Unfaithful

"It's just too dangerous," I said.

I had listened to Kevin, and I knew the things he said would be like catnip to my wife. I did some checking and liked nothing I heard. The group goes where others will not. MSF goes to the war zones in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Syria. Their facilities had been hit by air strikes that were meant to target others, and then there was the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the violence was intentionally aimed at the health care workers.

Everything told me I had to stop Simone from going, but I knew I ultimately would not. Another woman would have been content with a successful career and family. But Simone could never be just another woman or doctor. There were people in need, children who needed her special skills. She needed to go, and I knew it.

I could have prevented her. I probably should have stopped her. But I loved her, and when you truly love someone, you can feel their needs even greater than your own. So, in the end, I helped her. I hugged our girls as they sat on the living room couch while Simone knelt before us, explaining why she had to go and help the children in Africa.

When Simone announced to the rest of the family that she would be leaving her surgical residency for at least a year to take a job with Doctors Without Borders, it was Tara who stepped in first to help me. By then, Vicky was seven and Beth, short for Elizabeth, was five. Tara brought Lisa to the table. My sister is the very definition of the word "butch." Once a very pretty girl, she is now a boyish creature—still pretty but never to be mistaken for a heterosexual.

Tara prefers her women feminine, and Lisa is one hundred percent female. She's what I believe they term a "lipstick lesbian." Lisa is small, the kind of petite woman who can wear anything and look good. Extra short with long blond hair all down her back. The kind of girl who only looks more female when filling out a pair of jeans.

When Simone went to Africa, Lisa became the female influence for my daughters, buying their clothes and watching Frozen and Pocahontas with them. Tara and I upheld the fatherly end of things. I needed the help. With my wife gone, I lost not only a spouse but also an income. My wife's new earnings were just enough to cover her student loan bills. I had to pay my loans, the mortgage, and the household bills.

The average criminal attorney is lucky to clear fifty grand a year after expenses. At the time Simone left, I was breaking sixty because I spent every spare hour seeking new business. I think I wrote a will for every family member and friend I had. But mostly I hunted the town courts, looking for the driving-while-intoxicated, disorderly, or public indecency clients.

We had survived and had even prospered, but I could not have done it without Tara and Lisa. Mostly I worried. The news was never good from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I never wanted Simone to go. Why her family was not enough for her, I never understood. Nor did I understand how the mother of small children could put herself so decidedly in harm's way. Everything I learned about the Congo said it was a place to avoid at all costs.

The first two months she was gone, she was in France for training. We kept in good communication. A phone call every day. Two, sometimes three, emails a day to me and the girls. The next two months were the same, but then things changed. There was a call maybe once a week and a letter rarely. It didn't change slowly; it happened all at once. There was a sudden shift, and then things slipped further. The letters began coming every other week and the calls once a month. Mostly she talked to the girls. Something happened in that third month she was in the Congo. I never knew what.

What I knew was that my wife had never quite returned to me. I had been celibate for fourteen months. But was Simone equally celibate? I knew how libertine medical staff could be. Did my wife engage is extramarital sex while I stayed at home tending to the kids? Was Dr. Faraji talking out of his ass, or did he have knowledge I lacked? I had worried for my wife's safety, but should I have been concerned for her fidelity?

As I pulled up in my Honda CRV, my daughters were waiting at the curb. Vicky had become the responsible older sister. She held Beth's hand and waiting patiently at the curb for my arrival. The absence of their mother had made my daughters more responsible and less dependent.

"Hi, Dad," Vicky said, opening the door and helping her sister in.

"What we having for dinner?" Beth asked as she buckled herself into the one remaining car seat.

"I think Aunt Tara is bringing liver and onions," I teased.

"No, she's not. Lisa won't let her," Beth insisted.

"Dad!" Vicky implored.

"Well, you know your mother will be late, and Aunt Tara really likes liver."

"Yuck!" the girls said in unison.

