Thursday 27th December 2018, early morning
What a depressing vista? A shoddy motel room. Is this what my life had really come to? So much for high-powered corporate Exec, nationally head-hunted and offered a sixty-percent raise. The little kitchenette and the rest of the décor reminded me of every witness protection scene I’d ever seen in every TV cop show or Crime movie Jill and I had ever watched together. The feeling was so strong I almost looked outside the room door to see if there was a guy in an FBI jacket.
I couldn’t face unpacking the three large suitcases I’d brought – not that the single chipboard wardrobe and its chest of draws cousin had the capacity to empty the suitcases. I couldn’t face cooking in this depressing environment – not that I had anything to cook anyway!
Fortunately, there was a Denny’s diner across the way, and after two cups of coffee and a large steak and egg breakfast, I was just about feeling that I could face life. The motel room was too depressing and lonely and so I ordered another cup of coffee and settled in to spend a couple of hours trying to read my latest book and watch the world go by.
The book and being amongst people helped some, but for every ten minutes, I spent reading I probably spent another ten minutes staring into space, bemoaning my stupidity all those years ago and wondering what the future held for Jill and me.
The hardest part of all was the waiting – the not doing anything. I’d said my piece last night, and seeing Jill’s reaction I knew I’d been a hundred percent right in doing what I’d done – in saying what I’d said. But now that I’d done that, I knew there was nothing more I could do. I had to give Jill the time and space she needed – which just left me there like a man dangling on a thread over some cliff edge or other. The picture in mind that of faded black and white photos of old school daredevils perched precariously on high wires high above Niagara Falls.
The night before, after finding Jill and Malcolm making love and after my heartfelt apology, I’d struggled to sleep. The worst time being around two or three in the morning when all I could think of was where Jill would be sleeping that night. Wednesday nights were normally one of Jill’s ‘Malcolm nights’, but despite this, I couldn’t extinguish the hope that in the present circumstances, Jill would deny her own desires and would head home to the house I’d left free for her.
The not knowing of where she’d lay her head that night, alone or with Malcolm, drove me absolutely crazy. I dreamt up all kinds of ways of checking – driving by the different locations, using the tracker on her phone, lurking outside the club at closing time – I considered all these and more. But in the end, the fear of discovery and what that would do to Jill’s thoughts about the future scared me so much I just lay there in that lonely motel room. Staring up at the ceiling, racked by fear of the future, tormented by not knowing what the future held.
Just before lunch, my phone rang, my heart leaping into my mouth with the hope that it was Jill. My leap of hope was followed by an immediate low, seeing the word ‘Veronica’ flashing on the screen, my negative reaction making me feel guilty.
“Hi,” was all I could say as I picked up and answered.
“Hey, baby,” her voice much more airy and upbeat than mine must have sounded, the sound of her voice kindling the tiniest of happy flames somewhere amongst my inner demons.
She paused before she continued. “Dave, honey, I don’t want to step where I’m not wanted, but the girls at the club told me that you and Jill had some kind of fight, said you looked a bit down. If it would help to come over here and talk, then you know that I’m here for you. That I love you and I’ll do as little or as much as might be helpful for you, honey.”
I loved this woman. My heart might be breaking and I might be totally unsure about whether or not my marriage had a future, but I was also blessed to have this wonderful, understanding, and patient woman in my life. She’d said just the right things – totally pitch-perfect. ‘I’m here for you … I love you … as much or as little as you want … not me but you.’ Whatever her exact words, this was the message that she’d delivered.
And so, I started off to drive over to see Veronica, knowing that talking and seeing her would at least move me off rock bottom. But driving over there, I started thinking about the appropriateness of me being with Veronica at a time like this. My mind split between thinking about what was right and also the less moral thoughts about what Jill might think if she found out.
In the end, I parked up and rang Veronica, explaining why I didn’t think it was such a great idea for me to come over. To her great credit, Veronica listened quietly to my explanation and didn’t try and change my mind or pressure me. So instead of me going over there, we just talked on the phone for the best part of two hours.
It wasn’t the same as being there with Veronica, as smelling her perfume or feeling the touch of her arms around my neck or her lips against mine. But it was a whole lot better than a lonely motel room by myself, and by the end of our talk I’d perked up just enough, thinking I’d head back to my Denny’s diner, to eat and just be around people.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The next few days followed a similar pattern. I was officially on annual leave, but I tried to do a little work as a good way of distracting myself. Each day I hoped that Jill would ring. Each time the phone rang, I’d pick it up and hope that it was Jill. Each night I’d torment myself wondering where Jill was. Was she with her boyfriend, making love and jointly discussing and deciding our marriage, or was she at our family home doing the thinking and pondering she’d told me she needed space for?
If she’d kept to her normal schedule, she’d have been home or at Charlotte’s on Thursday evening, the day of my long phone call with Veronica, at Malcolm’s on Friday and Saturday nights and back at home on Sunday.
Each day was just the most awful drag, wanting the phone to ring, wanting to hear Jill tell me that she wanted me home and wanted to talk. But at the same time, each time the phone rang I knew it could be Jill calling to tell me it was all over between us.
