The Affair (21 page)

The effect of the surgery and Mom’s holistic steamroller is that Dad looks ten years younger and better than ever. He’s lost
sixteen pounds and his face is full of color and light, aglow like a Chinese lantern. I know that it’s too early to make firm
predictions, but Dad’s oncologist believes he’ll make a full recovery! (Thank you, God.) I watched my parents share a single
plate of strawberry sorbet, and my father stroked my mother’s slender back while she traced a finger across his knuckles.
I was happy for her—she wouldn’t be alone, not yet. My mother would be rootless without him.

Over espresso, my parents told me that Roger had phoned their house. The first time he called, Mom impulsively slammed down
the phone the moment she recognized his voice. Now they check Caller ID first—if it’s him, they let the answering machine
pick up. I’m not surprised; it’s almost an ideology for them, always
leaving me and my sisters to face our opponents alone, whether it’s a cruel math teacher, nasty playmate, or philandering
husband (although I still don’t know if their detachment was a carefully conceived parenting technique or just laziness).

I mustered the courage to ask, “Why didn’t you talk to him, Dad? You might have told him how you really feel, you know.”

“It’s none of our business, dear,” said Dad, firmly but not without compassion. “Besides, if he wants to win you back, he
needs to deal directly with you, not your old folks.” (My mother visibly bristled at Dad’s mention of “old.” Vain and beautiful
still, she thinks of herself as the woman who defied time.)

Dad is right. Roger is clearly trying to wheedle his way into my heart by playing the good son-in-law, but it’s a role he’s
never mastered—or even attempted. He always thought my parents were superficial and often retired to his study when they came
to visit.

I asked Roger why he’s been calling my parents, and he said, “Just to stay connected. You know I care about them, especially
your dad.” (At this, I had to suppress a snort.) “But they won’t talk to me. Your mother actually hung up on me!” Then, as
an afterthought, he asked, “How’s your dad doing?”

“Fine. Recovering.” I added, superstitiously, “We’re keeping our fingers crossed.” I didn’t want to sound too cocky, in case
the gods were eavesdropping. “Don’t bother calling. They’ve told me they don’t want to talk to you.” (Not quite accurate,
but it sounds better than the complicated truth about their anti-interventionist philosophy.) “Besides, can you blame them
for hanging up on you?”

I noticed that Roger had also lost a few pounds during
our separation. Is he eating enough? Or is he working out more? I couldn’t tell, and didn’t want to ask … didn’t want to appear
more nurturing than would be appropriate under the circumstances. Thinking of exercise reminded me of Ben, and a shimmery
feeling passed through me. I pictured his strong legs pumping the StairMaster.

“Roger, while we’re separated, have you thought about the ground rules?”

He knew what I was getting at. “In other words, you want to see other men.”

I could have said, “No, I want to know if you’re seeing other women,” but what would be the point of being disingenuous now?

“Yes,” I answered.

“My love,” he said, resting both hands on my shoulders and searching my eyes, “you may see anyone you want, but you need to
know that I’m saving myself … for you. I want us to be a family again.”

I disentangled myself from his grip. This is not what I’d wanted to hear, especially since I’d already resolved to invite
Ben for coffee. I stepped backward. “I don’t know if we can be a family again,” I finally mumbled. “And to be perfectly frank,
Roger, I’m not sure monogamy is in your future. Speaking as a therapist and as a woman, patterns of infidelity aren’t easily
altered.”

“You sound like a textbook,” he said, scowling. “Give me a chance.” He smiled suddenly, as if he held a happy secret from
me like a gift in his coat pocket, the secret of his miraculous psychological transformation.

I could only think of Ben, the man who liked me so much that he was willing to make an idiot of himself (Betsy’s interpretation)
to win my attention. I was
warming to the idea of Ben and have decided that he’s not a homicidal maniac after all.

And tomorrow I will ask him out for coffee.

’Til next time,

This week I pulled all my bills together and tried to figure out if I could survive on my salary alone. The good news is,
yes, I can.

The bad news is, I’ll need to work full-time, something I’ve been determined to avoid until Petey started kindergarten in
the fall.

With Roger’s monthly check—a sizeable one, at that—I never have to worry about my billing hours. I can be selective about
accepting new clients, and I can always shuffle my schedule if Petey gets sick, or whenever his preschool needs a room mother
in a pinch. Except for the occasional late night (and the time I’d spent with Eddie, I must add, guiltily), I am one of the
few women I know who is routinely done with work by two or three o’clock; while the others labor in offices, I am already
home with my son, making play dough or sharing a chocolate peanut butter cone at Sweety Todd’s. It hurts my heart to think
about it. Losing the freedom to spend time with Petey is, in itself, a compelling incentive to stay with Roger.

Then I got this letter from him, and all the doubts came flooding back. The letter begins with his whining, again, about the
fact that my parents won’t talk to him: “Promise me that the next time you see Weezy and JR,
you’ll send them my best. Tell them that this is a separation, not a divorce, and they are still in my heart.”

I was mystified by Roger’s sudden attachment to my parents. (It was never Weezy—a nickname only her closest friends use, short
for Louise—or JR, just “your parents.” I was always amazed, in fact, at the syntactical contortions he would undergo just
to avoid addressing them by name.) Betsy speculates that he’s careening toward more depression or a real breakdown, since
he seems to be yearning for all his old connections, even the most tenuous ones. I read further:

“Even my own parents and siblings have cut me off. My mother says I’m a screwup (can you imagine those words coming out of
her mouth?), and my father is diplomatically silent on the matter. You know how much they adore you.”

