There was so much he wanted to say to Charlotte; he just didn’t know where to start. So instead of talking, he sat silent listening to the rippling of the water from the lake and a boat’s engine somewhere in the distance.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Charlotte staring at him. He remained facing forward, looking out on to the rippling waters of the lake, not wanting to push his luck with his wife.
After a few moments, Charlotte also turned her attention back to the lake and finally spoke. “You know, sometimes I just wish none of this ever happened. I wish we could just go back to the days when we didn’t have all the curve balls, as Phillip would say.”
Xavier nodded his head. He felt terrible for being the one to have caused the stress their marriage was now undergoing. Charlotte didn’t deserve all he was putting her through.
“Sometimes in the morning, I wake up, and for the briefest of instances, I’ve forgotten, and all is well with the world. But then everything floods back to me, and I feel a dreadful sickness in my stomach,” Charlotte said.
Her tone wasn’t angry or spiteful, but the hurt in her voice was unmistakable. Xavier could see the tears starting to trickle down her face, and he wanted to jump up and grab her, to hug her and let her know that everything would turn out okay. It had to. He couldn’t imagine his life without her. But he knew better. He hadn’t held his wife or even gotten so much as a handshake from her in months. But he was committed to working as hard as he could to put the smile back on her face.
As Charlotte’s trickling tears turned into sniffles, and then sobs, Xavier couldn’t hold back any longer. And before he knew it, he was in front of her, on his knees, embracing her as if she held the key to life itself. At first she protested, trying to wriggle free of him. But his strong arms and her need to release a built up anguish won in the end.
Xavier held her until the sobs turned into moans and continued to embrace her as the moaning subsided into intermittent sniffles. He didn’t know how long they’d been out on the porch, but was glad no one had been looking for them. Their being able to hold one another at that moment in time was the best therapy any doctor could have ordered. With reluctance, he let Charlotte go once he felt her tense body relax.
Continuing to kneel in front of her, Xavier moved back slightly, giving her some space. She looked down, staring directly into his eyes.
“I hate what’s happened to us, Xavier.” She wiped lingering tears from her face.
“I hate it too,” Xavier said. “But we can get through this; I know we can.”
Charlotte shook her head.
He took her hands into his. “We can, Charlotte. We just have to take everything a step at a time. One day at a time.”
“It won’t be that easy.”
“I know it won’t be easy. I have no illusions about that. But if we work together we can get back to where we were.” Xavier caressed her cheek with the palm of his hand. “Baby, I want you to smile again, laugh again. I want you to be able to wake up in the morning and only think of this horrible time in our lives as a distant memory.”
Charlotte took in a deep breath, and then slowly released it. “I can’t trust you. Ever since that horrible day, I can’t trust you. And I don’t know when I’ll be able to trust you again. This isn’t something that can simply be forgotten.”
“But hopefully, with time, things will get better. I don’t expect you to forget this. Just know that I am sorry, and I am going to do absolutely everything in my power to earn the trust you’ve lost in me,” Xavier said. He took both her hands and kissed them.
Charlotte stared with intensity as she looked into his eyes.
Xavier knew her trust in him had been severely severed the day she’d receive her test results about the gonorrhea. The memory was still fresh in his mind as he thought back to the most sobering day in his life, when his world came crashing down. It was on a Friday evening. He’d called Charlotte earlier in the day to let her know he’d be home for a short break around four o’clock. It was the first of the month, which meant it was payday—payday for the military at nearby Fort Bragg Army base and Pope Air Force base and also for county and city employees.
As soon as he walked in the door, he sensed something was wrong. At first he wasn’t sure what it was, but then it hit him. The ticking of the grandfather clock in their living room seemed louder than usual. The house had been quiet—as quiet as it usually was in the wee hours of the morning when he got up to go to the bathroom.
Charlotte was a praise dancer at her church, and that upcoming Sunday, the dance ministry was set to minister. For days she had been playing a song over and over again, getting into the spirit. She always did this before she was about to minister.
When he rounded the corner of the dining room, calling her name, he was startled to see her sitting at the table with an envelope in her hand.
“Have a seat,” Charlotte said.
Xavier wondered what was going on. “What’s up?” he asked, but did as Charlotte told him.
She thrust the envelope into his hand and crossed her arms.
“What’s this?” Xavier asked.
“You tell me.” Charlotte’s voice was calm and controlled.
Xavier opened the envelope hoping and praying it didn’t have anything to do with the disease he’d gotten from Yasmine. But his heart dropped when he saw the medical report listing various tests performed for sexually transmitted diseases. The paper with Charlotte’s name showed she had tested positive for gonorrhea.
He stared at the paper thinking if he looked at it long enough, the results would change or he’d realize he was really dreaming, and at any second, he’d wake up. But there was no such luck.
“So you tell me. What is this?” Charlotte said.
Charlotte’s voice had been unbelievably calm. Xavier wondered what was going on.
“I ... uh, it’s a test result that says you’re positive for gonorrhea,” Xavier said, stating the obvious. He didn’t want to say anything that would take him directly into a hole he might not be able to get out of.
