Chapter 5

Clark didn’t outlive Beatrice by more than sixty days, as it happened. He put his affairs in order, sold off or gave away many things that he no longer wished to have, and then just ... wasted away. In fact, he even started drinking a bit, something that he had never done before, just to kill the pain. This man was a lifelong teetotaler, but fifty-eight years of age, he took to booze and stopped going to church at all. I got the impression that he wasn’t just lonely ... he was bitter that God had taken his beloved mate away. He didn’t take to women, though. He wasn’t interested in living at all, and chasing women was part of life. He was too interested in dying and joining his beloved Beatrice in whatever afterlife she had. I think that he would have gone willingly to Hell if he could be with her.

At his funeral, just as at Beatrice’s, Robbie was there, too, but he was a bit nervous and awkward the whole time. Perhaps he felt out of place, as things grew even more strained between him and the Maxwells in recent years than they had been between them and me. They had to be civil to me up to a point (and later, of course, warmed up to me again, in their last days). They didn’t feel that they owed any such thing to Robbie Walters, the man who had Deanna for the taking and let her get away from him.

The way that Robbie had carried on at the wedding hadn’t helped him with them, either. It was a case of “too little, too late” for Clark and Beatrice, as well as the rest of the Maxwell clan, not to mention humiliating to them and Deanna and me. Robbie had worn out his welcome with that tribe. If he ever did marry Deanna, he would have a lot of crow to eat and ass to kiss to get on good terms with his new in-laws.

Of course, Deanna and Erin were in too much pain right then to dwell on such issues, or so it felt at the time. They were surprisingly distant from Robbie, but I put that down as needing my solace in grief ... and each other’s. That should, in retrospect, have been a clue to me, but I’m a guy, not a mind-reader. I don’t know women that well, despite living with two and dating two others. Then again, I’ve been called the “eternal pessimist,” so that might be a factor as well.

I wasn’t honestly sure what was going on between Robbie and Deanna for a good while after that, but events now moved much quicker than expected. Being polite as ever, we invited Robbie over for our eighth anniversary party, set for Saturday, and everything seemed as smooth as it always was. If anything, its proximity to the deaths of Clark and Beatrice Maxwell made people ready to shake off their grief a bit and live a little. I had no clue, nor did the others, what would come to cast a pall on our wonderful event.

We were just done with supper, digesting our food, playing games like horseshoes in the backyard, while the little ones swam and splashed each other in the water, some of us drinking some cold beer or chilled wine, when disaster struck. Robbie looked even more nervous than before, but he made his play nonetheless. I think, in hindsight, it was a last, desperate gamble, a reckless roll of the dice from a man who feared losing his lady’s love for good. Right there, in front of me, during the anniversary of the date when Deanna and I took vows to each other, Robbie walked over to her and gave her a very intense kiss. She reacted with some shock, as he had never been so open with his affection in family settings like this before.

Even so, Deanna kissed him back with a passion that made me sick to my stomach. It wasn’t watching them kiss. Hell, I had seen that plenty over the years, including during that famous threesome of ours. It was watching him kiss her during our special day ... hers and mine, in front of our friends and family, as if trying to reclaim her from me entirely and exclusively. As it turned out, that was exactly what Robbie had in mind. I stormed out of the backyard in shock, anger, and pain, grabbing a beer on my way back inside, slammed the back door with a loud thud that couldn’t be missed, and headed to the guest bedroom. I locked the door behind me, taking refuge in my craft brew and new feelings of hatred for my wife’s beau. I saw nothing of what transpired afterward, but I heard plenty about it afterward.

I was shocked at myself. My marriage was not just an open one, but a marriage of convenience, not a love match, as Deanna herself once noted. I knew that this day was probably coming, even if a long time in the making. Yet, here I was, choked up, fighting back tears, tearing up a punching bag in the spare bedroom, and downing my favorite beer before getting out the Scotch from the liquor fridge. For the first time since Deanna and I agreed to this unorthodox arrangement, I felt real agony, true jealousy, and absolute, gut-wrenching despair ... and loneliness.

The various people gathered had heard rumors of our unconventional marriage before, but since I had two women living with me and two on the side, it was harder to label me a wimp or cuckold as they would under other circumstances. Even so, the brazen disrespect that Robbie had shown me at my own anniversary disgusted more than a few of them, leading to several heated whispers and glares directed at the man. This was a very important, family occasion, one to celebrate Deanna’s and my marriage, and here her paramour was raining on our parade, treading on what had been understood as sacred ground and my territory.

