Cafe - Epilogue

WARNING!! This is the much-requested ending to my story "Café." If you do not want to see an ending to that story, DON'T READ ANY FURTHER! I would hate to be accused of wasting your time again! If you do read it and then complain again about it being a waste, I will delete your comment!

This conclusion is what I had pictured all along as I wrote the original, although some of the details that evolved came from reading your responses to the first one. I hope it lives up to your expectations. I tried to answer some of the questions many of you had in your comments. I have read every comment on the original, and I will do the same thing here as well.

As always, my stories are complete works of fiction, and all persons are of legal age. Your votes and comments are important to me, so after you read it, please share with me!

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Erin looked up at Shawn, and her eyes were filled with tears. His first instinct was to go to her and hold her, wiping her tears and reassuring her that he would never leave. At the same time, the image of a man he had never met, whom she had developed a two-month relationship with apart from his knowledge, plus the fact that she had kissed him here in the very café where their relationship had begun, came into his mind and pushed away the image of the crying wife who was seeking forgiveness.

He also thought of the pain when he found out that as recently as yesterday, she was seriously considering abandoning what they had together for something newer and more potentially more exciting. He could forgive the flirting, he thought, because sometimes that's what beautiful people do, whether they intend to or not. He could even perhaps eventually forgive the kiss, although that would take more time.

But he wasn't sure he could forgive the time she spent where she had put their relationship in jeopardy. That she had decided to stay with him now was of little comfort. The fact that she had considered it for longer than a second was where he felt Erin had cheated on him.

So with those conflicting thought wrestling in his mind, he made his decision. He looked at his beautiful wife, and said, "Erin, I love you, and I always will. But I never expected this pain you have caused me. So this has been the most difficult decision of my entire life.

"Erin, I've decided to...give us a chance at working through this."

She had tensed up, waiting to hear his answer, so when he finally revealed his feelings, she collapsed against the table in front of her and started to sob. She looked up at Shawn, trying to gauge his facial expression and body language, so when he held his arms out to her, she didn't hesitate to run around to his side of the table and throw her arms around him in a relieved hug.

They held that position for what seemed like several minutes. When she finally relaxed her grip on him a little, she pulled a chair right up next to his, and then looked into his eyes and said, "Thank you, my love. I'm so sorry to have put you through this. I promise I'll do anything to prove my love for you, and that I'll never hurt you like that again."

Shawn wiped a couple of her tears from her eyes. He kissed her on the cheek, and then said, "I know you will, but that's not what this needs to be about. When I told you my decision, I said I wanted to give 'us' a chance, not that I was going to give you a chance. Do you see the difference?"

Erin looked at him with a surprised look on her face. "I see the difference, but I was the one that screwed up, Shawn. I was the one that just about cost us our marriage."

Shawn tried to hide a little smile. "I know that, Erin - at least at first glance, that's what it looks like. There were things that either you did do that you shouldn't have, or things you didn't do that you should have. I'm sure there's going to be lots of time to talk about all that happened. I asked you to tell me the truth last night, and I think you did, but I also think there are still some unanswered questions that need to be asked.

"Those questions are going to have to be answered before we can have any hope of succeeding in the long run. I don't know it that's going to help my trust in you or not, but I think for the health of our marriage, some tough questions need to be asked.

"But as I've had time to think about this last night while I couldn't sleep, and then again today, I realized that maybe I have some issues I need to deal with as well. Maybe there were things I was either doing or not doing that made you think it was okay to flirt with him. Maybe I couldn't see signs of evidence that something was going on because I didn't want to think anything could possibly be wrong. I've always had this picture of this absolutely perfect life with the perfect woman that made the perfect couple who treated each other perfectly, meaning that they would spend a perfect life together and live happily ever after. Now I see that something happened that I wasn't anticipating, and I want us to figure out what that was together.

"What I'm feeling right now is that I don't want to assign blame to this. I don't want us thinking that it was 70% your fault and 30% mine, or 60% my fault and 40% yours. I'm not interested in how mad I should be at you or you at me. I just want to see what we can do to make sure something like this never happens again."

Erin smiled at Shawn and said, "I want that also, Shawn. While you had time to think last night and today, I had all day without working at a job to think about what I did, and more importantly, why I did it. I'm so ashamed, and I don't know if I have any answers yet. But one thing I'd like for us to do is go to marriage counseling together. Let's see if we can find a counselor that we can agree on to see if we can figure out how to avoid this in the future."

"Counseling was part of my thinking today as well. Do you remember the Hastings - Diane and Rick? They went through marriage counseling a couple of years back, and they said it made a positive difference in their marriage. They loved their counselor - I can't remember what her name was, but she really made them look deeply into their relationship and pulled out some things they had repressed that were causing problems. Shall we call them and get the name?

Erin agreed. "I can call them tomorrow while you are at work. I can even call and make an appointment for us if you can give me a couple of days where you can get away. Also, do you think you can go with me to the office tomorrow night so I can get started on turning my accounts over to someone else? I just don't want to take a chance of being there by myself and dealing with him if he happens to show up."