When we arrived home, the girls stormed out of the garage and into the kitchen. They were protesting the liver when they saw the pizza boxes sitting on the kitchen table. Aunt Lisa reassured them that she would never let Aunt Tara feed them liver.

Simone didn't make it home for dinner, but then, I didn't expect her to. There would be a cocktail reception for the bigwigs after the meeting, and Simone would use the opportunity to argue for greater support for Doctors Without Borders. She did arrive home at about eight, just as I was giving the girls their baths.

Tara and Lisa stayed until I had the girls in bed. They said they wanted to talk to us about something. When the girls were settled, Tara broke out a bottle of wine she had bought and nestled into the living room sofa.

"I want you to be the first to know that I have asked Lisa to marry me," Tara began.

Simone was the first to offer congratulations, but I followed a second later. Despite knowing how close the two women were, they had taken me by surprise.

"Go on!" Lisa prompted.

"Ah. Well, the reason we are going to marry is that—"

"What your sister is trying to get out is that we intend to marry and start a family," Lisa said to me.

"Okay, well, you will make the 'rents happy," I said.

Simone was fidgeting next to me. I was missing something the three women instinctively understood.

"Jim, we want you to be the bio father," Tara said.

This took me back a bit, but Lisa jumped in before I could recover.

"It's not just about you being Tara's biological brother. I want my children to have the kind of father I know you to be. I could not think of a better man to father our children. We are only asking for a sperm donation," Lisa said.

They had put me on the spot, and I could feel the icy chill coming from Simone.

"Can I have some time to think?" I hedged.

"Of course," they agreed, and we went on to discuss their wedding plans until they left.

_______________________________

Simone sat on the edge of our bed. She was wearing an old terry cloth robe over a granny nightgown. Before she had gone to Africa, she slept with me naked. Now she hid her body from me. I could tell she was troubled.

"What are you thinking?" she asked.

"About what?

"You know what. Donating to Tara and Lisa," she said.

"Don't quite know, actually. A bit flattered, as you should expect. What were you thinking?"

"Have we drifted so far apart that you can't see how I feel about it?"

"Well, I didn't think you were pleased, but you didn't say no, and it's only a sperm donation."

"I was thinking what it will mean to the girls?"

"I don't think anyone was planning on telling them until they are adults."

"But what if something happened to Lisa and Tara? Those would be your children."

"If the worst happened, they would be my children no matter who donated the sperm. Tara is my sister. Our kids are her nieces. She and Lisa proved what that meant while you were away. We owe them a lot. I will have a hard time turning them down on so small a request," I said.

Simone did not look happy. "I want to think about it and talk more when I'm not so tired," she said.

"That's good—sleep on it. We will talk tomorrow evening."

"I can't. I promised to go out with the staff people from work to celebrate tomorrow night. I received an award today which Claire says you know."

"What were you doing tonight?"

Simone didn't look happy with my question. "Today was for the poohbahs. I was out with the hospital executive committee after the award ceremony. They may offer me an executive position."

"Oh, and just when were you planning on celebrating with your family?"

"Please Jimmy, don't be like that. I'm doing the best I can," she said, pausing to take a breath. "Everything feels strange. When you go away like I did, you expect that it will all be the same when you return. But it's not. Everyone has moved on. Worse, you are different, and you can't help that. You saw things—had experiences. Not all of them bad, but some so horrific."

She suddenly started weeping. I moved to the bed. I put my arm around her and pulled us together. For a moment, it was the old Simone and me. A man and his wife working through whatever had happened to her. But then the moment passed, and she pulled away, the curtain dropped.

I went to bed that night with the doctor of the year, not my wife. But it was not a sexless night. As had happened many nights since Simone returned, we had intercourse. It had become the pattern, and Simone had started it. During her first weeks back, Simone had been a bit hesitant when it came to sex. After my long dry spell, I was anxious to resume conjugal relations. Simone was tentative at first as if she were unsure of me. But this quickly changed.

