Knowing Is Not Enough (3 page)

Jake reached over to rub my back. Avoiding his hand, I rolled out of bed, landing on my feet. “What’s the matter with you?” he asked.

I surprised myself at how instinctively I got out of the path of his touch, “Nothing’s the matter. What time did you get home?”

Jake rose up in bed, fully dressed. “Around seven o’clock.”

“Oh—I didn’t hear you come in.”

“You were knocked out,” he said.

Realizing I only had on panties and bra, I reached over for a blanket to cover my body. Jake seemed taken by surprise. “What are you doing?”

Fixing the blanket to cover all the important parts I said, “Nothing, just covering up. I forgot I didn’t put on my pajamas.”

“Since when do you care about that?”

I fanned his words off with my free hand. “Since now.”

Jake shook his head. “So, what are you doing today? Why did you stay home?”

The blanket dragged the floor behind me as I walked to the closet to put something on. Sitting up now, his eyes following me to the closet. “No reason, I’m staying home today.”

“What for?”

“I need a reason to stay home?” I asked.

“You usually have one.”
That’s true I usually do
. I found a robe in the back of my closet, a gift from Jake’s mother. Thank goodness I still had it. Being exposed in front of Jake in anyway made me feel vulnerable. My emotions were raw enough with clothes on. I responded back, “Your right I usually do.”

“So, what’s the reason?” he said.

“I wanted to talk to you.”

I stepped back into the room. He looked confused. “This can’t be good. What you want to talk to me about?” He got up and looked out the bedroom window.

“How was the conference?”

“The conference?” he echoed.

“Yes, Jake,” I said. “The conference—how was it?”

With a puzzled look, he said, “You’ve never cared about my conferences before.”

“You’re right I didn’t. I probably wouldn’t care now if I didn’t know you weren’t actually at the conference,” I snarled.

Jake stood up to face. “Let me explain,” he said.

I fold my arms, shifting my weight in anguish. “What do you need to explain, Jake?”

He took a breath. “Whatever you think, you know it isn’t true.”

“What do I think I know, Jake?”

Jake said firmly, “Whatever your friends told you.”

“Well, let’s talk about that for a minute, because my friends didn’t tell me anything.”

“Good, because there’s nothing to tell.” Jake stepped into my physical space. I circled around him and walked toward the bedroom door. At a comfortable distance, I asked, “How’s Taylor doing? Did she enjoy the conference?”

“How should I know, Alex? I haven’t seen Taylor.”

Lie Number One. I walked back to Jake and looked him in the eyes, “Well, based on what I heard from the hallway, and saw in the guest room, I would say she
really
enjoyed the conference. You and I haven’t had a
conference
like that in months.”

“I . . . ”

My words fell flat. “Don’t bother, Jake, there’s nothing you can say.”

Jake sat back on the bed, apparently searching for words. “Alex, I’m sorry—I’m so sorry. I swear to you that was the only time.” His eyes filled with tears. “You have to
believe me.”

I pulled a chair over from the corner of the room. “You mean with her. Yesterday I was ready to start our dance all over again, but I’m all cried out. If she wants you—she can have you. All I want—is to be free of you.” I got out of my chair and knelt in front of him. “I don’t want to know anything. I want you to take whatever you need and leave. Permanently, this time.”

Jake looked down at me and whispered, “You got to give me a chance to explain.”

My eyes welled up with tears. “Jake, you brought her to
my
house—made
love
to her. It’s unforgivable.”

“I know—I know what I did is outside of the limits of wrong, but you’re not even letting me explain—”

“Jake, how can you explain what I saw? What I’ve been putting up with the last seven years? Please understand, this isn’t anger—its exhaustion.”

Jake searched my face looking for a sign of hope. There wasn’t one. After a long silence, he said, “I’ll call my mother and see if I can move in with her for a while until we sort this out.” He rubbed his hands across his face to wipe the sweat off his brow, and I saw tears spilling from his eyes.

Drained of all my senses I stood up. Jake reached out and inserted his hands inside mine, then pulled me down beside him. We sat silent for a few minutes. “It won’t be for a while, Jake,” I finally said. I felt rampant emotions beneath my calm exterior. I wanted to hate him. Hatred would be an easier emotion to express. My stomach was in a knot. What emotions I couldn’t unravel or deal with I cut out. Normally, it would have killed me to see him cry, but as much as I loved Jake—I loved myself more.

Jake raised his head and asked, “What does that mean, Alex?”

“I’m not a perfect person and we are far from a perfect couple. I don’t know how I am going to live with what I saw, let alone live with you. This is it for me.”

“You got to know, the sex meant nothing and it’s done . . . over. It was over before it even started,” he said.

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter, Jake.”

He went on. “I love you. Please don’t do this.”

His voice scratched my heart. It felt like teeny paper cuts on my nerve endings. “Jake, you have to go. If I could have told you last night I would have—I don’t want you here.”

He didn’t answer.

“Call your mom,” I said.

“I don’t want to call my mom, Alex. I love you, please—just slow down. We can fix this.”

I snapped, “Why do you love me? Because, I’m convinced you never even liked me. So, why—why do you love me?”

Jake blankly stared back at me. “Why do I love you?”

“It’s an easy question Jake—why?” I paused. “Just tell me why?”

Jake looked around the room as if he searching for the right words. I didn’t want to give him any more time to come up with the wrong ones.

