"Don't talk on your cell phone at the table Michelle... you can call them back after breakfast," Kathleen Bergan hissed to her Daughter as she carried a plate of pancakes from the kitchen.
"So Kurt... what did you get into last night?" Kathleen asked her Son, who was deep into his second bowl of cereal.
"Not much... went over to Nick's and played some pool then we drove around for awhile," he replied between bites.
"Oh," Kathleen smiled as she sat down to join her two kids and Husband at the table, taking a small but tangible thrill from the most mundane of conversations considering it was the first time she'd had everyone in the house together for a meal in almost a month.
A quick, stabbing blade of guilt over her recent behavior ripped through Kathleen as she looked around the table, first to her Husband who was lost in the sports page and then at her two kids and savored the togetherness of having her family all in the same spot.
Before she could even get comfortable in her seat however, and wallow in her tender moment, her Daughter jumped up and took her cell phone to continue her call upstairs and her Husband laid the newspaper down before checking his watch to make sure he wouldn't be late for his 11am tee-time with his buddies at the club.
"Gotta go... I love you Babe," he said to Kathleen before dropping a quick kiss on the top of her head as he went to gather his clubs.
Within a minute of feeling that 'family wholeness', suddenly Kathleen was left sitting at the table with only her Son seated across from her.
"Your 21st birthday is coming up next week Kurt... made any plans yet?" Kathleen asked, trying to gauge his openness to an organized observance of that fateful day.
"For the love of God... please no surprise parties again Mom," Kurt groaned between spoonfuls of Frosted Flakes... "You had one for my 16th and 18th... let's not make a big deal out of this one OK... I think Robby and Nick mentioned something about going out next weekend anyway."
"Well... OK," Kathleen sighed with a clear aire of deflation.
Sensing the inevitable awkwardness that would come with his Mother's disappointment, Kurt did what any sane teenage boy would do. He quickly scarfed down the rest of his cereal and left the table.
"I think me and a few of the guys are going up to the lake this afternoon... I should be home for dinner though," Kurt told his Mom as he went into the kitchen to put his bowl in the sink... trying his best to navigate the political gap between not wanting to hurt her feelings and still showing he was now an adult.
"Alright... we'll probably eat around 7," Kathleen replied, suddenly all alone at the table.
Rubbing her temples as she stared down at her half eaten pancake and glass of orange juice, Kathleen Bergan realized she was right back where she started and remembered just why she had made the selfish, and still secret, change a few months earlier.
"So much for my June Cleaver moment," Kathleen cringed as the silence of the dining room enveloped her.
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The affair had started about two months earlier.
Kathleen had been working for the local cable company in Germantown, Tennessee for nearly two decades. A small enclave East of Memphis, Kathleen enjoyed being close enough to a major city, yet enjoyed the idyllic small town setting to raise a family.
It was also a place where everyone knew everyone else's business. Born and raised there, combined with her countless hours of working with the public and having two children in school, there weren't more than two degrees of separation between Kathleen and most anyone in a 30 mile radius.
Ross Eckerson had been one of Kathleen's regular customers at the cable office for nearly the whole time she had been there. She had known him since high school where he was two grades ahead of her. The scuttlebutt around the town gossip mill was that Ross and his wife weren't exactly hitting the high notes much anymore.
While Ross and his wife always seemed chipper enough when they were in to pay a bill or she'd see them out in public, Kathleen knew from her own deteriorating home situation that the truth behind closed doors often wasn't what anyone on the outside could imagine.
Knowing both the Eckerson's kids had gone away to college, Kathleen could sense a definite change in the couple each time she saw them, alone or together. Ross had always had a understated, fatherly quality to him. With his salt and pepper hair and gentle, dry humored demeanor, he had always seemed like the antithesis of his wife, Joan, who seemed all over the place when it came to her mood and general state of mind.
Without the kids around however, Kathleen could sense the Eckerson's drifting apart like two sides of a shifting fault line. She couldn't help but wonder if her own marriage would start to disintegrate once both her kids had moved out as well.
So when Ross asked her out one afternoon when he was in to pay his cable bill, once he was sure they were the only two without hearing distance, Kathleen's jaw nearly dropped to the floor.
"Just to talk," he had told her, like a desperate man gravitating to a warm, caring and familiar face as he suffocated in a horrible marriage.
Entranced in shock from Ross' out of the blue invitation, Kathleen stunned herself, and Ross frankly, by accepting.
And talking was all each seemed to seek from their initial meetings. Kathleen and Ross had chosen a Dunkin Donuts on the outskirts of town and each time whichever one of them arrived first would sit in their car and wait for the other to show. Then they would collectively scan the parking lot for anyone who might recognize them before jointly nodding the go ahead to each other that it was safe to go inside. The chemistry between the two was obvious from the start as they shared their hauntingly similar lots in life and by their fifth rendezvous at the donut shop, Ross and Kathleen had made the decision to make their next meeting at the Budget Inn across the street.
The guilt Kathleen felt over breaking her marital vows was palpable. The wonderful and potent release of endorphins however kept her coming back for more. It was cliché, but the colors Kathleen would see after beginning the affair were more vivid, food tasted better and every song she heard on the radio suddenly seemed to make her want to tap her feet and sing out loud. Both she and Ross had been similar in so many ways. It had been the first marital transgression for each and even though it was clear neither was comfortable with the thought of leaving their respective spouse, somehow there was an unspoken bond between the two, equal parts lust and attraction and equal part something to lose.
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Kurt Bergen sat in the backseat of the SUV that belonged to his best friend Robby's parents. Parked on a deserted dirt road a few miles from town, Kurt stared out at his surroundings, the otherwise pitch-black night sprouted vividly with color from the bottle of Wild Turkey he had put a hefty dent in.
Laughing constantly with Robby, and his other friend Nick as they sat in the front seat and gazed back at him occasionally through the rear view mirror, Kurt chanted an internal mantra of thanks that he had talked his Mom and Dad out of throwing a lame family 21st birthday party at home for him.
"Nope... nope this much better than cake and ice cream," he thought, laughing out loud in the backseat of the Tahoe.
"Having fun back there?" Nick blarred, casting a snide and sophomoric punch to the shoulder of Robby beside him as the two boys in the front stole a glimpse to the backseat.
