Something Out of the Ordinary

"I know nothing about room 319," Sara hissed angrily. "Tom signed in to the motel when we arrived, and I came straight to Denney's so I could watch for your car to arrive. My intention is to spend tonight in your room with you!"

"That won't happen," I said quietly.

"Why not? We are man and wife. I want to make love to my husband."

"For two reasons," I replied. "First, after seeing you have sex with your lover, I really have no interest in ever making love to you. The very thought of it makes my stomach churn. Second, I don't want to pick up any venereal disease that you may have. Since you were fucking him the last time I was down here, I intend to get checked for VD when I return to Juneau."

Sara's eyes began to tear. But she wouldn't give up. She talked for thirty minutes straight. We need to be in counseling. She always loved me. We were meant for each other. We can make this work. She never wanted to hurt me. I'm a great husband. Twelve years of marriage is worth saving. She will be absolutely faithful from now on. She was under so much stress that she temporarily lost her good judgment. On and on and on she went.

She's been coached, I thought to myself. Probably her lover gave her tips on what to say. I wonder if she understands that coming here with her lover undermines everything she is saying.

"So, what do you say? Let's face this problem together, Mike," she concluded reaching her hand towards me.

I kept my hand to myself.

"Sara, everything I said yesterday remains true today. Except," I reached into my shirt packet and handed her card, "I now have an attorney. That is his card. The initial paperwork will be filed by the end of next week. If you don't fight it, the divorce will be final in 60 days. I also separated our credit union accounts 50/50 today."

Sara just stared at the card. I stood up to leave.

"As I said yesterday, I do love you, Sara," I said in conclusion. "I hope you have a great, happy rest of your life. In my mind we are no longer husband and wife, and we never again will be. The divorce just makes that fact legal. I do hope we remain friends. Good luck."

I turned and walked away.

Just outside the restaurant, the Reverend caught up with me.

"You're a fool, Mike!" he shouted at me. "She loves you."

"If you were so concerned with our marriage, Reverend, you shouldn't have been fucking her for the past two months."

I continued walking, but he caught up with me.

"What are you going to do with the pictures?" he asked.

"You mean the one hundred twenty-three digital pictures and the forty-five minute video with sound?" I replied

His eyes got very wide.

"Shit!" he shouted.

"Nothing," I stated.

"What?" he asked.

"I intend to do nothing with the pictures and video. If I need to use them in the divorce proceedings, I will. Otherwise, I have no use for them. So talk to your girlfriend and have her agree to the no-fault divorce."

He just looked at me.

"Reverend, you are nothing to me. Zero. Zip. Nothing. I'm an accountant. There is no positive return on revenge, vengeance, or payback."

The Reverend look relieved.

"However," I continued, "I have made several copies of everything on flash drives, and I have mailed them to trusted friends. They have very specific directions to follow if anything happens to me in the next two years. Do we understand each other?"

He nodded with relief. Now I know why he was here. He just wanted to protect his job and reputation. Sad, really.

I went back to my room and packed. I didn't want Sara pounding on my door demanding to be let in. I needed to find another motel. I checked out with the front desk, and walked to my rental car.

Sara was waiting by my car with a travel bag.

"I knew you would check out," she announced. "After twelve years, I know you pretty well."

I didn't say anything. I unlocked the car and put my bag in the back seat.

Chapter 6: Road Trip

"Where are you going?" she asked. "I want to go with you."

"You know," I said turning to face her, "bringing your lover to both of these meetings undermined any chance you had of convincing me of anything. It was insensitive, thoughtless and mean, Sara."

"Yeah, I realize that now," she responded. "I just told Tom never to see me or talk with me again. If he tries, I told him I would tell his congregation about the affair and file a restraining order."

I just stared at her. Too little, too late I thought.

"Tom drove me here. I have no way to get back to Ellensburg," she said looking at me.

"Get in. I'll take you to your house in Ellensburg."

Sara quickly entered the passenger front seat. I used my cell phone, called Molly, and received permission to spend the night in her spare room. As soon as I sat down in the car, Sara began talking.

"Thank you for not abandoning me, Mike. I really appreciate this ride."