Finally I broke the silence. “It’s okay, Jake. I didn’t really think you would be able to tell me. Please, just call your mother and explain it to her—she’ll understand.”

Jake picked up his cell phone and phoned his mother. I walked out the room, closed the door behind me to allow
him time to talk with his mother and work it out. Downstairs, I made myself a cup of coffee and waited. Jake entered the kitchen with the same overnight bag with which he’d returned home.

Over the years our families had grown close. Knowledge of yet another affair had to remain between us. Friends might be aware of my suspicions, but I would never validate them. Jake, yet again, pleaded to stay and fix our broken marriage. He was willing to do anything to make it work. I knew he meant it, but it’d been less than twenty-four hours. I wasn’t being impulsive. Jake was seated right in front of me, and while it sounds like a cliché, the reality was I couldn’t see him. Jake’s eyes reflected my inner torment.

Seven years of my life fighting for this marriage. Gone.

We should reverse the order of things. Marriages should be held in a courthouse, and divorces should be in a church.

Meeting in front of a judge for the dissolution of a marriage is one of the most depressing things I’ve ever done. The courthouse itself made the proceedings more miserable than they already were. Linda and I arrived at nine o’clock, walked up to the entrance, and waited under a wide awning with everyone else.

The morning air was clear and crisp. The fresh smells reminding me of mama’s lined dried sheets. A nice memory to hold on to before what came next. Security, positioned to our immediate right, stood guard as we entered the building. Linda and I emptied our pockets into the plastic bin. Kenneth, my attorney, pre-advised us not to bring cell phones, others were not, which resulted in us moving through the security checkpoint faster. I wondered if the heightened degree of security was to prevent us from bringing anything in or keep someone from getting out.

Kenneth greeted us outside Courtroom A. Until then, I’d never been inside a courtroom, and it was surprisingly busy and not as
civil
as one would expect. The American flag was on one side and the Michigan seal proudly displayed above the judge’s head. Every available space inside and outside the courtroom was taken.

Linda, Kenneth and I sat a few rows from the back pew. I leaned over, turned my head, and whispered into Linda’s ear, “I’m ready to get this over with.”

Linda, fixated on the theatrics playing out before us with the current case, said, “Oh yeah, lots of angry people in here.”

From the corner of my eye, through a sea of faces, I spotted Jake with his attorney. Jake’s head was slightly bent, nodding at whatever his attorney whispered in his ear. I leaned my shoulders back in my seat trying to figure out what his attorney said, but I couldn’t see his lips only Jake’s frequent nodding and seldom glances up at his attorney.

Linda turned her head to face me, “What are you looking at?”

“Jake and his attorney,” I answered. Linda turned her head. “No, don’t look,” I said through my teeth.

She turned her head back facing forward, “All right. So what do they look like their talking about?”

“The hell if I know, I can only see Jake.”

“They’re probably not talking about anything. Lean forward before he sees you.”

I took her advice and rose back to my original position. Kenneth read legal papers. At the risk of violating confidentiality, I glanced down. They didn’t appear to be mine. “Kenneth, should we be talking about something?”

“What do you want to talk about?” He said.

“I don’t know . . . everybody else seems to have a lot to say . . . I just thought—”

“This is only a formality. The hard part is over.”

The wedding took hours and the divorce took minutes. “
What – therefore – God has joined together – let no man put asunder.”

A man in a black robe behind an awkwardly high bench did exactly that.

Jake and I were officially no longer married. Linda wanted to talk to Jake to check on him. I didn’t need to know his emotional status. I wanted to leave.
He looked fine from where I was sitting
.

Linda needed to do what she believed to be the right thing. Despite my need to get out of there as fast as possible, Linda asked if I would mind if she went over to him. I did mind, but my caring ended up immaterial, Linda didn’t have the script I was acting from.
I wonder if she would be so nice to him if she knew about the affair. Well, the latest affair
. “Go ahead,” I said. “I’ll wait in the car.” I wanted no part in the rolling credits. Jake was history.

It didn’t take Linda long to catch up with me. As it turned out, a change of scenery was all I’d needed. The coffee shop in the lobby did the trick in the short run. Still in the courthouse, but out of the courtroom. We were getting closer to leaving. Linda caught up with me there. “Don’t sit . . . let’s go,” I told her.

Out of curiosity I wanted to know what Jake said to her.

“Not much,” Linda said. “Jake’s upset over the whole
thing.”

“Everything isn’t always what it appears to be Linda. He’ll be all right.”

“How do you know that, Alex? He’s hurting, just like you.’”

“Linda, I’m concerned about me right now. You’re supposed to be here supporting me.”

“I
am
supporting you, but I can’t help but feel bad for Jake. You didn’t want to try counseling? Maybe it could have helped you work it out.”

“Okay, Linda, did you miss the whole courthouse thing? We’re divorced now. I hardly think it matters. But to answer your question, no, I know it doesn’t make sense to you, but it’s not that simple–we couldn’t work it out.”

“You just seem so calm to me. What are you feeling?” she asked.

“I don’t’ know what I’m feeling.”

“You should have tried the counseling,” she persisted. “Jake wanted to try.”

“Why don’t you and Jake go to counseling? I just want to go home.”

“All right, smart ass, but let’s get something to eat first. Are you hungry?”

“Not really, but I can sit with you if you want.”