Not To Us (29 page)

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean to. I don’t want to lose you.”

“You already
have
,” I say. “Over and over, you lied. How many times did you write nothing happened in your e-mails to me? How many
times
, Michael?” I’m shaking. My whole body quakes with anger. I look over and see his hands tremble. The surgeon no more; it seems. “I don’t even know why I came back.”

I swipe my cell phone from the counter, grab at the railing, and climb the stairs two at a time. I slam the door to the guest room and lock it.

Michael soon pounds on the door. “Ellie! Don’t do this. I’m sorry. Let’s talk about this.” It tears at my very soul, but his lying does even more damage.

“No! I’m done talking to you, Michael. No more!”

I go to the farthest corner of the room and sink down to the floor and cover my ears so I can barely hear his voice. After another interminable fifteen minutes of knocking and pleading with me, he finally goes away.

My breath is uneven and jagged. I cannot stop crying. I rub my fists into my eyes to try and stop the tears. My cell phone makes a chirping sound. I pick it up and look at the text.

“Eve knows.”

I text Court back.
“Michael too. Dan the bartender filled him in. Better call Kimberley.”

“ILU”

I text back.
“Is that what I think it means? Untenable, but real enough, huh?”

He texts back.
“Very.”

I’m making more mistakes. I just keep making more. I undress, crawl into bed, and hold my cell phone
—
the only lifeline I have. I’ve gone to my other wish list. I only want Court Chandler and me, myself and I.

≈≈

I wake up in the middle of night still on European time. My biological clock is completely messed up. I had no problem sleeping for the last thirty-odd days, but tonight, I’m wide awake. I review the major events of the day and get stuck on a few of them, starting with Michael’s own confession that he slept with Carrie. It is nothing new. I already knew this, but his admission and subsequent lie about how many times sends me into a new round of despair. I can’t get past it. And, then he lied to me about it over and over in at least fifty e-mail messages to me over the last month. I find myself wondering how many times he actually wrote “nothing happened” in his e-mails to me. Somehow, I need to know the exact count. I pull on a robe from the guest bathroom door and slip out.

The house is quiet. It’s feels strange when Mathew and Emily are not here in this house, still uncanny without Nick and Elaina. Melancholy takes over. I stop in front of the mantel and touch each urn. This greeting is something I’ve been doing this past month. Sometimes, I talk to them as if they were in the room with me.

I remember the lonely days of Paris. It wasn’t the most perfect memorable time. I spent so much of it alone. Mr. Court Chandler does have a few of his priorities mixed up. He’s a workaholic in the extreme, which is probably why he is so damn successful; and he and Eve haven’t had children.

I sit down at the desk in the home office and stare at my laptop and finally open up Outlook. All my e-mail messages are still there unopened. I open all those from Michael. They start to look the same after awhile.

Ellie,

I’m sorry. I don’t deserve you. I never meant to hurt you. Nothing happened. Please come home. I love you. Michael

He never meant to hurt me, but he had no problem lying about what he’d done. The “Ellie, nothing happened
”
declaration appears in fifty-six e-mails by my count. Fifty-six of them where he lied, over and over. Then, his attempt earlier to deny doing it more than once, fucking her more than once, causes this incredible rage to return. I can’t get past it.

I wander around downstairs for a few more minutes, then, slowly climb the stairs. After closing and locking the guest room door, I lie in the bed and stare at nothing. I reach for my cell phone, but it isn’t there and I don’t have to wonder who has it.

I yank open the door and stalk down the hall to the master bedroom. Michael is awake, sitting up in bed, bare-chested. The physicality of him messes with my pulse rate, enraging me still further. The only light emitted is from the cell phone that he holds in his left hand,
my cell phone.

“So, he’s texting you already. And, his wife, Eve, knows the score. Untenable, but real enough, huh? How nice for you, Ellen Kay.” His tone is bitter and full of betrayal.

“You
did
this, Michael. You broke us first. Live with that.”

I march over to his side of the bed and make a reach for my cell phone, but he holds it out and away from me.

“I plan to live with it. I plan to live with you and make you forget him.” He forcefully pulls me to him, while tossing the cell phone onto the night stand. He kisses me with this fierce passion that I’m unfamiliar with and I struggle to hold back from his allure. I can feel his anger and I know he can feel mine, but soon enough, this fire storm is unleashed between us.

