Another Love: Lost

I guess it was inevitable that I spent way too much time trying to figure out why I never figured out Karen was cheating. Looking back, I could see the signs, especially right after I came home from Iraq. A smarter man than I would have followed up then. Why was she so distant, when I needed her the most? Why on earth did a health administrator for the State of New York have to travel to Montreal every month or so? I had to admit that she'd been very good at pulling the wool over my eyes. Lots of practice, I guess; besides, I had trusted her completely. The more I thought about it, the more stupid I felt. Combined with feeling betrayed and abandoned, and being told what a wonderful guy my replacement had been, it's no wonder I spent a lot of time at work.

It was a couple of weeks later. I slogged up the stairs after another long day. I muttered something about installing an elevator as I slouched into my fourth floor apartment. I didn't even bother to turn on the lights; I heaved my backpack in the direction of a corner and slumped off toward my little kitchen.

"Welcome home."

I froze. I had heard those words, spoken by that voice, softly, like a caress, thousands of times over twenty-five years. She turned on a light. She was beautiful. Her pink dress was pretty, not deliberately sexy; her face was lighted by her warm, welcoming smile. Our eyes met, and held. That's how she knew the exact moment I began to wonder: did she greet him like this? In our house? She dropped her eyes and her smile faded.

I sighed and slumped into a chair. "Why are you here, Karen?"

"Rob, you've been spending your nights up here all alone, brooding about me and Philippe. You're building up a horrible picture of me, that isn't me at all."

"I'm just starting to figure out who you really are, thanks to someone else's very clear picture of you."

"Rob, I'm the same loving wife you've known for the last twenty years. It's tearing me apart that you've isolated yourself up here, that you spend so much time by yourself. I'm offering you my love, just like I did all those years ago. All you have to do is accept it. I know you're hurt by what you found out, and I'm so very sorry about that; please let me make you happy again."

"I don't think it's that simple, Karen."

"Rob, look at me." I did.

"Tell me what you see."

Our eyes met. We held each other's gaze in silence for several moments, then it all came shooting out of me like pus from a lanced boil.

"I see a beautiful woman, just as beautiful as the day I fell in love with her, if not more so. I see the warm, tender face and hear the voice that thawed my heart all those years ago, and made me think that maybe there really was someone for me, that I wasn't going to be all alone forever. I see the woman who became that one for me, the one special person in my world. Then I see all of that, offered to someone else. All of it."

Karen tried to interrupt me, but once I started, I couldn't stop.

"I remember what it felt like, finally having someone to love, to trust. Someone who would never leave me, who wouldn't ever hurt me on purpose, whose highest good would be my good, as my highest good was hers. For twenty five years, I thought I had that. We had that. I would never have believed you would ever betray me. I trusted you completely.

"Then I found out I was wrong. About all of it. He rocked your world, and I didn't. I failed you, and he didn't. He was a wonderful man, I was just... me. From the day you met him, when you lied to me and went to dinner with him, he took the place in your heart that had been mine. He saw you, he wanted you, he took you, just as he'd taken others before you, and would take others after you. You were all I had, my one and only, irreplaceable, as I thought I was yours. Neither of you cared about taking that from me."

"But I did care," Karen wailed. "We both cared. He never took me from you, he never asked me to leave you. He knew I loved you, and respected that. That's why we never wanted you to know, because we knew how much it would hurt you."

"Then why was Avril so sure I knew, and was okay with it?"

"I don't know. I never told her one way or the other. I guess... I don't know. What I do know, is that I love you more than life, and I never stopped loving you."

She looked so beautiful and earnest, and completely sincere.

"You didn't love me enough to break off your affair. You didn't love me enough to keep him from taking the place in your heart that once was mine."

She sighed. "It wasn't like that, Rob, not at all. Tell me, what can I do to help you see?"

I was tired, I was emotionally wrung out, and I was sick of the whole mess. That's my excuse for saying what I said next.

"Look, you're the one who says I can't see a problem in a relationship without a guide dog. You tell me."

I knew before the words were out of my mouth that they were all wrong. Karen fled the room in tears, slamming the door behind her. I felt like a heel, with good reason. I trudged wearily back down the stairs.