Evidently, they weren’t alone, as I was to find out, though I didn’t realize this in my depressed and self-pitying black hole of drinking and rage. Robbie went further than he already did, knowing that he had nothing to lose by now. He went on one knee and opened a small box, in which he revealed two weeks’ salary that he must have saved up on a small, but lovely diamond ring ... and I mean REAL diamond, not cubic zirconium! Robbie might have been a jerk, but give him credit, when he committed to making Deanna all his now, he went all-out and really gave it his best. He also gave Deanna flowers that he had concealed inside his truck until minutes before.

“Deanna ... Hill, will you admit that we’ve played this game of hurting each other long enough? Will you marry me? I’m sorry that I waited this long, but I had to grow up first. I have now, though. Please, make me happy. I will be a good father to your kids, too. Just marry me,” Robbie popped the question at last, while I was buried in my pain and not there to stop him.

That was the moment of truth, and while I feared and rightfully guessed what Robbie intended, I could never have anticipated the response. While I sat there in my agony and sorrow, my bitter solitude, my heart breaking as I accepted the truth at last ... I was in love with my wife ... and yes, with her sister, Deanna did the totally unexpected. She took a step back from Robbie, and taking Erin’s hand for moral support, shook her head.

“NO!” she shouted emphatically at her boyfriend, making everyone watching stand in awe at Deanna’s sudden show of backbone, her defiance of the man who everyone thought had such a powerful hold on her.

“No? Why not? I love you! I grew up to finally be good enough for you! I paid so much for this ring, for these flowers, for you! I risked embarrassment to ask you to marry me! You kissed me back ... with love, too! Why not? Are you bound that strongly to Sam, because he’s the father of your children? He’s still got Erin ... and Annette ... and Darley! Why, Deanna? Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted from me, why you married him to make me jealous and to have the kids that I couldn’t give you? Please, tell me, why, honey?” Robbie expressed real shock at Deanna, standing up to him at last and refusing his proposal of marriage.

“No, Robbie! I have my family! I have my husband! I have the father of my children! You had me once, yes, and you have had such power over me, so much of a hold, but that was ... then. This is now. I have my man. I have my sister-wife, too. You had your chance! You made me wait too long, far too long, Robbie! I don’t need or want a boy who only grows up when he realizes what he’s about to lose. I want, I need, a man, who willingly, gladly, makes me his partner in life, and yes, I’m happy to share him with my sister!

“I know that I gave you that kiss, but that was due to my love overcoming my good sense. I hurt my husband, and, yes, I love him, too. The difference is the kind of love that I feel for him, versus what I feel for you. I love him ... and respect him. I know that I didn’t show respect just then, but that was the heat of the moment and the total shock that you did that. I didn’t have time to sort things out, but now I get it ... seeing him run away in such pain. Did you not see him? Did you not think of what he might feel? Did you even care what this might do to him, especially in front of OUR CHILDREN!

“What the fuck is the matter with you, Robbie? Yes, I love you, but right now, I don’t like you very much. I certainly don’t respect you. I know what you said before, but that goes to show what a man child you are! What the hell is the matter with you? I repeat that, because you seem to have taken leave of your senses. Did you really think that I would just ... walk out on him, accept your proposal, and break his heart at our anniversary party, even if I was willing to do so elsewhere, and no, I wasn’t! Why have you wasted my time? Why did I waste my time with you?

“Just do me a favor ... and leave! I need to have a long think with myself over whether or not I even want to be your girlfriend anymore. No, scratch that! I don’t have to think about it. We’re over. Goodbye, Robbie. Maybe, just maybe, we might be friends someday, but for now, I’m not too sure about that. I can’t fucking believe you! I don’t even believe myself! That man gave me eight years of his life, his blood, sweat, and tears, his comfort, his solace, his loving arms to hold me at night and wipe away my tears when you repeatedly hurt me. That man gave me four children, eight counting my nieces and nephew. That man treated me with nothing but love and respect. I repaid him poorly for it, but I was a fool, forever wanting the man who I couldn’t really have, because he hadn’t grown up yet.

