Folie à Deux (38 page)

She pauses but as I’m about to speak says, “Jimi, I’m so sorry, I tried to protect you but they said they were going to handcuff you and hurt you. I was so confused, they told me that they had video of us and they were getting calls from people who could agree they saw us. And Mom tried knocking on the door and they wouldn’t let her in. They kept telling her I was fine, but I was hysterical. It’s been absolutely horrible.”

I have more questions than I can name so I instantly prioritize hoping for straight answers. “Why are you calling me from mom’s phone?” I say without acknowledging her apology.

“They took mine, something about getting all of the text messages off of it or something, so mom let me call you from her phone,” she detects my urgency and replies at the same quickened pace as I ask.

“Are they coming for me now?” Her answers, although spoken quickly are not coming soon enough.

“I don’t know, they only asked if I thought you’d run.”

“But why would they say that? How would I find out if you hadn’t called me?” I’m starting to punch holes in her story not to disprove her but to gain a better understanding.

“When I had to hang up before, they walked in and saw me on the phone. They asked who I was talking to and I said no one but they took mom’s phone and matched your number with my phone. When they found out we talked they wanted to know if I thought you would try to get away from them,” she says before reverting back into tears.

“Ok, just relax,” I say more for myself because there is no way for either of us to remain calm. “So what did your mom say through all of this? Where the fuck was she while this was going on? She didn’t stop them or step in?” I let loose for a moment then realize I don’t want to turn her against Kathy.

She sinks into hysterics, “No Jimi, that’s just it, they wouldn’t let mom in the room.” She rambles slightly and my mind wanders, causing unmanageable frustration. I remember she said something about this a moment ago, but I was lost on another thought so I pay closer attention now. “Mom kept asking if I was ok. Four fucking hours I was in there. She brought me right after school and I held my own for four hours of them badgering me and screaming in my face and every time mom asked them if I was ok, they just told her, ‘Oh yeah, she’s fine,’ or, ‘Sure, we’re just getting Talia a glass of water but we’re just talking.’”

She knocked on the door three times. And every time they said, ‘Oh, she’s fine,’ but I wasn’t fine, I was hysterical and they wouldn’t let me out. The one cop got mad and started slamming his hand on the arm of my chair and banging on the table. He was so angry that he was spitting on me as he yelled. And then when I finally broke down after they threatened us, they said, ‘Ok now we need to get that on tape, so we’ll ask you the questions
again and answer us the same way.’ They said it like none of the terrible things they did to me ever happened, like we were best friends because I told them what they wanted. Oh Jimi, it was horrible. I’m so so sorry,” she speaks through tears again.

I pause to think. I know she told me all she can handle but I still need to know how to match our stories.

“So Talia, try to calm down, I’m very sorry that happened. Can you tell me what you said so I can repeat the same?” I try to sound sensitive but know time is of the essence. She takes a deep breath. I can feel how incredibly hard this was and the life it sucked from her.

She continues her effort on my behalf, “I swore to them that we have never had sex and they seemed to believe me. I told them there was one time that I blew you, but as soon as your penis went into my mouth I gagged and got sick on your stomach. I didn’t tell them that you came in my mouth or anything like that. So I don’t think that it will be bad because it was just once they think.”

Her silence makes me think she’s done, but as I begin another question she adds, “Oh, and Jimi, I told them that I forced myself on you. I told them that every time we did anything it was me who came onto you, that you always pushed me away and continued to push me away until eventually I broke you down. I tried to take as much of the blame as I could. Jimi,” I feel more crying coming on, “I’m so sorry.”

Each word elongated and emoted to match the despair as she mistakenly believes the betrayal is on her hands. “Listen I better go because last time they caught me on the phone they got really angry. They said that mom could be in more trouble than even you if she lets me talk to you again. I’ll call you when I get home.
I love you Jim. I’m sorry,” she rambles through without taking a breath.

I hang up without saying another word. I turn the television on and flip through the channels not knowing what I’m even seeing. I go into the DVR menu to see if there is something to watch. I stare at my phone and sit down at the computer to play solitaire. I have no idea how much time passes before I awake from my disconnection.

I begin to plan. I involuntarily replay her consolation that if my story matches hers then the scaled down version might not be so bad. I wonder if they are going to come to my house tonight or if there will be someone waiting for me tomorrow. In my confusion and lack of direction I think about calling the substitute service to notify them of my absence tomorrow.

What I absorb without any true reflection is that I no longer have control over anything. I cast my life in this direction long ago and essentially relinquished the steering wheel, leaving me to only wait and let my life unfold on foreign terms.

Dana comes home with her hands full of shopping bags. I walk out with her for the rest but really want to look down the street to see if anyone is coming. I contemplate telling her but what do I say? How do I tell her that the police will be knocking on our door tonight to take me away for an affair with a student?

True to my chameleonic form, as soon as the bags are inside, I leap into her arms and bury my face in the niche between her face and shoulder. She smells good and familiar. In this moment, on the precipice of everyone I ever knew turning their back on me I still have my wife. I know that in the very near future she will know exactly why I have returned, but for now I need someone to sustain me.

“What’s the matter?” she asks because all she has known is a cold, heartless husband, something must be amiss.

I stand in her arms asking myself, “Do I?” but knowing her inevitable hysterics will cloud my senses.

“Are you ok? You’re shaking,” she whispers.

“I’m ok, just....I don’t know. Just don’t feel too well right now, but I’ll be fine,” I lie to her yet again.

