Love Triangle: Three Sides to the Story (6 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Marie

The drive home from the wedding was fraught with tension. George had a very hurt look in his eyes. They were wet as if he had been crying; the kids were in the back seat sleeping. I held myself stiffly as far away from George as I could. My neck was hurting as I tried to stare out the window and at the barely discernible landscape. My lips were pursed so tightly I doubt I could pry them open without pain.

I was going to leave the island and my husband to his alternate life with Karen. I was not feeling rational or remotely accommodating so when my mother of all people had whispered that I give George a chance, I had felt like screaming.

This was not just going to go away because everybody thought it should. There was a child involved. My husband was going to become a father again. I felt my head throbbing as soon as I thought about it. I could have forgiven the affair, I was even on the verge of getting back my life when, voila, out of the blue like a bad sore came the announcement.

My husband was going to be a father.

The statement pounded in my head in a monotone like a Gregorian chant.

My husband was going to be a father.

My husband was going to be a father.

I could not escape it. This pain.

God, what did I do wrong? I must have done something to be punished like this. I was happy. I was living as okay as this world would ever be. Why punish me like this?

“Marie,” George’s voice was husky. I faced him in the dark car.

“What?”

“I think if you are planning to do anything like div … like divor …” He cleared his throat, “like leaving we should discuss it. I don’t think that running away now would be the answer.”

I swung my head back to look in the darkness as the car sped by. Resentment boiled in my gut like lava.

“I am not in the mood to care what you think, George.” My voice was tired and in the silence of the car, I could hear the gentle snoring of my children.

“I can’t take this anymore either, Marie,” George clenched his hands on the steering wheel. “I am penitent, what should I do? Kill myself? Would that make you feel better?”

I had to snort at this.

“If you can’t forgive me, then there will be no future for us. I am sorry Karen got pregnant. I am sorry I had the affair in the first place. But I just can’t sit back and let you leave me for six months and not see you or resolve our problems. Our lives will just be hanging in the air. The issues must be dealt with.”

I understood what he was saying, I know that most people would think me an idiot but the pain of betrayal was too much.

“I need the distance,” I whispered. I cleared my throat because my voice was husky and I didn’t want to seem as if I was not strong. “I need time,” I looked at George; he stopped at a traffic light in Santa Cruz and he looked at me squarely, the light from the streetlamp cast shadows on his face. “Will you ever forgive me?”

That was a trick question, wasn’t it? I was confused but I knew that this question would make the difference between us, no matter how bitter I was right now or how much I hated what he did. This question was the crucial question. I did not want to give a flippant answer. This was it.

I inhaled. The light changed to green, we drove in silence. We passed a church and then I remembered the answer I gave to a question about fidelity that was posed in a seminar for young married couples. The question was "would you forgive your spouse?" I piped up, secure in the knowledge that my husband would know no other. “Of course, I would. After all, how can we ask for God’s forgiveness and not forgive our fellow men.”

The older married couple that were in charge of the session saw my naiveté and insisted.

“Look at the person beside you. If he or she cheated, betrayed your trust, could you find it in your heart to forgive?”

My friend Constance stood up and said brightly, “Seventy times seven.” Her husband, Lionel had nodded severely.

They were now divorced. I winced as I thought of them. ‘Seventy times seven’ had been too much for Constance, and she had taken her baby son and moved to another part of the island.

“But would you forgive them?” The older couple had insisted.

The younger people, confident that love would conquer all, had been slightly annoyed at their insistence on self-examination.

The older couple had simply said, “Just remember that God expects us to forgive whether we feel like it or not.”

That statement was meant for me now. This was my test.
Will you ever forgive me, Marie?

If I wanted to pray tonight, I would have to say yes. If I wanted to stall, I could say that I don’t know. If I wanted to harden my heart, I could always leave him for six months and probably not come back and face my life.

  George was turning into the driveway. He was silent after he asked the question, partly because the children were waking up.

