Well-Intentioned

"We know you're a good man, Doug. Trustworthy. Loyal. That's why we didn't tell you, because we didn't want to put you in a position where you'd need to choose who to be loyal to." He looked out the front window. Kids were making their way home from school outside, laughing and running. A few of them dragged ass as if home was the last place they wanted to go; I sympathized.

"How long?" It had occurred to me, after the conversation with Mary, that I'd never found out some of the particulars, ones that might decide my course of action. "How long has she been cheating on Lance? How long have you known?"

He drummed his fingers on the table, a frown on his face. A few moments passed before he finally said, "To my understanding, it started a bit over a year ago. I found out, along with most of the folks that know, a few weeks after that, not long before you moved in."

"A year? How... You're a church elder, for God's sake! How did they convince you to go along with this?"

His frown deepened. "They didn't convince me, Doug. I convinced them."

"What?" I could barely believe my ears.

Bob nodded. "Not all of them. Some of them had already decided to... well, to do nothing, I suppose. Some of them just wanted to mind their own business. Others, like Mary Taylor, had their own reasons, and if their spouses weren't already of the same mind, they mostly convinced them. And, if I'm honest, I think one or two people either are having or have had affairs; I have no proof of that, though. Just a feeling."

After taking another drink, he gloomily continued, "Some, though, thought we had to tell him. That it was the right thing to do. It was; it is. I know that. But it's also the wrong thing to do." Bob pointed the neck of his bottle toward me. "Which brings me back to you, and what you're wrestling with."

Nodding, I replied, "Yeah. Yeah, I am. She's my friend, but he is, too. I know that's not true with all of you; it seems like most of the folks here like Ella a whole lot more than Lance, but--"

Bob all but slammed his bottle down on the table. "That is not true!" He glanced to the side for a moment, then shrugged, before admitting, "Alright, it is for some, I'm sure. It's not for me, though. And it's not the reason I argued so strongly in favor of keeping it from him. I..."

He stopped, then took in a deep breath and let it out slowly before rising from the table to look out the window. "Kathy didn't come with me today, because she knew I'd probably get around to telling this story. It's upsetting to her. To me, too, but..." He shook his head. "I'm doing everything I can to keep this from him because of what happened twenty-odd years ago, and what I could so easily see happening again.

"Not long after I became an elder, Black Monday struck. You're too young to remember it, but the long and the short of it is that back in 1987, the stock market had the single largest one-day plunge in history. Almost 25% of the Dow Jones disappeared in one day. People thought we were looking at a new Great Depression.

"A young family had started attending our services maybe a year or so before. Nice folks. Parents very much in love with each other; adorable young children. The father didn't lose his job when the recession hit, but it was a narrow thing.

"Being young and lacking seniority, his job was at risk, though, and he had to do whatever he could to keep it. So, he worked long hours, and he came home stressed. Tempers frayed. I didn't know at the time, though; so many people were struggling in the community, and, to be honest, my own job was hanging by a thread, and I was already putting my oldest through college.

"I didn't learn how bad things had gotten for them until the wife came to me maybe eight or nine months after the crash. She'd... strayed. It happened a few times before her conscience got the best of her, and she asked for my advice.

"My first instinct was for her to confess immediately. I felt... outrage, I suppose, for her husband. Sympathy for her, too, but I knew she was in the wrong. Knew it to my core; she cheated, after all. And, even now... Even now, I still feel that way. I feel that way about what Ella is doing, too.

"I grappled with what to tell her for days, but ultimately decided I needed input from others. I spoke with my fellow elders and the pastor. We went round and round about it for hours, but the consensus was that I should counsel her to keep her on the straight and narrow. Once things had settled down, I'd bring them both in for marital counseling together, and she could tell him then.

"That's not what happened, though. I don't know if it was... If I had been too hellfire and brimstone when we first met, or if her conscience became too much for her, or if..." The old man--looking almost ancient then--swallowed.

"She told him. And he... He killed her. Shot her. Then he drove across town to the other man's house and shot him on his front doorstep, just a few yards from the man's own family, before turning the gun on himself." His voice caught. "They were so young. God, all so young. Their whole lives ahead of them."