The rational part of my brain told me that, however angry and disappointed she was with me, she’d not just throw away twenty plus years of marriage and our family life over something that happened so long ago. But since when has fear been rational – my mind kept coming back to what Charlotte had told me about how hurt she’d been by having to terminate the baby and by carrying the pain and the secret all alone all these years. Every time my mind played back Charlotte’s words, I felt a shiver of dread racing down my spine.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It wasn’t until Sunday just after lunchtime that Jill finally got in touch. Not a call, but a text, a text that left me feeling none the wiser about the fate of our marriage.
‘I’m home, we should talk, J’
It was only a five-minute drive from my motel to our home, but even during that short drive, I must have analyzed Jill’s message ten or twenty times.
‘I’m home’ – did that mean she’d not been home before, that she’d spent the last two nights at Malcolm’s, as was her usual schedule.
‘We should talk’ – did that mean I should go home to talk, or was it an invitation to call her phone, but if that was so why did she bother to tell me she was home, that was irrelevant information if she just wanted me to call her.
‘J’ – not ‘J x’ or ‘J xxx’ – surely a sign that she was still mad at me.
Round and round and round these and so many other questions went in my brain as I drove the two miles from the motel to our home in Coral Gables.
Finally back home and seeing Jill’s car parked in our drive, I was suddenly afraid, and it took nearly a full minute and a huge effort before I could get my frightened legs to work as I hauled myself out of the car and down the last few yards of our drive.
Jill was in the lounge, a tired look on her face, her expression absolutely neutral, not giving me any hint of my fate and what Jill was thinking.
“Honey,” I said, my voice quivering with nerves, more than one word totally beyond me.
“Dave,” came her hard-edged reply. But at least I wasn’t back to being ‘David’.
And then whatever control I’d ever thought I might manage just dissolved in a split second as I walked over to Jill as fast as I could, telling her how much I loved her as I walked, finally arriving at the sofa and taking her hands between mine and carrying on in a non-stop litany of ‘I love yous’.
Fortunately, from the moment I broke down and started telling her how much I loved her, I could see tears in Jill’s eyes and I heard her own words mirroring my own.
We were both absolute wrecks as we clung to each, confessing our undying love and sobbing our eyes out.
When the storm had finally subsided and we’d both dried our tears, Jill pulled back a little from our embrace and touched my cheek with her fingertips with a gentleness that almost had me in tears again. Her eyes still soft and watery.
“What ARE we going to do? You and me. How have we got ourselves here?” All good questions she was asking, I just pulled a blank face and shrugged my shoulders, having no answer.
“I love you, Dave. But this latest thing,” she asked, her words trailing off. “You’ve really hurt me, Dave. Made me question a lot of things. Who we are, who you are. Are you the man I thought you were all these years? And our marriage was pretty complicated before all of this – the four-way marriage we somehow managed to build, somehow sneaking upon us.”
Jill paused, letting her words sink in, not just for me, but for her as well as she was thinking anew about what she’d just said.
“Dave, honey, you have to understand just how much what you did hurt me. I still love you, baby, nothing will ever take that away, but the lack of respect, the taking away from me decisions that were only ever mine to make, never yours …” I felt so small and guilty as I looked into her eyes, still loving and kind, but also intent on letting me know the pain and hurt I’d caused her.
“Honey, you weren’t to know it, but can you even begin to imagine how I feel about the baby I never knew? We have three wonderful children, the center of our lives, but every day, I have had the heartache of wondering about the child that was inside me but who I never knew, who I had terminated. What would they have been like? What would my life have been like? And it’s not their fault, but now there’s a small part of me that looks at our own children and links them to what you did. That makes me think that, however much I love them, maybe they should never have been. If you’d not taken that letter, then my lost baby would have been my first baby, not John. And Abigail and Sarah might never have been born ….”
Again, Jill’s words fell away as she withdrew back into herself, thinking about what she was telling me, thinking about the different track her life might have followed. The children she’d never known that she might have loved, the children she loved but might have never had.
Although she held me and kissed me and told me how much she loved me, I was truly fearful of where this conversation was headed, so when Jill moved her head next to mine and kissed me softly I felt a wave of relief the like of which I’d never known before.
But she wasn’t done with her soul-searching, those beautiful hazel eyes of hers locking onto me as part of her telling me just how hurt and confused she really was.
“And what about Callan?” she asked. ‘WHAT about Callan’ a little voice in my head echoed with anger and pique, this was about Jill and me, and that was plenty enough to deal with.
“By what you did, honey, you denied Callan the chance to have a family. To experience all those wonderful experiences we’ve so loved. To have a truly fulfilling life. He was the guy I first loved, he’s your friend, and now we find out that you stole away from him his chance of a truly happy and fulfilling life.”
I could have defended myself. I could have pointed out how he had hurt Jill. How he had torn her heart out and stomped up and down on it, dumping her for the girl he’d been infatuated with. How he had been so desperate to win Jill back that he had never once mentioned the letter to make sure she had gotten it; to make sure it had not fallen down the side of the bed. Inside I was yearning to tear Callan down in Jill’s eyes. But I knew now wasn’t a time for argument, it was a time for listening and contrition. So instead of defending myself the only words escaping my lips were a simple and small ‘I know’.