“Are we home, Mommy?” Rachel asked, her little voice innocent as she rubbed her eyes. Her brother and sister drunkenly pushed themselves out of the car as I scooped her up. George guided Timothy and Gabrielle into the house, as I followed silently behind. We brushed against each other in the hallway as we turned to go into Rachel’s room.

I flinched away. I did not desire his touch, however accidental.

I tucked my baby girl into her bed and thought about the other one on the way. Would it be a he or she? Would the child come over? Knowing George, he would want to have a hand in the rearing of his child. I would be the one to make sure that the child was okay when he came over. I would be looking after another woman’s brat.

Tears squeezed past my eyelids as I stared down at Rachel's perfect features. I sniffled and I felt his hands on my shoulder.

“Come,” he whispered in my ear. I allowed him to lead me into our bedroom.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” I sat on the edge of the bed. My eyes were red and my face was streaked with tears. I glanced at the mirror and shuddered.

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Do you want to know?” I asked. I wanted an honest answer. I didn’t want him to shield his emotions from me.

“Yes,” he nodded.

“How pregnant is she?” I forced the question pass my throat. I sounded rusty like an old woman.

George glanced at me and sat down on the bed tentatively as if he expected me to start ranting and raving at any time.

“Six months.”

“What went wrong the other day?”

“She almost miscarried, light bleeding … cramps.” He glanced down at his folded hands. “I offered her the house in St. Elizabeth.”

“That’s
my
house,” I reminded him. I had bought the six acres of land with the fruit trees and a stream in the backyard for a good deal. The house had come as a bonus. The income from renting the house was going toward our children’s college fund. I gritted my teeth and forced myself to relax. I wanted to know what was going on with Karen and I had to stay calm to hear.

“It seemed like a good idea, if she wasn’t in Mandeville,” George responded.

“You can’t just hide her away like a bad sore,” I found myself saying on behalf of the enemy. “What about access to your child? You would have to go to St. Elizabeth every time you wanted to see him or her.”

He shrugged and exhaled. His shoulders slumped. “Anything I will do will seem unsatisfactory. Her family is in St. Elizabeth. I know she’ll need them near.”

“Then if her family is in St. Elizabeth why would she need the house? We are saving for our children’s college education. Or have you forgotten?”

“I haven’t.”

“Fine,” I mumbled, disgruntled.

He looked over at me, his eyes faintly amused. “You sound resigned to your fate.”

I looked up into his handsome face and lay on the bed. He slumped down beside me, his hand around my shoulders. He flipped off the light and whispered in my ear, “Aren’t you going to take off your dress?”

“No.” I clung to his hand and fitted my face in his chest. He smelled like Old Spice. I inhaled and allowed peace to take over my mind.

“You do realise that I have decided to forgive you?” I said into his shirt.

He squeezed me tighter. “Thank you.”

I fell asleep for the first time in months with a peace that I had thought I would never experience again. This forgiveness thing was not so bad after all.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Karen

“I am eight months pregnant, my nose is huge, my ankles are huge, and my bladder belongs to somebody else.”

My mother looked up from her reading and laughed. “I did that a couple of times. You will be alright in four weeks. Everything will go back to its normal size, except the bags under your eyes.”

“I can’t believe they sent you work to do,” Shauna said, looking at the papers strewn across my shelf of a belly. “That is against the maternity laws.”

“I went to them pregnant,” I had to remind Shauna. “They took me on anyway and these are more boring than taxing.”

The sound of a car driving up outside made everyone silent. My mother had that mutinous expression on her face and Shauna was grinning in anticipation. George had promised to stop by today to check up on me and to bring me baby gifts from his family.

Understandably, they were not too keen on befriending me, but they did acknowledge that I was carrying their family member. All my frustration from the past two months came back full force. I barely got to see the man I loved. He only called to check up on his baby. Today he was going to get the shock of his life, because he did not know that my mother had decided to come to Mandeville for the birth and he would actually be meeting her.

