The Adulterer's Unofficial Guide to Family Vacations, A Novel (13 page)

“Mommy?”
Ben’s voice interrupted, “Why are you sitting like that with your eyes closed?”

“She’s listening to something, Silly!”
Alice laughed.

I opened my eyes to see the kids around us.
Alan’s expression told me they hadn’t seen us kiss.
Perspiration trickled down the side of my face.
The kids let out a “Whoop!” and ran back to the playground.

“You were saying?” I squeezed Alan’s knee and he laughed.

“Don’t worry, they didn’t see anything.”

“Thank God. What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t thinking, just reacting.”
He began to rise to his feet, “I’ll run over to the restaurant and pick up a picnic lunch for us.”

Before I could protest, he was gone.
Reacting.
That’s all we have been doing up until this point.
Just reacting to shared experiences.
I was responding to his eyes and the way they made me shiver.
To his warm, soft kisses and the fierce, hungry ones.
Animals react.
People act, usually with some thought behind it.
At least, that’s the idea.

Jenny and Ben raced around a tree.
I looked for signs of their father in their faces but found none.
They didn’t look like either of us.
They looked like each other.
Please don’t let them be like Mike, taking their families for granted.

Leaning back against the tree trunk, I tried to put this into perspective.
I knew I loved Alan.
There simply was no question.
But did I love my husband?
And which was more important?

Logic would dictate that I remain with Mike.
Aside from splitting up the family and leaving a wake of devastation, I’d been with him for thirteen years.
We knew each other.
I knew Alan for two years a long, long time ago.
I wasn’t entirely sure what kind of man he was now.

My heart, on the other hand, felt differently.
Mike and I had been growing apart, our lives and priorities taking us down separate paths.
While family was becoming more important to me, his career (and its benefits) was more important to Mike.
For the last two years, the kids and I had been treated like secondary characters in his life.
To me, that was unforgivable.

Alan faced the same dilemma.
And yet our decisions could end up being completely different.
I didn’t want to influence him.
The decision had to be his.
But what if I decided to leave Mike and he decided to stay with Susan?
What then?

Yesterday, I would have given anything to spare him the pain of his wife’s dismissal.
Did that mean I loved him enough to start a new life with him?
But that didn’t seem like enough to sway the jury.
And they looked mean enough to call for the death penalty.

I’d been so still for so long that a cricket landed on my leg.
Within seconds, he was gone.
I didn’t need any more metaphors.
I needed help.
There wasn’t a single person I could call.
My family would be horrified.
My friends, while understanding that we were having problems, would think I had lost it.
My eyes searched the park as they always did – looking for a conspiracy.
For one fleeting moment, I thought I saw Terry’s face.
Right.
Like that wouldn’t complicate things.
I really was paranoid.
No.
It’s up to me.
That really sucks.

“Hey, kids!
Want lunch?”
I heard Alan’s voice calling from far away, followed by shouts of glee from the kids.
Soon we were all sitting, eating fried chicken, French fries and biscuits.
I looked for clues in my children’s eyes but found little.
They adored Alan and his kids.
That was clear.
Mike had been a distant dad for a while now.
It was eerie how easily they replaced him with Alan.
No, I couldn’t rely on them – it wouldn’t be fair.
I could just see myself ten years from now, “Now kids, it was your fault we moved out of daddy’s house and into Alan’s house.
You liked him too much.”

It was only then that I noticed that Alan had been quietly observing me.
“We don’t have to decide right now, you know,” he said.

Four heads perked up, “Decide what?” Ben yelled.

Alan’s eyes locked onto mine before he turned away with a smile, “Why, what we are going to do this afternoon, of course!
And don’t forget, Martha is coming back tonight.”

Shit. I forgot we hired the sitter for another date night.
The kids ran off and we began to clean up, “Where are we going tonight?”

Alan paused, “How about just a quiet dinner out?”

“Sounds good, but you’re bound to be disappointed.”
I threw the paper plates into a bin, “They really frown on public groping there.”

Alan laughed, and after looking around for a second, planted his lips firmly on mine.
As he pulled away I knew I had that drowsy, lust-drunk look on my face.
But the tingling came in all the wrong places.
My stomach flipped and sank and the hair on my arms stood on end.
It was as if someone was watching us.
Looking around I saw the kids unaffected by the scene and realized they hadn’t seen us.
Had someone seen us?

