Unexpected Holiday

"So, do you want to talk about it?" Jeanie asked, her eyes never leaving the road.

We'd been driving for about an hour now with five hours still to go. I'd tried to be good company as we talked about office gossip, some of the contracts we'd won, the weather, local sports teams and a myriad of other small talk fodder. The longer she drove, however, the more I regretted my somewhat impulsive decision to join her and her family.

What was I doing? I knew that I wasn't good company, knew that I could barely live within my own skin anymore, so why was I driving – with my fucking admin assistant of all the inappropriate people – on a 6 hour drive to her parents' farm? Was I truly that desperate to even be NEAR a family?

Of course I was. Being an orphan is tough in a lot of ways but the worst is that you never feel that you really fit in. You walk down streets and look in on families eating dinner, sharing laughs in front of the television or even just sitting around reading with each other and you realize that the world you're staring at, so desperately wanting to be a part of, is as alien as another planet.

I'm told that some orphans get over it; they learn to live on the outside – the fringes. Some, I hear, actually even prefer it. I wasn't one of them. I had so much, so many material possessions, but all I really wanted was a family. I wanted to be on the other side of the window.

That's why Amber's betrayal hurt me so badly. I'd had that. I'd been on the good side of that equation. I'd been the one sitting at dinner, laughing at the television; I'd been the one in a group. In one fell swoop, it'd all been stripped from me. The cloth had been removed from my eyes and the illusion laid bare.

That's why Amber wasn't done paying. That's why it was possible that Amber would NEVER be done paying. She'd taken from me the only thing I truly cared about.

"Talk about what?" I almost snarled back, ending my reverie in an angry funk. With an effort bordering on physical pain, I managed to just barely reign in my temper. Jean wasn't the source of my anger; probably not a good idea to take it out on her.

I took in a deep breath and blew it out. Calm. Relax. Quiet. I uttered those words, my mantra of late, over and over in my head, striving to get back to somewhere near center. My anger was still flaring at strange and inconvenient times. It wasn't like me to lose track of a conversation.

"The elephant in the middle of the SUV," Jeanie replied with an exasperated sigh, oblivious to my inner turmoil. She'd insisted we drive her vehicle, a late model SUV no more than a year old. Since her bags were already stowed, I hadn't put up too much of a fight. "What happened between you and Amber? I mean, no offense boss, but one day you two were the picture of a perfect family and the next..."

Her voice trailed off but I wasn't immediately eager to fill that void. It wasn't that I didn't want to tell her; hell, in a few days the whole fucking world would probably know. I just didn't want to relive it. Not again. I had been reliving it uncontrollably for months now; thoughts, nightmares, panic attacks. I couldn't get away from it. I had hoped by going with Jeanie I would be able to outrun it somehow.

I should have known better. You couldn't outrun yourself.

"There's not much to tell," I said reticently. For a brief instant, that anger flared; why did she even want to fucking know? What fucking business of hers was it? Wasn't it enough that it happened? Wasn't it enough that my mind fucking flooded with the memories of Dave thrusting into and out of my wife? I calmed myself before I continued. Calm. Relax. Quiet. "One day we were happy. The next I found out I was living a lie."

"Living a lie?" she asked, glancing over at me. I kept my eyes on the road in front of us. I knew I wouldn't be able to control the anger if I looked at her.

THE anger. Isn't that a fucking laugh? It's not THE anger. It's my anger. Amber had bought it just for me ... and I was paying for it. I would likely be paying for it for the rest of my life.

Amber was winning. I couldn't allow that. I couldn't allow my anger to consume me. I was days away from my revenge; I wouldn't falter now. I wouldn't lose it now. No; I couldn't let her win. I couldn't let the agony of her betrayal eviscerate me completely.

I. Would. Not. Allow. It. Better to just crawl into a hole and pull it in after me. I took the anger, the pain, the betrayal and rolled it into a ball and swallowed it. Amber was MY problem; Jeanie didn't deserve the anger Amber had caused. So should I tell her about it or just cut this whole conversation off now? What made the most sense?

Fuck it. I was tired of agonizing over whether to tell her or not. I told her. I told her all about the day from hell. The day I came home early to find Amber in bed with her brother. The day that my world had all but ended.