I'd never seen Bob like this. His shoulders stooped as the weight of the tale dragged them down. I almost spoke up, but he pulled himself upright and continued on. His gaze never met mine, though, even in the reflection of the window. "Two families destroyed, not just because of an infidelity, but also because of a confession. Because of the stress already on all of them, and because of my indecisiveness."

"Bob... Bob, you can't blame yourself for that. That wasn't--"

The man who had become, in many ways, a surrogate father figure over the last year, struggled to answer. He wasn't crying--I doubted that he ever cried, outside of maybe a funeral--but his voice broke as he tried to continue. "I do, though. Not for all of it. Not even most of it. But I played my part; I could have... should have done more. And that's why I argued against Ella telling Lance."

"But she kept cheating on him! She's still cheating on him!"

He nodded grimly. "I know. I'm disappointed in her; she's disappointed in herself, for that matter. I know that. I talk with her about it, try to... to help her find other ways to deal with her own stress and fear.

"I remembered how quickly the nation bounced back from Black Friday, and I felt sure this would be the same way, that we'd be long past the crash by now. But it wasn't. And because it wasn't, Ella... Well, she couldn't manage." He shook his head. "It doesn't matter. Her cheating is now, if I'm being honest, the lesser secret."

My brows furrowed at this statement. "How do you figure?"

Bob sat back down and took another drink of his beer, shifting in his manner back towards the steady, thoughtful mentor. "Because now it's not just her secret. It's gone on too long. Now it's our secret, all of ours. If one of us tells him, eventually he'll figure out that more of us know, that maybe all of us do, and that we've known for a while. Then it's not just her betrayal. It's ours, too.

"Put yourself in his shoes. Your whole neighborhood knows your wife is cheating on you. They've known for almost a year, and they've kept it secret. It doesn't matter that we had the best of intentions when we started, or that she planned to confess when things were better. All you would see--all he will see--is that betrayal. What will that do to him?"

He looked down at his hands, now flat on the table. "I can't be responsible for another young man taking his life. Or destroying it through drinking or some other twisted way of coping. I won't."

"Bob--"

Finally, his gaze fully met mine for the first time since he'd begun, his eyes boring into me. "I am begging you, Doug: don't tell him. You might think you're doing the right thing, and from a certain point of view, you would be. I'll admit that.

"But it would be like letting a man drown because of a sign that says 'No swimming.' It'll be a right thing that leads to a greater wrong. I know I made a mistake here. I know I should have found another way to handle this. When I looked at them, though, I saw that young family from 20 years ago. Don't punish them because this blind old fool of a man took a bad situation and made it worse."

We sat there for a while. Bob stared at me, but his gaze moved away now and then, as if to give me relief. I rolled everything he said around in my head, trying to see some angle that he and the others hadn't, some way out of this trap that they'd put themselves into. I didn't find one. Finally, I said, "I'll... I'll need to think about it. I won't say anything to him today, though. I promise."

He nodded; this was the best he was likely to get. Then, rising, he said, "I understand. Like I said, Doug, you're a good man. I hate that you've been put in this position, but you have. And now..." He stopped, mouth opened slightly, then closed it and shook his head before favoring me with a weary smile. "Well, now it's up to you. Let your conscience be your guide. I'm sure you'll make the right call."

Yes, he smiled, but I could tell it was forced as we said our goodbyes. The subtext was perfectly clear: the right choice was his choice, and he wasn't sure I'd make that one. I wasn't, either.

When I'd gone from Ella's to Mary's earlier in the day, I thought I was going for advice on how to approach telling Lance: tell him myself, give Ella an ultimatum, or some other strategy. I'd hoped that Mary could give me a new point of view, maybe help me figure out a different way to approach the problem. By the time Bob had finished speaking that night, everything seemed so much more complicated.

What Ella had done--was doing--was wrong. Everyone agreed on that. But everyone, eventually, also agreed that telling Lance would be the wrong approach. Everyone except me, anyways. Maybe. All I had to do was hold my tongue, and the worst case scenario was... what? Lance eventually finds out, and I'd be just one more face in the crowd of folks who didn't say anything?

Anyways, it sounded like this was a temporary thing; maybe a temporary thing that had gone on too long, but temporary nonetheless. Maybe he'd never find out, and he could live the rest of his life happily oblivious about the year his wife had been fucking another man. Year? No, years, probably, from how the economy was looking.

