Four Friends

“Yeah. Yeah. You going off with some other woman?” Jed asked.

“No. Absolutely not. I love your mother, I don’t even know where that woman is. I’ll do whatever I can, son. I’ll try my best to get our marriage back. Our family. Jed, I’m so sorry.”

“You mad at Mom for this? For saying she doesn’t want to live with you?”

“Nah. But I’ll be honest with you—this whole thing has caused us to say a lot of real nasty things to each other. We have things to get over. You’re going to have to be mature. Patient. Give us a chance to work it out. This wouldn’t be the best time to be the badass we both know you can be.”

“When was this? When did you say?”

“Over five years ago,” Phil said.

“Jesus. You haven’t done that since, have you?”

Phil just shook his head.

“Well, then, what the fuck? ”

“Listen, son, I didn’t take the other woman out for a soda. I was intimate with her. That’s the betrayal that sticks, that hurts. I’d love your mom to say, ‘Oh, well, I hope you learned your lesson,’ but it’s not going to be that easy. And it’s up to her. She’s the one who was wronged, so give her a break. You understand, Jed?”

He thought for a long moment. Then he said, “I understand life around our house is going to suck big-time.”

They talked awhile longer. Jed had questions that Phil answered a little differently than he had with his wife. He still couldn’t say why, but he did relent that the woman was pretty, nice, smelled good, made herself available. Jed was nineteen and had been with his girlfriend, Tracy, for about a year. They’d had many father-son talks about Jed’s responsibilities as a man. Phil knew the boy was sexually active and understood feelings of lust. He hoped he wouldn’t follow in his father’s footsteps and stray just because he was a little bored, a little needy or whatever the hell it was. “I thought I was a bigger man,” Phil said. “I hope to God you learn from this. You have a problem with your girl, your wife, your frickin’ hormones, you better find a way to communicate that. Find a better way to deal with things than I did.”

“Man, you always seemed so perfect,” Jed said. “But when you fuck up, you fuck up big.”

* * *

If trying to tell her kids was horrible, preparing to tell Andy and Sonja was torture, and Gerri had no idea what she was going to say to her coworkers at CPS. She pinched the fat gathering below her waist and knew it was impossible to say she needed time to see her counselor twice a week for anorexia. On Monday morning when she was to meet her friends for their walk, Sonja was at her door five minutes early. Gerri came out with her coffee cup and led her to Andy’s. When Andy opened the door Gerri said, “Got the coffeepot on?”

“Sure.”

“I have to tell you both something. Let’s go inside. We’ll walk tomorrow.”

When they were seated at Andy’s sawdust-covered table, Gerri went through the chronology of events, from the encounter with Kelly in the elevator to the confrontation with Phil, the three disastrous counseling sessions and brutal arguments that followed. And then she described telling the kids he was sleeping elsewhere for the time being and why.

“Couldn’t you have come up with some story?” Andy asked, horrified.

“Believe me, I wanted to,” Gerri said. “Don’t tell him I said this, but Phil was right—they’re not preschoolers, they have to know why. My husband had an affair and I’m too angry to live with him right now.”

“How’d it go?” Andy asked.

“As bad as possible. Jed was silent and brooding, disillusioned, actually more angry with me than Phil, but Jessie fell apart. She sobbed almost uncontrollably. And Matt shrugged and asked something like, “How long will this take?” And then he asked if it was all right to go pitch a few balls with a couple of friends. Baseball season’s starting. At dinner, it was quiet as a tomb except for questions about their routine—rides, takeout orders for dinner, chores. Matt asked if there was going to be child support—they know about those problems from friends—moms who are suddenly unable to pay for school trips, that sort of thing. Then before the plates were cleared, Jessie lost it, threw a glass across the room and screamed at us both, asking how we could do this to her. She’s sixteen so it’s all about her. When the house was finally under control and quiet, Phil and I had another fight in the garage as he was leaving with his suitcase.”

