ONCE
"Once! It was just once, one night. One hour, barely. It was late, we'd been working for hours…I was tired, we had a drink…" then I uttered that fatal male cliché: "It didn't mean anything."
She stood her ground, proud, wounded. She had listened to my confession without a curse or a cry. Why wouldn't she holler? Throw something? Slap me? Anything but this dead silence. My shame-filled words echoed through the years and bounced back off the walls to ply me with more fear: of her, of loss, of a thousand little precious nameless ordinary things that I had put in jeopardy. It was August and I was froze to the bone.
"I'm sure it was nothing to you," she conceded quietly, "but it means everything to me."
My betrayal was so deep and wide and painful that no surgeon could repair it. Marriage, DOA.
"I think you'll be more comfortable on the couch; or in the doctors' lounge; or (it was a peek at the Old Major, who could never resist sarcasm) "the Beddy-Bye Motel." Her vocabulary might be bitter, but her tone was icily neutral. Her voice was dead; her eyes were dead. More than an adulterer—I was a murderer.
"That's not—" I swallowed the word.
"Fair?" She finished my sentence, as usual. "No, I s'pose it's not." Then she turned from me and walked toward the stairs. I had never admired her more. Of all people, I knew how this knowledge could crush her. Leech out the confidence I'd helped to establish. I glanced down, half-expecting to see her self- esteem puddled around her feet.
But she was strong and steady, almost as if she'd been prepared for this. Almost as if-- Oh, God, had She called? That Bitch! What if my father had answered? Or Lindy? God, Lindy was so proud that she was trusted to answer the phone and take messages like a big girl now. I'd rebuffed Her ever since that night, but She had threatened…
I hadn't realized that I'd muttered her name aloud when Margaret halted on the third step and without turning back to me said "She is yours, you know."
What? What a baffling thing to say. Lindy, my Lindy, perfection with icing. The most incredible creative gift I would ever manage to bring to the world. Of course she was—oh, no. "Margaret, nearly eight years and sharing a conversation with you is still like following a sharp left turn without a signal. What do you mean? Of course Lindy—"
"She takes every opportunity to remark how Lindy looks nothing like you. Well, if She'd ever seen that impish grin, or heard her sass back at me—"her voice faltered, finally. It seemed that talking about our daughter was the only remaining way that I could hurt her.
Lindy had been a celebration of Life. It was the night we had beaten incredibly average Dr. Vernon Parsons and partner at the Harvest Ball dance contest, doing a Lindy Hop we had perfected half a world away. We were giddy and horny and so in love under that October moon. Lindy's secret little life begun that night had finally brought us together several months later (thank God Margaret had told me, not let pride steal her and Lindy from me) when neither war nor peace nor any other cosmic force had been able to unite us.
It was inconceivable (no pun) to me that a (alright, MY) single stupid, selfish act could decimate what we had built together over the years.
"On second thought…" OH, God, yes, please, please, she's forgiving me I'll never, never, never again—"this is your home, yours, your father's. And Lindy's. I won't uproot her now, disrupt her school year. You've always been a good father to her (even if you're a liar to me, she means). I'll pack."
What?
"I'll send you a postcard. I can't think now. I have to get away from here," (away from me, she means).
"Margaret, please. Please, Margaret. Don't do this to us. To Lindy." She only stared at me, as if she knew my brain had been pleading the very same sentiments to me just six weeks ago, and I ignored it. "At least take my car, will you? It's more dependable—I can get around here in your old rust bucket." Maybe I could win her back with my consideration, my thoughtfulness. "And the checkbook—take it, for God's sake. You'll need…stuff…."
Had I already surrendered? Was this the calculated, practical separation of the material after the emotional fallout had burned away and settled into gray ash and powder? What emotion? We hadn't even had a good kicking, screaming, swearing fight yet! And we could, and I could let her win, pummel me, anything to forestall this excruciating consequence.
Mea culpa, for God's sake. All my fault. Punish me. Just don't leave me….like I left you. That once.
finis