"Sara, I don't hate you. I have no wish to harm you or have you come to any harm, even though you have caused me an incredible amount of pain."

I started the car, and drove towards the I-90 entrance.

"Sara, it's my turn to talk," I announced. "Just sit back and listen."

For the next hour I talked in a slow measured voice to Sara. I told her the separation had been difficult for me. What sustained me was the absolute certainty in our marriage, our love and our commitment to each other. I talked about the hopes I had for a new life in Alaska. I described the new friends I had made, and how they were so much looking forward to meeting my wonderful wife. I described my discussions with the Juneau school district about the possibility of her teaching there.

I shared my thoughts about our relationship. I knew her first marriage ended in divorce after a few years because her husband regularly cheated on her. It was one thing she told me that she would not tolerate: a cheating husband. I told her of my promises of faithfulness to her and how I had kept those promises.

"The one thing I never considered," I explained, "was that you would cheat on me. I figured that if you loved me as much as you said, that you would never want to inflict on me the pain, shame, betrayal, and anger that you had experienced. I just never considered you would cheat on me. I was wrong."

Sara said nothing and listened with tears dripping from her closed eyes.

I told her about watching her and her lover having sex. How shocked I was when I saw them, then the anger and pain that overwhelmed me. I shared how I had sat and sobbed after they had finished.

"When you said that he was a much better lover than me," I said quietly, "it was as if you had cut out my heart, threw it on the ground, and crushed it with your heel. I knew at that moment we could never be married or even sexually intimate again. It was over."

I explained that I learned from the Reverend's neighbor that she had been carrying on her affair for two months, three times a week. It was not a one-time fling, but a planned and scheduled affair. A one-time indiscretion I might forgive. But a long-term affair was unacceptable.

"I simply will not stay married to a wife," I stated, "who has a lover."

I stopped in Ritzville for gas. Sara had not said anything since I began talking about an hour ago. She went into the convenience store and emerged in a few minutes with a box of tissue and bottled water.

I pulled back on to I-90 heading west. Two more hours to Ellensburg. We drove in silence for a while.

"I'd like to talk now. Is that okay?" Sara asked.

"Sure."

She shared how the separation had been bearable while she was busy in school. But during summer break she quickly spiraled down into deep depressions. She was afraid that I was having affairs just like her first husband. She went to her pastor for counseling, and the first few sessions helped. Soon he was fueling her fears about my "affairs" in Juneau. When she was very vulnerable, he seduced her.

"He told me that if you were having an affair, that it was okay for me to have one, too," she explained. "After all, why should you be having all the fun while I was stuck here all summer in Ellensburg? It was fair exchange, a balancing of the books."

She related how she convinced her sister Carol to help her by describing my affairs in Juneau. She enlisted the help of her neighbors by telling them the same lie. Anyone who found out about the affair, she would just tell them that I was having affairs in Juneau and we now had an open marriage. Over time she convinced herself that I really was having an affair in Juneau. She was no longer depressed, but she felt guilty all the time.

"That's why I stopped talking to you every night on the phone," she offered. "I couldn't keep up my act while talking to you in person. I felt so guilty."

She explained that the only time the guilt would go away was during her love-making sessions with the Reverend. It became an addiction. The guilt from the previous sexual encounter was temporarily relieved during the next session. She admitted that he was a very skillful lover, and she enjoyed her sexual encounters with him. But the guilt afterwards was terrible.

She talked for another twenty minutes. She admitted that she planned to end the affair before school started right after Labor Day. She didn't want to deal with other teachers or the school district finding out about the affair. But she didn't know if she was strong enough to break it off.

"Then you found out about it," she stated. "And that was that."

We drove the last hour to Ellensburg in silence. I finally felt like she had told me the truth about the affair.

Chapter 7: Molly's House

I pulled into the driveway in front of Sara's house. It wasn't my house anymore.

"I would like you to come in and spend the night. You can have the guest room."

"No, thanks," I replied. "I've made other arrangements."

Sara paused, then asked, "Who is she?"

"An old friend who offered me a place to stay tonight."

"Are you going back to Spokane tomorrow?"

"Yes," I answered. "I'm going to try to return to Juneau earlier than planned. No reason to stay down here. My home and my new life are in Alaska. There is nothing down here anymore for me."

