Que Sera Sera

Note: This is the third installment of two stories published in 2016 - How Is This Night Different? (7/28/16) and Day of Atonement (10/10/16). Presumably, what follows takes place prior to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Mindy Setrin-Greenwald, no matter how unhappy she is married to Sam Greenwald, would never leave her marriage because of what it might do to Rachel, their four-year old daughter. At least that's what she told Ben Glazer, a distant cousin by marriage and with whom she began an affair. But now that things are out in the open, now that Sam knows that Mindy cheated on him (or at least suspects it), she might change her mind.

Things came to a head on Yom Kippur, the holiest of Jewish holidays. Mindy blew up at Sam at the dinner table, then later stormed out of her parents' house, followed by Ben, who had come over to break fast with the family. Minutes later, Sam came out on the porch and caught Ben and his wife smooching on the sidewalk. Ben, after exchanging a few choice words with Sam, then left for home. Mindy, by this time, an emotional wreck, went back inside to face the horror of her dilemma.

Which, since that Yom Kippur from hell, she continues to face every day. The household's become a tense, emotional tinderbox. Mindy and Sam barely speak. They go to work, she to her teaching job, he to his plumbing business, one lucrative enough to keep them in their spacious home in 'fancy-schmancy Huntington,' as Sam put it during Yom Kippur. Pre-schooler Rachel senses the hostility, though she's too young to understand why. Mindy does her best to comfort her, careful not to bad-mouth Sam, least she makes him out to be the bad guy and risk damaging Rachel's relationship with her dad. As much as he turns her off, as much as she sometimes loathes him, she admits that he's a loving dad. "You're not getting Rachel, I'll see to that," Sam angerly told Mindy during that ugly exchange on Yom Kippur. He made it clear that if she left, she'd be facing a messy custody fight, one she might not win because of her infidelity. Rachel would be torn in two directions, perhaps suffering long-term emotional damage as a result. On the other hand, she might also be damaged living with two parents who are beginning to hate each other.

The alternative to leaving, assuming that Sam himself stays put, is to grit and bear it, continue to live in this farce of a marriage where she can barely look at her hubby, much less speak to him. She and Sam now sleep in separate bedrooms. They still eat dinner together but only to give Rachel at least some semblance of normalcy, however tiny.

To help her cope and figure out what to do, Mindy is seeing a therapist, a woman. "I live in a house of anger that threatens to boil over every day," she tells her. Sam's never been physically abusive, she explains, but his verbal abuse, there before the Yom Kippur incident, is worse than ever and fueled in part by his drinking. "I can't take much more," she says, close to tears. "One of us is going to end up killing the other."

"Then one of you needs to leave," the therapist advises. "I'm not in the habit of making these kinds of decisions for my clients. But from what I'm hearing, you're involved in a dangerous situation, one, by your own admission, that could mean life and death."

Mindy hasn't slept with Ben since that time at the Hilton, right before Yom Kippur. They keep in touch by email and phone. Ben, siding with the therapist, says, "Leave him. How bad do things need to get? You're not doing Rachel any favors by staying with this guy."

She agrees. Enough is enough. And so she confronts Sam one night after Rachel is tucked into bed. He's in bed in the master bedroom, dressed in boxer shorts and T-shirt, watching TV, when Mindy, wearing a thin, long blue nightgown, walks in and closes the door. "We need to talk," she says.

Sam sits up, swings his big hairy legs over and plants himself on the edge of the bed. "Talk about what? Having sex? What's wrong? Your boyfriend not giving you much lately?"

Sam's big hairy belly alone, protruding beneath his T-shirt, is enough to disgust her, never mind his hateful words. She struggles to stay calm, ignores his reference to her 'boyfriend.' "We need to talk about separating," she says. "before things take a turn for the worse, although I'm not sure they can get much worse. We need to separate. It's not fair to Rachel. She—″

"You're not getting Rachel!" he barks, jumping to his feet and getting in her face. "I've already made that clear!"

She takes a couple steps back, then wipes his spittle from her face. She feels close to throwing up. "All that can be worked out, Sam. Right now, we need to live apart."

He brushes back his thinning, poker-straight dark hair and lowers his eyes to her breasts, his expression a curious meld of lust and hostility. "Tell me this, was he good? Did he do it for you? You did say he had great STA-MIN-A. Yeah, I bet. That piece of shit religious hypocrite."