I found them in the main parlor. Karen sat in her pretty pink dress, huddled into a ball, crying her eyes out while Avril held her. Avril glared at me before turning back to Karen. I wanted nothing more in the world than to take my wife in my arms and tell her it would all be okay, but at that moment, I didn't think anything would ever be okay again. I knelt before them both.

"Karen, I'm sorry. That was a rotten thing to say, especially after you reached out to me. I never should have said it, and I'm sorry. Please forgive me."

"You don't get forgiveness until you give it," Avril spat at me, sounding for all the world like a hissing cat. Karen sat up and put a restraining hand on Avril's arm.

"I forgive you, Rob. Thank you for coming down and saying that. It means a lot to me."

My voice didn't work, so I reached for her hand, and kissed it.

"Rob, why are you having such a hard time with this? Do all our years together mean nothing?"

"Well, they obviously don't mean what I thought they meant." They obviously meant a lot less to her than they did to me, for one thing, and that was the mildest thing I could think of to say.

"Qu'en est-il?" Avril spoke kindly now. "What of that? We grow, we change. We become adults, we learn that our childhood wasn't what we thought it was. It is hard, sometimes very hard, even if no one is at fault. We understand, or perhaps not; but we accept, we move on.

"Your heart is broken, we understand, but you are not the first man to feel this, nor will you be the last. Your life is not over, you will go on, one way or another. We hope, your beautiful wife and I, that you go on with love. We have it here for you. Will you not embrace it? Will you not let us mend your heart?" Both women looked at me with hope in their eyes.

Avril was right; life would go on. The two women facing me both knew how they wanted it to go. I had no clue. What a mess.

"What is it, Rob? What are you thinking? Tell us. We love you." Karen's voice was tender, sympathetic.

"All right." I took a deep breath and let it out. "You both know what you want. Going forward, I mean. You both know what you think is best for me. Do you know what I want? Do you even care? Or are you going to do what you want, and then manipulate and lie and deceive me into going along, just as you've done for the last twenty years? My wife is still someone else's woman. I'll always be second place, if that. And I don't know if I can live with that."

I don't know what they thought. I didn't look at either of them. I stood up and went to bed, but not to sleep.

It was a good question: what did I want? I wanted what I had before it was taken away from me. I wanted to trust in my wife's love for me. Karen kept telling me that her love had never changed, but her actions said that wasn't true, hadn't been true for twenty years, and never would be again. So what did I want now?

Avril ambushed me the next night on the back step with the same question: what did I want?

"I want what I had before your husband took it away from me."

She sighed. "My husband took nothing from you. He was a good man. He never took, he always gave. He gave you a more sexually responsive wife. He gave her the help she needed, when you had left her." I just looked at her and shook my head. Same old, same old.

"You do not believe me. You think like an American. Karen did too, at first. This silly idea that a woman belongs to a man, that Philippe making love with her somehow took something that was yours. He seduced her out of that idea, and she is better for it. She came to understand that giving to one does not take from another. She could love, and give herself fully, to both Philippe and you, and that is what she did. There is no first, there is no second. There is just love. She and I understand this. You must, too, if you would understand her."

"So what happens when she has to choose between him and me?"

"Always with the conflict, always with the choice! She chooses you both, always, not the one over the other. Why cannot you understand?"

I thought a moment. "Let me give you an example. This exhibition you two are putting together. I assume you want to include that painting he did of Karen."

"Mais oui! But of course! It is one of his very best, and in a style that was not usual for him. It is an important work, and must be in the exhibition."

"Karen knows that displaying it in public will humiliate and shame me by telling the world that she was his lover. So what will she choose?"

"Oh, that is already decided. The painting will be shown. It may even be on the cover of the catalogue."

"That's pretty clear then, isn't it? She deliberately chose him over me."

"She chooses to live with you and remain your wife. She honors you as the one she loved first. And she always, every time, comes home to you."

"That's because I pay the bills, and bigamy is illegal, even in Canada." It was a little harsh, I guess, but true. "Besides, she never really came home, not completely. Her heart stayed with him. It just took me twenty years to find out, and even then, they had to draw me a picture."