“Would you like to go lay down? I’ll come with you,” rubbing my back softly.

I nod. As we walk to the bedroom she asks about our son’s fever. I revel in such simple and everyday topics that I wish could return to our consciousness. In the few moments of peace I think back to what were the good times. I have ousted so many good memories from my mind recently as to not interfere with my impulses. But now I’ve allowed them to come back, an attempt to whitewash this new reality.

I live in the past on almost a daily basis, always have. My life is and has been so difficult that nostalgia creeps in from just one day prior. I will reflect upon yesterday and remember it as so wonderful only because dealing with the pain of today is unmanageable. Yesterday was no better and tomorrow will bring nothing to wipe away today’s pain, but my mind instinctively places rose colored glasses over all memories, painting them palatable. Anything is better than right now. All of my adult life, this was the only way that I found to press on and see another day. Nostalgia being nothing more than a refuge for those who find it too difficult to live in the present.

My wife and I lay in our bed, her supine, my head contently on her chest. Ten minutes, maybe thirty. I lose track of all time, set on one continuous loop of fear. I try to relax my heart rate but find it possible only by, once again reliving moments in my past.
I think of lying on the beach in North Carolina with just the five of us. I think of holding my infant daughter on my chest while she napped which leads to memories of walking with my only boy endlessly as he worked out his colic. My younger daughter, only four days old before we bonded because Dana had to return to the hospital with Toxemia. I recall that frightful time as comforting, wishing I could return there.

I’m snapped out of my attempt to capture what was always the anchor of my life when I hear Dana say in a tone that conveys urgency, “Jim is that someone knocking at the door?” And I know my life is forever changed.

On the way to the police station the two cops are my best friends. They encourage me to sit in the front seat. They introduce themselves and I know immediately who they are from Talia’s phone call. They ask about school, how the girls’ soccer team did last season, and the Super Bowl.

The tone turns serious only as we leave my development, “Jim, I think you know what we need to talk about. You have a right to an attorney. So would you like to have an attorney present while we talk about this?”

“No, I don’t need an attorney. I don’t have anything to hide,” I say without taking my eyes from the passenger’s side window. I have done many immoral things over the last six months, and for some, if not many, I could say that something came over me I was unable to control. The truth behind that statement is more closely, I didn’t want to control the factors at play.

While being frisked before I stepped into their minivan something overtook me, assumed governance of my actions. It came without the usual stomach ache, apparently coming from a disowned part of my psyche. It felt executive in nature, as though driven by the ability to monitor and react with full perspective of all actions, past and present. The answer to his question channeled from the place that was going to make sure the balance of my life was carried out absent the shadows and veils of the first
thirty years. Legally I may come to regret my refusal of an attorney, but psychologically this is the first crucial step to stop trying to outsmart my integrity.

My life became quite real when asked in the street, “Do you have any weapons?”

With, “I have a pocket knife on my key chain,” both officers flinched and grabbed my wrists simultaneously mumbling loudly, “Ok, I’ll just take that.”

At that moment the severity of this is placed squarely on my shoulders with no option to shrug any longer. I ignore the remainder of the pleasantries designed to make me comfortable and instead, hear my internal monologue take over, “Just tell them the story as Talia did. Tell the story and then there is no longer a need to lie.”

The temptation to avoid wrapping my whole life around some version of a fallacy for the first time in my adulthood is too great to ignore. Lies by omission are still lies so if they ask about sex I will tell the truth but I will say no more than they ask.

We arrive at the police station and they show me to a room that looks nothing like any of the ones on television. The same two cops sit down, set their legal pads and talk to me as though they are providing a tranquil outlet to clear my conscience. They are stern but cajoling. “Geez, it must have been hard, being around Natalia, knowing she has a crush on you. Seeing how pretty she is and that she would do anything for you. I mean, I would have difficulty saying, ‘No,’ if I were you.”

I know what they want to hear. It’s not about the human condition and what felt natural and wrong simultaneously. They ask the same repetitive questions like, “What happened next?” and, “When was the next time you saw her and what happened that time? I’m sure you moved on to the next level sexually with her then right?”

I stick to the story. They know about the hotels, my car, her bedroom, her mother’s bedroom, texts, cards, letters and I have to regurgitate it to them to the point that I think they are deriving a sense of gratification themselves.

Telling this story without the usual smarmy lies and half-truths is difficult. I involuntarily interject some self-righteous statement about being her mentor and providing a positive peer group but only in the context of deceit. None of it matters now, a two hour interview that could be pared to ten minutes. They want to know how far we got with one another and I’m confessing enough to convey the point, enough to essentially end my life. Does it make a difference where I have physically penetrated her and how often or in what setting? The worst part of my victimizing her is the psychological permeation that forced her to be secretive, to normalize debauched behavior.

I just want it to be over, so much that it doesn’t occur to me to keep the enormous lie alive. I distemper the extent of our sexual encounters, but don’t refrain from telling them neither confessions of love, nor the promises of a future. This purge is the first step toward complete honesty. I can be rid of the painful, ugly, veil I’ve always worn over my face, forever.

They finally leave, satisfied I assume. I sit alone , my head down on the cold steel table feeling better, cleansed before the fear of the unknown creeps in quickly. One of them reenters, “Stand up. Hands behind your back.” My breath increases, tears well in my eyes. This is never where I saw my life heading and the authenticity of handcuffs is incomprehensible.