My heart pounded beneath my ribcage.
Something was definitely wrong.
I began to feel dizzy, losing my balance.
Was I going to faint?
The ground raced upward to meet me and everything went black.

Chapter 14

It was very dark.
In the distance, I could hear a voice calling my name.
At first, I couldn’t feel anything – like I was floating, weightless.
Gradually, sensation returned to my body as the voice grew louder.
Where there was nothing before, I could feel something hard beneath me.
Pain began to pierce the darkness as my head throbbed.

“Laura!”
A man’s voice was calling me.
Who was it?
It didn’t sound like Mike.

“Mommy?” Came two tearful voices in unison, “Mommy?”

My eyes fluttered open, squinting into the daylight.
I was upside down and everyone was very, very tall.

“Laura?
Are you alright?”
That man again!
His outline was fuzzy.
He looked worried.

“Miss?”
An elderly man came into focus, “Let me help you.”

Suddenly it all rushed back, where I was, who I was with, mercilessly beating me into consciousness.

I rose to a sitting position, cradling my head, “I… I fainted.”
In junior high and high school I had a rash of fainting spells.
Always at very unfortunate times, always before lunch.
Of course, sex education was before lunch.
Try living that one down.
The doctors eventually concluded that I was underweight and overly active.

The rest of the school didn’t see it that way, however, and I was forever known as the girl who faints whenever sex is mentioned.
In fact, they still remind me of it at the reunions.
And if you think something like that sounds funny the first time, try hearing it twenty plus years later.

Alan helped me to my feet and the kids clustered around me.
The elderly man turned out to be park staff.
And as a good employee, he sent me back to the hotel and had a doctor come to my room.

Once the doctor left, Alan came in, leaving the kids in his room.

“He wants me to take it easy the rest of the day,” I smiled weakly.
In all honesty, a long nap sounded wonderful.

“Okay,” Alan nodded in agreement, “I’ll take the kids to the pool for a few hours and you can rest.”
His eyes searched mine.

“Relax,” I said, taking his hand in mine, “I used to do this all the time, remember?”
My fainting spells had followed me to college, and I’d fainted on our first date my sophomore year.
Did he remember that?

His smile was strained, “Right.
We have been staying up all night lately.” He patted my hand then pressed a chaste kiss to my lips, “I’ll put the cell phone next to you.
Call me if you need anything.”

It was an order, not a suggestion and I took it to heart.
Carefully, he closed the door behind him.
The last thing I heard before falling asleep was the sound of screaming kids who were beyond overjoyed to go swimming.

The sounds of a calypso band stirred my sleepy mind before turning into a harsh ringing sound.
It was the hotel room phone.
Fortunately, it was within reach and I pulled the receiver to my ear.

“Laura.”
Now I was awake.
It wasn’t Alan.
It wasn’t Mike.
It was Terry on the other end.
And he didn’t sound happy.

“Laura,” Terry repeated as horror gripped my throat, “are you alright?”
There was no sincerity in his tone.
His voice sounded detached.
Placid.
Like ice.

“Terry?
Is that you?”
I managed.
Why did he ask if I was alright?

There was a pause, followed by an audible sigh, “Yes.
Are you okay?”

My mind raced, frantically trying to figure out what he meant, “Of course I am.
I’m fine.
Why do you ask?”
I knew the answer before the last word left my lips.
The sound of the motorcycle.
Terry’s face in the crowd.
The feeling of being watched just before I passed out.
He had been there.
He’d seen everything.

“I think you know why,” he continued, “I was there today.
I followed the cab the other night.”
It was silent on the other end, as if he wanted me to confess. Instead, I became angry.

“And?”
The steel in my voice matched his.

“You’re having an affair.”

There were several ways I could respond to this.
I could deny it, but he’d seen me fondling and kissing Alan all day.
I could admit to it and beg his forgiveness, pleading insanity.
Or I could be indignant that he had followed me.
At any rate, these options would lead to disaster.
So much for my nap.

“I’m sorry you had to see that.”
And boy, was I ever.

