Love Letters Ch. 03

"Yes."

"You seem remarkably in control. I think I'd be a crying mess."

"I hurt, but I've tucked it away to deal with later."

"How does one 'tuck it away'?"

"I'll give you an analogy. Say you injured your foot so severely it got infected and gangrenous. Would you weep and moan and wail about how unfair it was, giving the infection time to spread further up your leg, or would you bite the bullet, get your foot amputated and mourn its loss after the fact, knowing you had at least saved the rest of your leg?"

"Oh, I see. Yes, that makes sense. Like biting off one piece at a time rather than trying to eat the whole loaf at once."

I nodded, taking a sip of my coffee. I repressed a grimace of distaste—it was now tepid.

"What are your plans for the future? Do you have any? Have you thought that far?"

"To be totally honest, I feel a bit lost. Like a boat with no anchor. Up until I found the letters, my whole life had revolved around Claire and our marriage. Everything was about renovating the house, starting a family, having one last big trip before we became parents. That's all gone now." I took another sip of the lukewarm coffee, gathering my thoughts in the hope I'd be able to express them in a way that Haley would understand. "I'm a carpenter-joiner. I specialize in internal fit-outs—things like kitchens, wood paneled games rooms, restaurants, pubs, or man-caves etcetera—and what usually happens is the builder or architect gives me some plans and I go speak to the owner and then I design and build something to fit the space and their needs. Right now, I feel like the plan for my life, the plan I've been working with for the last twelve years, has been ripped out of my hands and shredded and I have to go and design a whole new life. It's daunting. Rationally, I know it will get easier, I just have to take it one day at a time, but it's daunting nonetheless. I mean, what are the rules now? What are the limitations? I have to go rethink what I want my future to look like."

Haley reached across and laid her hand over mine. "That's really profound, poetic even. We should try and incorporate that into your interview."

We talked a little more, tossing around ideas for the questions she'd ask me to guide the conversation in the direction we wanted it to go. I told her about the upcoming meeting with Claire and we organized to speak on the phone on the Thursday evening in case we needed to change anything based on the outcome of that meeting.

I waited while Haley settled the bill, she having refused my offer to pay. I held the door open for her and walked her to her car, a sporty looking little Renault. It suited her.

"Let me guess, that's your car across the road."

I grinned. "What gave me away? The fact it's a truck or all the toolboxes?"

Haley snickered. "Both were big clues, but your DAN-007 number plate was the clincher."

I laughed. "Yep, that's me, McCormack, Dan McCormack; licensed to build."

"Ooh, and a comedian too. What a catch!"

We both laughed again and said our good-byes.

As I walked across the road to my truck, it struck me that for a few precious moments I'd been happy, genuinely happy.

# # #

I frowned, stopping mid-motion; I'd been about to check the time yet again.

I replaced my hand on top of the recliner, my frown deepening as my hands clenched of their own accord, my knuckles almost white with the strength of my grip. My throat hurt, feeling impossibly tight around the lump filling it. I tried to swallow it away and scowled at the pain. Gritting my teeth, I eased my grip, flexing my fingers, not surprised to see the remains of an indentation in the leather of the recliner. Slowly, as if it had tremendous weight, I dropped my chin onto my chest. The action was controlled and deliberate, but that was more from stubbornness than actual mastery over of my emotions.

One thing I couldn't control was the pounding of my heart. That perplexed me. Why was it thundering like a freight train? Was it anger? Hurt? Nerves? Or the love that I still felt for her? No, not that. The woman I'd loved was not the woman who was about to knock on my door. That woman never existed; she'd been nothing more than a figment of my imagination, a mirage. But I mourned her. Missed her. I missed my delusion. Her loss left a huge hole in my life.

Inhale. Exhale. Repeat. Slow and deep and calming; an all but silent moment that could loosely be described as meditation.

It worked, like a cooling salve on an open wound. Of course, Claire and I were way past any possibility of healing. We were burnt to a crisp, charcoal, and had been since the first time she'd spread her legs for him. I just hadn't known it.

As I continued my steady pattern of breathing and waiting for my heart to slow, I reminded myself of the plan. As much as I wanted to cut her to shreds with my words, that would have to wait. This would be Claire's conversation; I would merely be the recipient of her words.