“What did you fight about?” Sonja asked.

She laughed weakly. “Our routine. Child support.”

“What’s up with the routine? The child support?”

“He’s going to stay in the city. He’ll come out to Mill Valley as much as possible, when he’s not working till nine or ten. If he’s not around as much, can’t car pool, he also can’t be expected to drive all the way out here just to bring home dinner or help with homework. It’ll be a major adjustment. Before, if I was going to be late, he was on time and vice versa. And he said he’d take care of the bills, but I’ve been paying the bills for over twenty years—he just gets his cash out of the instant teller or my purse. Now he’s going to have his check payrolled to him rather than direct deposited and give me money. He needs money to pay for a place to stay. Oh, forget about it,” she said, waving her hand. “It’s just logistics. We don’t know who does what. We always used to know who does what.”

They’d also fought about him leaving, though she asked him to leave, so they fought about the fact that he made her make him. And she cried half the night again.

“I can’t believe it,” Andy said, resting her head in her hand. “I never even imagined this possible.”

“Me, either,” Gerri said. “I never knew anything was wrong with us.”

“But it was five years ago,” Andy said. “You sure you want to separate over something that’s been over that long? Five years doesn’t give you some peace of mind?”

“I can’t just forget about it,” Gerri said. “He said he tried but couldn’t get my attention. I’ll tell you one thing he never tried, though. He never said, ‘I’m tempted by a pretty woman at work and I need us to have more sex.’ He never came clean with me. Instead, he got involved, knowing the risk. Apparently we were worth the risk. I just can’t go through that again.”

* * *

There was a little lie in Gerri’s memory. She couldn’t exactly remember Phil romancing her, letting her know he was feeling needy. But she could remember their sex life dwindling, all but disappearing and not being sorry. It was so gradual she couldn’t put a time marker on it. She remembered when Andy met Bryce and was flushed and floating because of all the erotic sex and Gerri had just laughed at the absurdity of it. “Better you than me,” Gerri had said. “I don’t think I could handle the stress at this point in my life. And God knows, I can’t spare the sleep.”

There was one truth—she hadn’t realized it was just her. She thought it was both of them, their libidos beaten down by everything else. And, she didn’t think he minded, either. She thought he’d gone as dry as she had. She did remember times he snuggled her, pressed up against her, tried fondling. Most of the time she said, “Aww, Phil...” Honestly, she couldn’t remember when they’d last had sex. Months ago. And she had no memory of whether they were doing it more or less than that seven years ago.

But then along came a woman—a small, young blonde with fluffy hair in Gerri’s imagination—to awaken him. Stir him. What was so unfair in that image was that Gerri couldn’t possibly compete—not with her stretch-marked stomach, saggy boobs, torn sweats, her tired eyes, her menopausal mood swings.

What she did have, from the day they met to the day before she heard about the affair, was the ability to communicate with him about anything and everything else. Their professional lives had so much more in common, they used each other for sounding boards all the time. When it came to family, they shored each other up, at least one of them always being there for the kids. And they were unfailingly there for each other, whether it was a work problem or personal crisis, obsessively interested in each other’s lives. They worked together like synchronized swimmers to keep everything running as smoothly as possible. And they didn’t just have meaningful conversations sometimes—it was all the time.

And on those evenings they were both at home and could relax with a glass of wine or sit in front of a fire on cold winter nights, their time wasn’t consumed by passion or even that unhurried, gentle love she remembered from younger days. It was companionship that filled the hours—conversation, laughter, empathy, advice for each other. Maybe a movie or quiet time when they both read. Companionship. Partnership. Perfect symbiosis.

She didn’t know when or how the lovemaking disappeared. She had always thought it was normal for the sex drive to relax, to become better friends than lovers. She thought his libido was exactly like hers—no longer urgent. It simply went to sleep. When she thought about growing older with him, she never thought of sex being a part of their lives. Their lives were so good, their relationship so strong, it never once occurred to her they needed anything more, except maybe time.

