When I left my house, I drove straight to the apartment that my secretary, Sally, had arranged. Over the past few years, every time my company developed an apartment complex, I began including four to five furnished apartments in each development to rent as short-term executive apartments. Our area has a lot of foreign companies and many of them have managers from their home office come to town for several months at a time. These units have been very popular with these companies and normally rent for about four times the normal lease rate of the other units in the complex. Who would have ever thought at the time that I would end up living in one of these units?
I opened the door and dropped my bags in the entryway before collapsing into one of the chairs in the living area, suddenly feeling really exhausted. Just then, my phone buzzed. "Who the fuck keeps calling?" I pulled the phone out of my pocket and saw twelve missed calls; eight from Annie, two from my daughter Savannah, and one each from my sons. "What part of DON'T CALL ME does this bitch not understand?" I quickly deleted all of Annie's calls before hitting the button to call my daughter back.
"Daddy, are you okay?" she answered.
"Baby, I'm fine, what's going on?" I replied.
"Well, Mom called about an hour ago looking for you. She sounded really upset and when I asked her what was wrong, she said you guys had some kind of fight and that you stormed out of the house and won't answer her calls. She said that she's tried to call you but that you won't answer your phone. That doesn't sound like you, so I got scared that something might have happened to you," Savannah said.
Well that didn't take long. That's probably why the boys are calling as well I thought. "Savannah, I can assure you that nothing has happened to me. What your mother failed to tell you was that we were fighting because she decided that I wasn't good enough for her so she found herself another man and started sneaking him into the house at lunch to have sex with him. So, it wasn't exactly a fight. It was more like I'm divorcing her and I never want to see her again! Now, she thinks that she can explain it all away if I'll just listen to her, but it'll be a cold day in Hell before I listen to any more of her lies!"
I suddenly realized that I was yelling at my daughter, so I paused to catch my breath. It was then that I heard her crying on the other end. "Well I obviously didn't handle that very well did I?" I told myself.
I was able to get my emotions in check and go on to explain everything to Savannah. I made sure to let her know that I didn't want this to come between her and her mother. This was between Annie and me, I wanted her to understand that this didn't affect her relationship with either of us.
After I hung up with Savannah, I called Mark and Jeff and let each of them know what was going on as well. Unfortunately for Annie, they both inherited my temper and they were both really pissed at their mother when we hung up. They'll eventually make peace with her, but she will get a lot of rage from them before everything settles down.
The next few weeks passed by fairly quietly. I buried myself in my work and the gym and tried to stay too busy to think about the shitstorm my life had become. My only social contacts outside of work were my kids and Cathy Mason. I talked to the kids several times each week. The boys kept the conversations to school and sports. Savannah would catch me up on what was happening with her, but she would also try to bring up Annie who according to my daughter was not doing well at all.
Cathy Mason and I met for lunch every Monday. It was probably not the best move, given our circumstances, but we both needed someone to talk to and no one else really understood what we were going through. I was moving full speed ahead to divorce Annie, but Cathy was having some second thoughts. It was different for her. She still had children at home and a divorce would be much messier for her and Sam. She would often use me for a sounding board about the decisions she was facing.
On the last day before her deadline, Roger informed me that Annie had finally signed the papers and returned them to his office. Now it was just a matter of waiting the three months for a court date to finalize the agreement. The only request Annie had made was that I let her talk to me before we go to court. Despite my objections, Roger made it clear that things would go much smoother in court if I met with her. He said that most judges would not look favorably on a spouse who was ending a twenty-five-year marriage without any kind of counseling or at least some honest discussions between the two parties. I finally agreed to meet with her, but it would be when I was ready.
Over the next month, I reverted back to the way I was before I met Annie. I worked hard. I worked out like a mad man. And, I played hard. My business required me to be out of town for a couple of nights each week and most of those nights included dinner and drinks, usually at a bar, after work.
I am a creature of habit, so this was a pattern that I had followed for years. But normally I would eat, have a couple of drinks, have some conversations with whomever was sitting near me at the bar, and then head to my room to call Annie and the kids. There would sometimes be some harmless flirting with some of the women patrons, but it never went beyond that.
I'm not proud to admit it, but since Annie blew up our marriage by cheating on me, I was drinking more than I should when I was on the road. The harmless flirting got out of hand and wasn't so harmless anymore. I ended up hooking up with a few of the women I met while traveling. Some were single and some were married but I didn't really care. Their marriages were not my problem. I was furious with Annie for what she did and I hated Sam for involving himself in my marriage. But now, I had allowed myself to do the same thing to other men's marriages. I was searching for anything to make the hurting go away, but nothing seemed to work.
During this time Cathy Mason and I continued to meet for lunch each week, we had even gone out on a few dates in the evenings. We didn't call them dates, but we were both lonely and sometimes you just need to spend time with a friendly face. It was certainly more satisfying to me than the one-night stands. There was no sexual relationship, but I had kissed her goodnight a few times, lingering a little longer than I probably should have on more than one occasion.
Cathy and I were out for dinner one Monday night and I noticed that she was quieter than usual and that she was just playing with her food. There was obviously something on her mind. She finally stopped and looked me in the eye. "Jason, as you know, we've been out a few times lately and whether we call it what it is or not, they have basically been dates. And, I know it's been a little awkward the last few times when we said goodbye. It was like we both wanted more than just a kiss, but we were afraid to let things go any farther. So, I wanted you to know that I think I really need for things to, ah how do I put this, move a little farther along, at least physically. So, I'm just going to come out and ask you something. I'll understand if you say no, but if I don't ask you now, I'll lose my nerve."
The way she was acting had me more than I little nervous, but finally I just said, "go ahead. You know you can ask me anything."
