Present Time
"I said not tonight."
"You've said 'not tonight' every night since you...."
"Don't say it," his wife told him coldly. "Just...don't."
"I'm not Superman, honey. I can't live like this."
"I don't know what to tell you, Scott," she said, her back turned to him the way it was every night these days.
"Sutton. This wasn't your fault. It wasn't anybody's fault," he told her yet again.
"I know. Shit happens. You've said that before, remember?" she said without feeling.
"You know what? I'll stay on the couch tonight," he told her trying not to let his frustration turn to anger.
"Or you could just run back to her," she said quietly without any emotion.
"What? What the hell are you talking about? Run back to who?"
She had no idea why she thought about his incorrect choice of words, but it was 'run back to whom' not 'run back to who'. She didn't say it out loud because it was petty in the extreme. In fact, there really wasn't anything left to say at all.
She knew about the affair. She'd known almost as soon as it started. But since she lost the baby twelve weeks after getting pregnant after fourteen long years of trying and being told they couldn't, there just wasn't anything more she felt she needed to say.
"You know exactly what I'm talking about, Scott," she said just as emotionlessly.
Losing control her husband yelled, "You know what? I'm sick of this shit, Sutton!"
"Then leave," she said quietly as she buried her head in the pillow.
She heard him slam the door, and a part of her wanted to cry. But that was something else she just couldn't do anymore. She'd cried every day for weeks, and now she was cried out. She was also emotionally wrung out and was at the point where she really didn't care whether or not she even woke up the next morning anymore.
When the door slammed shut she didn't even flinch. She just lay there staring into the darkness wishing the pain would somehow just go away.
*****
Six Months Ago
"It's really hard for me to keep trying," she told him.
"Trying? Honey, it's more than that. For me, at least. I need to be with you. I'm not even talking about having a baby. I just can't live like a monk. Sex doesn't always have to be about getting pregnant," he said pleading his case.
The truth was they'd been trying since they got married in 2003. Both of them had been tested, and the problem was Scott Davis's very low sperm count. Getting pregnant wasn't impossible, it was just extremely difficult, and while he'd long since given up on having children, his beautiful wife, Sutton, hadn't. More than anything she wanted a child, and lately she'd been considering other possibilities.
No, she would never, ever have sex with another man, not even to have a baby, but she would gladly allow herself to be artificially inseminated provided Scott would go along with it. She'd only brought it up once and that had been two months ago. Scott had cut her off at the knees telling her there was no way on earth he'd ever raise someone else's child.
His reaction had hurt almost as much as her inability to get pregnant and since then, her interest in sex had only decreased. There was no other explanation for it as she'd always enjoyed making love. In fact, she probably enjoyed it as much as her husband. But when he was unwilling to even take her feelings into account and have a mature discussion about something so important to her, the thought of letting him 'crawl all over her' was something she just couldn't do.
Shortly after his curt response, he'd begun working more. At first it was just staying late. Then he began needing to work most Saturdays and even an occasional Sunday.
Sutton couldn't prove he was having an affair, but all the signs were there. Simple things like a whiff of someone else's perfume on his clothes or her husband having showered before leaving work when he worked in advertising which was an indoor-only kind of job—one he was extremely good at and one that allowed Sutton to stay at home and enjoy the finer things of life. But things did very little to make a woman happy when love and support were the things she most wanted. Those and a baby. Most telling was his own lack of interest in lovemaking with requests coming less often from him as the days went by.
Somewhere around four months after her having been shot down in flames, both he and Sutton were inexplicably in the mood and after a romantic evening together they'd made love in a way they hadn't in a very long time. The afterglow lasted almost three days, and then the same symptoms began to reappear.
Had she not been driving by a cafe with outdoor seating two weeks later she probably would never have known. But she had, and just as she was passing by, traffic came to a stop. When she glanced over to her left, there was her husband sitting at a table with the very attractive young assistant from work he'd hired less than a year ago named Ashley.
It wouldn't have necessarily been a big deal had everything else been going well at home as something like that wasn't unheard of, and Sutton would have been just fine with them having an occasional lunch together. But when she saw him smiling and looking at her the way he did, that raised her concern level. When he leaned over and kissed her on the lips, her deepest suspicions were confirmed.
Sutton Davis had never felt so sad or all alone in her entire life as she did driving home that day. She was so sickened by what she saw that she went to the bathroom and threw up. And when she threw up again the next morning, she attributed it to the anger and hurt from they day before. But when it happened three more mornings in a row, she couldn't help but wonder...what if?
Hoping against hope, she bought yet another home pregnancy test, and when it came up positive, she briefly forgot all about the affair. In fact, she didn't even care. She knew why her husband was cheating and also knew she could forgive him if he would call it off and devote himself to her—and their baby. Nothing else mattered and she couldn't wait to tell him. If she was actually pregnant, that is.
She made an appointment with her doctor for the next day and when she gave her the results, Sutton's entire outlook on life changed. She couldn't wait to tell Scott no matter how me might react. She was having a baby with or without him.
To her incredible surprise, Scott had been 'over the moon' and couldn't stop talking about becoming a father or how happy he was for both of them. He went on and on about being a 'new man' who would dedicate his life to their son or daughter and to the only woman he'd ever loved.
Without saying a word to Sutton about the affair, he told his assistant the next day it was over. To say she was unhappy with his decision was the understatement of the year. She was furious and told him she'd never let him go; that he'd made a commitment to her, and because of it, the one he'd made to his wife was therefore irrelevant. She wanted to be the only woman in his life and made clear that would happen—or else.
To his credit, Scott dealt with the anger and the threats and didn't give in. He no longer had any desire to be with anyone but his wife again, and all was well with the world—or so it seemed.
Believing the affair was behind them without ever so much as mentioning it had happened, the happy couple was making plans for a room in their very spacious house they'd set aside as a nursery years ago. Sutton was not only making herself available for her husband on a regular basis again most nights, she was enjoying sex more than she ever had.
She spent her days enjoying planning and shopping and preparing the nursery, and her evenings having dinner with her handsome husband and then either making love or just holding one another again as they fell asleep in each other's arms.
Life had never been so perfect until the day Sutton felt the unmistakable trickle of blood. Panicked, she'd rushed straight to her doctor's office where her OB-GYN saw her immediately and confirmed her worst fears. Sutton had had a miscarriage.
Too devastated to even call her husband, her doctor had done it for her.
"Can you possibly come pick her up, Mr. Davis? I don't think she should even drive home in this condition," the doctor had told him after gently breaking the news to him and apologizing for their loss.
Sutton sat in silence the whole way home then fell into her husband's arms and cried as soon as they got inside the house. When she could no longer cry, she went to the nursery and sat there until late at night when Scott finally convinced her to come to bed.
Even though she heard every word he said, she found herself unable to respond. The next day was no better nor was the one that followed. In a monumental effort, she forced herself out of bed the following day and also forced herself to go through the motions of her daily routine, but there was no passion and little emotion.
Seeing even this slight progress, Scott continued to hope things might improve to where they could start trying again, but they never did. Sutton was a hollowed-out shell of herself—unable and again unwilling, but for different reasons, to offer herself to her husband.
The telltale signs began appearing again as Scott's resolve faded, and Ashley was once again a very happy young woman.