Simone became very aggressive in bed within two weeks of returning home. The change was troubling. When we first married, we bought The Joy of Sex and worked our way through the book. Simone was never very adventurous and hated giving oral sex but loved getting it. The post-Africa Simone was a tiger in the sack and attacked orally as a prelude to heart-pounding sex.

Whereas once twice a week was a lot, now it was every night and twice a day if our days off matched. But the love was gone. I had the distinct feeling that all we were doing was fucking. We were getting each other off as if Simone had some compulsion that needed a fix each night. The wife I knew was gone, replaced by an oversexed surrogate.

My morning began at a quarter to six. Up, showered, and shaved, I woke the girls. They were good little troopers and headed for the bathroom on their own while I finished dressing. When I was ready for the day, I helped the girls dress. It was a routine we had perfected during the last year. Breakfast was eaten, and lunches made.

We were headed for the garage. I would drop the girls at school before heading to police court. It was the same most days, but earlier Fridays because I needed to consult with the assistant district attorney before the Friday police court. Officially, the judge came on the bench at 9:30, but he was rarely seated before 10:00, and then, only if the ADA was ready. She would arrive at eight to start cutting the deals the judge would bless from the bench.

Simone appeared in her robe just as the girls and I were leaving. "Give your mother a kiss goodbye," I said.

"Bye, Mom," they said as they each gave their mother a peck on the cheek.

"What about a kiss from my husband?" Simone asked as I was nearly out the door.

I turned and gave her a brief kiss on the lips.

"I won't be too late tonight," she said.

I left Simone knowing that before work she would run three miles. Yet another change since her African sojourn. The old Simone did Pilates and yoga, but the new woman did three miles each workday morning and five miles on her days off. I think she was in the best shape of her life, and, certainly, she looked great. All this seemed to do was put more distance between us.

At police court, the ADA was seated in a tiny room off to the side. It had just enough room for a small table at which the pretty, young woman who was the ADA. There was one free chair for the defense attorney. My colleagues on the low end of the criminal bar were lined up in the hall. I knew them all, but not well. We were a friendly, convivial group.

My criminal defense colleagues overlooked my somewhat shady reputation. It is hard to keep your hands clean when you represent those who work the dirty side of the street. Representing your client vigorously sometimes means bending the rules. I may have influenced a few witnesses. Told a client to dispose of some evidence before the police could think to seize it. I was a good attorney but not always a good citizen.

When my turn finally came with the ADA, I had my arguments ready. I had five cases. They all arose from the police staking out a local bar on the previous Friday night. The bar owner took a dim view of the local cops harassing his patrons, particularly so because not a single DWI arrest took place. Every driver stopped after exiting his establishment was below the legal limit. Nevertheless, five citations for disorderly conduct and driving while impaired were issued.

Before I could open my mouth, the ADA shoved her disposition sheet across to me.

"ACD," she said, referring to the Adjourned Contemplating Dismissal designation.

ACD is all but a dismissal of the charge. It is the best you can do on a first appearance.

"Which one?" I stuttered.

"All five," she said. "Look close at the charge sheet."

She pointed to the initials next to each client name. The letters SK were written very clearly. The DA was Stanislas Katsaros, known as Stan. He was very proud of his Greek heritage. As the saying goes, "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts, but don't look a gift horse in the mouth." This was certainly a gift, one that had just netted me an eight-hundred-dollar fee in each of five cases—four thousand dollars.

The question was, however, what did Stan want? Politicians do nothing without purpose. If Stan wanted a favor, he had not asked for it. The pretty ADA gave me a look and a shrug. Apparently, she had no more idea what was going on than I did.

I was back in my office by 10:00 a.m. I found June waiting there for me. June is what passes for my staff. She is a twenty-eight-year-old woman with five kids. The oldest girl is fourteen. The other four are under ten. The five children have three fathers, and June has never been married. She is good at running my calendar and serving papers. She would never make a paralegal or secretary in a big firm. But I'm a solo practitioner, and it suits me. June spends a considerable amount of time each day on the phone settling family problems with her mother, who lives with her and watches June's children.

