"Gone shopping in Hollywood," the note said. "Back tonight. Love, Claire." My wife often went shopping in nearby Backwood Mall, so there was no reason to believe she wasn't there, but I had began to get suspicious of her shopping trips every Friday at this particular time period, and this note again made me wonder. The only way to know for sure would be to go though the trouble of following her, running the risk of discovery and the embarrassment of being wrong. There was no way I was going to do that, so I would just keep wondering and not knowing, having these sneaking suspicions that ate away at my happy home and confidence in my mate.
I asked about her day shopping and she talked about parking problems, crowded malls, and the normal difficulties one goes through shopping no matter where or when, or at what mall you're in. She had bags full of purchases, of course, and all the rudiments of a day of shopping was in evidence. No reason to think differently. None. Although years before, when we were married to other people, that was how we met up, supposed days of shopping trips. Days organized around deception and machinations and ways to be able to see one another. Could that be happening again?
I asked if I could come with her the next Friday. She said, of course, but talked about many reasons I would be uncomfortable coming, reasons I might not want to "tag" along. She was very convincing that it wouldn't be a fun trip for me. If she was planning something and I went, of course, things would have to change. I would be getting in the way. I had to keep wondering.
A year later, as luck would have it, a work related change of plans put me in the same mall she shops in on the same day at about the same time. Of course, it was not what I saw, but what I did not see. Her car was no where to be seen in the three level parking garage, which I felt crazy and paranoid driving around for forty minutes, looking everywhere. No car.
That night I asked the usual questions and got the usual answers: parking problems, crowds, unruly shoppers. What I didn't hear was, "I wasn't shopping today." Now my mind was working overtime. My wife and I have been together for many years now. If she is 'seeing' someone, would it be a deal breaker? Would I feel I had to end the marriage and move on, or would I accept it as conventional marital happening and what people do when they're tied to someone and the everyday routine and drudgery for life? Could I accept that? I decided what I didn't know I could not torture myself over. However, what did happen was that it stayed in my mind and I constantly began to see it happening in my imagination. It became my go-to fantasy, the daily mental picture show I could not prevent, couldn't turn off, couldn't stop seeing, even when I didn't want to see it. I was just incapable of not looking.