No Fool Like an Old Fool

I just sat there lost in my thoughts until I realized that everyone was eating and passing things around the table. I also realized suddenly that someone was talking to me.

"Hiram, do you want me to carve the turkey?" asked Ted for probably the third

time.

"You'd probably like that wouldn't you," I spat.

"Well, yeah, brother in law," smiled Ted, "Maybe I'm alone but I can't wait to dig into that."

For a man my age lifting a 45 pound turkey, still isn't much of a challenge if you're in as good shape physically, as I am. But throwing one the length of an extra long dining room table and into the smug face of your tormenter is. Ted's smile vanished as the turkey, dressing and all careened into his face.

Since he was already leaning back in his chair at the time, the weight of the turkey coupled with it's velocity was enough to overbalance him and send him crashing backwards into the floor. I got up and quickly grabbed the mashed potatoes, and dumped the entire bowl on Ted's face. Then I followed up by pouring the gravy bowl on top.

"Is that enough, Ted? Dig in," I screamed. I snatched the candied yams in lemon sauce, right out of Helen's surprised hands. "Thanks bitch," I snapped. then I dumped them onto a sputtering Ted. "Your Diet needs Balance asshole," I snapped. "Here's some green beans."

As everyone at the table, too shocked to react, looked on in horror, I slammed the bowl of beans into the side of Ted's head, luckily the bowl was so ungainly that it slipped at the last second preventing me from doing him any serious damage.

"Hiram, what the hell is wrong with you?" screamed Tammy.

She finally regained enough of her composure, to rush over and plant herself between me and her husband, to prevent me from doing anything else to him.

I didn't answer her, I just took out my iPhone and walked over to the big screen TV they'd all just been watching. I connected it to the TV and played the video I'd shot not too long ago.

There on the screen everyone watched as Ted grabbed Helen from behind and

squeezed both of her breasts as she turned her head to kiss him. With the exception again of my mother in law, who continued to eat, oblivious to what was going on; everyone looked at Ted and then at Helen.

"No Hiram, it's not what you think," said Helen.

"Then what is it?" asked Tammy, her voice choked with anger. Neither Helen or Ted seemed to have anything to say.

"Nothing to say huh Helen?" I snapped, "I'm going out for a while, when I get back, you and Ted need to have a story to tell me."

"Where are you going?" she asked with tears in her eyes.

"To find myself a good divorce lawyer," I snapped. I don't know why I said that, maybe I was just trying to hurt her the way she'd hurt me. At that point, I just really needed to know why she was doing this. In my mind it had to be because I wasn't doing something, or maybe I was doing something that she couldn't stand. I just wanted to know what I had to do to save my marriage.

I stormed out of the apartment with Helen following me down the hall screaming and crying. Knowing that she couldn't go down the stairs quickly enough to keep up with me, I took the stairs instead of the elevator.

When I got to the third floor, there was a group of kids blocking the stairs.

"Can I pass boys?" I asked them angrily. I recognized several of them. They had all grown up in the building, and I had taken care of them when they were sick. A couple of them were still my patients. Most of them moved out of the way easily and one or two even greeted me. But there were a couple, including Thom Finn, and Henry Bennet, that looked at me with a mixture of menace and mirth. It was as if they were angry at me and laughing at me at the same time. They were slower to get out of my way as well. I wondered what was wrong with them, but the early twenties years are full of problems, so I just put them in the back of my mind as I descended the four remaining floors. Three more floors put me at ground level, and the last put me in the garage.

The design engineers at Ford must have worked with a team of psychologists. There was no other explanation for the way I smiled every time I saw that car. Just as I reached it, fully intent on just driving until I felt better, a hand on my shoulder scared the shit out of me; nearly literally.

"It's Thanksgiving, where are you going?" laughed Kelly.

"Nowhere, just out for a drive," I said, trying to keep the tone of my voice free of anger.

"Which is it," she asked," Nowhere, or out for a drive. You can't be going no-where; because then you'd be staying here. If you're going out for a drive, then you're going somewhere even if you don't know where that is."

"Kelly, please, I'm not in the mood for riddles right now," I said.

