned to Stephanie for support, but the strange look on her face kept him away from her also. “You—you told her,” he finally said to Stephanie.

  “You see,” Kathy said conversationally, not looking at him. “He never accepts responsibility. It’s always someone else’s fault.”

  Stephanie folded her arms across her chest and nodded. She’d noticed that in Robert before. Abruptly, with the two of them here in the same room, she felt like an outsider in her own home.

  Robert looked from one woman to the other. “Well, she must have called you, brought you here, how else . . .”

  “How else, Robert?” Kathy snapped. “Because I’m not as stupid as you seem to think I am. And you’re not as clever as you believe you are.”

  “I think . . . I think . . .” Robert looked around desperately. “I think I should go.”

  “No!” both women said simultaneously.

  Unsure of what to do, he put down the Christmas presents and rested the bouquet of flowers on top of them. The balloon floated unnoticed to the ceiling.

  Kathy resumed her position on the sofa, and Stephanie collapsed into her usual seat. He stood for a moment, unsure what to do, then sat down on the sofa, as far away from Kathy as possible. He looked from woman to woman, noticed that their expressions and their postures were identical.

  “You owe us an explanation,” Kathy said.

  “Both of us,” Stephanie said.

  CHAPTER 45

  “I’m not sure what to say,” Robert said miserably.

  “Why don’t you start with the truth, Robert?” Stephanie said.

  “The truth?” He looked at her blankly and suddenly wondered how long the two women had been chatting before he had arrived, how much they knew about one another. He was hunting for a formula of words that would neither offend Stephanie nor hurt Kathy.

  Stephanie leaned forward. “I’ve always believed that Kathy didn’t love you.”

  He looked at her blankly.

  “You told me—more than once—that she didn’t love you.”

  Unsure where this was going, he nodded. “That’s righ
t. She doesn’t.”

  Kathy turned ashen. “What? I’ve never said that! Never once.” She turned from Robert to Stephanie. “I never said that to him.” Then she rounded on Robert. She lunged down the couch and struck at him again, catching him on the side of the head. “You bastard! Is that what you’ve been saying? Is that how you’ve been justifying your lying affair—saying that I didn’t love you!” There were tears in her eyes now, tears of rage. “I do love you!”

  Robert was taken aback by the forcefulness of her response. He backed away from her. Kathy didn’t love him, couldn’t love him, hadn’t loved him for ages. “But . . . but . . . you never said anything. . . . I just assumed . . .”

  “You assumed wrong!” she snapped.

  Robert drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “You don’t talk to me; you ignore me. You’re not interested in me, not interested in the business.”

  “And are you interested in Kathy?” Stephanie wondered aloud.

  Kathy looked at her in surprise.

  Robert looked at her blankly. Whose side was she on?

  “Did you ever ask about her day? Did you ever stop to realize just who kept the house going while you were running the business?”

  “Hang on a sec . . . ,” he began, anger touching his voice. “I won’t take that from . . .”

  “From whom?” Stephanie demanded.

  “From you,” he finished lamely.

  “I never stopped loving you,” Kathy said into the silence that followed. “When I found out that you were having an affair, I hated you. But it made me reevaluate our eighteen years together, showed me some of the mistakes we’ve both made. It’s not gone, Robert; it’s still salvageable. If you want to salvage it.”

  Kathy still loved him.

  It had been easy to justify what he was doing with the understanding that Kathy no longer cared for him and that even if she did find out, it was not going to be such a big deal. There would be a fight, sure, but then they’d separate and ultimately divorce. But it would all be fairly amicable, he had thought, because Kathy had no strong feelings for him anymore; there were times he had thought she would actually be better off and happier without him.

  But she loved him.

  Loved him enough to fight for him.

  Stephanie watched them, saw the fear on Robert’s face, the determination on Kathy’s, and discovered that she wasn’t listening to a couple who hated one another. In that moment, she discovered that she actually admired Kathy. It was every woman’s nightmare, to face the mistress, but Kathy had found the courage to do it

  She knew Kathy still loved Robert.

  And Robert . . . Did he still love Kathy?

  Stephanie leaned back, watching them closely. She found she was looking at a couple who still loved one another but who’d lost their way—both of them. They’d become distracted by house and home and children and job, and had forgotten what had created all of those things in the first place: their love, their relationship, their commitment.

  And where did that leave her? Where did that leave Robert’s promise to her?

  “Do you love me, Robert?” Kathy asked finally.

  Even before he answered, Stephanie knew the truth. She saw it in the way he had looked at his wife; Stephanie saw it in his face. She knew how Robert would answer, though whether that would be the absolute truth was open to question. She remembered how he’d been so desperate to keep the news of their relationship from Kathy. Once she had thought it was cowardice—and it might be that too; but now she recognized that it might also have been love. He didn’t want his wife to know because he didn’t want to hurt her. Was that also why he’d kept from Kathy how badly the business was doing? They were mistakes he should have shared with her. Stephanie knew that Kathy was far tougher than Robert imagined.

  “Yes,” he said simply, “I love you.”

  “And Stephanie, do you love her also?” Kathy asked, surprising them both.