Guardedly, she puts her hands against her chest and steps back further. "Sam, please, I'm trying to reason with you. I don't want to fight anymore; I just want out of this awful situation."

He jabs his finger toward the door. "Okay, then get the fuck out. 'Cause I'm sure not going anywhere and neither is Rachel."

She's not surprised at his "proposal." She knew it would come down to this, knew he'd fight her tooth and nail when it came to the house and Rachel. She nods. "Okay, then I guess it will be me who moves out." In that instant, she thinks of the messy, arduous fight ahead, the lawyers going back and forth, charging hundreds of dollars an hour, money she can't afford, not unless he's made to pay her legal costs, and why would he when she earns decent money? The alternative is to remain in this hell hole, an option that she senses would be much worse.

When she begins to walk away, he says, "You didn't answer my question. I asked you if was he good."

She blows on the bangs that hang halfway over her brown eyes and shakes her head. "Sam, I'm not—″

He grabs her arm and spins her around. "WELL?!"

"YES, HE WAS GOOD! MORE THAN GOOD, HE WAS STUPENDOUS! Satisfied? Now get your dirty mitts off me!"

As angry as she knows Sam to be, she doesn't expect it, the hard slap against her face that drops her to the floor. The room spins; she sees stars. She shakes her head. This can't be happening, she thinks. Sam's verbal abuse is old news, but this is the first time he ever hit her.

"Get up," he orders.

Too stunned to move, she sits there, holding her face, waiting for the cobwebs to clear. Then she feels his hands slip under her armpits, lifting her up, then throwing her onto the bed. "Move out if you want to," he growls, "but you're gonna let me fuck you one last time. I'll show you stupendous, you ungrateful, spoiled bitch!"

She begins to get up but he's on her in a flash, yanking at her nightgown, trying to pull it up. "Don't do this, Sam, please don't do this!" she cries.

"One last time, Mindy, one last time. Our final fuck." He spits out a laugh, guttural and sadistic. "I can be stupendous too, you know."

She struggles against him, pulling on the hem of her gown, engaging in a fierce tug of war against someone who's bigger and stronger and maniacal. "Let me go! You don't want to do this!"

"Oh yes I do, you cheating cunt! You fucked him, you can fuck me, your own husband. We're still married, don't forget." He slaps her again, jumps on top of her, then kicks off his boxer shorts.

She begins to scream when he manages to pull her nightgown around her waist. Then he tugs at her panties, struggling to rip them off. Except she has other ideas. "NO! NO! YOU'RE NOT GOING TO VIOLATE ME, YOU FAT, PATHETIC PIG!"

Balling his hand into a fist, he cocks his arm back. "Why you—″

But this time, she beats him to the punch. Not really a punch, more like a push using her index and middle fingers to stab him in the eyes. Now it's his turn to scream, thereby granting Mindy enough time to spring up from the bed and run into the hall. She would have run down the stairs and out of the house if not for the sight of little Rachel standing in the hall, holding her blanket, her face confused and fearful. "Mommy, what's going on?"

Sam steps back into the room, jumps back into his shorts, then stands in the doorway. "It's nothing, baby," he says, rubbing his eyes. "Mommy and me just had a little spat. Everything's okay. Now go back to sleep."

Rachel's pleading dark eyes look toward her mom for confirmation. Mindy nods, stoops down and kisses her. "You're dad's right. There's nothing to worry about." She leads Rachel back into her room, tucks her in and then confronts Sam in the bedroom. In a calm, controlled voice, she says, "I'm going to call my friend Sheila-Ann. She knows we've had problems and said I could stay with her if need be. And if you ever so much as lay another hand on me again, I'll have you locked up. Now let me get dressed in peace."

Sam does, sort of. He watches her pack a suitcase, dropping barbs and insults but keeping his distance. At this point, Mindy couldn't care less what he thinks of her. She goes about her business, packing what she'll need for at least a week, including her laptop. She doesn't even look back when Sam yells "Good riddance" as she storms out the front door.

*****

The following night, Ben Glazer is doing what Ben Glazer normally does at night when he's not surfing the web or watching TV; he's reading. He's not a huge Stephen King fan, but the prolific author's Finders Keepers has kept him turning the pages. He's halfway down page 200 when his landline goes off. "I did it, Ben. I left him."