“I’ll get it.” Shauna jumped up from the settee to answer the door. She had never seen George and was anticipating the meeting.

“Wow,” Shauna said at the door. She held it open and stood in the same spot.

“What is it?” I was craning my neck to see the door.

“You are fine,” Shauna said breathlessly.

George grinned.

“Oh, puddle at your feet.” Shauna rolled her eyes. “No wonder the girl lost her head.”

“You are Shauna,” George held out his free hand, he had a bag in the other.

Shauna nodded. “You are George.”

My mother cleared her throat from the living room and Shauna allowed George to come in.

“Good evening.” He looked at me and I drew in my breath. Was it possible that I loved him a little more each time I saw him?

“Hi,” I replied. I could not stop drinking him in.

My mother cleared her throat again. George looked over at her, breaking his stare with mine or rather my mound of a belly.

“Good evening Ma’am,” he said politely.

"George, that is my mother, Ruth Paisley."

“Hello, Mrs. Paisley.” George smiled and my mother held out a work-worn hand to him.

“So we finally meet.” They shook hands, and he sat across from her putting the bag at his feet.

“I come with gifts.” He turned to me, and my heart did that fluttery thing that it always did when he looked at me with his chocolate-brown eyes. “Since you did not want to know what sex the baby was I come bearing all different colours and things for male or female.”

Shauna grinned and sat across from him. “Are you in agreement with the names Karen chose?” She asked George.

George shrugged. “George Junior or Georgette. It’s fine with me.”

“Will it cause a mix-up at your house though?” Shauna asked innocently. “You being George, when your wife calls you, your son will come or vice versa.”

Ruth got up with her book, a pained look on her face. “I feel a headache coming on,” she said, heading for Karen’s room.

Shauna grinned as she passed and looked back at George, who seemed unaffected by her question. “We could always call him Junior. Georgette would not be a problem.”

Shauna got up lazily and headed for her room. “Let me leave you two
ex
-lovebirds to talk.”

I was wondering how George’s wife felt about me. I never got the chance to ask George anything these days. He kept his conversation strictly about the baby. I wanted to know if she sent any of the clothes in the bag. If she did, I didn’t want them. All I wanted was George.

I looked over at him. “Do you want something to drink?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head.

Do you love me?
I asked in my head.

I could almost see him answering the same way he did about the drink, so I kept my mouth, feigned a flippancy I was far from feeling and rubbed my belly.

“Your baby is active in here.” I smiled at him. “The kicking never stops.”

He grinned and came over beside me. He put his hands on my belly and for the longest time, I did not breathe.

“How are you coping?” He took his hands away and moved away from me slightly.

“I am okay. Despite the fact that I hobble like a seal.”

He touched my cheek and sighed. “So you are staying in Mandeville then?”

“Yes, the hospital is here.”

“I meant … never mind.” He took his hand away and put it on his legs. “When is Shauna getting married?”

“Next week,” I answered thickly. I was going to miss her.

“So you are staying on here then?”

I nodded.

“I will pay the rent.” He gave me a look that said I shouldn’t argue. “When Shauna leaves I will help you set up her room as a nursery of sorts.”

I cleared my throat. “She’ll be leaving this Thursday.”

“Then I’ll be here on Thursday.”

“How does Marie feel about me and the baby?” I blurted out. The question had been hovering on the tip of my tongue.

“How do you think?” George asked vaguely.

“Does she hate my guts? Will she hate my child? I need to know,” I touched his hand, “I need to know not only for me but for my child.”

“She’s dealing with it,” George sighed, “she was going to leave for America to avoid the situation, but decided against it. She’s now on vacation. She asks about you, if you are alright.”

Oh hell, she was concerned. At that moment I hated myself slightly. I imagined her as a bitter woman with a knife drawn to slash me if she ever saw me. I tried to reconstruct an image of a woman who was hurting because of the actions I participated in and still found the time to ask if I was alright, and then I almost puked. I did not want her sympathy, and I almost wished I had never asked George about his wife.