I heard, rather than saw, Shaun come to stand behind me. Taking one last deep breath, I raised my head and turned to face him. With a reassuring smile on his face, he reached out and gripped my shoulder.

"Everything's set up. The video camera is aimed at the table and is already on. I recharged the battery last night so, failing a malfunction, you're covered."

"Thanks. For everything, Shaun."

He waved off my thanks. "You'd do the same for me. You ready for this?"

"As I'll ever be. It's best gotten over and done with."

Shaun nodded. "So..."

I laughed. "Yeah, I know; bland, bored, and indifferent."

"You can do this, Danny. One talk and then the worst will be over."

I barely had time to nod when the dreaded knock reverberated down the hall.

Shaun and I looked at each other. He smiled and gave me the thumbs up as he saw me don my neutral face.

"I'll wait in the dining room while you let her in."

I took one last moment to roll my neck and flex my shoulders in an effort to ease the tension knotted between them before marching down the hall to let in my traitorous wife.

One look at her revealed her anxiety. I took pleasure in it. Shucks, looks like her time at the spa was wasted. What a pity.

"Claire, follow me. We'll conduct this meeting in the dining room."

"I... oh, okay."

The click of her heels followed me as I made my way to the rear of the house. Shaun was standing by the glass sliding doors looking out over the back patio. He turned as he heard us enter the room. I registered her surprise at seeing Shaun with me.

"Danny. I... Um, hi, Shaun."

Shaun tilted his head in acknowledgement. "Claire. I'll wait on the patio, Danny, while you and Claire talk."

Shaun slid the door back, and with one final look at me, stepped through. Turning to Claire, I noticed her flushed cheeks and surmised she knew why I'd organized for Shaun to be present. With him as witness there'd no chance of her pulling any tricks and accusing me of anything that could go against me in the divorce. It also disguised the fact I was taping our meeting—why do both?

"Can I get you something to drink?"

"Um, water, please."

I intentionally placed her drink where historically we'd have seated a guest, before taking my customary position at the table. Perhaps the message would be too subtle for her, but I didn't think so as she paused before sitting in the place I'd designated. Casually, as if I had all the time in the world, I leaned back, taking a sip of my water. I neither spoke, nor encouraged her to speak. I just sat and stared and waited.

"Um. I... ah... Danny, I'm so glad we can finally talk. I've missed you so much. I know you probably don't want to hear this, but I need to say it—I still love—"

"Don't, Claire."

"I needed to say it. Please, believe me. And once I explain and make you see, maybe we could—"

"I said stop, Claire. I don't love you. Nor do I want to hear your declarations of love. You're wasting your thirty minutes."

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, you lying, traitorous bitch.

To my surprise, she only faltered for a moment. The expression of shock on her face was but fleeting thing, there and gone, and soon replaced by a flash of irritation, like I was a naughty puppy not learning a new trick fast enough. Surely, she wasn't so misguided as to think she'd only have to say she loved me and I'd forgive and forget all? She looked down at her hands holding the glass of water in what I guessed was a ploy to hide her emotions.

"I don't believe you. I can't. You loved me too much to just turn it off like a light switch." She risked a glance up at me, but didn't find what she was looking for—I was genuinely unmoved by her declaration. Her forehead creased in a frown and she returned to staring at her hands. "I'm so sorry I hurt you, Danny. It wasn't my intention. I need you to know it wasn't you. It wasn't anything you did. It was something separate to us. It had absolutely nothing to do with you. With us."

She paused as if waiting for me to say something.

I didn't. I wanted to. Lord, how I wanted to. I wanted to scream at her. Really? That's what you're going with? You bringing a third person into our marriage has nothing to do with me? Next you'll be telling me it was for my benefit.

I pressed myself more firmly against the back of the chair to stop myself from leaping to my feet and yelling at her, I'd really like you to clarify for me how you screwing my cousin had nothing to do with me. How it was good for me, for us. Explain to me how it wasn't a betrayal of trust. Wasn't stabbing me in the back. Wasn't evil and selfish.

Instead, I sipped my water.

She inhaled, and I was pleased to note that seeing her breasts push against the cotton of her blouse left me unmoved. She was as gorgeous as ever but forever polluted in my eyes. In truth, the mere thought of touching her actually revolted me.