"I'm so sorry," she said after a respectful delay. I was becoming better acquainted with those pauses; this one said that she didn't know what to say, that she couldn't immediately handle what I'd just told her. "With her brother? That had to have been ... difficult."

There was a tone to her speech I couldn't recognize; it was a thoughtful hesitation that seemed out of place somehow. It was a note of concern that seemed to indicate an inner struggle of some kind. Maybe I just imagined it.

"It didn't matter that it was with her brother," I said with a sigh. "What mattered was that it had gone on so long – long before we were even married."

"I know that must have hurt," she said softly, "but maybe ... I don't know ... I'm not defending her or anything ... but maybe she just couldn't tell you..."

"For over six years?" I scoffed. "Don't get me wrong. I didn't expect her to tell me when we first met. I didn't expect her to go up to people with 'Hi. My name is Amber and I'm sleeping with my brother ... but I'd really like to date you.' I'm not an idiot, all evidence to the contrary. Still, when I asked her to marry me would probably have been a good time. Hell, any time before we actually got married would have been a good time."

"Yeah," Jeanie admitted softly. "Which was worse, though? Was it that she was cheating or that she was cheating with her brother? I mean, cheating is bad enough ... but with her brother? I mean, that had to throw you for a loop."

"Would you get off that?" I snorted. "It didn't matter that she was sleeping with her brother. It didn't even really matter that she was sleeping around ... well, okay, it did matter. Cheating on me hurt – but it wouldn't have crushed me like this. The fact that it pre-dated the entire marriage? The fact that for the entire time I'd known her – the entire time we'd been married, together, as one? How the hell am I supposed to handle that... ?"

"But you can handle the fact that she was sleeping with her brother?" Jeanie asked, her eyes looking at me intently. There it was again, that strange hesitation; only now it shone from her eyes.

Instead of pursuing that hesitation, I rolled my eyes heavenward and let out a big sigh.

"Yeah," I said firmly, looking into Jeanie's eyes. Then I rolled my neck back and laid my head on the headrest. I knew that I was going to have to explain. Did I really want to? I relied on my new fallback mantra: Fuck it. "You know I'm an orphan, right?"

"Y-yeah?" she said quizzically, the seeming change in the conversation throwing her.

"Well, that isn't exactly true," I replied. "My mom had a much younger sister. Evidently, she got pregnant at 16 and my grandfather threw her out; I'm not sure why. She seems to have just disappeared; they couldn't find her when they were looking for any living relatives after my parents died. Anyway, her baby would be about my age. For some reason I got it into my head that every single girl I dated could be my cousin. At first, it was strange and it almost put me off dating. After a while, though, I began to really find it ... compelling. I started ... I don't know ... fantasizing about getting married to someone, having children with them, and then finding out that they were my cousin."

I let that idea soak into Jeanie's head for a pregnant pause. "I really liked that dream. As a matter of fact, it was ... comforting somehow. So you see, sex between relatives ... even a brother and sister ... doesn't really disgust me."

"Wow," she said quietly. She remained silent for a moment. "I didn't know."

"Where does Madelaine Sumners fit into all of this?" She asked after a moment of silence.

I sighed then chuckled wryly. "I almost forgot you were there in the middle of that. Madelaine is Amber's brother's wife. She ... well, I'm not quite sure what she wanted. I guess she thought that she could make it all better. I think she thought that I could take my anger out on her and then stay with Amber. Heck, she even offered to have sex with me to keep the two of us together..."

"So instead, you kicked her out into my office, naked?" Jeanie replied, her eyebrows knotting.

"That wasn't my original intention," I apologized. "I'm sorry if it made you uncomfortable. She was just ... so smug ... as if she knew just what to do, just how to deal with me. I was so angry ... hell, I'm still angry ... I just didn't think..."

"You weren't thinking about much back then," she interrupted me. "I guess I can understand that, considering what you were going through. I wondered what you were trying to accomplish with Madelaine but I guess I can see it."

"Sorry you invited me now?" I asked. It wasn't too late, I supposed. I was startled when I realized I was of two minds about it, though. Part of me ... a large part ... didn't want to go back home. They wanted to stay with Jean and see what happened.