"Would you have breakfast with me tomorrow morning?" Sara asked hopefully. "Just for old time's sake?"

I considered it. She had opened up and told me the truth during the drive. I appreciated that.

"Sure," I replied. "What about the Yellow Church Café at nine o'clock?"

"Great!" she responded. "I'll be there. Thanks."

Sara left the car, and I drove to Molly's house.

Molly was sitting on the porch drinking iced tea.

"Hi Mike," she said as I walked up the porch steps. "Sit down and rest. Have some iced tea."

She poured me a glass.

She and I just sat there in silence for a while.

Molly broke the silence, "Are you hungry? Dinner's in the oven."

"Yes, as a matter of fact I am very hungry," I replied.

We ate in silence. The meal was simple, yet very delicious. Afterwards, I helped her in the kitchen cleaning up and washing dishes.

"Go get your bags, Mike. I'll show you the spare room."

I settled in the room, then found Molly sitting on the front porch watching the sun set.

"Come sit with me, Mike, and tell me what's been going on these past two days."

I told her the stories about the meetings with Sara and the Reverend showing up. I explained about the divorce lawyer, split accounts, and trying to get back to Juneau early. I described the recent drive back to Ellensburg and meeting Sara for breakfast tomorrow morning.

When I finished, we just sat in silence, looking out into the early evening darkness.

"You still love her, don't you, Mike?"

"Yes, I do," I admitted. "I can't just turn that off. But I just don't trust her anymore, and I can't stay married to someone I don't trust. It just won't work."

We sat in silence for a while. Then, my cell phone rang. I checked the caller ID: it was Paul, Sara's father.

When my parents died suddenly in a car accident about five years ago, Sara's parents helped me with my loss and grief. I adopted them as my parents, even calling them Mom and Dad. They were generous and loving people. I was incredibly fond of them.

"I need to take this, Molly."

"I understand, Mike," Molly said as she went into the house.

"Hi, Dad."

"Mike, what's going on between you and Sara? Carol called us tonight, and she was very upset."

"I came back to Ellensburg early yesterday. I caught Sara and her lover having sex. Sara has been having an affair for at least two months."

"Oh, my God! What was she doing? That doesn't sound like her!"

"You probably ought to talk with her yourself, Dad. I don't really understand it myself."

"What are you going to do, Mike?"

"I hired an attorney today in Spokane. The divorce papers will be filed next week. I'm sorry, Dad."

"Carol said that you were having affairs in Juneau? Mike, divorce is mighty final. Don't you think that you and Sara can work this out?"

"Sara made up my affairs in Juneau to convince Carol to help her keep track of me so she wouldn't be discovered. Dad, I have been completely faithful to my wedding vows. I'd never cheat on Sara."

"Damn!"

"Dad, I have a favor to ask. You and Mom are the closest thing to family I have, and I would really appreciate staying connected with you, maybe talking now and again. I love you both dearly."

"Mike, I'd be honored. You're like a son to me. That means a lot to a man who just has daughters."

"I have to go now, Dad. I love you."

"I love you, too, son."

I hung up and went into the house to find Molly. She was sitting at the kitchen table.

"That was Sara's father."

"Yeah, I know. I overhead your call," Molly admitted.

Molly reached out and held my hand.

"Mike you are a good man. Eighty percent of the women in this county would divorce their husbands in a second to marry you. You are kind, moral, just, fair and faithful. Your wife is an incredible fool to cheat on you."

Molly waited for the words to sink in, then, she continued.

"I see that you still love your wife, Mike, despite the affair. That's a measure of the deep love you have for her and for the kind of man you are. Don't think that her affair is about you. It's not. It's about her: her fears, her pleasures, her desires. She doesn't really deserve a fine man such as you."

She stood up, and gave me a big, long hug.

"Mike, I know that I am twenty years older than you, but I had planned to invite you to my bed tonight. I see now that you are still in love with your wife, so it wouldn't be right. When you return to Spokane to finalize the divorce, consider spending the weekend with me no strings attached. I'll give you a weekend you will never forget! Now, get off to bed," she pushed me towards the guest room. "You have a big day ahead of you tomorrow."

