Always an Accounting

Always An Accounting

I was shooting for 750 words, and it came in at 945. I figure short is short and I'm too lazy to cut it down. Besides, I don't think the story would survive the surgery.

Warning - this story uses a lot of familiar cliches. I'm not sure why. I was just in the mood.

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It was a little after eleven in the morning and I was sipping my first mug of coffee when my wife burst through my office door mad as a hornet, half crying and half enraged.

"I can't believe you! You just had to do it, didn't you? The widdle man got his feewings hurt! You feel like a big man now? You're just a coward, you know that?"

Well this day was off to a great start. Three hours into the day and it was already shaping up to be a real ball-buster. Thirty minutes earlier I'd been forced to do the one thing I hate more than any other; I'd fired an employee. I know some companies require HR to do the firing and the explaining. I even heard of one company that was bought by their out-of-state competition where the new owners had HR do the firing and then the boss fired HR on his way out the door. I wasn't that type. I own the company, I make the hard decisions, and I stand behind them. This decision wasn't hard at all. It was the easiest decision of the year.

Back at my office, my wife was on a roll. "How could you? I can't believe you did it! You petty, little man! You couldn't just face me and yell at me, could you? No, you just went ahead and fired him! He has a wife and two kids, but that meant nothing to you, did it?"

Okay, now I was getting closer to understanding what this was about. Still, even for her this tirade was over the top. It's my company and my wife runs the HR office. This wasn't her decision to make, and if she ever calms down, I'll explain it to her.

"He was never a threat to you!"

What?

Her anger had not subsided, but at least she was quieter. "I was never going to leave you for him. It was just a little excitement. After twenty years and three kids, I deserved a little fun for myself. I've never deprived you. I give you plenty. Wasn't I entitled to a little something of my own?"

Her words hit me like a sack of bricks. Did she just say... I still had not said a word. I normally find that when my wife gets going it's best to let her talk herself out, although this time it was more like yell herself out. However, I'd just been told what this was really about, and I was in my senior executive mode of listen, don't talk, and wait until you have all the facts.

"Well, aren't you going to say anything?"

In a flat tone, I said, "He's a thief. I won't stand for it." I was being deliberately vague.

"Oh, you won't stand for it! Big man. You don't own me. He wasn't taking anything away from you. He was just a little something on the side that I could enjoy to make my boring job tolerable."

She was waiting for a response, but I was holding my cards close to my chest.

"How long?"

"Just a little longer. It wasn't going to last forever."

"No, how long has it been going on?"

I think the question surprised her. She became more subdued now. "A few months. Six. It wasn't every day. Maybe twice a week when you were out of the office."

"So I'm out doing my job and you two run off to a no-tell motel somewhere?"

She was becoming visibly uncomfortable. "Mostly on the couch in my office."

Great! Just fucking great! "You didn't really think you could keep it a secret, did you? How many people knew?"

She was almost indignant that I would ask. "We never told anyone." Then very quietly she mumbled, "I never wanted it getting back to you."

The anger seemed to have almost burned itself out. Now she was just sad. I'm thinking she was going to be a good deal sadder before this was over.

"How did you find out? Someone tell you?"

"Yeah. You did just now."

There was that deer-in-the-headlights look I almost never see from her. "I told you?"

"Yeah."

"You didn't know?"

"No."

She seemed to be trying to put the pieces together to build a different puzzle. "Then why did you fire him?"

"He was stealing from the company. Some meal receipts didn't match what the other side told me. There were a few trips that he cut short and charged the full amount. Then I got a call from Samuel that he had tried to arrange a little kickback for himself. I set accounting on the problem, and they dug up the evidence."

She collapsed in a chair while I told her and now looked like she was trying to find a way out that wasn't there. "What are you going to do?"

"Then or now?"

"What?"

"About him or you?"

She was on the verge of tears now. "Both" she whispered.

"I fired him and now I need to fire you. I don't keep cheats."

She just nodded. There was no surprise there. We'd known each other too long. She stood and walked out of my office far quieter than when she entered. She cleaned out her desk, went home, and was gone when I got there later that night. The divorce was smoother than I would have expected. We still see each other at family celebrations and the kids adjusted to the new normal. I worked through the grief and that exhausting sense of inadequacy until five years later I met Annie, but that's the subject for another day.

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I'm not sure that there are any more original story lines for cheating spouse stories, although I keep searching for them. I just thought it might be interesting if a cheating spouse outed herself by jumping to conclusions. I suppose there is a lesson or two in that, but I'd prefer to not take it too seriously. An unchecked sense of entitlement made the writing easy.