Honestly, if he’d said, ‘I need a good, hard, sweaty roll in the hay before I lose my mind,’ she would have laughed at him.

They argued, yes. But they had laughed a lot, too. Their chemistry was good. She kept telling herself the marriage had such value, such depth, it just couldn’t have been all about sex. Sex was something they could’ve fixed. She wasn’t sure how but something could have been done.

Their first week of separation was difficult at best. The kids were angry and quieter than usual until they had regular short flare-ups, outbursts that had nothing and yet everything to do with their parents living apart. Gerri watched them carefully, fully aware that few people understood how closely depression and anger were linked. Jed was absent a lot, typical for a nineteen-year-old in college with a steady girl, but when he was around he held his tongue, a feat for him. Matt, on the other hand, acted as if nothing had happened; his conversation was all about baseball.

Jessie was in the worst shape, snotty and disrespectful, sneering sarcastically when answering her mother, muttering under her breath. “You probably didn’t notice there weren’t any chips or Cokes since you’re hardly ever here.” And “Why do I always have to stay home just because you and Daddy have this thing going on?” Once in a while Gerri heard what sounded suspiciously like the b-word directed at her. She was so awful that Gerri wanted to smack her. But then Jessie got out the photo albums, looking through the family pictures as if someone had died. As if trying to remember how they’d been before this.

A second week passed, Gerri seeing her counselor twice a week, whole sessions during which she did little talking and a great deal of crying. She slept poorly and wondered often if Phil was finding comfort somewhere else, angry because she wasn’t finding comfort anywhere. Angrier still because she had no desire to seek out any other form of comfort. It wasn’t that she was bored with Phil sexually, there just wasn’t so much as a spark in her. How long can I do this before I say uncle? she wondered. Is it better with you as a cheater than without you as a partner?

Then Gerri looked through the photo albums herself, left on the coffee table by Jessie. She studied their faces, hers and Phil’s, twenty years ago, fifteen, ten, five. Two years ago. He was a good-looking man who had seasoned with age and experience. She looked at herself in the pictures very critically, but she had photographed well. She had probably never qualified as beautiful, but she was handsome—five-nine, slender, long neck, high cheekbones, engaging smile. She knew she was fortunate. Tall, slim women tended to look decent in everything from shorts and jeans to cocktail dresses. She marveled at the frequency of so many shots being captured while she smiled into the camera and Phil gazed at her. And in every goddamn one of them—from twenty years ago to two, even through the time it was happening for him with someone else, they looked happy and loving. How was that possible?

Gerri soldiered on. Walking in the early morning, driving kids to school, going to work, coming home in the evening to manage her home and family, sometimes finding Phil there using the computer in his home office after having spent time with the kids. Then she’d lie in bed at night feeling so robbed, so alone, every expectation shattered.

* * *

Sonja was having a really hard time with Gerri and Phil’s separation. She was trained to intuitively know when intimates were in trouble. A hundred seminars and retreats had helped her to develop these skills. She tried not to say anything when she noticed small things, like a person’s chakra auras or the balance in their homes being out of whack, but truthfully, except for the usual disruption of a busy household, she had always judged the Gilberts to have the stuff of a solid, unbreakable family. This troubled her because she loved Gerri; she should have paid closer attention.

She refused to offer to clear the presence of Phil out of the house with sage and feathers. She hoped this was just an altercation that would mend. She didn’t offer healthy meals or special herbal drinks because while Andy would become annoyed and throw her offerings in the trash, Gerri was just testy enough to shake her till her teeth rattled. So she remained positive, urging Gerri to listen to her body’s messages and use her instincts in getting through the rough patch with a goal of emerging stronger, better. And Gerri snarled at her.

Then she came home from a yoga class to find George was home early. She found his car in the garage and she went into the house and called out to him. He was in their bedroom, packing.

“George,” she said, surprised. “Do you have to leave town?”