When she risked another glance at me, I made it clear I had no intention of commenting on her declaration. She hesitated, opening and closing her mouth; I could almost see the cogs turning in her brain. How much should she confess to? What ploy would reap the result she was looking for?

"Danny, there's things you don't know about me. Things I never wanted you to know."

I resisted the urge to raise my eyebrows in sarcastic response, chanting to myself; calm, neutral, bored, calm, neutral, bored over and over again.

"As you know, I grew up in Broken Hill. In many ways, it's a small town. Everybody seems to know everybody. Well, um, well, I was known as a bit of a wild child." She sighed, turning her head to the side, showing me the extent of the flush; it went all the way down her neck and into the collar of her blouse. "More than a bit. I was a slut. I had a reputation. A bad one. When Dad got transferred to Kiama in my final year of high school I used the move as a chance to reinvent myself."

She looked at me, trying to gauge my reaction. Getting no feedback, she persevered, "I succeeded for the most part, but, as I discovered, the whole partying, sex, and kink lifestyle can be addictive. Sometimes I felt like I was crawling out of my skin with need to cut loose. I struggled with how restrictive being good was compared to my bad girl days. I solved the issue by rationing myself. A couple of times a month, I'd go to Sydney or Wollongong, or head south to Nowra, anywhere where I wasn't known, and I'd, um, I guess you could say, binge. By, ah, gorging myself, so to speak, I could spend the rest of the month being a good girl."

Once again she paused, studying me, waiting for a response. Once again, I gave her nothing but an expressionless stare.

"Well, um, then I got offered a promotion if I was prepared to move to Newcastle. I met you within a month of the move and you were so sweet and wonderful, and we had such fun together. For a while the urge to slut around faded, but after about six months I got the itch again. By coincidence I had to go to Sydney for a week for work, and, well, I binged. On my last night I bumped into Zack. He saw me, um, doing stuff I shouldn't be with some guy and cornered me. I thought, at first, he was going to tell me off, but he didn't. He, oh God, this is so hard, he told me he liked a good slut. That's how it started."

Tears rolled down her red cheeks, dripping off her chin and onto her blouse.

"You need to know I didn't make love to Zack, I swear we only fucked. It wasn't lovemaking. It wasn't anything like what you and I share. Please believe me when I tell you a lot of what I said to Zack was just sex talk to get him revved up. It was all just part of the game he and I played. I didn't mean it. I-It's hard to explain. It's like I had two different people living inside my body with two very different needs. You satisfied sweet Claire and Zack, um, the other. From him I needed to be treated like... like..."

She had the decency to look away.

"Like a slut. It was a satisfying of that need, Danny, nothing more. I didn't look to him to make me feel loved and cherished and safe. I didn't want that from him—I wanted that from you because I love you. I didn't want a life with him. It's you I want to grow old with. I never, I swear, loved him. It was never the same with him as it is with you and me."

I repressed the urge to snort in disgust. I couldn't suppress my thoughts though. They silently berated her. So now you're schizo. Well, thanks for that insight. Regardless, he still stuck his cock in you. And he must have done a good job of satisfying your, ah, 'slutty bad girl need', or you wouldn't have carried on with him for twelve years.

"Danny, please try to understand. He fulfilled a sexual need. Nothing more. It wasn't emotional."

Only physical. Not emotional. Like that makes all the difference. Did the lack of emotion make his cock somehow less of a cock? Did it make it a phantom cock? A metaphorical one?

It took everything I had to remain silent and calm. My gut churned with the need to reply. The bitter taste of bile filled my mouth at only being able to answer in my mind. One day, I comforted myself. One day, I'd get to say them aloud.

"I didn't mean to hurt you, Danny. I wish I could take it back. Get a do-over."

Was she for real? Didn't mean to hurt me? How else could she possibly see the situation playing out? Hurting me was a foregone conclusion. It was just a matter of when. How could she not see that? And once done, it couldn't be undone. That horse had left the stable. It had galloped off, trampling my heart underfoot in the process.

More tears welled in her eyes and spilled over, trekking slowly down her cheeks. Were they real? Were they part of her act? In truth, it didn't matter if they were genuine or false because they would make no difference to the outcome of our conversation.

