The Caravan

It’s honestly ironic. I cheated on him so many times yet the one time he was certain he caught me was the one time nothing happened. Ok, a quick, chaste kiss happened. An attraction that led to a meeting that was supposed to be a goodbye happened. The sex he vehemently accused me of having did not. Although, for all the mess the assumption made, I wish it had. I put up with a lot of crap because of it, yet I couldn’t blame him for dishing it out. It certainly looked as if I had done something more, something that justified, made me deserved of the anger, and the humiliation. Even beyond that, I wish it happened because, well, I wanted it.

If sex was the act that delineated between loyalty and betrayal, he wasn’t on the list. Not that I was keeping one, but if someone out there was, there were plenty before, and enough after to form one. There were others, more like him, where physicality never really entered in. It was more of a game. A long, slow anticipatory back and forth of words and flirtations where the the blood would swarm and then pool to form a heat that was actually painful. The want of touch so deep, so intense it hurt.

At the time I would believe it was the touch of that particular person that would relieve the ache. Truth was, anyone could have. The man I lived with was a stand in for those I sought outside our house on a few occasions. Of course, it was a temporary and disappointing fix. There are reasons for looking around the person you are married to, or are supposedly committed to, to another standing behind.

Sometimes you do it, you cheat, if it that is even an equitable word for every circumstance, because you are immature or selfish. I don’t know if any instance can ever truly be forgiven, but these motivations seem the most treacherous and least forgivable. They imply a “because I could, because I wanted to” thought process. We can all do anything at any time. No one is stopping us. Only our own morality, our own internal code of conduct, and fear of consequences keeps us from doing lots of things we shouldn’t. If we cheat just because we can, because we see something we want and decide we will have it regardless of what destruction it will wreak there is nothing to indicate we won’t do the same time and time again.

When is it cheating though? When and where does that line get drawn? Hence, why I question if that is even a fair word to use because does it always apply? Questioning that word, that definition, isn’t to redirect or misdirect attention away from what I’ve done. Ultimately it’s only semantics, I get it. What if though, the excitement of just thinking about a potential passing in the hallway the next day kept you from drinking yourself into oblivion out of loneliness the night before? What if you had slept in a bed by yourself for ten years, the man you lived with sleeping on a couch, never holding your hand, never kissing you, ignoring your hurts, your pleas, each using the other for something, can one small kiss with another man make you a cheater?

In enough eyes it did. A caravan of eyes actually. Five cars rolling down the driveway, some with multiple people inside. When the other mans partner found us together, doing no more than talking, she also assumed we had consummated a relationship. We hadn’t. That still didn’t stop her from gathering an army who rolled down the driveway in their metal tanks ready to wage war. Why she needed and infantry to confront and corner the man I lived with I will never know. However, when I looked out the window and saw the first car turn I knew who it was and why they had come. It was her, and women we mutually worked with. I would have to withstand the assault at home, and again when I walked in the doors to work.

I wasn’t so afraid of the army as I was what was to come after they left. The heat rose from my stomach, to my neck, and to my face. It wasn’t just the person who was once my lover, but had become my roommate that was outside in that driveway. His dad was there too. The general and her soldiers exited their cars and they stood back while she approached them. I watched through the old metal, dust coated mini blinds that I had always hated but wasn’t allowed to change because it “was his house.” I pried them open just enough to see hoping nobody would look that way, and watch me watching them.

He hung his head while his dad started pacing. I was always told he had a temper when he was younger. He had gone to anger management classes at one time. Whatever skills he learned there would not have benefited me had I been outside. I was more afraid of what he, his dad would do and say, versus his son who had once been my lover. The relationship had deteriorated to the point of apathy. I no longer cared what the son thought of me. It made no difference if he liked me, loved me, or resented me. I still cared what his dad thought though. While I didn’t care what the son thought, I still had a major aversion, even fear of confrontation, and the dread I felt came from the anticipation of that.

The caravan stood watch over her while she talked for about ten minutes. The longest and shortest ten minutes. She seemed to have too much to say when there really wasn’t much of a story to tell. Yet, as each minute passed it that much closer until the time, he, or both, would come inside. Minutes of feeling the heat in my face and ears grow, become warmer and redder. Each minute more and more cortisol was released and raged through my body. My heart raced. Mortification set in. Not because of what I did, but because his father was there to bear witness to the accusation of the crimes. I wasn’t remorseful of what I had done, only that his father knew. Soon, I would have to face one if not both.

I walked from window to window on the west side of the house, peeking, playing hide hoping no one would seek. I was pacing myself, wondering what I would do or say when they came in to finally find me. How do you tell a man you truly love, that you don’t any longer love his son, and that while in crisis moments he may say he still loves me, yet does nothing to solidify it, make it tangible, or emotionally strong enough to feel it in my heart? How do I tell a man that the son lives the way he saw his parents when he was younger, non-affectionate, non-demonstrative? How do I tell the man that logic tells me he kept a distance between us because he was afraid I would leave like his mother left his father for a short while? How do I tell that man that I think the son kept himself closed off because if he only allowed so much in, allowed a person in so far, they could only take so much when they left?

Not that my choices were the father’s fault. I owned them then, and still do now. How though, do you tell a man that what you were seeking outside the house was exactly what you didn’t get on the inside? How do tell him that his son was devoid of any emotion besides anger, was not affectionate in public, nor in private? How do you justify your attempts to gain those things in other ways from other people? How do you say these things to a father who very well knows what his son is like, yet loves him completely because it is his son?

You don’t. Luckily, I never had to. After the caravan turned their tanks around and went somewhere else to debrief their mission, the son and father were outside for at least another half hour. Still peeking, pacing, and wishing I had something to drink to slow the flow of cortisol I waited. The start of an engine told me that his dad was leaving. I expectantly listened for the familiar grumble of the son’s truck turning over. Instead, I heard his heavy footfalls on the back porch. He was a big man, tall and broad. He did not walk softly.

Instead of the rumble of the engine I heard the creak of the door and felt yet another gush of the flight hormone hit my bloodstream. My stomach clenched, my ears felt burnt. So, began the end of our story.