She looked up at me, and after a few seconds took my keys from my outstretched hand. She opened up the driver's side door and got in. Then she closed the door, and put my keys in the ignition. She lowered the window as she looked at me and asked me, "Are you coming or not?"

"Shouldn't you be going somewhere for Thanksgiving yourself?" I asked. "Like visiting family, or some young man?"

"Hiram you're a part of my family," she said meaning it. "The rest of my family gets on my nerves, they're mostly freeloaders. So I just usually hang out at home and do things that my job doesn't often leave me time for."

We drove for a few minutes in silence, as we slowly meandered down residential streets. Kelly was a great driver; she stopped at every sign and light. She was also able to handle the car's stiff clutch and rapid acceleration nearly as well as I could, and I'd been driving it for a couple of years. Once we got on the freeway it was another story. I felt the seat cushions pushing me forward at a rate I'd never felt when I drove it. Kelly's face was a mask of elation. The smile plastered across her lips as she went through the gears would have been worth the speeding ticket or trip to jail, if there'd been any cops around. Hearing the Mustang's growl augmented by whine of the supercharger was a new thrill for me as well. I had never driven the car this fast.

"I have got to get me one of these," shrieked Kelly. "What movie was that line from," she asked without taking her eyes off the road.

"I don't know," I said flatly. I was suffering from two problems at the same time. First I'd just discovered that my wife was cheating on me, with my brother in law. And second, I was wondering how the hell I was supposed to hold onto my

man card, if I told a girl young enough to be my daughter that she was driving so fast it scared me. I looked over at the speedometer without trying to be obvious about it. Kelly was doing 130 miles per hour and heading upwards. I looked at the Tachometer and it was nowhere near the red zone. Shit, how fast could this damned car go? Even worse, the boost gage was barely registering anything, so we could go a lot fucking faster.

"It was what Will Smith said in Independence day, when he first got to drive that alien spaceship. You took me to that movie while I was in college," she said smiling.

Between shifts, Kelly's left hand reached over and patted mine gently. The fact that she was so calm relaxed me as well. I realized that if she killed us, if we just smashed into something and died now, at least I wouldn't have to go back and face Helen.

Just as I had my great revelation, Kelly downshifted and slowed down just in time to take the turnoff onto another section of the freeway. She kept her speed down to a positively pedestrian 80 mph and looked over at me.

"What did she do?" she asked without looking at me. The tone of her question left me wondering how the hell she knew, but she obviously knew that there was something going one with Helen and myself.

"What did who do?" I replied.

"Helen, your supposed wife, Hiram," she said to me seriously.

"In order to get you this upset, it has to be something about Helen. You may as well tell me, because you obviously need to get it off your chest. I'm also not going to slow down or take us back until you feel better, so spill it." She said.

"I'm not sure I feel comfortable talking about this with you, Kelly. You're like my daughter." I said.

"Now we're getting somewhere," she said. "That tells me two things. First that it's obviously about sex. And second that if you think of me like a daughter I'm using the wrong approach."

"Hiram, I'm thirty two years old, so even though you've known me since I was a child, I'm hardly that little girl you helped with her homework. I've been in a few relationships, and I've even done the nasty a time or two. Plus I'm a medical professional just as you are. So nothing you can say is going to shock me," she said.

"Let me guess, you've finally discovered that Helen isn't right for you. She's just too old, and she isn't interested in sex any more. I don't think she needs hormone therapy Hiram, I think she needs a rest home. Even when I was a kid I knew that the two of you would eventually need to go your separate ways." She said.

"Did I get it?" she asked. "I told you I wouldn't be shocked."

"Helen is cheating on me with my brother in law," I said flatly.

"Shut the fuck up," shrieked Kelly turning to look at me.

"OK, I'm shocked," she said, "The nerve of that bitch! The first thing we need to do, is find a good divorce lawyer."

Kelly kept talking, making plans and spinning out options. She kept saying "we," should do this, and "we," shouldn't let her do that. It almost seemed like Kelly was happy about my marriage falling apart. I remember letting her stay with Helen and myself when her own parents broke up. Thankfully they had found a way, with time and lots of therapy to save their marriage. In their case it had been he who cheated. But I suppose it really doesn't matter which party is at fault. The biggest question is always the same, can this marriage be saved?