“I can read. I can see that. I am asking you what this is all about. I need for you to tell me,” Charlotte said. She shifted in her seat, moving slightly closer to him.
“Baby—”
Charlotte interrupted. “Cut it, Xavier. Tell me who it is? Where did you get it or do you even know?”
Xavier felt like he was having déjà vu. Only it wasn’t really déjà vu because he’d had a similar conversation with his ex-wife before she filed for divorce. With his ex, he’d denied everything.
But this time he figured he’d go ahead and tell Charlotte about Yasmine. He’d have to come semi-clean about the relationship. He couldn’t lie his way out of a positive test result.
“There was this woman. I met her at a Starbucks.” He paused. “Baby, I don’t really want to go into the details. But I did sleep with this woman a couple of times.”
Charlotte’s eyes widened, and Xavier saw the first crack in her calm demeanor.
“It was a mistake. I broke it off with her,” Xavier said. He’d said it with enough of a mixture of the truth for it to be believable.
Charlotte continued to stare at him expectantly. “What’s her name? And why? Why did you feel like you had to sleep with someone else?”
“Her name doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s over,” Xavier said.
“You could have fooled me. I’m the one with a sexually transmitted disease. Doesn’t feel like it’s over to me.” Charlotte sat back. “You could at least tell me that much. Who is she?”
“Her name was Yasmine. And again, it’s over. I don’t have any contact with her anymore.”
“Yasmine. It sounds exotic or something,” Charlotte said. Sarcasm dripped from her voice.
“Baby, don’t even think about it or her,” Xavier said.
“Did you know you had this disease?” Charlotte asked.
Without fully thinking it out, Xavier said, “No, I�
�ve been having a little pain lately, and I went to my doctor the other day. I hadn’t received my results yet. I didn’t want to tell you if there wasn’t anything to worry about.”
Xavier was lying through his teeth, but he couldn’t really justify telling her that he’d known for weeks that he was positive. And he knew there was no way she would understand.
Charlotte took a deep breath. “Yasmine; well, isn’t that cute?”
“No, it isn’t cute. Like I told you, it’s over.”
“Is she the only one?” Charlotte asked. She drummed her fingers noiselessly on the table.
He couldn’t believe she was asking him about other women, and he wasn’t about to tell her about the women he’d gotten intimate with or the various women he’d chatted with on the Internet. “No, there isn’t anyone else. I am so sorry. I made a terrible mistake.”
He reached across the dining room table to touch her hand, but as soon as he did, she slapped him across the face. The open handed slap stung, but the fact that his wife knew about his infidelity stung even more.
“Get away from me. Don’t touch me,” Charlotte said. The calm exterior had instantly evaporated. She stood, backing away from him.
He rubbed the stinging spot on his face, knowing the slap was well deserved. And he knew he probably deserved more than that.
“I need some space. I want you to leave,” Charlotte said.
“Leave? Where am I going to go?” Xavier asked.
“I don’t know. Why don’t you just go to your little friend or something? At this point, I really don’t care.”
The calm exterior Charlotte had held only a few short minutes ago was now being replaced with a stream of tears. Her body had become visibly shaky.
Xavier stood now also. “Charlotte, I’m not going anywhere. We need to talk about this.”
Charlotte turned and headed toward their bedroom. Xavier figured she needed the space, so he gave it to her. He walked over to their living room window and gazed out. His worst fear had been realized. His wife knew that he’d been unfaithful and worse, she’d contracted a venereal disease.
He hadn’t heard Charlotte walk through the house or the garage open. But he did hear Charlotte’s car as it was being cranked. And before he had a chance to go to the garage to see where she was going, Xavier saw his wife pull out into the street in record speed. She had backed out and stopped so hard that he heard the tires squeal on the car.
With the way she was shaking during the end of their conversation and the way she was driving, he was scared she might get into an accident. He fumbled while pulling his cell phone out of his pocket.
When he dialed her cell number, he’d heard it ringing from somewhere in the house. Following the sound, Xavier found the cell phone on the bedroom dresser. He also saw that Charlotte had hurriedly pulled out drawers and hangers with clothes from her side of the closet. Remnants of strewn clothing dotted the bed and the floor.
Xavier snapped his phone shut. Upon further inspection of the room, he saw that his wife had taken one of her suitcases as well as some of her toiletry items from the bathroom. She was gone, and from the looks of it, she wasn’t planning on coming back any time soon.
Charlotte stayed away for three days, and he had no idea where his wife was. He hoped she was okay, but was hesitant to call friends or family to ask if they’d seen her; partly because he knew Charlotte was a private person and wouldn’t want everyone in her business, but mainly because he was ashamed of the reason she’d left in the first place.
The sound of a speedboat zooming by on the lake brought Xavier back to his current reality. He was thankful that for the first time in months, on a porch in the middle of the mountains, he was finally able to hold his wife’s hand again.
Charlotte rocked forward in the rocking chair. “Trust is so important, Xavier. You’ve damaged my trust in you so much.”
