had questions that Phil answered a little differently than he had with his wife. He still couldn’t say why, but he did relent that the woman was pretty, nice, smelled good, made herself available. Jed was nineteen and had been with his girlfriend, Tracy, for about a year. They’d had many father-son talks about Jed’s responsibilities as a man. Phil knew the boy was sexually active and understood feelings of lust. He hoped he wouldn’t follow in his father’s footsteps and stray just because he was a little bored, a little needy or whatever the hell it was. “I thought I was a bigger man,” Phil said. “I hope to God you learn from this. You have a problem with your girl, your wife, your frickin’ hormones, you better find a way to communicate that. Find a better way to deal with things than I did.”
“Man, you always seemed so perfect,” Jed said. “But when you fuck up, you fuck up big.”
* * *
If trying to tell her kids was horrible, preparing to tell Andy and Sonja was torture, and Gerri had no idea what she was going to say to her coworkers at CPS. She pinched the fat gathering below her waist and knew it was impossible to say she needed time to see her counselor twice a week for anorexia. On Monday morning when she was to meet her friends for their walk, Sonja was at her door five minutes early. Gerri came out with her coffee cup and led her to Andy’s. When Andy opened the door Gerri said, “Got the coffeepot on?”
“Sure.”
“I have to tell you both something. Let’s go inside. We’ll walk tomorrow.”
When they were seated at Andy’s sawdust-covered table, Gerri went through the chronology of events, from the encounter with Kelly in the elevator to the confrontation with Phil, the three disastrous counseling sessions and brutal arguments that followed. And then she described telling the kids he was sleeping elsewhere for the time being and why.
“Couldn’t you have come up with some story?” Andy asked, horrified.
“Believe me, I wanted to,” Gerri said. “Don’t tell him I said this, but Phil was right—they’re not preschoolers, they have to know why. My husband had an affair and I’m too angry to live with him right now.”
“How’d it go?” Andy asked.
“As bad as possible. Jed was silent and brooding, disillusioned, actually more angry with me than Phil, but Jessie fell apart. She sobbed almost uncontrollably. And Matt shrugged and asked something like, “How long will this take?” And then he asked if it was all right to go pitch a few balls with a couple of friends. Baseball season’s starting. At dinner, it was quiet as a tomb except for questions about their routine—rides, takeout orders for dinner, chores. Matt asked if there was going to be child support—they know about those problems from friends—moms who are suddenly unable to pay for school trips, that sort of thing. Then before the plates were cleared, Jessie lost it, threw a glass across the room and screamed at us both, asking how we could do this to her. She’s sixteen so it’s all about her. When the house was finally under control and quiet, Phil and I had another fight in the garage as he was leaving with his suitcase.”
“What did you fight about?” Sonja asked.
She laughed weakly. “Our routine. Child support.”
“What’s up with the routine? The child support?”
“He’s going to stay in the city. He’ll come out to Mill Valley as much as possible, when he’s not working till nine or ten. If he’s not around as much, can’t car pool, he also can’t be expected to drive all the way out here just to bring home dinner or help with homework. It’ll be a major adjustment. Before, if I was going to be late, he was on time and vice versa. And he said he’d take care of the bills, but I’ve been paying the bills for over twenty years—he just gets his cash out of the instant teller or my purse. Now he’s going to have his check payrolled to him rather than direct deposited and give me money. He needs money to pay for a place to stay. Oh, forget about it,” she said, waving her hand. “It’s just logistics. We don’t know who does what. We always used to know who does what.”
They’d also fought about him leaving, though she asked him to leave, so they fought about the fact that he made her make him. And she cried half the night again.
“I can’t believe it,” Andy said, resting her head in her hand. “I never even imagined this possible.”
“Me, either,” Gerri said. “I never knew anything was wrong with us.”
“But it was five years ago,” Andy said. “You sure you want to separate over something that’s been over that long? Five years doesn’t give you some peace of mind?”
“I can’t just forget about it,” Gerri said. “He said he tried but couldn’t get my attention. I’ll tell you one thing he never tried, though. He never said, ‘I’m tempted by a pretty woman at work and I need us to have more sex.’ He never came clean with me. Instead, he got involved, knowing the risk. Apparently we were worth the risk. I just can’t go through that again.”
* * *
There was a little lie in Gerri’s memory. She couldn’t exactly remember Phil romancing her, letting her know he was feeling needy. But she could remember their sex life dwindling, all but disappearing and not being sorry. It was so gradual she couldn’t put a time marker on it. She remembered when Andy met Bryce and was flushed and floating because of all the erotic sex and Gerri had just laughed at the absurdity of it. “Better you than me,” Gerri had said. “I don’t think I could handle the stress at this point in my life. And God knows, I can’t spare the sleep.”
There was one truth—she hadn’t realized it was just her. She thought it was both of them, their libidos beaten down by everything else. And, she didn’t think he minded, either. She thought he’d gone as dry as she had. She did remember times he snuggled her, pressed up against her, tried fondling. Most of the time she said, “Aww, Phil...” Honestly, she couldn’t remember when they’d last had sex. Months ago. And she had no memory of whether they were doing it more or less than that seven years ago.
But then along came a woman—a small, young blonde with fluffy hair in Gerri’s imagination—to awaken him. Stir him. What was so unfair in that image was that Gerri couldn’t possibly compete—not with her stretch-marked stomach, saggy boobs, torn sweats, her tired eyes, her menopausal mood swings.
What she did have, from the day they met to the day before she heard about the affair, was the ability to communicate with him about anything and everything else. Their professional lives had so much more in common, they used each other for sounding boards all the time. When it came to family, they shored each other up, at least one of them always being there for the kids. And they were unfailingly there for each other, whether it was a work problem or personal crisis, obsessively interested in each other’s lives. They worked together like synchronized swimmers to keep everything running as smoothly as possible. And they didn’t just have meaningful conversations sometimes—it was all the time.
And on those evenings they were both at home and could relax with a glass of wine or sit in front of a fire on cold winter nights, their time wasn’t consumed by passion or even that unhurried, gentle love she remembered from younger days. It was companionship that filled the hours—conversation, laughter, empathy, advice for each other. Maybe a movie or quiet time when they both read. Companionship. Partnership. Perfect symbiosis.
She didn’t know when or how the lovemaking disappeared. She had always thought it was normal for the sex drive to relax, to become better friends than lovers. She thought his libido was exactly like hers—no longer urgent. It simply went to sleep. When she thought about growing older with him, she never thought of sex being a part of their lives. Their lives were so good, their relationship so strong, it never once occurred to her they needed anything more, except maybe time.
Honestly, if he’d said, ‘I need a good, hard, sweaty roll in the hay before I lose my mind,’ she would have laughed at him.
They argued, yes. But they had laughed a lot, too. Their chemistry was good. She kept telling herself the marriage