To be truthful, before this very moment I had never even considered a life without Helen in it. Even when I'd stormed out of the apartment, I'd known I was going back there. I just needed a chance to absorb the information. Then I firmly intended to talk about what we had to do to fix things. I knew that we'd need counseling, and I would insist on Ted never setting foot inside of my house, or us ever seeing him again.

Would Tammy divorce the bastard? If she did, that would make things a lot easier. But being reasonable, I guessed that it would be her decision how to handle the infidelity in her marriage just as it was mine to decide what to do about Helen.

"Where are you going to stay while you sort this out?" asked Kelly, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"I guess I'll probably just sleep in the guest room," I said as I started to think about it in more than just temporary terms.

"Why do you have to be the one who moves into the guest room?" asked Kelly.

"You're not the one who's wrong here. Let her move into the God damned guest room. Are you sure you even want to stay in the same house with her? You can use my guest room if you want."

"As a matter of fact," continued Kelly, "I just don't see why you need to even

go back to that apartment with her. There's no need for debate or negotiation here. We just need to get a lawyer and get you free of that bitch so you can move on with your life."

I nodded my head as if I agreed with Kelly, but I was really still thinking more

along the lines of staying out long enough to calm down, and then going home to confront Helen and talk about our future, or whether or not there was one.

In terms of finding a lawyer, as I thought about it, I realized that it wouldn't be necessary. I already had a great attorney on retainer; he could probably handle my divorce, if it came to that, as easily as he handled, malpractice, billing disputes and everything else.

I also needed to update the PI I had working on this. They obviously needed another approach. They had staked out the building waiting for Helen to leave, but it was painfully obvious that she'd been conducting her affair inside my own home. I needed to have the apartment and the building wired for surveillance. I was sure that Helen would probably not give Ted up very easily. They seemed to be really familiar with each other and that kind of comfort only came with a long time relationship. That bastard had just walked up behind her smacked her on her ass and then started squeezing her tits from behind like they belonged to him. The more I thought about it the angrier I got.

"Maybe you should have an affair too," snapped Kelly, "With someone younger and better suited to you. Then you could really show that bitch what she lost."

Helen, Tammy, and Ted were all sitting around the table, when I walked back into the apartment. Helen jumped up and ran to me as soon as I opened the door.

"Hiram, I'm so sorry," she began, "But it's really not what you think."

She had obviously been crying and she looked awful. Tammy didn't look much better. Even Ted had the look of a whipped dog about him. Of the three of them, he struck me as looking the most remorseful, which was strange.

I walked right past Helen and into the bedroom without saying a word. Helen opened the door that I'd neglected to lock and continued trying to talk to me.

"Hiram can't we please talk about this?" she asked.

"Okay Helen talk," I said as coldly as I could.

"Can we go back out to the dining room?" she asked.

I slowly followed her out to the dining room where Tammy and Ted still sat.Helen sat down noticeably distant from Tammy and Ted. Tammy was clearly not sitting very close to Ted either. I remained standing in the doorway. Helen tried to indicate that I should sit next to her by pulling out a chair near her. I shook my head and stayed on my feet.

"It would be easier for us to talk if you could sit down, Hiram," said Helen.

"I'm not sure how long you need to have your say, but I'm not planning on making this an all-nighter," I snapped. "I have patients to see in the morning, and no reason why I shouldn't."

"Hiram, Ted and I have never had sex. Not even once. Not even a blowjob. What you saw today, as bad as it was, was all there ever has been. It was just two confused people, at odds with their age and mortality, letting some innocent flirting get out of hand." She said.

Ted was nodding his head up and down as fast as his neck would allow in agreement with her.

"My hormones are all screwed up, Hiram. I'm also having to deal with the fact

that I'm slowly, maybe not so slowly turning from that hot woman you married twenty some years ago into a frumpy old granny type." said Helen.

"From the first moment we met, you've always been the only man I love, and I want us to grow old together," she continued. "But it just sometimes seems like I'm growing old alone."

"You don't look nearly as old as I am, even though you're only a few years younger. You drive around in your Mustang, and go out for your runs, and I'm left here, alone."

"A lot of the time when we do go out together, people look at me as if I'm your mother or something, and I guess it got me a little crazy, But I swear to you that Ted and I never had sex." she said.