“I thought that it was just a marriage of convenience, but no man would do all that for mere convenience. He loves ... is in love with me, and I am in love with him! So is my sister, for that matter! He has more love and commitment and loyalty in his pinky than you have in your whole heart! Just go ... Robbie! Leave me be and let me save my marriage from my own folly! Just leave! I’m even madder with you than I was when you made me wait for you at the barbershop eight years ago. That time, you only ruined my day. This time, you ruined my husband’s ... and my children’s,” Deanna threw his diamond ring back at him.

“By the way, if you really knew me, you’d know that I HATE real diamonds! They’re mined on the backs of suffering orphans and widows in Africa! Sam wouldn’t have to be told this! Go ... just leave! I’m so angry at you ... and myself that I want to grab your brass knuckles to beat you half to death!” Deanna told Robbie, as he fled in embarrassment, anger, and misery, having lost her for good.

“Mommy, are you leaving Daddy for Uncle Robbie?” Amber asked Deanna, who shook her head and hugged her tight.

“No, baby. Never! The only way that I’d ever leave is if your Daddy tossed me out, and as mad as I might have made him just now, I still don’t think that he’d do that. He’s too good of a man for that. Uncle Robbie’s a good man, too, but he’s also a bit ... silly and childish at times. I didn’t know that before ... not how bad he was that way, anyway. Now I do. Your father is the man that I love ... more than any other man alive, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life proving that to him. Shhh ... don’t worry, baby. Mommy’s not going anywhere,” Deanna told each of our children in her arms, right as Erin did the same to our children by her, wiping their eyes dry and ruffling their hair.

I heard a knock at the door some time later, and I answered it, not quite myself, as I had already broken down crying and drinking like a fish. I even tossed a bottle at the door and shattered it. I was truly shaken up, as broken to pieces as that bottle. I didn’t know how much I loved my wife until I was sure that I lost her. Now I was devastated by that one kiss that Robbie planted on her ... and which she reciprocated with equal ardor. Seeing Deanna in my present state, with Erin busy watching the kids right then, I was sure that this was it ... the dreaded day of reckoning, the end of eight years of happiness with at least one of the women I loved. Would I even have Erin anymore, or would she leave me, too? In my present state of anguish and loss, I wasn’t even sure of her now.

“Dee ... I’ll ... leave the master bedroom to you ... and to Erin if she wants to still sleep there. I’ll stay in this room and resume my occupancy of the master bedroom when you’ve moved out. I’ll buy out your share, too, if you’re offering a reasonable price for it. Let’s ... just try to make this easy on the kids, as much as we can. Do you want to file ... or should I? I know that Robbie doesn’t make as much money, so I don’t want to make things too ... tough on you guys, given that you’ll need money for when the kids are with you,” I asked Deanna, whose face paled as I spoke those words and she broke down sobbing.

“Damn you, Sam Hill! You really have no idea, do you? Men, so fucking dense about women! Don’t you dare move out of our bedroom! You promised me that you’d stay with Erin and I’m holding you to your word. If you move out of the master bedroom, she’d have to join you in the guest room here, and that’s no place for a lady. You’re not abandoning my sister ... and I’m NOT deserting you! You don’t get off that easily, Mister Samuel Adams Hill!

“Don’t you get it? Yes, I hurt you by kissing Robbie, and various other things over the years, I fear. Mostly watching me suffer, helplessly, at his hands. His cruel sweetness and love, merciless as it was, wrenching my guts and breaking my heart every day. Your empathy must have tormented you repeatedly over the years. Yes, I’m very sorry about that. But a marriage is a contract, damn it, and I’m keeping it ... and holding you to it! I see now ... a lot of things that I failed to see before.

“I see that this marriage, with you, was the best thing that I ever did, that and having your children, and sharing you with Erin. Making this life together. I was such a fool, Sam, thinking that I could have just a, what did I call it, ‘friendship with benefits’ with you, while living as your wife! How could I marry my good, lifelong friend, my best friend, and not expect to fall in love with him? That’s just not possible, honey! How could I expect him not to fall in love with me, when I was throwing everything but the kitchen sink into our lives together, the family that we made, the home that we built together?

“To think ... I didn’t quite fully grasp this until today, but what I had was two men who loved me, but differently ... and I selfishly let myself and you think that his love for me was more important to me than yours. I held onto my childish fantasy of being his, for years on end, even as we lived our real life, our real marriage, having children, oh, God, what I could have put them through if I had gone through with this foolishness! As cliche as it sounds, I missed the forest for the trees. I was blind to the real love that you gave me, veiled by my obsession with a man who never loved me as more than his personal toy!