(Author's note. There is basically no sex in this chapter. Rather, it is an attempt to wrap up the situation we created in the last chapter. We realize no matter how this story ends someone isn't going to like it but that's okay, this is how we think it would. Anyway, you were warned.)
(Dorothy)
I looked up as Patti stood at the side of the bed, not hiding herself, but not the confident lover of just two minutes before. I looked at the bags in the tall man’s hands, mine, the ones I had left in the trunk of my Saturn. I knew his name, and said, as calmly as possible, “Hello, Matt. This is what it appears to be, but please let me explain.” Patti stammered something also, but I stopped her by rising and stood between her husband and her.
He looked at my body as objectively as though I were wearing coveralls streaked with grease, as opposed to the body of a woman. There was no way to protect her, but I was willing, no, demanding to protect as much of her as I could.. I heard Patti rustling to wrap the sheet around herself.
Staring at her man, he appeared to be less tall, and also less angry than I would have imagined from the photos I had seen around their home. Various ages, many in military uniform, different color stripes and shoulder pieces of metal, the last a gold leaf. In nearly all of them the curved shoulder thing with the single word, “RANGER” The newest photos had him in the same Police uniform he was wearing now.
In a quiet, measured, professional voice, he suggested I dress. He turned, my bags still in his hands, what was half what I owned, a struggle for me to lift, he effortlessly carried as though they were filled with air.
(Patti)
As the figure in the doorway turned and disappeared down the hall I was able to break my paralysis and leap from the bed. I pulled the sheet around me, almost dumping Dot on the floor, and raced down the hall after my husband. I couldn't even call after him; my throat was so dry and tight it was painful. Running down the hall to the back door I almost went right through the kitchen. I skidded to a stop when I saw he was sitting at the kitchen table with his head in his hands.
I could think of nothing to say. What exactly is the correct opening line when your husband of 20 years finds you in bed with another woman, only hours after making love with you himself? In a daze I walked over and mechanically began to make a pot of coffee. I could not turn towards him until it finished. I put the cream and sugar on the counter and got two mugs down. Filling them I set them down on the kitchen table, followed by the cream, sugar and spoons. I made one cup as I knew he liked it and pushed it to him, fixing the other for me.
"Thanks," he said, in a voice that almost scared me because it was so calm. I expected yelling and screaming and accusations, not this. But then it was his way to get excited over small things. The bigger the crisis the deeper was the breath he took and the steadier he became. He took a sip of coffee and looked up at me. He opened his mouth twice and closed it each time without speaking. Our silence was broken by the faint squeak of that old loose floorboard in the hallway.
Dot, dressed in jeans and a top walked hesitantly into the room. After all, if she had ever found herself in a situation like this it probably was not with a man with a 9 millimeter pistol on his hip. At the same time her presence actually reassured me. Perhaps somehow she could think of something to say, something that would break the silence in the house before it consumed us all.
"Dorothy, for heavens sake, I have no intention of shooting you." A ghost of a smile flickered over Matt's face. "I'm sure Patti has made plenty of coffee for you to have a cup too." He sighed, almost with resignation. "Maybe I should I call before I come home. It might save problems in the future."
"Matt," I tried to begin. I could think of nothing else to say. I wanted to make some explanation, tell him I was overcome with a wild desire and a feeling that I had never had come over me. I wanted to beg for forgiveness. I wanted all of this to go away, everything except the memory of how Dorothy and I had made love that afternoon. I wanted to keep that and at the same time have everything else return to normal. I wanted him to be laughing and fixing a quick snack as he took a break, not sitting at the table with that empty look in his eyes.
(Dorothy)