Ben doesn't have to ask who it is or what she's talking about. He knows, though he's a little surprised because Mindy had been reluctant to leave her marriage, even with all the discord. He listens while she explains what happened the night before. "When your own husband tries to rape you," she says, "the decision to leave or stay is a no-brainer. I'm staying with my friend, Sheila-Ann Hutton."

The name rings a bell, though Ben's never met her. Mindy had mentioned Sheila's name in passing. All he knew about Sheila-Ann was that she owned a clothing boutique and, like Ben, had never married. "So, where do you go from here?" he asks.

"Well, first I'll get an apartment. Then, I guess I'll do what Ben's going to do. Get all lawyered up and fight for custody of Rachel. He can keep the damn house for all I care." She chuckles. "I hope we can now see each other without you feeling guilty about breaking the Ten Commandments."

Mindy's right. As much as Ben's adored her for years, however strong his attraction, Mindy's marital status had picked at his moral conscience. He had even consulted a rabbi on the matter. Of course, she's still married, but at least she's no longer living with her lout of a husband. "You're right, this changes things," he says. "For the better. So when can I see you?"

"Any time you want, Ben. I'm not exactly booked up."

*****

At last, Ben's got what he wants. He's free to date the woman who he's been hot for all these years. Hot, yes, but it had never been solely about the sex. They had always had a strong intellectual connection. Both read a lot, had traded book lists when they met with family on Jewish holidays. It had gone no further than that until that Passover and subsequent Yom Kippur Eve, when things got more complicated after he and Mindy consummated their mutual attraction in a hotel room. For Mindy, it was one-third romance, two-thirds sex, it appeared to him. No matter, despite the guilt, he had looked forward to more. Mindy had been living with Sam then. But not now. Now she's free, kind of free anyway. Technically, to go forward, because she's still married, Ben would be violating the Ten Commandments, a big deal to him, never to Mindy who, unlike Ben, never expressed any misgivings over beginning their affair. The more Ben thinks about it, the more he can see Mindy's justification for cheating on her husband, especially in light of Sam's abuse. He tried to rape her, after all.

Ben keeps these things in mind as he drives his aging Volvo to pick Mindy up over in Tuscany, a charming neighborhood of single homes built between the nineteen-twenties and nineteen-fifties. Sheila-Ann Hutton lives here, the boutique owner whom Ben is about to meet for the first time. He pulls up to the house, a small, wood shingle single home on a quiet street with a white picket fence out front and a French flag hanging just above the porch. It befits a boutique owner, cute and quaint, Ben thinks, including the redwood front door, adorned on top with stained glass and a heavy brass door knocker. After several knocks, a woman with long, blond curly locks and a warm smile greets him through the screen door. "Ben?"

"That's me."

"Come in. Mindy should be down in a sec."

Sheila-Ann, standing in the living room, wears house slippers, a colorful pleated skirt and a blue sweater. She takes a sip from her coffee cup, then smiles warmly at Ben. "We've never met, but I've heard a lot about you," she says.

"And I've heard about you. Your shop's in Hamilton Park?"

"That's right. Been there going on sixteen years. Stop by sometime. It's called What's In Vogue." She grins, then takes another sip while keeping her large blue eyes on Ben.

He nods. "What's In Vogue. Okay, maybe I'll do that. You sell men's clothing also?"

"Yes, though you don't look like the boutique style type." She keeps her smile, looking at his decidedly non-funky conservative attire. "Then again, you might find something you'd like, something that you might at some time be in the mood to wear."

They both turn to see Mindy descend the narrow staircase in jeans and a light jacket.

"Sheila-Ann was telling me that I might find something I like at her shop."

Mindy flashes her friend a skeptical grin, as if to say, 'really?'

Ben shrugs. Then Sheila-Ann says, "So, should I be expecting you home tonight?"

"That might be up to Ben," Mindy says, giving him a wink.

"We'll see," he says, and then he and Mindy head out the door.

Ben, always the gentleman, opens the passenger door before slipping behind the wheel. "Looks like Sheila-Ann is staying home tonight," he says. "No boyfriend?"

"She's between relationships," Mindy reveals. "Know anybody who might be interested in an independent-minded, smart, never married, attractive, small business owner?"

Ben would be if he wasn't with Mindy, especially if she looked like Sheila-Ann. "Most of my friends are married," he says. "But I'll give it some thought. Have you two been friends long?"

"About ten years. We were in a book club together. Been friends ever since. She's known about my marital problems for years."

"A big reader, like us?"

"She is."

