Chapter 4: Late July

He hadn't seen his wife for six weeks, give or take... not since the confrontation that Saturday afternoon. He didn't look forward to the meeting he was about to have with her. He didn't want to be here. Specifically, he did not want to be with his wife in a marriage counselor's office. There was no point to it.

Three days ago, though, he'd been called to the CFO's office. Willis Johnson had the title of Chief Financial Officer for the firm but in reality, he had the final word on any issue in which he wanted to take a hand. He'd been a boyhood friend of the owner and CEO; the friendship had last sixty years and more. When Mr. Johnson spoke, it was the owner's voice that was heard.

The meeting had been cordial enough. A clear message had been delivered however. The firm felt Steve Curtis's upcoming promotion to District Supervisor was a good decision on the part of the board. They still wanted him in that position when the incumbent retired next fall. On the other hand, it was thought the corporation would be better served by an individual with a spouse who could be a support group of one for a man in a stressful position. At least that was what Mr. Johnson said.

He glossed over the reason for the firm's interest very quickly. He'd been apologetic and vaguely uncomfortable while he went over the reasoning. The point of the conversation was that it was very nearly a condition of employment for the new job for Steve to make an effort to go to the counseling. It was obviously hoped Steve would reconcile with his estranged wife but that wasn't actually mentioned.

Steve hadn't been aware upper level management even knew about his impending divorce. The meeting left a bad taste in Steve's mouth. It hadn't appeared Mr. Johnson felt any better about it.

Nevertheless, bad taste and all, here he was. On a Thursday evening he could better have spent watching a college football game on ESPN, he was sitting across a small waiting room across from his wife while they waited for the counselor to return to his office. Barbara had tried to engage him in conversation but Steve had refused to cooperate, answering every question with a shrug or a monosyllable.

The door burst open and a short, rotund man in shirtsleeves came hurrying in. On the far side of late middle age, he had a ruddy complexion and a ring of snow-white hair around a bald, pink dome. Spry for a man of his years, he was moving fast toward the inner office where his desk presumably stood.

"Sorry... sorry," he called out at large. "Dang traffic on the loop is heavy tonight. Come on in... come in... let's get started." He pushed the office door wide and disappeared inside. Steve blinked, shrugged, and pushed himself to his feet to follow the man inside. He didn't look at Barbara.

His name was Verne Houston. He wasn't a psychiatrist; he wasn't a psychologist. He was a graduate of a certified school of counseling up in Austin and he'd been doing family counseling for 26 years. He kept up on all the latest information and information in the field. In fact, that was why he was late--he'd been at a continuing education class across town. He was glad to see them. He was sorry again that he was late.

All the information came in a staccato rush. Mr. Houston seemed impatient to get all of the preliminaries out of the way so everyone could get on with what they came here for. When he'd said everything he'd wanted to say, though, he sat quietly and studied his clients.

"What do each of you expect to gain from counseling... Mrs. Curtis?" The abrupt question caught Barbara off guard.

"Why, I... well, I... that is... I want to reconcile with my husband so we can move on... with our lives."

"I see," Houston said. "Move on? Why is there an issue about moving on?" he said thoughtfully. Barbara's face grew pink and her eyes moved to the curtain rod across the window behind the counselor.

"Steve caught me in City View Park with a man I know," she said finally, "and he thinks the man and I have been... having sex."

"Why would your husband think that?" Barbara refused to look at Mr. Houston. She looked at everything but him... or her husband

"Because we were sitting in his... the guy I know... his car and... oh, I don't know."

Her words trailed off. Her hands lifted, made an odd, dismissive gesture, then fell back into her lap.

Steve was watching Mr. Houston closely. From the corner of his eye, he saw Barbara's hands rise and fall. He caught Mr. Houston's eyes flick toward the sudden movement and then back up. A tiny frown made a furrow in the therapist's brow. In Steve's suddenly formed opinion, Mr. Houston was an excellent observer. He probably could read an individual's body language as easily as most people could a comic book.

"Don't forget to tell him you didn't have a bra on and you took off your panties for that guy you know, okay, dear?" Steve thought he'd contribute something to the conversation. Barbara threw a poisonous look at him.