  There was a moment—no more than a handful of seconds—but it seemed to extend for an eternity before Robert nodded and answered. “Yes, yes, I do.”

  The two women looked at one another. They loved the same man. But they both knew that he had drifted from Kathy through ignorance—because he had thought she no longer loved him. He had allowed himself to enter into a relationship with Stephanie for the same reason, and she, in turn, had agreed to a relationship with him because she believed him to be emotionally separated from his wife.

  “It’s possible to love more than one person,” Robert said slowly.

  “I know that,” said Kathy. “We know that,” she added, glancing at Stephanie, who nodded in agreement. “But you have to make a choice now, because, Robert, you cannot have us both.”

  She could end it here and now, Stephanie thought suddenly. She could make him hers. If Kathy knew that Robert had proposed to her, had offered to marry her, then Kathy would get up and walk out of the room. The relationship might survive the affair, but it could not survive that ultimate betrayal. And if Kathy did walk out, what would that achieve? It would leave Stephanie with Robert. Stephanie had been afforded a glimpse of her future with Robert, and it was not what she’d imagined it was going to be.

  But this was her chance to be happy.

  From the moment Robert had proposed she’d been walking on air. She’d never imagined that such a simple sentence could make her feel so good. She’d spent the last few hours bubbling with excitement, planning for a future that was now—suddenly—under threat.

  Kathy had come here to fight for her man.

  And now it was up to Stephanie. Was she also prepared to fight for him?

  The single sentence, “Robert proposed to me,” would send Kathy home, devastated, and Robert would be hers. Forever. But looking at him now, his eyes wide and locked onto Kathy’s face, suddenly made her wonder how he would feel if she managed to drive his wife off. She had watched him when he had told Kathy that he loved her. He meant it. Would he be able to forgive Stephanie if she drove away his wife?

  But Stephanie loved him.

  And sometimes you have to let go of those you love.

  CHAPTER 46

  “I’ve made a mistake,” Stephanie said, breaking the long silence in the room. “A terrible mistake.”

  Robert and Kathy looked at her blankly.

  Stephanie had the sudden urge to reach out and touch Kathy’s hand. “I swear to you that I didn’t know he was still in love with you. I thought he was going to leave you. I . . . I was wrong.”

  Stephanie stood up, and the other two automatically rose to their feet with her. She stepped forward and placed the palm of her hand flat on Robert’s chest. Kathy’s eyes flared, but she remained still and unmoving.

  “I love you, Robert, as much as Kathy loves you. But I cannot have you. Go back to your wife. If she’ll take you, that is.”

  Stephanie felt something break inside her as the future she’d been planning shattered and twisted away. What was left was a deep bitterness—not directed toward Robert, not toward Kathy, but toward herself. How could she have been so stupid?

  Because she loved him.

  Kathy looked from Stephanie to Robert. She was missing something, she knew, some nuance that she hadn’t picked up. She was also sensing something that sounded almost like relief in Stephanie’s voice. Then the younger woman turned and went into the bedroom, closing the door behind her, leaving Robert and Kathy alone.

  Kathy turned to look at her husband. “Well?”

  “Well?” His voice was shaking, and he felt hungover. “What do you want to do?” He’d run the full gamut of emotions in the last half hour. He’d gotten his wife back and lost Stephanie. On Saturday he’d been thinking about starting again; right now, he’d just been given another opportunity to go back to the beginning and start again, but with Kathy this time.

  “I’ll take you back, but there will be conditions,” she said. “Things will change. You know that?”

  He nodded. He wasn’t sure what
had just happened. One minute Stephanie loved him; the next she was claiming she’d made a mistake.

  “And I’ll change too,” Kathy promised, her voice surprisingly calm and level. “We’ll start again, go to therapy, try and rebuild our marriage and our relationship. But there’s one question you have to ask yourself, Robert: Do you want to come back to me?”

  “I never really left,” he laughed shakily.

  “You left me a long time ago,” Kathy said sharply. “You say I withdrew from you, but you checked out of the marriage as well. Answer me.”

  Robert drew back from the vehemence in her voice. Where had this Kathy come from, this feisty, strong-willed, and determined woman? This was the woman he’d married a long time ago, the woman he’d thought had gone. He looked toward the closed bedroom door. And why had Stephanie rejected him? When he’d proposed to her . . . If Kathy knew he’d proposed to her . . .

  And he suddenly understood then. Stephanie hadn’t rejected him. He felt his throat swell and suddenly found it difficult to breath. She loved him. She loved him enough to . . .

  “Robert?” Kathy said quietly.

  He nodded. “Yes. Yes, I do want to come back. If you’ll have me. Start again. Start afresh.”

  “It may not work, and we may end up going our separate ways, but I think we owe it to one another and the children to give it a try.”

  “Yes, yes, we do.” He spread his arms. “About this . . .”

  Kathy raised a hand, silencing him. “You told me you loved me. Do you mean it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then that’s all I need to know at the moment.” She pushed him toward the door. “Go home now. The children are waiting. I’ll be there soon.”

  Robert hesitated and looked again at the closed bedroom door. “I should say good-bye . . . ,” he began.

  “You already have,” Kathy said firmly.

  Robert Walker turned and walked away.

  CHAPTER 47