"Forget it, don't answer the question, just give me the damn BMW keys and take my jeep."
I exchanged keys with her and beckoned her out the door. Turning to look at me, she hesitated a second, as if ready to offer a nasty response then reconsidered what she was going to say and left. There was no goodbye, no kiss and no, "I love you." This behavior was getting old, but I knew it was not the time to discuss my concerns.
Ann and I, I am Brian, met in our last year at the university. We are now both forty-five years old and have been married for twenty-five years. The first time we met we knew we were with the person we wanted to spend the rest of our lives. Wasting no time, we were married within six months and just after graduation. A year later our son Erik was born, followed eighteen months later by our daughter Erin. Both Erik and Erin are finishing their last year of graduate school on the west coast.
Ann was a stay at home mother until the youngest began middle school. She felt the need to go to work but wanted to stay available for the children. With Ann's degree in nursing, we decided a home health care service would be the best business to start. Within months Ann launched her service supplying personnel for nursing and care facilities.
Although the business started small, in less than fifteen years, it became a large service organization by employing university and nursing students to small and medium size health care facilities. Being in a growth industry and because of our outstanding performance, we began receiving offers from large investment groups looking to purchase growing successful local businesses.
After fifteen years and with an eye toward retirement we agreed she would sell her business and we would start the retirement phase of our life. During those same fifteen years, I built a small but successful engineering design firm. While we were selling Ann's business I was also entertaining offers for the sale of my company.
Ann expressed no interest in the details of the sale and pushed responsibility as well as all the financial issues upon me. In consultation with my financial planner I completed the sale of her health care business and put the bulk of the offered $4.5 million into new corporations formed in Ireland and Switzerland. I left $500,000 in our local bank to keep the bills paid through the end of the sale. It was a good step toward our retirement and the rest of our life.
I should have been excited about all the things Ann and I planned for, but instead I sat at my desk and ruminated over Ann's sudden disinterest in our current life. I thought about the small details that made me uncomfortable with her erratic behavior. There was no single item by itself, just all the little things together that left me with a general unease. Things, like time she spent away from the house, the lack of interest in us, our loss of intimacy as well as our decreased sexual activity. Putting it all together it made me uncomfortable.
Ann was my partner, best friend and dear wife. Now she seemed to have checked out of our life and moved away from me. I know I should have paid more attention but I just did not have the time. In fact, if the truth be known, I had expected her help in the sale of her business and was mildly annoyed when she ignored my low-key requests for her assistance. I needed her support during the negations and never got it.
Ann's disinterest as well as her withdrawing from the activities we normally were involved in left me with the feeling something wasn't right. I was incredibly busy with the sale of her business and the details of selling my firm so, I shoved my unease to the back of my mind. Perhaps it was another big mistake and the reality was I could only do so much and lately my focus was related to ending one phase of our life and beginning of the next. Perhaps I should have been more alert?
With the sale of her business, Ann had time on her hands and started doing more volunteer work, visiting friends and keeping fit. In the past she spent her time managing the business, planning activities for us, keeping house while interacting with me. Now her time was spent doing other things and had nothing to do with me, our marriage, or our home. It became so bad at home I was forced to hire a maid and cook. Even as busy as I was during this time, I always made some time for us. Unfortunately, Ann did not share my need for "us time" and I saw very little of her. Many an evening I sat at home having dinner alone while she was out at some must-do event.
I missed her, the daily affection, the small kisses, lingering touches as well as our nights and evenings of passion. We had what I felt was a normal sex life, I always tried to keep both the sex and romance fresh with date nights, small romantic gifts and getaways. She was the focus of my life and for twenty-five years my partner and love. When she was not there I was lonesome. Her days were now filled with new activities and a whole collection of people she would talk about but I never met. She had meetings, parties and events where I was never included. Suddenly, she had a separate life. She never acknowledged the change but when I asked to speak to her about this she was always too busy. I was lonely a lot now.
This Wednesday morning I had planned to spend with Ann since I missed her and wanted to reconnect. She, on the other hand, had a bad attitude and an appointment to be somewhere else. Now, with time on my hands, I decided to take her car to the dealer. When I opened the car door I was astounded, the woman was a slob; there were fast food cartons, water bottles, junk mail and wet towels all over the interior. I collected this trash and took it over to the large waste bin and dropped it in. Smiling to myself I wondered how someone could make such mess in so short a time.
Watching the collected junk fall in to the large bin, I saw the small pink and white package. It was not remarkable with respect to size, color or material but it caught my eye. Printed on the outside in large pink and black letters were the words, "TAKE ACTION." The marketing folks did a good job.
Twice I had seen the package and twice it had caught my eye. This time I fished it out of the trash and gave it a closer look. I wish I hadn't. Then I wished I could start my day over, no start the last ten years over, oh crap I thought this better not be what I think it is.
Take Action was emergency contraception, they call it the morning after pill. What the hell was this doing in Ann's car, we don't need contraception. I felt myself grow cold and slightly dizzy. I dropped it back into the can, stepped back, and slid to the floor with my back against the wall. I kept muttering to myself, "Oh shit, sit. Shit!"
We didn't need contraception because after Erin was born I had had a vasectomy. Ann can't use birth control pills and is allergic to condoms. Finding this package was heart breaking. Now, I am not a dumb ass and if she was using the morning after pill then she was having sex with someone other than me. I know I was presuming the worst, but I was also sure this wasn't someone else's pill package. It all came together at that moment; Ann's lack of attentiveness, no time for me, late nights and her over all distraction. She was never a person to go at anything by halves and for the last few months, she was devoting her energies to an affair. Shit. I should have seen it.
I sat on the floor of the garage for almost an hour. I was in shock and I could not believe what I had found nor the obvious implications. Standing, I turned back toward the car and I was energized by my growing anger and a dark resolve. I was now on a mission to find out what was going on while at the same time deal with Ann's questionable behavior.
Opening the trunk of her car I found two identical gym bags. Within the first was a collection of items needed at the gym such as towels toiletries and such. For a woman that professed to spend time at the gym there was not much to see in this bag and what there was looked as if it had never been used. I had seen Ann with this bag many times as she went in and out of the house and I had no reason to suspect there were two bags. Looking at the other bag, I wondered what was she using it for? Was she hiding something from me?
Closing the first bag, I threw it in the trunk and pulled out the second. Opening it, I found the contents way more interesting. It was full of slutware; stiletto heels, a short skirt, sheer blouses, stockings and a garter belt as well as other club wear. On top of the clothes was a pair of sheer black panties with white crusty residue. Again, it didn't take a genius to figure out what was on the panties or what she was doing. I could feel my face flush and my hands begin to tremble as the anger again rose within me. Damn, damn, damn her!
Dropping the bag back in the trunk I moved to the inside of the car and opened the glove compartment, There, I found two additional unopened Take Action packages and a bunch of medical clinic receipts from two months ago. That was when she complained of being sick with the flu and was in bed for a few days. Before that time and for several weeks prior, we had not had sex. The description of the medical procedure was for the termination of a pregnancy, an abortion. She had been six weeks pregnant. What the hell!