"You'll have your turn to speak, Mr. Curtis," Houston said briskly, without any particular tone in his voice. "Please continue, Mrs. Curtis."

"I don't think I was going to have sex with him," Barbara protested. "I was confused; I don't even know why I went with him that day, but I wouldn't... I couldn't have done anything with him... it was just a bad mistake."

"A bad mistake?" Mr. Johnson repeated. He looked at Barbara for the few seconds it took her to come up with a response.

"Yes... I..." She paused. "I'm sure. I wouldn't have had sex with him," she said. She was almost defiant. Mr. Johnson waited to see if she had anything else to say. When nothing was forthcoming, he turned his attention to Steve.

"What are your goals in seeking family counseling, Mr. Curtis?" he asked. Steve was ready for the question.

"I have two... a short-term goal and a long-term goal," he announced. "First, in the short term, I want to convince my wife to instruct her attorney to quit throwing up roadblocks in the divorce action. Second, I want to get on with my life. That's my long-term goal."

He said nothing more. Steve looked Mr. Houston in the eyes steadily, almost unblinkingly.

"You don't seem to have much hope your marriage to Barbara will be able to get past this mistake, Mr. Curtis?"

"There is no hope," Steve replied.

"Why are you here, then?" the counselor asked.

"Because the firm I work for is making me," Steve said succinctly. Mr. Houston nodded.

"Well... so long as you don't come in here all surly and yelling four-letter words at everyone, we'll deal with that," Houston replied.

"I won't promise anything," Steve said coolly.

He held eye contact with the counselor, refusing to show any cooperation at all. Mr. Houston's expression didn't change but his eyes seemed to be a shade sadder than when he'd begun the session.

"Barbara says she made a bad mistake," he said. "What does the mistake mean to you?"

"Nope, I'm not going to play that game. It wasn't a mistake," Steve replied strongly.

"A mistake is transposing a couple of numbers when you're dialing a phone. That isn't what happened. She deliberately agreed to get in that man's car, she deliberately took off a bra I know she had on that morning, she deliberately took off her panties, and she was deliberately going to have sex with the jerk," Steve said heatedly. He forced himself to sit back in his chair.

"And it wasn't the first time she'd been with him," Steve continued. "You need to know this woman lies when the truth would serve her better. She told her parents a series of lies about why I kicked her out of the house and it was only when I showed them pictures of her playing grab-ass with this "guy she knows" and a video of them in the park that some of the truth came out."

"Is that an accurate account of an encounter between the two of you and your parents, Mrs. Curtis?" asked Mr. Houston.

"And her grandmother," Steve interjected.

"And your grandmother?" the counselor added. Barbara fidgeted in her chair for a long moment. She wouldn't meet the counselor's eyes.

"Yeah... pretty much," she muttered.

"I see." Mr. Houston remarked in a colorless tone. He divided a glance between Steve and Barbara. Abruptly he sat up in his chair to rest his elbows on his desktop.

"Mr. Curtis, Mrs. Curtis... the way I see my function in mediating between the two of you in your disagreement is to provide a neutral meeting place where you can both speak your minds without fear of anyone else taking sides. I do not know you; I will never have dinner in your home... I will never call you up to chat on a Sunday afternoon. Nothing you say in front of me will ever get back to your families, your friends, business associates, or... unless you tell me you're going to commit a crime or something like that... to the authorities." He looked at the two in front of him for a long moment.

"I recommend you agree to meet with me individually once a week, and then both of you come in as a couple at the end of that week. Is that acceptable to each of you?"

Steve opened his mouth to protest the use of the word "couple" but he made a split-second decision not to. It was only a word, after all. It meant nothing. Instead of speaking, he nodded. Barbara followed suit immediately.

"Fine... fine," Mr. Houston said briskly. "Before our first sessions next week, if the two of you could fill out these questionnaires for me, I would appreciate it," he told them, handing a manila folder to each of them from his lower desk drawer. Then he leaned back in his chair.

"Okay, let's set up some ground rules, and then I'd like to define the biggest problem you have between you before we end tonight," he continued. "You're not currently working... is that correct, Mrs. Curtis?" Barbara nodded. "Then, next Monday... how about you come in to see me that morning?" Barbara nodded without speaking.