Now I was really confused! I walked to the guest room in a daze. On top of everything else, Molly wanted to sleep with me! I lay down on the bed, my mind going around and around. Too much had happened today. I finally dropped off to sleep.

Chapter 8: Final Meeting

I awakened to the smell of coffee, delicious coffee. I opened my eyes and was immediately disoriented. Where was I? I started to panic. Then, I remembered and calmed down. I was at Molly's place. I looked at the clock: six-thirty. I lay in bed going over the events of the past two days. So much had happened. My life was completely changed.

I heard Molly in the kitchen, and I got out of bed and joined her.

"Go! Take a shower. Towels in the bathroom," she turned me around and pointed me towards the bathroom door. "Coffee on the front porch when you are done!"

The shower felt really good. I let the hot water pound on my back, washing away everything. I cried a little. I had lost so much in the past two days, and I had been so focused on doing things that I left myself little time to feel the pain and loss.

I finished the shower, packed my bag, and joined Molly on the front porch. She poured me a cup of coffee. We just sat for a while in silence. I noticed how comfortable I was with Molly. No matter what we did, she made me feel appreciated, welcomed and valued. Molly spoke first.

"What do you plan to do at this breakfast meeting," she asked.

"I don't know," I replied. "Just, listen, I suppose. I don't think I'm going to hear anything different."

"That could be," Molly offered. "But if she asks you to make a decision or a choice at this meeting, don't make a quick response. Don't be reactive. I know that you are hurt, in pain and you just want this marriage and Sara to go away. That might be the best for you. But on the other hand, maybe not. I want you to carefully consider any proposal she offers, okay? No quick decisions!"

We talked for another hour or so. Molly was an easy person for me to be with.

It was time to go. I put my bag in the car, then came back up to the porch to say goodbye to Molly. She stood up to give me a hug, and her terry cloth robe fell open. I tried not to look, but I couldn't help myself. She was completely naked under the robe, and she had a nice body. She pulled me towards her and gave me a long passionate kiss. My head was spinning when it was over.

"Go forth and do good, Mike," she said with a grin.

She stood on the porch and watched me leave. Her robe was wide open the whole time.

On the drive over to the café, I thought about what Molly said. Letting the words percolate through my mind.

I arrived a few minutes early, but Sara was already there. She was seated at a table near the back, and she was alone. I looked around for the Reverend, and I didn't see him. I walked to Sara's table and took a seat.

"Thank you, for coming," Sara started as I sat down. "I'm glad you are here. Did you have a good time at your friend's house?" She smiled at me.

"I didn't sleep with her, Sara," I snapped back. "I'm still married, you know."

I regretted saying it as soon as I said it. It looked like Sara was about to cry.

"I apologize for my remark," I offered. "It was uncalled for. Yes, I did have a good time at Molly's house. She is a good friend."

Sara tried to smile back. "I understand. You must be very angry with me."

The waitress visited our table. I asked for coffee, and we ordered breakfast.

After a few minutes of silence, Sara spoke again.

"Carol called me last night. She is upset about that phone call you made to her yesterday. She doesn't feel like she deserved to be treated like that. She's quite fond of you, you know?"

I didn't say anything.

"I explained to Carol that I had lied to her. I told her that you were not having an affair. I was the one having an affair, and I tricked her into helping me. I apologized to her, but she is really pissed at me right now."

I continued my silence.

"I do have a request. When you feel up to it, please call Carol and let her know that we talked. She really likes you. I tricked you both, and I'm really sorry."

"I will consider your request," I said.

"Thank you. That's all I can expect right now."

The waitress came back with our food. We began to eat. I didn't realize how hungry I was.

Part way through eating, Sara spoke again. "Dad called me last night."

I looked at her with questioning eyes.

"He had just talked with you, and he had a lot of things to say."

"What did you tell him?" I asked.

"I told him the truth," she said. "At least, as much as he could stand to hear. He started to cry, and he handed the phone to Mom. I told Mom the same thing, everything that I had done."

I nodded.

"When I was done, Mom told me that she loved me, but that I was a complete fool," she reported. "She also said that if I didn't do everything in my power to keep a fine man like you in my life that I was just plain stupid."