Shawn gave her a hug. "Of course I will. But are you sure this is what you want? I know that you told me you were an equal flirt with him when this first started, but what he did to you was a pretty bad case of harassment! Where is the punishment for him if you quit and he keeps working? You loved that job!"

She nodded, and said, "I DID love the job, but it also represents the place where I about lost my marriage due to my own stupidity. Even if Roger was gone, I just don't think I would be comfortable there again. I'd rather spend my time right now working on our marriage with you. If you're willing to try and save US, I want to do whatever I can to make that work. I can look for other things - it might even be time to look at starting out on my own, starting small, working from home."

She paused, then leaned over to kiss Shawn on the cheek, and asked the question that had been on her mind since he told her he was willing to try and work things out. "Shawn, what are you going to do? Are you going to stay with me in our house? What is the next step?"

He pondered the question for a little bit, and each seconds' delay in his answer made her nervous. Finally, he said, "I don't really have anywhere else to go, and the thought of staying in a motel or some tiny little apartment doesn't appeal to me at all. I'd rather stay at home while we try to work this out, but you have to realize that it's going to take time to try and get back even close to where we were before all of this happened. I guess that's the ultimate goal - either finding that again, or learning to live with the new normal."

She smiled. "I'm so glad to hear that. Then can we go home now? Let's go home and see if we can get started fixing this. I'm ready to start showing you that you can trust me again, and won't have to worry about something like this happening in the future!"

Little did they know at the time that it would be their last visit to the café for a long time. They had spent many wonderful moments together there, but just as their marriage had suffered a setback, so too did the romantic mood they often felt when they were together at the café.

Erin guided her car toward their house, with Shawn following in his truck. At some point in time, they became separated, so when Erin got home first, Shawn was nowhere to be found. She tried to chalk it up to his getting caught in traffic, but in reality, she was beginning to worry that perhaps he had discovered second thoughts. After about 10 minutes, she began to reach for her phone to call him to see where he was, but before she could start, she heard his truck in the driveway. Relieved, she went to the door and saw why he was late - he had stopped at their favorite pizza place and was carrying a take-out, which she knew would be her favorite - deep dish supreme with extra cheese. It may have seemed like a little thing to the unknowing eye, but to her it was significant - in spite of her nearly wrecking their marriage, this little gesture of bringing home her favorite pizza meant to her that he still loved her.

They made small talk as they ate. There was tension in the air, and they both realized that for now, that would be part of the new normal. After they ate, they made plans for the next day. Shawn was in the middle of a renovation and needed to work all day. Erin would try to contact her friend Diane Hastings to see if she could get the name of the counselor that had helped their marriage. After Shawn got home from work, he would go with Erin to the office to be with her while she worked on closing out her responsibilities there.

They headed for bed, which presented another dilemma. They had slept in separate bedrooms last night as Shawn pondered his decision, but neither of them had slept well. He looked back at Erin and said, "Honey, I don't want to sleep in the guest room tonight, but you have to understand I'm not really sure I'm ready for us to resume again like nothing happened. I was thinking that we'd sleep in the same bed, but just sleep for now."

Erin smiled - it was more than she thought she was going to get. She nodded, and grabbed his hand to lead him to their bedroom. He slept in shorts, and she in a long t-shirt. Sometime during the night, he rolled over and into her back, laying his right arm across her body, his hand on her right breast. She had awoken as he adjusted, and feeling him spooning against her - even with her body covered - gave her a big sense of relief. She was smiling as she drifted back to sleep.

The next morning Shawn got up quietly, showered and got dressed without disturbing Erin. He felt a little more responsibility now in making sure his customers were satisfied with his work, since he wasn't sure when Erin was going to start working again. He was also sure that he didn't want these problems with his marriage interfere with his work. In reality, it was probably being able to lose himself in his projects that helped him through the early days of their new reality. Work was consistent and manageable - his marriage now was far from it.

Erin woke, and seeing that Shawn had already left for the day, got up and started in on her duties. She found a phone number for her friend Diane and called her. After explaining some of the details of her "mistake," she got the number of Dr. Jessica Brown, the counselor Diane and her husband Rick had used. She texted Shawn to find out what days he had available for an appointment. When he answered, Shawn called Dr. Brown's office, and found out that the first appointment was always an individual appointment, so she arranged two sessions - one for her, and one for Shawn. They were a day apart - Erin would go first, and then Shawn the next day.

When he arrived home from work, he found that Erin had supper ready for him. This was unusual - in fact, often times Shawn would get home before Erin, and it would become his responsibility to cook supper, a responsibility he didn't mind. But he admitted having a meal ready for him when he came home was a pretty nice benefit.

After supper, they headed to her office so she could do the things necessary to transfer her accounts to another accountant in the office. While they drove, Erin delivered some interesting news to Shawn.

"I got an email from the accounting firm today. It seems that the bosses did some checking on things after they got my resignation, and found out about my relationship with Roger. The email didn't go into details, but they asked me to reconsider, and wanted me to call and talk to them as soon as possible."

Shawn glanced over at Erin and asked, "So did you call?"

She shook her head. "I didn't call, and I don't really want to. I still just want to stay away, if you think we can swing it on one income for a while."

