There’s a baby.
My husband is having a baby. With another woman. A difficult situation involving one interloper has become an impossible situation involving two.
Michael’s latest confession has left me anxious and bewildered, too agitated to sleep. I’m still awake when I finally hear the front door close, followed by the roar of a car engine and the pop of tires over gravel. I’d heard voices from downstairs, so one of my sisters must have talked to Michael before he left. I can’t imagine what was said.
I hope he thinks about what he’s done to our family on the drive home.
Still … in the solitude of my room I have to admit I had hoped Michael would say something that would help me make sense of this situation. At first I’d clung to the hope that he’d tell me the woman was going through a divorce of her own, so he’d been a friend and counselor, nothing more. But he and this woman have created a baby … and, knowing Michael, he will want to do the best thing for all concerned. Which leaves me to do … what, exactly?
I lie in the darkness, staring at the moonlit walls while my imagination cobbles together possible outcomes: obviously, I could divorce him, release him to marry his lover and be a father to her child. I would be left alone and our sons would lose a lot of respect for their father. They’re old enough to understand what Michael did, and they might not want to forgive him.
If Michael and I divorce, I would be asked to resign from my job at the church. St. Paul’s is a conservative congregation, and Reverend Howe has often stated that divorced people shouldn’t fill leadership positions. Though not everyone would agree with my termination, I wouldn’t want to be the center of a public debate.
With no job and no husband to hold me in Savannah, maybe I could move somewhere else … to Jacksonville, to be near Rose, or to Gainesville, to be near Penny. The boys might complain about me leaving their childhood home, but once they heard my reasons, they’d understand. Soon they’ll be establishing their own families, so without the old homestead to keep them close, our family will scatter to the four winds.
And who says I have to live near my sisters? I could move to Ireland, a country I’ve always loved. Or Italy, where I could imitate Frances Mayes and create a new life for myself under the Tuscan sun. I’m young enough to start over; I could go to some city where no one knows me and teach music while I build a new network of friends. My life doesn’t have to end just because my husband couldn’t keep his pants zipped.
A blush rises to my cheeks. How tawdry it all is! The story will spread around the college, our neighborhood, our church. People who love Michael might hear the rumor and grant him the benefit of the doubt, but the baby will be proof of his guilt. And as our friends whisper over dinner tables and cell phones, people will speculate about what I might have done to drive him away. Did I neglect him? Was I frigid or overbearing? People who know me will assume it’s all my fault, that my organization and list-making drove bookish Michael straight into another woman’s arms. What they don’t know is that Michael appreciates my organizational skills—they’re responsible for keeping our family stable.
My sweet choir kids—what will they think? What will they hear? Children are familiar with divorce these days, but for years my choirs have heard me sing songs about forgiving one another and trusting God to work things out. Will any of them wonder why I couldn’t forgive or trust God to work out the problems in my family?
I don’t think I did anything to drive Michael away, but my opinion doesn’t matter. People will talk. The only way I can preserve my reputation is to remain steady and behave as normally as possible. Since I didn’t cheat, why should I suffer?
Nothing about this is fair.
Perhaps I shouldn’t surrender the high ground. Michael’s the one who strayed, so he should be the one to leave the house. But when should he leave? If I tell him to leave until we settle the situation, where will he go if not to the other woman? And once he’s ensconced in her house or apartment, how am I to get him back … if I want him back? Do I? Do I want him at all?
Right now I can’t imagine ever wanting him again. My brain, which has always benefited from a fertile imagination, is supplying me with all sorts of unpleasant mental images: Michael walking with a leggy young professor on campus, driving her home in his car, entering her apartment, falling into her bed. It takes no effort to imagine him in her arms, skin against skin, to hear the endearments he might have whispered in her ear.
I grit my teeth and roll over to face the wall, dropping the curtain on my dark visions. My husband has been with another woman. Why? Was I not enough for him? Am I no longer attractive? I’m not the waif he married, but I’ve borne him two children. I’ve stood by Michael’s side for twenty-seven years, fretting with him over employment cuts at the college and family financial crises. I’ve stayed up with him while we struggled to figure out how we were going to finance two boys in college. I’ve spent half a dozen nights in a hospital easy chair, watching over Michael’s son as he recovered from an emergency appendectomy. I’ve put miles on this body for Michael and his children, and I’ve done my best to hold back the ravages of time.
Obviously I didn’t do enough. I faced a competitor I didn’t even know existed, but now she’s standing between me and my husband, between Michael and our sons. She’s bringing a new life into the world, a life Michael will be responsible for. …
I groan at the thought of adding child support payments to an already-stretched budget. And college! And orthodontia and education expenses and a regular allowance—all the things children want and need. If Michael sets up his own place, he will not only have to pay for an apartment and utilities, but he also will have to pay child support to the other woman. He might be forced to move into her apartment simply for financial reasons.
Yet the alternative is inconceivable. How can I stay with a man who abused our marriage vows? Who betrayed me? Whose actions will tell the world that I didn’t satisfy his needs? Staying with Michael might mean I would be forced to endure this woman’s child in my home on weekends, summers, and alternate holidays. I would have to open my heart and life to the child of a woman who stole what belonged to me, the right to enjoy my husband’s body. The right to occupy first priority in his heart.
I close my eyes as the irony becomes painfully clear—I came to St. Simons to empty my grandmother’s house, hoping that the resulting financial windfall would ease the strains on my marriage. But now I’m not even sure our marriage will exist by the time I walk away from Grandmother’s cottage.
I bury my face in my pillow as a rush of angry tears bubbles up from an untapped well within me. I wish I could cry prettily, but I have never been able to manage it. Hollywood actresses seem to weep effortlessly—tears flow from their mascaraed eyes and roll down perfectly sculpted cheeks. My tears spurt like geysers, accompanied by a red nose, a stuffy head, and labored breathing. In seconds I am such a sniffling, blubbering mess that I have to employ a dozen tissues to keep my airways clear.
Finally I fall back onto the bed, exhausted. I still don’t have any answers, but at least I don’t have to handle the shock of this discovery at home. Few people know me on St. Simons, so no one will care if I burst into tears in the middle of Fish Fever Lane or the Harris Teeter grocery store. Here I don’t have to face my neighbors, my coworkers at church, or my friends. Here I won’t have to face Michael … and I’ll be able to process my thoughts without interference.
My sisters already know the best and the worst about me, and they’ve been through this sort of thing before. As had Grandmother Lillian.
I roll onto my side and bury my fists in my pillow. Knowing that Grandmother, Rose, and Penny survived the heartbreak of betrayal and divorce ought to make me feel better, but it doesn’t.
As I close my eyes, a new thought strikes: for twenty-seven years, Michael and I have stopped what we were doing and headed to bed at eleven o’clock. I have drifted off to sleep with him by my side.