"No, not at all," she was quick to reassure me. For some odd reason, that made me happier than it ought to have.

"Are you sure?" I questioned, though my heart wasn't really in it. "I can catch a plane or train or something at the next major city..."

She laughed at me. "Are you kidding? We're going to a farm in the middle of B.F.E., Boss. We already passed the last major city. No, you're fine. Sorry to poke my nose in where it didn't belong."

"Doesn't matter," I said with a wave of my hand. I turned back to the road in front of us for a second before turning back. "As long as we're going to be visiting your folks, though, don't you think you should start calling me Marc? 'Boss' is starting to get a little annoying..."

"Okay, Marc," she smiled, seeming inordinately pleased with herself. "I might forget every now and then, though. Just so you know."

"So, you grew up on a farm?" I asked, trying to fill the awkward moment of silence.

"Not really," she said, smiling at me. "Only the later years. Before that, I grew up in the city."

"Oh?" I questioned, asking for more information.

"My dad decided to retire to a farm," she replied sincerely. "You remind me of him, a little bit. He made a lot of money in his late twenties and early thirties. Not like you, though; he made his money in real estate and investments."

"Anyway," she continued. "I was 13 when I came home from school one day to a ton of cop cars and ambulances blocking our street. It turns out that someone had broken into our next door neighbor's house and murdered them in their sleep, then robbed them. Well, it kind of hit home for my dad. My mom tried to talk him out of it, but he decided he had enough money and he wasn't going to take the chance that we might become like our neighbors. So, he bought a farm way out in the boonies and retired, taking us with him."

"Oh," I said, at a loss for words. "That's ... I'm ... I'm sorry?"

"Don't be," she smiled. "We weren't very close to our next door neighbors, just waved at them in passing and stuff. And I love the farm; the air is clean, you've got enough room to run and play and when you sleep, it's to the sound of crickets and owls instead of the horns and motors of the city. It's a real farm, too. My dad was determined to become a farmer. He leases out maybe three quarters of it and works the rest. It lets him fool himself into believing he's working the land and still relax in his retirement."

"That actually sounds really nice," I said thoughtfully. "Maybe ... when everything is done ... maybe that's what I'll do." Jeanie just laughed at me. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was a ridiculous idea.

I was driving when we pulled into Jeanie's parents' farmhouse around 9pm. After getting used to the wind-swept, carefree, little houses we passed on the way, I wasn't ready for the large, modern house that we pulled up to. The house, with its wide, wrap-around, long front porch, shuttered windows and tri-level architecture, appeared to be loosely based on all of the other houses we'd seen along the recent miles. It was just bigger and far more substantial looking.

Jeanie was out the door almost before I could put her SUV in park. Still, she hadn't made the steps before her mother and father was out on the porch waiting for her with open arms. I just sat for a moment and watched as she was enveloped in the arms of the ones she loved.

This was what life was supposed to be about. This was family. My joy at watching the scene turned slightly melancholy as I reminded myself that this was something I had once had ... or at least, thought I had. Once again, I was on the wrong side of that window. I wondered if I would always be an outsider looking in.

I stayed in the car longer than I should have. I couldn't help it; I didn't want to break up the happy little scene in front of me. It was a moment that should have gone on forever; the welcoming arms of her parents bringing her back into their hearts. It didn't though, and suddenly their eyes were on me, sitting in the car, watching them like an idiot.

I climbed out with a sheepish grin and walked up to meet Jeanie's parents. It was easy to see where she got her good looks. Her mother was a small slip of a woman, dressed in a belted, flowery sundress. The hair was still a natural, bright red like her daughter's but with lines of gray showing here and there and while she sported a few wrinkles along the edges of the mouth and eyes, the resemblance between the two was uncanny.

They shared the same thick, luxuriant hair, the same bright, green eyes and the same full, rich lips set in a round, soft face. Their heights couldn't have been more than an inch apart and their bodies shared the same lean, fit look. Only the noses and cheek bones were different; Jeanie's mom had a smaller, rounder nose while Jeanie's cheeks were marginally higher than her mother's.