"And I have an opening Wednesday afternoon for you, Mr. Curtis... any problems with that?" Steve shrugged expressively. He didn't say no.

"Okay," the counselor said. "And then... Thursday evenings at this same time, we'll come together as a group?" Steve inclined his head in acceptance. Barbara showed a little more enthusiasm. She was cheered by the fact that Steve had not refused outright.

"All right... I'll have my secretary make those appointments and she'll call you to confirm them, okay?" Barbara and Steve murmured their agreement.

"Okay, let me say a couple of things," Mr. Houston said quietly.

"First off, the only thing I will tolerate here is the truth. I hope that is clear. That is because if there is to be any chance of getting your marriage back on track, total... complete honesty has to be the basic component of any and all communication between the two of you. Is that understood?" he asked, looking from Barbara to Steve and back again twice.

"Fine with me," Steve said. Barbara nodded her assent.

"Good," Houston said firmly. "Then let's get started." He rubbed his hands together as if relishing the journey upon which they were about to embark.

"Now, Mrs. Curtis... what is the single most disruptive problem with your marriage to Steve... what has brought you two to this point?" Barbara had not been expecting the question. She looked at the counselor blankly for a long moment.

"I... he... that is... I made a big mistake in seeing this guy. My husband caught us and assumed the worst possible thing was happening and he attacked me and that guy," Barbara said. Her voice got stronger the longer she talked.

Steve was about to make a heated remark but stopped. Mr. Houston was holding up his hand, palm out, to Steve.

"Please, Mr. Curtis," he said. "Let your wife define the problem as she sees it, then we will hear your point of view. You'll have all the time you need to tell your wife how you feel about things, all right?"

Steve took a deep breath to calm himself and closed his eyes. Biting his lip, he nodded.

"Fine... fine," Mr. Houston said approvingly. "If everyone plays by the rules, everything goes much smoother. Barbara, please continue."

"Uh... well, that's basically it," she said. She was silent for a bit while she turned something over in her mind. "I admit I did something wrong," she said finally. "I shouldn't have gone out there with Rafe... with that man... but my husband stopped things before I could have even possibly done anything really bad." She paused before continuing.

"And I... he won't believe me when I say I'm very glad... thankful that he did stop things from happening even though I don't think I would have... like Steve thinks... I wouldn't have had any actual sex with him... Rafe." She was quiet.

"Is that all, Mrs. Curtis?" the counselor asked. Barbara nodded.

"Except that I love my husband. He's the only man I love, even though he won't believe me... and I just want to put this behind us so we can get back together and get on with our lives," she said. "The big problem is he can't understand that I won't ever do anything like this again," she added.

"And when you look at it, nothing really happened. I didn't have any sex with the man I was with. My husband can't see that. He can't see that... from everyone else's point of view... he's making too much of something that didn't happen. If he would just understand that, we could be so happy together." She gestured to indicate she was finished. Mr. Houston turned to Steve.

"Steve, what is the biggest problem in your marriage with Barbara?"

"My wife forms... uh... inappropriate... relationships with other men. She gives them the respect, time, affection, and sex that she should be sharing with me and then lies to me and everyone else about what she's doing," Steve said quietly. He'd had time to think while Barbara went through her monologue.

"This is my wife's third strike," he said after a bit. "It's the third time she's let another man come between us... well... the third that I can put a name and a face to. I'm pretty sure there is a fourth, but I can't figure out who it was.

"All the signs were there when I got back from a long trip in March and April. My dear wife couldn't stand to be around me, wouldn't talk to me, and certainly wouldn't agree to make love to me... but I didn't actually catch her cheating on me so I'm only counting three times. On the other hand, three times is more than enough. I'm finished with this marriage. Barbara can find some other man to screw around on," he said in a neutral tone.

Barbara's mouth had opened wider as her husband went through his accusations. She began shaking her head the longer Steve talked.

"No," she said firmly, "that's not true," she protested. Mr. Houston started to ask her to be quiet while Steve spoke but Steve turned to his wife too quickly.

"Thad Brown... while we were dating," he said firmly. He held up the forefinger on his right hand.