There was nowhere to run; nowhere to hide. The reality of the images on the screen hit her full force as she unconsciously chewed off all her fingernails. “What in the world am I going to do now?” Her three small children appeared in her mind's eye, which made her immediately grateful that they were all fast asleep right now. “They certainly do not need to see this,” she murmured to herself.
What was on the screen, you ask? Pictures of women along with their personal ads were neatly filed away in her husband's folder. She had accidentally pulled them up while searching for something else. She knew that she shouldn't jump to conclusions, but it was very difficult. Her husband was not exactly the most open person.
She walked outside into the deep, dark night. Peering up at the stars, she wished with all her might that they could give her the answers she was looking for. “Why does everything have to be so damn hard???” she thought, recounting the last few years. Things started going downhill after her first child, Henry Thomas, was born.
Her husband spent more and more time at the office, sometimes not getting home until midnight. Always focusing on the good in people, she just assumed he was trying to get more money saved up for their growing family. A few years later, they welcomed their daughter into the world. Thinking this would somehow make him more involved in their children's lives, she tried not to acknowledge the fact that they hardly ever spoke to one another.
She immersed herself into her children's lives, both because it was what she wanted to do, and also because it helped her ignore what was happening with her marriage.
Now with their third child just five weeks old, she could hardly consider her husband an acquaintance, let alone her life partner. She felt so naïve and foolish, and she wondered how she could go about her life as if everything was okay when she knew deep down inside that it was far from that.
Standing outside in the cold, she suddenly had the strong urge to grab her kids and run. Where to, she wasn't sure, but it felt like the only sane thing to do. There was no way in hell she'd stay with a man who had a double life; a life clearly filled with other women. She might be a fool, but she was no doormat.
She went back inside to get her kids. Standing over her newborn's bassinet, she couldn't bear to wake him up. Walking into Henry Thomas's room, she sat in the chair next to his bed and listened to his soft, rhythmic breathing.
“It's so simple. Why don't you just go ahead and do it?!?” she yelled at herself, but still she didn't budge. Was it simply the fact that she didn't want to disturb her children or was it more than that? She wasn't sure, but she was certain that this was not the right thing to do.
After a fitful night's sleep, she woke up to her baby's cries and her daughter's sweet laughter. Immersing herself once again into their lives, she almost forgot about her own. That is, until, she went out into the kitchen and found her husband reading the newspaper while eating his breakfast.
She stopped midstride and opened her mouth in surprise. “You look like you've just seen a ghost,” her husband said, a little grin forming on his face. “What the hell are you doing here?” she asked fiercely with anger bubbling up inside of her.
“Umm... eating breakfast?”
“You were out all night and and then you come home for breakfast. That's just wonderful,” her voice was growing louder.
Appearing at the doorway, Henry Thomas asked “Mom, what's wrong?”
“It's a long story, sweetie, how about if you take your sister and go play outside?” Her son knew not to mess with that tone of voice.
“I found the pictures and the ads,” she declared, eying him like a snake. He just sat there, starting at her with a bored expression on his face. “Well, aren't you going to say something?” she asked.
“What do you want me to say? You found me out. Okay. I'm a terrible husband,” he said evenly with no remorse, whatsoever, present in his voice.
“You're right, you are, and I'm a terrible wife,” she admitted, tears rolling down her face. After a while, he asked, “Why are you crying?”
“How did it get like this, Harold? Remember how good we had it at one time?” She sat in the chair across from him.
“Of course I remember. But that was a long time ago. Janine, things change.”
“I wish it could be like how it used to be,” she cried harder, putting her face in her hands.
“That doesn't matter now. We can't go back?”
“What do we do then?” Janine asked softly looking at her husband for the first time in what seemed like years. Suddenly, he reached his hand out and laid it on the table, palm up, and not a moment after she reached her own hand out to touch his.
Electrifying energy surged between them, igniting a long forgotten fire. Looking into her husband's eyes, she saw the young man she married so long ago gazing affectionately and deeply back at her.
What happened after that, you ask? Let's just say that Harold and Janine proved that even though things are constantly changing, the eternal spark between two people never dies.
|