"Don't worry about the income," Shawn reassured her. "I think we can live on my salary for a while. It will just mean things like no new cars or big fancy trips, and I don't see us needing either of those right now."

He reached out and put his hand on her leg. "Erin, what do you really want to do, deep down inside your gut?"

She sighed. "I want us to be able to go back and do this last two months over again, so I would be smart and never get involved in this mess. I know that's not possible, so the next thing I want is to get as close to that as possible. Right now, I think me not working gives us a better chance, because I think it will eliminate some of the stress I've created in the office."

Shawn agreed. "Then that's what we'll do - decision is final. We don't have to talk about this again."

"Thanks, Shawn. I really do think that for a while, at least, it will be better this way."

Soon they arrived at the accounting office. As they were pulling into the parking lot, Erin suddenly tensed up and said, "Shit!"

"What's wrong, honey?"

She pointed to a car parked next to the building and said, "He's here - that's his car. I can't do this now, Shawn - let's go."

"Erin - are you okay? Is that Roger's car?"

"Yes, Shawn - I don't want to go in there and face him. Can't we go and come back later?"

Shawn stopped the car. "Erin, I won't make you go in there. But if we go now, I'll be with you, and he'll see that he doesn't stand a chance. You can tell him the truth - that you're there only because you've quit and you're getting things ready for the next people to take over your accounts."

"I know," Erin agreed. "I know this will be a face-to-face opportunity to prove to him that he's got no chance. I'm just not sure I'm prepared for this. I had actually hoped I wouldn't have to see him ever again."

Shawn reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. "Erin, you don't have to do this if you don't want to. But I'm here with you, and I won't let anything happen to you.

"Are you going to be okay with seeing him? You're not going to try and kill him, are you?"

Shawn laughed. "No, I'm not going to hurt him. The scum's not worth me spending any time in jail. Like I said, I'm just going to make sure he understands that you're not available. Are you ready to do this?"

"Okay, Shawn - since you're with me, I can do this. And...it sounded pretty good when you said you wanted to tell him that I'm not available. I know we have a long way to go, but any time you say something like that, it makes my heart skip a beat!"

Shawn reached over and squeezed her hand. He really loved her, and even though the pain of what she did to him still existed, he was beginning to see the possibility that they might make it through this.

He parked their car two stalls away from Eric's. They got out together, and she found her key to unlock the office door. They decided to go straight to her office without trying to find Eric. This way, if there was a confrontation, it would be at Eric's instigation.

Once inside, Erin paused, almost as if she was exorcising a ghost. When she was ready, she made her way quickly to her office. Shawn followed her in and shut the door behind them. Erin went straight to her computer. First, she answered the bosses' email about reconsidering her resignation. Eventually she got to the business of working on her accounts. She had some updating to do on each of them before she was ready to turn them over.

After about 30 minutes, they heard someone coming down the hall. Erin looked up at Shawn, realizing that they were about to experience the confrontation. A light knock on the door announced that Roger was standing outside. Shawn got up out of his chair to let him in.

He opened the door, and for the first time, stood face to face with the man who had spent the past two months trying to steal his wife. An initial wave of anger flashed through Shawn, but he squelched it as he stepped back away from the open door.

Roger's face turned white with a combination of surprise and fear. When he had gone outside to leave, he had seen Erin's car in the lot, and realized she must have been there. However, he had failed to think that she may not be alone, so he wasn't prepared to see this man standing now between Erin and himself.

It was Erin who broke the awkward silence. "Roger, what are you doing here? I thought I made it pretty clear to you that I didn't want to see you again."

Roger swallowed, still clearly worried about the presence of whom he expected was Erin's husband in the office with her. "I know you did, but I wanted to come and apologize for my actions. There's no excuse for what I did, and even though I thought we were really getting along, I should have kept myself in check. I assume this is your husband - if so, then I can apologize to both of you."

Erin glanced over at Shawn before addressing Roger. "You're apology doesn't do us a lot of good now, but the reality is that you certainly weren't the only one at fault. Shawn and I have discussed this fully. He knows I was wrong as well - for getting involved in the first place, and then for not getting out as it got more intense. I betrayed my marriage by flirting around with you, Roger, but Shawn has agreed to give us time to heal from this and move on.

"I'm sure you know by now, but I've resigned. My marriage is more important than working here, and I'm trying to put all of these bad memories behind. The only reason I'm here right now is to get my accounts ready for someone else. I certainly wouldn't have come if I had known that you were going to be here."

Roger replied, "The only reason I'm here is to clean out my office. I got fired today. It seems that after you resigned, the bosses started trying to figure out what happened. Apparently it was a pretty easy trail back to me. They gave me a two week severance package and told me to clear out immediately. I'm just here getting my stuff. Tomorrow I turn in my keys. After that, I'm not sure what I'll do."

Erin replied, "Well, I wish I could say I was sorry for you losing your job, but I'm not. Perhaps they would have fired me as well, but I beat them to the punch." She didn't let him know about her email asking her to return, and she wasn't sure how much he had shared with the bosses. But she knew she was also guilty of the kinds of things for which Roger was fired.