The ambushes by both women continued, in spite of my protests and what I thought we had agreed on. I couldn't really blame them; I'm sure Karen was surprised and disappointed that it was taking so long for me to see things her way. Still, they always left me limp and shaking after I was safely upstairs in my apartment. I was leaning against my door after one encounter, waiting for my pulse rate to slow down, when I glimpsed the blood pressure kit Karen had made me buy all those years ago. I used it: 170/120. I was closer to normal the next morning, but after Avril's next ambush, I was 168/124. If this kept up, I was going to have a stroke or something. I decided I needed to live elsewhere, if only temporarily.

I looked into the faculty apartments on campus, and was surprised to be told I could have one free of charge. I guess that new engine was more important to the campus hoo-hahs than I'd thought. I had Lisa make my arrangements and had my key that afternoon. That evening I went in the front door of my house, instead of climbing the back stairs. Karen and Avril were in the main dining room; papers were scattered all over the table. I asked if I could talk with them for a few moments.

"Rob, now really isn't a good time. There's some stew on the stove; you can heat it up and eat in the kitchen until we're ready for you." Karen smiled as she tossed the statement over her shoulder, then went back to her animated discussion with Avril. I see, I thought: second place yet again. I turned and walked upstairs.

I packed some toiletries, enough clothes for a couple of weeks, and some sheets and blankets, into a big suitcase and a duffel. I left enough in the apartment that I wouldn't have to cart stuff back down the hill if I wanted to spend a day or two in my house, and I was ready to go. I carried my luggage through the parlor toward the front door. That got their attention.

"This is what I wanted to talk about earlier," I motioned toward my luggage. They had the grace to look a little ashamed. "I've taken a faculty apartment on campus through the end of the term. Karen, you wanted to put off deciding anything until January, anyway; we'll see where we are then. You remember that blood pressure kit? I've used it after our last few 'discussions,' and the lowest it's read is 160/120. I'm afraid the constant ambushes from you two are going to put me in the hospital if I stay here. I'll still pay all the bills for the house. You have my phone and my e-mail. Is there anything I've forgotten?"

They just looked at me, so I hoisted my gear and headed for the door. I had almost closed the door when I heard Karen's voice, soft and sad.

"You've forgotten one thing." I turned to look at her. "I love you, Rob."

As September rolled on, we were no farther ahead on the engine. We thought we were getting close, but couldn't quite put our finger on the issue. Karen and I talked briefly on the phone about every other day. She didn't want to hear about the engine; I didn't want to hear about the exhibition, and neither of us wanted to talk about the future of our marriage, if there was one. She did ask about my blood pressure; fortunately, it was staying normal.

Lisa and I grew closer as we continued our lunches together. It sounds like such a cliché, the boss and the beautiful personal assistant, nudge nudge wink wink. Our team reminded us of that frequently. It wasn't like that. Really, it wasn't! Our lunches became a safe place for both of us to think out loud, and tell our troubles to someone who would actually listen and care, and not try to push an agenda. I learned a lot I never would have suspected about the trials of being a beautiful young lesbian working in a male-dominated field. I was learning to listen, and to understand. Unfortunately, the more I understood Karen, the more I hated what she had done.

"Rob," Lisa said one afternoon, "I can't tell you how much you've helped me. I seem to see myself and my life so much more clearly since we've started having these lunches together. Thank you."

"Isn't that my line?" I asked. She giggled.

"Well, yes, it was at first. Everyone's noticed how much more energetic and refreshed you are than you were a few weeks ago, but you've helped me the same way."

"Oh come on, Lisa, I haven't given you a single idea, because I haven't got any. Karen says I can't find a problem in a relationship without a trained guide dog, and the evidence shows she's right. All I've done is listen and... well, listen."

"And that was exactly what I needed. Didn't anyone ever tell you that when a woman tells you her problems, she doesn't want you to fix them, or tell her how to fix them, she just wants you to listen?"

"So, my sitting here hating that I was clueless was..."

"The best thing anyone could have done. Enough. Let's get back to work." We did.

I'd taken some time off for a walk one afternoon to allow my team to wrestle with some questions I'd put to them, when Karen called.