"DA Stanislas Katsaros wants to see you," June said.

"When?" I asked.

"This afternoon at his office at about three."

Not wasting any time, I thought. But what could the DA want from me?

Stan greeted me in his office along with his chief assistant, Betty Gray. There were always rumors about Stan and Betty. The DA was in his fifties, and Betty was a forty-something woman who, if not classically beautiful, was still a good-looking single woman. Rumors notwithstanding, I had it on good authority that their relationship was strictly professional. For one thing, Stan was married to a true Greek beauty imported from the old country who was twenty years his junior. Betty, on the other hand, had a number of studly younger men whom she saw in private. Few knew about Betty's stable of studs, but there aren't many things you can hide from my sister, the investigator.

Stan and Betty sat me down on the old worn leather sofa in the DA's inner office and offered me coffee. When his cup was filled halfway with cream and sugar, Stan added the coffee and launched into the reason for calling our meeting.

"Have you heard the accusations concerning Van Patten Correctional Facility?" he began.

Of course, I had. Even my domestically preoccupied mind had not missed a juicy scandal like that. Our local correctional facility had begun its life as a minimum-security prison for male inmates. Most of its former male residents served only a few months before release, often staying only nights and weekends behind bars.

Lawsuits about overcrowded conditions at the women's prisons to the south and west caused the state to convert Van Patten into a medium-security facility for female inmates. The conversion involved nothing more than erecting a fence and stringing razor wire. Female prisons have little or no security since no one has ever heard of a female prison break. The scandal currently brewing involved not security but sex.

Sex is a commodity in prison and is more prevalent than it is in the outside community. In female institutions, it is rampant, a fact aggravated by the federal government's insistence on equal employment opportunity. Because of their size and number, the promotional opportunities all existed at male facilities. The work was easier and safer at female facilities, but fewer positions meant fewer promotions.

The result was that female officers sought employment at male facilities. There were exceptions based on geography. Most officers came from the local community, and with seniority-based assignments, getting a slot close to home was what most officers worked toward. So, officer staffing at female institutions was roughly fifty-fifty male and female.

The civilian personnel of Van Patten CF was predominantly female, but its uniformed personnel was split evenly between the sexes. The current problem arose because of complaints of sexual abuse of female inmates by male officers. Those complaints were made to the State Commission on Corrections. The COC is not the DOCS (Department of Correctional Services.) The Department runs the prisons. The Commission is an oversite agency created after the Attica riot in 1971. The Commission is a toothless watchdog. It reports abuse but has no ability to correct.

The local DA would be the agency to prosecute criminal actions. Sexual activity by an officer with an inmate would be a class D felony at the least. Stan Katsaros was the arm of the law responsible for acting on the complaints investigated by the Commission, if needed. However, correction officers tend to be a conservative Republicans. They have a strong union and a tendency to come from large families who live in close communities. In a county like Van Patten, prosecuting correction officers would be close to political suicide.

Most prosecution of correctional personnel, when they occur, tend to be federal. The U.S. attorney is appointed and serves a large jurisdiction. New York has just four federal districts with four US. Attorneys but sixty-two counties each with its own District Attorney. The local DA is normally only asked to prosecute inmates or civilian staff accused of a crime on the prison property. The uniform personnel are mostly subject to federal prosecution. However, no federal prosecutor willingly sticks his neck out by prosecuting hopeless cases. Convicting someone, even with substantial evidence of a sex crime with an incarcerated felon, is nearly impossible.

The U.S. attorney had turned his back on the COC report that detailed widespread sexual activity at Van Patten CF. Now the state was pressuring Stan to take action. Downstate liberals and upstate religious conservatives were equally offended by the thought of sex behind prison walls.

So, yes, I had heard of Stan's problem but saw no way it concerned me.

"I'm aware of the COC report," I said.

Stan wasted no time getting to the point: "The governor wants a special prosecutor," he said, pausing to let that sink in. "I was, at first, reluctant but was willing to agree if I were allowed to name the individual."