Page 7 of Feels Like Home

“Todd. What was hethinking?”

“Youmean…”

“When he steppedout.”

She doesn’t respond, just simply smiles before biting her lip and looking away, her long, dark, silky hair falling over her shoulder. She ducks her head and tucks a lock of hair behind herear.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her, though I don’t know what I’m apologizing for. Almost admitting how gorgeous I think she is? Her husband cheating? Her husband dying? Me laying my shit out for her? All of it,probably.

“I’m sorry Heather’s such an asshole,” she replies with ashrug.

I bark out a laugh. “She is definitely anasshole.”

“She forgot rule numberone.”

“What?”

“Never mind… it was in a book Iread.”

“Ahh. Goodbook?”

“More than good.” She gives me a ghost of a smile and reaches over to grip my hand, squeezing once before letting go. “So, what are you going todo?”

“Honestly? I have no clue. I need to find a place for the boys and me to stay, talk with a lawyer… that part I know for sure. I can’t stay with her. As sad as it sounds, and maybe it’s kind of a little mean, but I think we fell out of love a long time ago. We’ve been hanging on by a thread for years. I’m sure part of it was my fault, butstill…”

“It’s no excuse. This has nothing to do with you, Andy. This is all Heather. You’re a great guy. It’s Heather’sloss.”

“I appreciate you sayingthat.”

“It’s thetruth.”

3

Christine

My eyes track Andy‘sback as he walks out the door and into the cooler early fall temperatures of the evening, knowing that everything I’ve held tight for the last several years is now loosening its grip onme.

I can’t decide if it’s a good or bad thing. Todd’s affair was something that I never wanted to get out. I trust Andy that he won’t tell anyone, but it feels weird knowing that someone else knows this giant secret I’ve kept hidden to myself all theseyears.

Part of me feels like it’s a giant relief to have the burden lightened from myshoulders.

Part of me isterrified.

When I found my late husband, looking more broken than I’d ever seen him, with a naked woman straddling his equally naked body — and did I fail to mention the lovely picture of his hands being handcuffed around her waist? — on the couch in the living room of the home that we shared, I thought my world had simply crumbled aroundme.

It’s funny. When hit with the impossible, sometimes it’s easier to see clearly. Or, at least, a new side. It was hiseyes.

A woman knows her husband’s eyes, what they’re saying in each moment. Whether it be in bed, or when they’re having a disagreement, when he’s happy and telling a joke or upset orgrumpy.

The day I opened the door and came face to face with emptiness — and a bit of drunkenness — in his eyes; he shifted his focus to me, and I knew. It only took a second. A brief flash, but I knew it was deeper than him sleeping around on me. I knew he’d gotten his results. And they were exactly what we feared. He was supposed to wait but in true Todd fashion, he probably didn’t want me to have to sit there and listen to the news if it wasbad.

“Christine,” he croaks out, eyes on me, his hands gripping her hips as he tries to move her away fromhim.

She digs her knees into the couch on either side of his legs and lifts her pitiful, unapologetic eyes to me before looking down atTodd.

She trails a fake fingernail down his cheek. He flinches and jerks away from her touch. “Todd, baby, what’s thematter?”

“Get the fuck off me. Now,” my husband growls, empty eyes now being replaced with angry ones, hands pulling at the metal cuffs around his wrists. I don’tevenwant to know details onthatparticular adventure. We’ve never had a perfect marriage. It simply doesn’t exist in this world. Two people? Two personalities? They’re meant to argue. It justhappens.And it’s okay. It’s what makes marriage what it is. Working together, fighting for your love. It’s damn near impossible most days. Today seems like one ofthose.

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