"I know it carried on for a while, but it was only a quick grab, or a little kiss whenever we had a family gathering, the secrecy of it, made it far more exciting than it actually was," she said trying to hold back the tears.

"Can't we work this out? It was nothing. Why would you want to throw away over twenty years for one mistake?" she asked.

"Tammy and Ted, have already decided that they're going to stay together, and they have as much to lose as we do, and they've been together a shorter period of time. If their marriage is worth trying to save, isn't ours?" she cried. "I'd do anything to make this up to you, please don't divorce me." Her voice was choked up and she wasn't even trying to hide her tears. Helen had slid out of the chair and was actually on her knees looking up at me.

"I'll think about it," I said and walked back into the bed room. A little while later I was in bed watching TV and Helen came into the room quietly. She had gotten ready for bed in one of the other bathrooms and was wearing a silk nightie that she knew was my favorite. She looked up at the TV screen and paused for a moment and then sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Helen, we're not sleeping together, and I'm already here so you can have either Megan's old room or the guest room." I snapped.

"Hiram, I don't expect us to have sex, I just thought...," she began.

"Well don't just thought...," I said, "I'm not sleeping in the same room with you period. I'm not even sure about being in the same house with you. Originally I thought that you should've left with Tammy and Ted. But I didn't want to be premature."

"I don't even know how I feel about this yet. I'm just reacting right now. When I've had time to think about this one of us may still have to leave, maybe temporarily, maybe permanently. But for now Helen, I just don't want to be around you."

Helen left the room and obviously went into the guest room right next door.

During the night my thoughts wouldn't allow me to sleep. I'd doze off, only to wake up a short time later. Several times during the night I could hear Helen softly sobbing, but it failed to either change my mind or to make me feel any better.

The next morning I was up and out for my run long before Helen awoke. As I went back into the apartment I heard Helen stirring around. I showered and dressed as quickly as I could because I didn't want to see her. When I came out of the bathroom Helen was setting a cup of my favorite coffee and a pastry in front of my place at the table. As I headed for the door, I heard her speak.

"Don't you want to eat something, you always tell your patients to take in some

kind of nourishment after exercising," she said quietly.

I looked at her as if she was crazy, but I tried to keep my voice controlled and failed, as I answered.

"Helen, a cup of fucking coffee and a sweet roll isn't going to make up for what you did, so just have a nice day. Don't worry about me now, the same way you haven't been worrying about me for the past few months while you've been fucking around with Ted," I said, then walked out the door.

Helen was stunned as she watched Hiram walk out the door. Just as she was yesterday when all of her work towards the family's thanksgiving celebration had been ruined, she sank down to the floor and started crying. If she had been holding out hope for a quick resolution, she realized now that the possibility of that was gone. This was going to be very bad, far worse than she'd ever anticipated.

Hiram had to know that she loved him above all others. He was her life, more important to her than her friends, family and even their daughter. He had to know that. The flirting with Ted was nothing, it was so insignificant that she had forgotten about it.

She had been feeling old and unattractive lately. Her fondest wish was to grow old with Hiram, but he seemed to get younger every year relative to her. When they'd first met most of her friends considered him to be a little too boring for her, but she had fallen for him immediately. He worked out regularly and even though he was only a few years younger than she was, it seemed as if the age gap was far wider than it actually was.

She'd always dreamed of them growing old together, and it just seemed as if she was growing old alone, while Hiram was getting younger. She also noticed the fact that young nurses and workers at the hospital paid quite a bit of attention to her husband. She wanted him to pay her the kind of attention that he had when they were first together.

Until yesterday when she saw how hurt he was about Ted she hadn't realized that he still loved her as much as ever. Helen really believed that her hormone levels had something to do with her problems. Lately she craved sex more often than ever. Hiram had never failed to satisfy her and even at their ages they had a vigorous sex life but it wasn't enough. She thought now that Hiram had noticed that for the last few weeks she wasn't after him nearly as much. Perhaps that was what had made him suspicious of her and made him think that she had been fucking Ted. The real truth was that she had told the truth. She had never had sex with Ted. But she was also too tired for sex with Hiram some nights now, and other nights she didn't think t would be a good idea for him to see her naked.