But if I opened my mouth, I didn't see how the outcome could be anything but catastrophic. Even in my worst imaginings, I couldn't see Lance ever hurting Ella, Bob's traumatic story notwithstanding. How much would my speaking up hurt Lance, though? Even at that age, I knew what divorce for a guy in our state looked like, especially with a stay-at-home wife, and "unfavorable" didn't even begin to cover it.

Would he choose to forgive so he could keep his home and his kids, particularly with the Great Recession in full swing? If he did, would Ella stop sleeping around? If not, would Lance try to turn a blind eye and pretend it wasn't happening or maybe even be forced to embrace his status as a cuckold? What would any of those scenarios do to their kids?

I tossed and turned the whole night, but that didn't help, nor did trying to focus on work the next day. When lunchtime rolled around, my phone helpfully reminded me that, yes, this was a Wednesday, and I needed to get ready to go over to Ella's for my workout. Thanks, Steve Jobs. Super helpful.

I didn't go over to her house, nor did she come to mine. I didn't hear from her at all, and no further neighbors came over to talk to me about the situation. In fact, nobody stopped by at all that day or the next; it wasn't until later that I realized everyone was giving me space to make a decision. Team Speak No Evil had sent their representative, and any further discussion would muddy the water; more importantly, it would undercut Bob's "I'm sure you'll make the right call."

Slowly, I started to come around to the idea that maybe it was the right call. By Friday, I'd stewed long enough for the initial shock to wear off, both at Ella's actions and everyone else's inaction, and I had started to see the wisdom of both Bob and Mary's words. Maybe Bob's fears about the severity of Lance's potential reaction were overblown, but Mary's seemed like they might be right on target. I knew that if I was in his position and found out that both my wife and neighbors had kept something like this from me, I'd be hard pressed to not tear our lives down, consequences be damned.

More importantly, I had started to fall into the pattern I'd gotten used to over the previous year in King's Forest. When I had a dilemma, I sought my neighbors' advice, then followed said advice. Their wisdom hadn't served me wrong yet. Why should this be different? Sure, I felt awful about keeping the secret, but so did everyone else. Bob and Mary had presented it as the best of a bunch of bad choices, and I could see their point of view.

That weekend, I saw Lance and Ella at an afternoon barbecue, one of the rare ones that both were able to attend. People chatted with the couple, and their warmth towards Lance didn't feel like it was for show. No one made any comments that I could remotely interpret as demeaning, no one gossiped behind his back, no one cast pitying stares at him. I avoided him, but I did so as unobtrusively as possible, instead volunteering to do little errands: a beer run here, helping Mrs. Alvarez in the kitchen there, and so on.

It was on one of those errands, fetching spare lawn chairs from the garage, that Ella caught me alone. Her voice startled me. "Hey."

I turned to face her, setting down the stack I'd just picked up. "Hey." Her face looked so different from the sunny happy one I'd grown used to, the one she presented to everyone. It had a haunted quality to it, and I wondered if I was seeing the real Ella for the first time. "I suppose you want to talk about--"

She made a little shushing notion with one hand while closing the door to the garage with the other. "Yes. No." Ella sighed. "God, I don't know. It sounds like Bob already did. Mary, too. But I wanted you to... to hear it from me. To understand."

"What's there to understand? He's working his fingers to the bone, and you're fucking around on him. It's not like housewives cheating on their unsuspecting husbands is a new thing. I just didn't expect..." I sighed. "Whatever. Make your case for why I shouldn't tell him."

Ella opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. Then once more, a little strangled sound coming out. Then, on her third try, "You probably should. He deserves better; I know that. It's just... it was just sex. I've ended it with Tony. Not because you found me with him, but because... a lot of reasons, I suppose.

She sat on the corner of George Alvarez's woodworking table. "I can explain what I did, but that doesn't excuse it. Still, you asked me to make my case, so you should hear all the testimony, right?" Ella shot a rueful grin my way, then her gaze drifted to the floor. "Maybe you can find a reason to grant clemency.