Ben nods, then changes the subject. "So, is Longfellow's okay? It shouldn't be too crowded this early. We'll have some wine and talk. Which is what you told me you wanted to do."

"Perfect."

*****

Longfellow's is a trendy bar-restaurant located in a renovated nineteenth-century stone building in the city. It's got dim lighting, stone flooring and a ceiling supported by thick wood beams. The four-sided bar sits in the middle of the room, with tables and chairs placed against the four walls of exposed brick. It gets crowded at happy hour, then thins out until around nine. Now, on this Friday night, it's just after the dinner hour and, as Ben said, you don't have to shout to make conversation.

'Perfect,' as Mindy said, at least for her, because it's just what she needs at such a troubling time in her life. Ben's a good listener. He listens to the graphic details of her almost-rape, listens to her plans to hire legal help and her search for an apartment. "I haven't lived with Sheila-Ann for longer than forty-eight hours, and already I feel like I'm imposing," she says. "Not that she's made me feel that way." After Ben asks about her parents, who had opposed Mindy leaving the marriage (he's a "good provider" they'd argue) when she'd voice her complaints, Mindy says they're now supportive. "They're appalled at what Sam tried to do. My dad wants to shoot him."

Ben lifts his glass of Zinfandel. "My sentiments, too. Good thing you left when you did."

"Yes, but the fun's just beginning. I've got to get the rest of my stuff out. Plus, I'm desperate to find a lawyer quick. Sam's got Rachel, and I doubt he'd be amenable to any sort of visitation right now." She sighs and brushes a tear from her eye. "I've got a long road ahead of me, Ben."

He reaches across the table and holds her hand. "I'm here for you. We'll travel that road together."

Mindy isn't sure what that means, but she's grateful for his support. Right now, she's got visions of leaving Longfellow's, then heading back to Ben's place for an overnight. She's not ready to dive headlong into a "serious" committed relationship with anyone. Nevertheless, she could use a night of love making and cuddling with Ben Glazer, someone she's known for years, someone she can trust, someone who obviously cares about her. She reaches into her jacket and takes out her cell. "Should I call Sheila-Ann to tell her I won't be home tonight?" She grins mischievously.

"That works for me," Ben says.

They finish their drinks, then head out the door into the cool spring night. Ben drives out of the city via I-83, then takes a few secondary roads to his two-bedroom condo called Brenton Woods. Once an apartment complex, it turned condo years ago. "Nice," Mindy says, admiring the tasteful décor and the living room walls adorned with paintings and photographs. Not your typical bachelor pad, Mindy thinks, noting how neat and tidy Ben keeps his place.

Ben takes her into the second bedroom as part of his "tour," a room he uses for an office. Desk. Computer. Bookshelves. Even a treadmill against one of the walls. A gold framed, black and white photo of a young smiling Ben in suit and tie, wearing tallit and kippah, sits on one of the bookshelves. Mindy picks it up, grins as she examines it. "Your bar mitzvah photo, I assume."

"Right. As you can see, I was a chubby kid back then."

She nods, then looks him over. "But not now, that's for sure, admiring his gym-trained, athletic form, the polar opposite of the flabby, obese Sam Greenwald. "And you haven't lost a strand of your hair," she adds. "Only you no longer part it."

"It's easier to comb this way," he chuckles.

She places the photo back. Then she says, "It just occurred to me that I didn't bring a toothbrush or change of clothes."

"Not to worry. I've got extra toothbrushes. As for change of clothes, well, you're welcome to take a shower after we get all sweaty. And I don't mean from jogging on that treadmill. Well, not unless we do it on the treadmill."

"All while running in place. Now that would be a first." She steps closer, reaches out and rests her arms on his shoulders. "If only I felt that daring. No, tonight I want nothing more than to be made love to and comforted. And tonight, we have the luxury of time. No Sam Greenwald to come home to or answer to."

Moments later, she's disrobing in his bedroom, tossing her clothes on the carpeted floor, and trying to forget that 'long road' ahead of her. Ben's doing his best to make her forget, or at least to keep that whole wretched business inside its own air-tight compartment. Tenderly, he's kissing her, with his strong arms wrapped around her and his cock rising and brushing against her thigh. She can't say she's in love with this man, at least not yet. What she can say is that he meets her needs for the moment, that he possesses the "right" qualities of someone she should have waited for to marry rather than settle for a crude oaf like Sam Greenwald when she was only twenty-two years old.