It was the typical story. Our frequency of sex was down. My wife was getting calls in the evening and leaving the room. Finally, she was being a bitch to me and our son Trevor. I suspected she was having an affair.
The worst days were Fridays. She would be an absolute bitch and always started a fight when she came home from work. I realized that was so she could have an excuse to be mad at me all weekend and not deal with my wanting to have sex. Like I said, typical story.
I decided to end the charade. I followed her one Friday and she left work early to meet with a guy I never saw before. He was our age, had the same middle-aged body that had seen better years, but he had her, and I had lost her. Our marriage was over as soon as she walked into the motel holding his hand.
I waited, and two hours later, they came out. Two hours. What the hell did they do for two hours? I realized then that I must have sucked in bed, at least compared to him. Our lovemaking sessions never lasted more than a half hour unless we did some extended foreplay. Well, unless I did some extended foreplay. I hadn't gotten a blow job since the night she told me she was pregnant with our child. Even then it was just to get me started. She didn't like giving oral sex. Which was fine, I guess. I was sure some women were like that.
Anyway.
I met with an attorney and had the divorce papers drawn up. I didn't want to do anything spiteful or to hurt her. We still had our son and would have to be civil in the future. I didn't want to add fuel to any fire she could use to turn Trevor against me.
So, on a Friday morning, I didn't go into work as I normally would. I always left earlier than she, so I hung out in the basement drinking coffee until she woke and got in the shower. I made my way upstairs and saw the clothes laid out on the bed.
It was like a checklist for the cheating spouse. Thigh high stockings? Check. Lace garter belt? Check. Lacy panties and bra set? Check. I never saw that lingerie set before, mind you.
I sat in the chair in the corner of our room and watched the closed bathroom door. I never sat in that chair before, I'm not sure anyone had. I wondered why we needed a chair in the bedroom.
A few minutes later, I drank my last sip of cooled off coffee and the bathroom door opened. She jumped in shock at seeing me sitting in the bedroom. Then she looked at the bed and turned white. I never saw anyone turn pale before. You read about it all the time, but never see it. She turned white as a ghost.
"Pretty sexy for casual Friday, don't you think, Vanessa?" I asked.
She smirked and answered, "It's for you. We've been distant lately and I wanted to have a date night with you to rekindle the fire."
I smiled and walked over to the dresser. "Thank God. I thought you may have been dressing for the guy you go to the motel with every Friday. You don't know how happy that makes me."
I picked up the envelope as she sat on the bed and said nothing. She didn't deny anything. She knew I knew about her affair. How else could I know about the motels on Fridays.
"What's that?" she asked quietly. She already knew the answer.
"Dissolution of Marriage documents."
I tossed it onto the bed and walked towards the door.
Just before leaving, I said, "Everything is split down the middle, except I'm keeping the house. I'll buy you out. Please be out by this evening."
I walked out of the house and went to work. I knew she didn't have to be out of the house that quickly. I just threw it at the wall and hoped it stuck. Maybe, she didn't want to stay anyway?
She knew how the process worked and I was being fair. I hoped it would end civilly.
***
I was a senior partner at Lowe, Ball, and Lynch, attorneys at law. I handled our largest corporate clients. I had a team of attorneys that did all the dirty work, but I oversaw everything and brought new business into the firm.
My wife was an attorney with The Payne and Fehr Group. She did divorces ironically, I wondered if she would do her own.
She wasn't a partner yet, due to being a stay-home-mom until Trevor was in high school, but she was on her way up the ladder. Trevor was a senior in school, so she'd been back on the job for almost four years and was doing very well for herself. I say for herself because she refused to keep joint accounts after she went back to work and demanded we file separate tax returns. I wondered why and would eventually find out that she was trying to hide how much money she made. I knew then that she was planning an exit from our marriage. I guess I upset her timeline.
It's funny in a way. She was moving money in short bursts to an account overseas. Had she been the one to file, and caught me off guard, she would've been prepared and stopped making the transfers for a few months prior to serving me. That way, if she produced some asset statements, there wouldn't be any indication of another account. If I'd have suspected it we could've dug deeper, of course, but I didn't know about it until she had to do her financial disclosure. The statements showed the transfers. She was pissed. I laughed.
She also had to pay the IRS back taxes on the cash bonuses she was receiving under the table from her firm. I didn't push that issue, it just allowed me to keep more of my money, so it worked out for me.
At first, I was disappointed that she didn't try to fight the divorce. As time went on, I realized that she was close to ending our marriage herself. I just moved up the timeline. That was bad for her lover, who turned out to be one of the attorneys she worked with. He wasn't prepared either and his wife went crazy on him. She had to serve 90 days in jail for the amount of damage she did to his testicles.
Don't get kicked repeatedly by pointy high heels, gentlemen. It turned out they make hamburger out of your man bits if kicked enough times.
At our final meeting, as I slid the check for her share of the equity in our house across the table, I asked, "Why?"
She smiled and said, "Your job was done, Andy. Trevor has grown into a fine young man." She picked up the check and walked out of the room leaving me stunned.
"I did my job?" I asked the empty conference room. What the hell did that mean?
It was that easy. The divorce was final in the minimal time, Trevor chose to stay with me after Vanessa moved out, and life went on.
Trevor knew what was going on from the start. I told him upfront I was divorcing her, and he understood. The thing that surprised me the most was when he said that she hadn't really been like a mother to him since she went back to work. I guess that was true. Maybe she thought her job was done when he was old enough to fend for himself?
I found out later from her mother of all people that Vanessa was disappointed she had a son, and that he grew up favoring me. After Trevor's high school graduation, he didn't see her until his wedding day. Her mother didn't know why Vanessa said what she said about me doing my job, but she knew that Vanessa was disappointed that she couldn't have any more kids. She figured Vanessa wanted out to just live the life of a single woman. None of it made sense to me, but life went on.
***
A year after the split, I was sitting on my porch, enjoying a cold beer on a hot day, when I saw the little girl that lived across the street walk out of her house and look around. She saw me and started running towards me. Thank God there were no cars coming as she didn't look as she ran across the street.
She was a cute little red-head, I thought her name was Shanna or Shannon or something. I never interacted with them much. Her and her single mom, Sandy or Sara or something, lived there for almost a year and had moved in after her husband died. We heard he died in an attack on his vehicle in Afghanistan.
The little girl was probably only three-years-old, so I was surprised at her escaping her mother's view and leaving the house.
I stood and walked towards her. I figured I'd walk her back home. I hoped I would be offered dinner for the effort. I hadn't had a home-cooked meal in weeks. When Trevor went away to school, I lost all motivation to cook. It got to the point where I was on a first name basis with the Chinese food delivery guy. His name was Jack; he was a good kid.
"Help my Mommy! Help, help!" she screamed as I neared.
"What's the matter?" I asked as I picked her up and ran across the street.
"Mommy's sick. She's can't breathe. It's the allergies."
"Shit!" I thought, as we approached the door. "Where is she, baby?"
She pointed to the kitchen. I thanked God her house was the same model as mine, and I wouldn't waste time looking. I saw her purse as I ran into the kitchen and by instinct I grabbed it, hoping there was an epipen inside.
I found her gasping for air, but still breathing. She was trying to crawl out of the kitchen, I'm sure to get to her purse.
I sat her up and dumped her purse on the ground. I found the epipen, and the little girl said, "Blue to the sky and orange to the thigh." I smiled, thanked her, and administered the shot to her mother's thigh.
After a few moments, the color came back to her face, and she was breathing easier. I called 911 from my cell and held her as her daughter crawled into her lap.