"I love Lance. I love him with all my heart; him and the kids, that is. The whole world could burn, and I wouldn't care, as long as I had them. But..." She chewed her lip. "The couple of years before you moved to the neighborhood, things got... bad. Really bad.

"We bought too much house when we moved here, because we wanted to have another kid or two, and the market..." Ella sighed. "We were like everyone else, thought we were getting a deal on the place. Thought the market was going to go nowhere but up. He'd started his company, and it was going gangbusters, we were flush with cash, had two beautiful kids... Everything was great.

"Then business dried up. We argued; fought, really. I mean, screaming-and-crying fought for the first time ever. We talked about downsizing, but we were underwater on the mortgage. He worked longer hours. I did everything I could to make his reduced income go farther. We talked about me getting a job, but when we looked at it the cost of daycare would have almost entirely eaten it up, and the extra gas and the like would have taken the rest.

"So, since I couldn't help out financially, I decided to be Superwife. The ladies in the neighborhood...." She chuckled. "...Well, you've joked before that you're their project. I was their project before that. We were. They lived through the dotcom bubble, and Black Monday, and something called 'stagflation,' and a bunch of other hard times.

"The other housewives all gave me a bunch of tips on cutting costs while still cooking well, dressing well, and so on. They showed me..." Ella waved a hand dismissively. "Ah, you know, like they did with you. A bunch of stuff. Different from what they taught you, probably, but you know what good friends they are, how helpful they want to be. But mostly, they just made things easier for me, so that I could make things easier for him.

"That was the key, they said. 'Make sure he's as happy as you can make him, because he's killing himself to provide for your family.' So I did. As he worked longer hours, I took over the yardwork, the budget, anything I could do so he wouldn't have to. Dressed sexy for him and did almost anything he wanted to when we were alone at night. Just whatever I could do to make him happier."

She glanced up at me with a fragile smile. "And it worked. We were happy again, like we'd been before we moved here, before the recession." Her pretty face contorted into a frown. "For a while, anyways."

Ella looked up at the ceiling, as if she could find the answers to why things had gone so wrong in her life there. "The recession got worse. Or, I guess, it started to really hit us. We cut our costs to the bone, but that just made him more frustrated. He compared himself to our neighbors, to the men who... They were all established, you know? Comfortable in their careers, had seniority or safe positions or savings to fall back on or... whatever. I tried to tell him that, but... I don't know. I think it made him feel more insecure.

"I fell back on what had worked so far, making his life... more. Better. Showing him this didn't have to beat him, to beat us. Asked Julia to watch the kids so I could get to the gym--the only extravagance I allowed myself--and got myself back in shape. Like, really in shape. Like..."

Her eyes drifted toward me, and that adorable grin came back for a moment. "Well, I know how you look at me." The frown returned, and she couldn't hold my gaze. "How they all look at me."

A slow breath in, then a slower one out. "One of the girls at the gym suggested I give personal training a shot. The certification's quick and easy, and I was good at it. It was a way to supplement our income, and it didn't require full-time daycare, you know? I thought it was great. Lance was less enthusiastic, but I showed him how I could make a good amount of money with almost no expenses, and he reluctantly agreed.

"At first, it went great. The little bit of extra money coming in made it so we could ease up a little. So... so I could ease up a little. I'll admit, I let things slip some. It had gotten so hard, feeling like my family's happiness rested on my shoulders, like if I let myself be less than perfect, that it would all crumble. I hadn't realized how much it wore on me.

"Anyway. I had my own job again for the first time in years, one I was good at. New friends outside the neighborhood. Men... men looking at me like men do. That shouldn't have meant anything, because I loved Lance so much, but it's nice to feel wanted. Desired. You know?"

The thoughts I had when I saw her with the scumbag--Tony, she'd called him--echoed back in my mind, then formed on my lips. "Even if you don't want to dance, it's nice to be asked."

Ella stared at me for a moment, comprehending, I think, that I wasn't just speaking for her, before slowly nodding. "Yeah. Yeah, that's right. I didn't want to cheat on my husband, but I liked knowing that other men wanted me. That they might even ask--and a few did--but that I could say no, because I was a good wife. But still, like you said. It's nice to be... not necessarily asked, but at least considered. The best of both worlds: I knew they wanted me, they knew they wanted me, they knew they could never have me, so they didn't ask."