The Affair. Colette Freedman
remember.” The wig was absolutely ridiculous. It was a confection of hair that seemed to balance precariously atop Tommy’s head, and it never moved, not even in a hurricane.
“You know, he thinks no one has noticed the wig,” Rose said, “because no one ever asked about it. That’s another slightly difficult subject to slip into conversation. ‘Nice rug, Tommy.’ ‘Where’d you get the wig, Tommy?’ ‘You better check out your head, Tommy, a porcupine is humping your scalp.’ Seriously, Kathy, I know if I were to ever mention it, I’d burst out laughing in his face.”
Rose started to laugh. She had a deep, masculine chuckle, and suddenly Kathy was laughing with her, the two women giggling and chuckling together, and for an instant it was just like one of hundreds of other shared mornings, when all was right with the world. Then Kathy abruptly sobered. Things had not been perfect those other mornings; Rose had been living with the belief that her husband was having an affair.
“Did you ever ask him?”
“About the wig?”
“About the affairs. About the lies. About the fake Internet dating profile.”
Rose concentrated on pouring coffee, then adding a tiny touch of low-fat milk. “I thought about it,” she said eventually. “I thought about it long and hard, and then I asked myself what I’d do if he copped to it.”
Kathy nodded. She’d been thinking about the same thing all through the night.
Rose sipped her coffee. “What was I going to do if he admitted to the affairs? I could ask him to leave, but we still had eight years to pay on the mortgage. What happened if he left? Who would pay that?” She shrugged awkwardly. “I know it sounds like an incredibly practical, maybe even cynical thing to think about, but that’s what crossed my mind. And then I wondered, what would happen if I asked him to leave and he said no? I couldn’t stay with him, could I? So I’d have to go, to leave my home and go . . . go where? I didn’t have any job skills other than running my home, and my nearest relative—an aunt—was in Providence, and she wasn’t going to take me in. Nor was I going to ask her. And then, of course, the big question: What would happen to the children? Christine was applying to colleges at the time, and little Beatrice was still in grade school. The boys were scattered in between, set in their schools, in their sports, in their lives. I had to think about them: How would this trauma affect them?”
Kathy took a deep breath. The same thoughts had been milling around in her head all night. She wondered if every woman, faced with the same situation, would have the same concerns. She reckoned they would.
“So what did you do in the end?”
Rose looked Kathy directly in the eye. “I feigned ignorance. I did nothing.”
“Nothing.” The word hung flat and uncompromising between them.
“Nothing. I decided he was having some sort of midlife crisis, and I let it go. I said nothing, did nothing. I stopped looking at his ridiculous profile riddled with exaggerations and untruths. I guess . . . I was just hoping he’d realize he had much more to lose if he left me. I was gambling that he would come to his senses. And he did. Eventually.”
“You did nothing.”
“Sometimes doing nothing is a decision too,” Rose said gently.
“Are you saying I should do nothing?”
“No, I’m not saying that. I’m telling you that’s what I did.”
“I don’t think I could do that.”
“Before you make any decision, you’ve got to be sure of your facts. At this moment, right now, you don’t know for sure.”
Kathy nodded. “But I’m almost sure.”
“Almost sure is not sure enough. And you were almost sure before.”
“But I was right then.”
“Were you?”
Kathy hesitated a bit too long before answering. “Yes. I know I was. I just . . . had no proof.”
“Then you need proof before you confront him,” Rose said simply. “And even then, even when you are one hundred percent sure, you’ve got to be prepared for the consequences.”
Kathy shook her head from side to side, and suddenly there were tears in her eyes, but, for the first time since the ugly suspicion had been planted in her mind, they were tears of anger. “If I knew he was having an affair, and I didn’t confront him, I couldn’t live with myself.”
Rose reached over and caught both of Kathy’s hands in hers. “That’s what I thought in the beginning. Then I realized that Tommy still came home to me every night. We had built something together that I didn’t want to throw away. He was still my best friend. These other women were just a distraction, nothing more. He’s a man, for God’s sake. Let’s face it, Kathy. Men stray. It’s in their nature, whether we like it or not. It goes back to the time of cavemen. . . . Men hunted and women nurtured. Tommy was just . . . hunting. If I’d confronted him, I would have destroyed our marriage, but I knew if I was patient I would win out. And I did.”
“I can’t do that.”
“I know you can’t. Not right now. It’s still too fresh. Too raw. But think about it. Have it at the back of your mind as an option.”
Rose released her hands and picked up her coffee cup. Not looking at Kathy, she asked, “Are you still having sex?”
Kathy opened her mouth to make a quick response, then stopped. Things in the bedroom . . . were different. When they had first started dating, they had made love every day. The sex had been magical.
Inspired.
Adventurous.
Fun.
Then, as the months and years passed, their lovemaking had waned, to perhaps twice a week. After the children came along, it slipped into an irregular Saturday morning routine when Brendan had guitar lessons and Theresa had soccer. Then even that pattern shifted and drifted away. They made love on special occasions: birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine’s Day. In recent years it had died away to almost nothing. Kathy honestly couldn’t remember the last time they had made love. She was only forty-three. She still felt sexy. Despite being a bit overweight, she felt sensual . . . yet, Robert didn’t look at her that way anymore. She tried to remember the last time he had told her that she was beautiful. She couldn’t remember the last time he had looked at her with lust, with the passion of a man who wanted her. She started to get angry. Was Robert simply replacing her with a younger, fitter version of herself? Was he trying to recapture the lust they had felt in their first few years together when everything had been so new, when their senses had been so heightened, when the sex had been fantastic rather than . . . ordinary?
But no, a marriage wasn’t just about sex, a marriage was . . .
“What?” Rose asked, seeing the expression on the younger woman’s face.
“Something struck me. Something important, something I’ve never thought about before.” Kathy licked suddenly dry lips. “What is a marriage? What makes a marriage?” Rose opened her mouth to respond, but Kathy raised her hand. “Is it living together, is it the commitment, the sex, the shared experiences, the trust, the truth? Love? What is it?”
“When I was younger,” Rose said, very quietly, “I would have said all of those things. Now,” she shrugged, almost defeated, “now, I think it might just be habit.”
CHAPTER 6
Rose’s parting words had been, “Don’t make a decision until you have concrete evidence. And this time, Kathy, be sure. Be really, really sure. No marriage can survive those sorts of accusations—especially if they’re