And I believe they do in their own reserved way. The letter ends with Roger’s version of an apology: “I know I’ve been less
than attentive. But please realize that when I was depressed, it felt like you were giving up on me. Not that I blame you.
I was a lump, a vegetable. At the same time your career accelerated. But even after my Prozac kicked in, you continued to
turn away from me. You took to wearing those hideous sweatpants and my black socks to bed. You’d undress in the bathroom.
So I eventually lost interest too. You see, you’re not the only one whose sense of self-worth hinges on another’s desire.
I needed to know you were still attracted to me. By the time you started making your moves—and I’ll never know what motivated
this resuscitation of desire—there was too much distance between us. Only now, with real geography separating us, do I feel
true hope—no, confidence—that we can be together again.”

And then, at the bottom of the page, this postscript:

“I wish I could be in bed with you right now. I still fantasize about our night in Antigua. I love you.” I folded the letter
up into a tiny square, shoved it into my underwear drawer, and tried not to think about the night in Antigua. It was right
after Roger’s success with his first play,
Basic Black.
We’d burned musky incense, anointed ourselves with almond oil, and, by the light of forty flickering candles, my husband
brought me to orgasm once, then again, and again. Just when I thought I was completely spent, Roger pulled a black velvet
rope from a drawer. “Turn over,” he commanded. My inhibitions now fully evaporated thanks to the potent island moonshine we’d
imbibed, I complied without reluctance, and he proceeded to bind my wrists to the bedposts. “I’m going to have my way with
you,” he whispered in my ear. And he did.

I felt a pulsing between my legs as I recalled that night. Damn him for bringing it up. I felt manipulated.

As I’d vowed, I asked Ben out to coffee. We had been commiserating about the lack of good Chinese food in town, and it seemed
natural to suggest that we continue the conversation over coffee. He was so thrilled and shocked that he nearly fell off the
StairMaster.

“Yes, I’d love to, I mean, wow … really? I’d love to.”

I did it!

“But I can’t,” he said, a moment later. My heart sank. “I promised my son I’d go with him to check out a used truck he has
his eye on.”

It was classic divorced dad behavior. If he’d been married, it would have been easy to reschedule the truck-hunting, but now
that he’s divorced, he must continually prove his fatherly devotion. “I understand,”
I said, feeling my cheeks flush. I felt rejected and embarrassed.

“How about next week, same time, after we work out?” he suggested, smiling.

“Fine,” I heard myself say. “Next week, then.”

’Til next time,

My big “date” with Ben had finally arrived.

We’d done a half hour on the StairMaster, then left to shower. As I soaped up, I imagined what he looked like, naked and dripping,
on the other side of the wall that divided the two locker rooms. I applied my makeup carefully, dried my hair, and dressed
quickly (jeans, green chenille sweater, cowboy boots). I waited by the pay phone. From the corner of my eye, I saw him coming
toward me, smiling, and I thought, God, please don’t let this be him.

What I saw was a man who looked like he’d been dressed by an overprotective, possibly lunatic mother. He wore a giant furry
white hat with the ear flaps down, a coat that appeared two sizes too big, knee-high rubber boots, and baggy pants of some
strange material—not Polarfleece, exactly, more like felt?

I considered backing out. I could cough phlegmatically in his direction, claim to have been suddenly overtaken by the flu.
He looked shorter than he did in the gym, and older. I’d only seen him in wrinkled blue nylon shorts and a faded T-shirt;
given the wide range of what’s considered acceptable clothing at the club, his
rumpled getup was no cause for concern. The wrinkled shorts I attributed to life minus wife.

But this? My stomach churned. Yes, it was only coffee, but even so … this was the kid in second grade math who picked his
nose and ate it. This wasn’t at all what I’d envisioned for my (okay, I’ll say it) lover. It was too late to run. He beamed
at me. “As they say down South, you clean up real nice.”

“Thanks,” I managed.

“Why don’t we take one car?” he suggested. I wondered why he suggested this, had a quick vision of him throwing me into his
trunk, and shivered.

“Any particular reason?”

“The parking lot at Starbucks is impossible. We’ll have an easier go of it in one car.”

He was right. Last time, I’d parked so far away I might as well have walked from my house. “Okay, then. Uh, let’s take my
Jeep.”

“Dandy!”

As we walked to my car, I almost slipped on a patch of ice. He reflexively reached out with both hands, grasped my waist.
“Whoa, there. I gotcha.” His grip was firm, his arm strong. I liked it.

“Thanks.”

We found an empty table in the back. Once Ben had peeled off his sixty-three layers of outerwear, and we were finally face-to-face,
I could see he had:

1. A deep cleft above his upper lip (very nice)

2. Sparkly blue eyes rimmed by dark lashes (also nice)

3. A really great haircut

4. Lovely curly chest hair

He asked me about my work, and I found myself talking about Pete, how I’ve never loved another person as
much as I love him, and how the intensity of that love made me feel vulnerable and, sometimes, frightened.

“I hate to tell you this, but it doesn’t get any easier as they get older,” he said. “Even now, just as I’m drifting off to
sleep, I’ll sometimes get these horrible images in my head. My son running his car off a bridge, trapped, drowning.” He stopped,
then forced himself to brighten. “What’s your diagnosis, Doctor? Crazy, huh?”