"Please say something, Danny. Please say you understand. You didn't know. I truly thought that as long as you didn't know it wouldn't hurt you. I wanted to protect you. Protect us, our love. Our sweet sweet love. By being his slut once or twice a month I was able to be a good wife to you the rest of the time. I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry. Please forgive me. Please love me enough to forgive me."

Her pleas and apologies dumbfounded me. It was clear she didn't see herself as the villain of the story, perhaps not totally innocent, or the wronged party, but definitely not as the baddie. If anything she saw herself as a victim, a victim of her 'addiction' as she called it. Did she really believe I should forgive her and turn a blind eye to her slutting around so she could satisfy her need to act like a whore once or twice a month?

How could she not realize what she admitted with her confession? I'd said the Claire revealed in the letters wasn't the Claire I'd loved and cherished; now I knew it for a fact. Her binges enabled her to play a part, the part of the sweet wife. It was a role, nothing more than a role. Sweet Claire might have gotten more air time but that didn't change the fact that selfish slut Claire was the real Claire.

She fidgeted, my silence clearly unnerving her. "Danny, please. Please say something. I need to know what you're thinking. Please give me a second chance. We were happy. For twelve years you were happy. We can be again, if you'd just let me make it up to you. Please let me come home."

Make it up to me? How exactly do you make up for more than a decade of lies and deception? Of disrespect?

"No." That was all I gave her. One word.

"Danny, please. I know what I did was terrible. I will spend the rest of my life being the best wife possible if you'd only give me another chance. Doesn't our marriage mean anything to you? Can you really walk away so easily?"

I picked up my glass, draining the last of my water in an effort to quench the fire burning in my gut, to drown the fury that longed to spill over my lips. The injustice of her word tested my resolve. Me give up on our marriage? Me walk away easily? It was her. She was the one who gave up on us before we'd ever really started. It was her pretending to be something she wasn't that doomed us to failure from the word go. I closed my eyes as I drank and envisaged immersing myself in the cool, still waters of a meadow pond and counted. By the time I got to ten I'd regained my self-control.

"Yes, I can walk away. And without so much as a backward glance." I pointedly checked my watch. "I believe your time is up."

The trickle of tears turned to outright weeping.

"Danny, I love you. Only you. I'm yours. I've always been yours. He just served a purpose. Don't give up on us, Danny. Please, give me a chance. I can make you trust me again. I can make you love me again. Just give me a chance. I've learned my lesson. I'll never let you down again—"

"Enough, Claire. Please compose yourself. This meeting is over."

I rose, and without looking in her direction, I made my way to the front door, opening it and waiting.

I waited a while.

She walked toward me, her step slow as if she was on the way to her execution. She stopped beside me, looking up with pleading eyes.

"I love you, Danny. I love you so much. Could we...could we try counselling? Please say you'll at least consider it."

"Counselling would be pointless. I don't love you. Now if you'll excuse me, I have plans for this evening."

I quietly closed the door, proud I didn't succumb to my desire to slam it shut. I turned and headed down the hall. The sound of Claire's sobs followed me but I didn't turn around or hesitate.

# # #

Shaun was in the dining room, using one of the chairs to stand on in order to retrieve his camera from the top of the display hutch. I watched as he placed it on the dining table.

"You okay?" he asked, clasping my bicep. I knew he was ready to pull me in for a hug if I needed it but I was so full of rage I needed movement, not comfort.

"Did you hear any of it?

"A little."

"Can you believe it? She fucking spends twelve years lying, cheating, and betraying me. Twelve fucking years of disrespect and she thinks that confessing to being addicted to being a slut somehow makes it okay? That a simple, I'm sorry accompanied by a few tears will fix everything? Nothing she could ever say or do will ever change the fact that she spent more than decade deceiving me. That's twelve years I'll never get back. No matter what she does to try and make amends it will always be a part of our history. She made a unilateral decision to feed her so-called addiction outside of our marriage without so much as one word of discussion with me. And now she wants to cry, 'woe is me', because she has to live with the repercussions? The only reason she wants me to take her back is so she doesn't have to deal with the fall-out. She's just scared she's going to lose her good girl status with family and friends."