“Damn you, Michael.” This only makes him laugh and he kisses me more ardently.

“I love you, Ellie. Come back to me.”

Before long, I’m kissing him back. His fingers work their magic, traveling over my body; he traces the outline of our unborn child and dangles them between my legs. I cry out at his brazen touch as he takes full possession of my mind, body, and soul.

His commanding presence insists I see only him and it’s true; he’s all I see. I whisper his name again and again. While this strange liberation overtakes me and unchains me from all the pain and heartbreak of the past few months. At one point, he holds me away from him and just gazes into my eyes. “Ellen Kay, God, I’ve missed you so much. Come back to me.”

He kisses the inside of my palm and I shudder at his exquisite touch. The anger for him seeps away from me, like spilled water from an open bottle, gushing forth into the parched earth of me; it disappears just like that. His love fills me up as he trails his tongue over my baby bump and further still.

“I’m back. I’ve missed you, Michael,” I say with sadness.

As he undresses me, it’s evident he’s turned on by the spa laser service that’s left my vajayjay smooth. Surprise, jealousy, desire
—
all of these
—
cross his features, mirroring mine, as we traverse this latest journey with one another, knowing of the others we‘ve shared.

I arch up at him as he slides his fingers inside, while he takes in this new wonder of me and then rushes forward, leaving no part unexplored by his thrilling touch. I return the favor in kind.

“Tenable, Ellie, capable of being defended, maintained, held; and more than real
—
soul mates, Ellen Kay,” Michael says.

Our sensuality with each other is somehow different, somehow changed, demanding exploration. This intoxicating experience captures us both, taking a firm hold of our senses.

There’s this crescendo to our lovemaking, as if at the same time we both fully realize that we can never untie ourselves from each other. He is still a part of my soul and I am still a part of his, no matter how far away we are or who tries to come between us. He is mine and I am his.

≈≈

An hour later, there’s a chirp from my cell phone, again. Michael reaches over and simply powers it off. All I can do is watch in this state of disbelief and inexplicable wonder.

“I’m back, Michael.”

He takes my hand and holds it next to his beating heart. “I’m back, too, Ellen Kay.”

After traversing this inexplicable desire between us, we lay naked side-by-side and luxuriate in this sanctuary sans children who would have invariably walked in on us by now. There’s this sense of extraordinary freedom in knowing that we can walk around naked throughout the house for hours without interruption. Testing this theory, we do this very thing upon awaking in the pre-dawn hours after only a few hours of sleep. We make love in every room, except Nick and Elaina’s, behaving like two newlyweds who’ve been kept apart for far too long, intent on making up for lost time.

He opens a bottle of champagne from our wedding night and we toast one another. I only slightly hesitate, when he says, “I don’t think one glass is going to hurt you.”

I turn away a moment, chasing away the fleeting memory of Court’s exact words to me. Guilt and anguish takes turns with me.

“Are you all right?” Michael asks, intuitive to my reaction within seconds.

“Never better.” I shiver in the chilly air of morning. He pulls an afghan from the sofa and drapes it around my shoulders. Then, he kneels before me, naked, spent, and repentant.

“Ellen Kay.” Contrition leaches from his very bone marrow.

“Don’t. Michael. Don’t. Don’t say it.” He gets this vexed look, as if he’ll combust right in front of me if doesn’t say he’s sorry one more time.

I fight my own battles with this overwhelming guilt.
What have we done to each other? To our marriage?
These multitude of sins we’ve both committed seem almost insurmountable.

“Show me, Michael,” I say.

He stands up, his naked god-like self, and sweeps me up in his arms and carries me back upstairs. He shows me how sorry he is and I try to do the same.

It feels like we’ve come home, but then, again, it feels unlike home. Better. Worse.

It appears to be a new beginning, since our earliest days of marriage were filled with this inconsolable grief and despondency. These past few hours we’ve managed to eradicate those memories and majestically replace them with all these new ones, as if, it’s a religious experience, we must capture and atone for.

We’re naïve enough to think we can pave over the irreparable damage that wreaks havoc at a soul level within us both, unaware of the challenges that lie ahead for our renewed connection.

≈ ≈ ≈