“I know, and I promise I’ll do everything in my power to earn your trust back again. Okay?”
“I hear you.” Charlotte didn’t look like she believed what he was saying.
“I promise, Charlotte. No secrets, no messing around, no more drama.”
“I hear you, Xavier,” Charlotte repeated, still seeming unconvinced.
She looked down at her watch, then wiped her eyes again. “I guess we’d better get back inside. They’ve probably already started the next session.”
Xavier looked at his own watch. They were late for the beginning of the afternoon session. Even though his legs felt stiff and heavy as he stood, his heart was light.
Chapter 15
Xavier Knight
Tuesday: 1:14 P.M.
Charlotte and Xavier reentered the cabin and tried not to disturb the other couples who were already in the midst of conversation. They took their respective seats at The Round Table.
Noticing a few of the eyes glancing at him and Charlotte, Xavier said, “Sorry, we had to discuss a few things.”
“It’s all right,” Phillip said. “We were just going back over the S.M.I.R.K. acronym. Feel free to join in.”
Xavier appreciated the fact that Phillip had smoothly welcomed them back to the group without a be-on-time-next-time undertone. Even though Phillip hadn’t been out on the porch with them, it was as if somehow he knew they were trying to focus on getting their marriage back together.
“George was giving us his take on how the differences in religion that a husband and wife might have, can impact marriages,” Phillip said.
“You wouldn’t believe how many people I have coming to me with arguments about their religious beliefs,” George said. “Many of them got married with the understanding that each would continue to participate in their respective religions or dominations.” George shook his head. “It’s often such a mess. One person goes to church and the other doesn’t, or the husband worships at one church and the wife is at another church with no spiritual unity at all. Then they wonder why many of the other areas of their lives were so askew. They didn’t understand that God wanted them to be unified, coming together with an agreement that would entail oneness.”
“How’d you get the couples to come in for counseling, especially if one of them wasn’t a member of your church?” Phillip asked.
“Only about a quarter of who I counsel are actually my members, believe it or not. Many people enjoy watching my broadcasts. And the couples know I am real and tell it like it is. They may not like what I have to say, though, by the time they leave my office. But they do respect the advice I’ve given them,” George said.
Travis nodded his head. “So George, how do you find the time to counsel people with all the services you have and the traveling I see you doing?”
“I make the time. People say I am a soldier for the Lord. I am also a soldier for married couples. My book, I Do, I Don’t, has a workbook that accompanies it. Whenever I counsel couples, I encourage them to read the book and work on the exercises in the workbook. If a couple does this and is serious about making their marriage stronger or repairing damage, I continue to counsel them as needed. But if I see people are playing games with their time and mine, I’ll quickly let them know to take it elsewhere.”
Xavier felt George came off as not only a spiritual man of God, but also a knowledgeable one. The man had sold millions of books and often appeared on talk shows talking about his ministry. And he definitely acted as if he were a no-nonsense kind of guy. So Xavier wondered why a man who was sought out by so many for his spiritual guidance was sitting at the same table with him, getting advice from a man no one really knew—as far as the religious world was concerned.
George shook his head. “Sadly disagreements about religious beliefs have contributed to the demise of many a marriage.”
Charlotte stood, excusing herself. Xavier touched her arm, wondering if she were okay. She smiled, reassuring him she was fine; mouthing she needed to use the bathroom.
Xavier beamed inwardly, glad to finally see a smile on his wife’s face for the
first time since she found out about the STD. Things were looking up for him.
“What about the little things? You know ... the intangible things as Phillip called them?” Beryl asked. She’d directed her question to George.
“Ah, the intangibles. The things we don’t often know about until after we’ve said I do,” George replied.
“Yeah. How often do you find couples who can’t overcome the intangibles? Little things do mean a lot, and after they pile up, they’re sort of hard to overlook,” Beryl said.
“Compared to the problems of sex, money, religion, and kids, the intangibles are things that don’t always seem as big. But if enough intangible things pile up, and especially if it is coupled with one or more of the other big four, the little things can cause unbelievable marital strife,” George said.
Xavier was glad he and Charlotte didn’t have any money problems. Early on, they’d decided who would take care of which bills. They also decided that Charlotte would handle the budget; not because Xavier was bad with money, but because she happened to be better than he was with it.
They’d also never had any problems with religion; not in his eyes anyway. Charlotte was a saved Christian woman when he met her. And although he wasn’t saved, his mother and grandmother had been, and he’d been raised in a loving Christian home. He went to church on Sundays and paid his tithe along with his wife. He didn’t see a real need to become saved like the people he’d seen going to the altar at the end of each service. Because except for his proclivity toward women, he knew deep down he was a good guy. And now that he had been given a second chance, obviously from God, to save his marriage, he swore to himself that he would never stray again. He’d do whatever it took. He’d already ruined his first wife’s life and would make sure he didn’t ruin Charlotte’s with any more of his shenanigans. It was only by the grace of God he hadn’t contracted AIDS, and from Charlotte’s test results, she didn’t have the disease either.
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