“Who is he?” The voice warmed up a notch. Did he really care?

“An old friend from the past.
Pure chance that we both ended up here.”
Would Terry buy it?

He softened, “Truth is stranger than fiction.” Apparently he believed me.
“I’ll bet you’re kind of confused right now.
Would it help to talk about it?”

I let out a sigh.
It was as if I had been holding my breath since the first night and it all came out with the truth.

“Actually, yes.
It would help to talk about it.”
Why in the hell did I say that?
Because I recognized a desperate need to figure this out.

“Don’t worry.
You didn’t tell Mike about the kiss.
I won’t tell him about this.
Let me be a friend and lend an ear.
What do you say?”
It was tempting.
So tempting that I felt an overwhelming urge to talk to him.
Terry was a good guy.
He was offering to listen. Inside I recognized that having someone outside of all this could help.
Maybe he’d agree with me, or maybe he’d let me have it. Either way I craved feedback.
But how could I do it with Alan and the kids around?

“I would like that.” The more I thought about it – the worse the need got.
Talking to Terry was no longer just an option.
It was an emergency.

“I can pick you up in ten minutes.”

“Fine.
See you then.”
I hung up before I could change my mind.
After leaving a note to Alan saying I went for a walk to get some fresh air, I lightly closed the door behind me and slipped away from the building.
I had to take a different route so I wouldn’t walk past the pool, but in a few minutes I managed to meet Terry in front of the hotel.

“So,” he smiled, “where do you want to go?”

Climbing on the back of his bike, I responded, “Someplace quiet.”

Terry nodded his response and I held on as we literally flew out of the parking lot.
He had offered me a helmet but I refused.
The wind in my hair and the sun on my face was a tonic.
A mixture of warmth and coolness slid over my skin and I closed my eyes to welcome it.

We rode in silence for a little while, when I noticed him turning down the same road we had visited the last time he took me for a ride.
Well, it was quiet, and isolated.
I doubted that we would be interrupted.

The bike stopped down by the lake, next to a large, shady tree.
Terry pulled a small blanket out of one of his saddlebags and spread it out.
I sat beside him and we didn’t say anything for a moment.
I wanted him to speak first, thinking it would be better to avoid getting into too much detail by just letting him admit to what he knew.
I read Sherlock Holmes.
I know what to do.

“How did it start?”
Wow.
Jump right in, Terry.
I took a moment to collect my thoughts, and then began the whole, sordid story.
About Alan and I in college.
About Mike’s overzealousness at work and his multiple affairs.
About Alan and me.
I glossed over the sex.
While it was unbelievable, I was afraid of talking about it with Terry.
After all, it had been a year since we’d seen each other, and part of me just didn’t want to go into that with him.
I wrapped up with my fainting spell.

“So, there you have it.
My Affair, the Cliffs Notes version.”
I leaned back against the tree trunk to give the story time to sink in.
Terry had been very attentive the whole time.
His eyes never left mine, and it was uncomfortable.
I was baring my soul to a man I didn’t really know, who may or may not have made a pass at me a few nights ago.

Terry leaned back against the tree also, his shoulder touching mine, “Unbelievable,” was all he said.

“That’s it?” I asked, “That’s all you have to say?”

He smiled, “No, but it’s a lot to think about.”
His hand accidentally brushed my leg as he reached to straighten the edge of the blanket, “Do you do this often?”

“Are you joking?
Of course not!”
I tried not to let my anger get the best of me.

“Alright, I believe you,” he held up his hands in protest, “Let’s start with Mike.
It sounds pretty bad.
I mean, he wasn’t a workaholic when I knew him and I never thought he’d cheat on you.”

“He was okay for most of our marriage.
His priorities have changed.”

Terry brushed a stray curl from my eyes, “But that’s no excuse for him sleeping around.
Do you still love him?”

“That’s the $64,000 question, isn’t it?” He nodded and I continued, “Yes, I do.
But more like an old friend than a husband.”
Was that true?
Did I really feel like that?
It must be true if I said it.
My heart skipped a beat.
The words began to penetrate my skin, surging through my veins and echoing in my mind.
I wasn’t in love with Mike anymore.
How could that be?
Pain filled my throat as I struggled to hold back the tears.