"How do you feel about Canadian Thanksgiving?" I hadn't heard that much excitement in her voice since before her lover died. It worried me.

"Well," I responded cautiously, "I guess it's a good thing for Canadians. Why?"

"It's next weekend, and Avril and I want to get the whole family together for the four-day weekend. It would mean so much to us for you to come. Could you, please?"

"I'm not Canadian, so I don't think I'll have the time off."

"Oh, I know, but could you be here for the evenings and stay at the house for the weekend? Kevin and Oscar are both coming, and we'd all like to have as much time with you as we can. The actual holiday is Monday after next, so we'll have the turkey dinner then."

"I don't know, Karen. I'll think about it over the weekend and let you know."

"Rob, Avril and I both miss you, and I know no one else will fix you a nice turkey dinner on the second Monday in October." I had to admit she was probably right about the dinner.

Kevin shocked me by calling Sunday evening. He said he was looking forward to the weekend, and really hoped I'd be there, especially that I would stay overnight at the house. I briefly wondered why that was important enough for him to mention, but decided nothing could go terribly wrong, so why not. I guess I just had to go on proving my well-known gullibility. I called Karen and told her I'd come after dinner Thursday evening, and would stay through Monday night.

It was near sunset on a beautiful October day when I walked the familiar track, down the hill to my house. Bright sunshine and a certain bite to the breeze, the trees and the ground a riot of color. There was even a bit of a smile on my face as I opened the back door and climbed the stairs. The smile turned to a look of drop-jawed amazement as I walked into my apartment. There, rocking gently in my recliner, sat a beautiful young woman, nursing a baby.

"You must be Rob," she said, turning to me with a dazzling smile and a total lack of self-consciousness. "I'm so glad to finally meet you. I've heard so many good things about you over the years. I would stand, but..." She made a motion toward the pretty infant nursing at her breast.

"Oh, no, no, please, keep your seat, keep your seat," I stammered out through my embarrassment. We stared at each other for a moment, then she gave a delightful little laugh.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm Simone, and this is Georgette." Her English was almost completely unaccented, but the way she pronounced the names was totally French. "I thought you knew. Aunt Karen gave my husband and me, and our children, your apartment for the week. We boxed your things and put them up in the loft, but we'll put them back when we leave. We'll be neat, I promise." That smile again.

"Don't worry about that," I waved off her concern. "So your whole family is here for a week?"

"Yes, we're all here: us, my sister Suzanne and her family, our grandmothers, some cousins from Mama's side, Kevin and Oscar and their friends, and now, finally, you. It's a houseful, isn't it?"

Silly me. When Karen had said the whole family, I thought she meant our family. Nope: she meant his. Which she was part of, now, it seemed.

"Well, Simone, I'm sorry to have disturbed you. I'd better go find someone who can tell me where I'm really supposed to be."

"You did not disturb us at all, and I'm happy to have finally met you." I stammered something or other and fled. I felt enough awkwardness for all three of us, including the baby.

I found Karen in the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner.

"Umm, who do I see about sleeping arrangements?"

Karen smiled, wiping her hands on her apron in a gesture I'd seen thousands of times before. Did she know that simple movement broke yet another piece off my heart, as I thought about the other man who had been equally familiar with her in this kitchen? "That would be me. We're in the back bedroom on the second floor. I've moved the things you'll need in there already." It was the room that had been Kevin's; it shared a bath with what had been Oscar's room.

"We?"

"You, me, and Avril."

"What?" I was getting a bad feeling about this.

"We're too short of beds to worry about your hurt feelings right now. These people don't see things your way. Please don't make a fuss," she said. She turned back to the dishwater indicating that the conversation was over. I got it. My feelings didn't matter; everyone except me saw things the 'right' way, so don't make a fuss. Okay. I made my way to the front of the house.

There was a roaring fire in the fireplace; some children roasted marshmallows on long forks. I saw two older women together on the love seat; those must be the grandmothers. It was a scene right out of a Hallmark special, and it seemed right somehow: as if the old house had been built for occasions like this. The only piece out of place was me. I felt as detached as if I were watching it on television. This was Avril's house now; this was her family. I felt like a stranger in my own home, and more estranged than ever from my wife and sons.