Chapter 3

Saturday morning I had breakfast with my parents and then headed back to the airport in Syracuse. I had already booked my flight to Atlanta by way of Cincinnati.

"Did you call Kate to let her know what time you would be home?" my mother asked.

"No, I want to surprise her," I said. Shock her would be more accurate.

When I arrived in Atlanta, I took a cab from the airport and arrived at the house a little after four o'clock that afternoon. There was no car in the driveway and the garage door was closed so there was no way I could tell if Kate was home our not. I carried my bags up the sidewalk to the front door and hesitated for a few minutes. My anxiety level suddenly spiked. What if Kate wasn't alone? How would I handle that? Should I ring the doorbell or should I just walk in? These thoughts and more were running through my mind in random order as I stood outside the door.

I had to get a grip. It was still my house and if Kate had someone in there with her I would throw his ass out and her along with him. I don't know why I would think that she would have someone there with her anyway. I checked the door and it was locked. That was not unusual, we always kept the front door locked because we seldom used it. I unlocked the door with my key and walked into the house.

I stood in the foyer for a moment and listened. I thought I heard something in the kitchen but I wasn't sure. When I dropped my bags next to the stairway I heard Kate's voice coming from the kitchen.

"Who's there?" she yelled in a startled voice.

I didn't say anything and a moment later Kate came around the corner and saw me. She froze for a moment and then put her hand up to her face, covering her mouth. I saw her shoulders begin to move up and down and soon her whole body was shaking and tears were streaming down her cheeks.

Kate looked terrible. She looked like she had lost quite a bit of weight. Her face was pale and drawn with dark circles under her eyes. Looking at her almost made me want to cry.

"You're home?" she said.

"For the moment," I said. "It's time for us to talk and decide where we go from here."

"I was praying that you'd come talk to me. I had almost given up hope. I thought that I had lost you forever," she said.

"We'll talk and then see what happens. You understand that I won't tolerate any lies."

"I won't lie to you, I promise. Why don't we go into the living room?"

I followed Kate into the living room and waited for her to sit before I chose a seat. As angry as I was feeling toward her I couldn't help but admire her strength at that moment. She never looked down or away from me. She held my eyes with hers as I sat down across from her. You might think that her looking at me that way was an act of defiance but that is not what it was. She wanted me to know that she was prepared to tell me the truth. There was no deception in her eyes.

"Jim, I will tell you everything. I want you to know that I am sorry for what I did and have been ever since the night I did it. If you want I'll just tell you what happened or you can just ask questions. I promise that I will answer truthfully."

"Why don't you just tell me your story and I'll decide if you are telling me the truth or not. I'll save my questions until later." I said.

Kate nodded her head and took a deep breath. "Okay. I guess you never knew how angry I was when you cancelled our vacation to go to Seattle. The pressure had been building up for a long time. I know I had agreed that you should take the PM job for four years but it wasn't as easy to deal with as I had thought it would be. You were gone more than you were home and I was lonely. I missed you all the time. You have to know that I never once thought of cheating on you. It was you I missed and I didn't want to be with anyone else," Kate said.

"Then why did you cheat?" I said.

"I'll try to explain that but you have to let me tell you everything," Kate said. "When you told me that we had to cancel our vacation I couldn't believe it. I wanted to scream but I tried to keep myself under control. I almost lost it a couple of times but I got control of myself again. Later I wondered why you didn't suggest that I go to Seattle with you. Then I started thinking that you didn't want to be with me. I thought that maybe you accepted the Seattle assignment so that you wouldn't have to go on vacation with me. I kept telling myself that wasn't true but part of me still wondered about it.

"Then you said that you had an idea for something I could do while you were working in Seattle and I thought that you were going to suggest that I go with you. I started to get excited but then you suggested that I go to Cortland to visit my parents instead of asking me to go with you. I couldn't imagine how you would have thought that a week with my parents would make up for losing a week with you in Key West. I was still angry but I kept telling myself that I shouldn't be angry with you for doing your job and that I would feel better about things in a day or two.

"That didn't happen. When I got to my parents I told my mother about you canceling our vacation so you could run out to Seattle. I guess my mother thought she was being supportive by taking my side but she didn't know when to stop. Instead of helping she was making things worse.

"I thought that going out with my old friends would make me feel better and it did for a while. We went out and had dinner at the Holiday Inn and then sat in the bar and had a few drinks while we talked about what everyone had done since high school. I saw Kyle Porter sitting with a woman that was at least ten years older than him and pointed them out to Sue Schaefer. Sue told me that Kyle hangs out at the Holiday Inn bar and picks up older women. We all laughed about that for a few minutes.

"A little while later Kyle came over to the table to say hello."

"So you made a date to go out with him?" I said. I wanted to see how close her story would be to what Kyle had told me but I didn't want to make it too easy for her.

"No, I didn't make a date with him. Actually I think I was kind of rude to him."

"Why would you be rude to your old high school sweetheart?" I said.

"Kyle was never my high school sweetheart."

"So how did you end up in bed with him at the Holiday Inn?"

"I'm getting to that," Kate said. "You have to understand that since the day we began dating in college until that night I had never cheated on you and had never even thought of doing anything like that until that night. Since then I can swear to you that nothing like that has ever happened again. I know you must have doubts now but I do love you."

"You say you love me but you fucked your old boyfriend," I said. "Do you still love him too?"

"No. I was never in love with Kyle. He was never my boyfriend."

"You dated him in high school, didn't you?"

"Yes, but he wasn't my boyfriend. My best friend Kate Mitchell was going steady with his best friend David Bradshaw. Kate and Dave kept dragging Kyle and me on dates with them. I went out with him four or five times. He and I were never anything more than friends and not very close friends at that. You are the only man I love. Before you found out about this, did you ever doubt that I loved you?" Kate said.

"No, but is that because I was a fool?"

Kate began to cry but she didn't look away from me. "You are not a fool and never have been one. You knew that I loved you because I did and still do."

"So, are you trying to tell me that Kyle seduced you? That his charms were just too much for you to resist?" I asked. "Or maybe he drugged you?"

"No. He didn't drug me and he didn't seduce me."

"Okay, Kate. I don't know what you are playing at but you are confusing the hell out of me," I said. "You said that you loved me and that you didn't love him and never did and then you said that he didn't seduce you and that he didn't drug you. So how did you end up in bed with him?"

I was about to find out if Kate's version of the events of that night were the same as Kyle's.

"I already told you, it started the night I was out with my friends," Kate started. "Kyle came over to our table to talk to me. We were all just chatting and having a good time and I didn't pay much attention to Kyle so he left after about ten minutes. Before we all went home I asked the girls if any of them would be able to go out again that week. Only Sue Schaefer said that she might be able to get out for a while. She told me that she had to work late Thursday evening and that if she finished early enough she would stop by the Holiday Inn on her way home.

"That night when I got to bed I thought about why I felt so angry about your canceling our vacation but instead of calming myself I got more angry. I began to realize that my anger went deeper than just that cancelled vacation. I couldn't sleep. I just tossed and turned and thought about all of the times we had to cancel plans and I just accepted it. I tried to direct my anger at Jack but I know that you had never stood up to him so my anger was directed at you.

"I spent all day Wednesday and Thursday with my mother and she was making me crazy. She kept telling me that I couldn't let you get off easy for canceling our vacation and then out of the blue she asked me if I thought that you might be having an affair. I told her that I would never believe that but it just increased my feelings of frustration and anger. Thursday night I had to get out of the house so I drove over to the Holiday Inn and went into the bar hoping that Sue would be there but she wasn't.

"I sat at the bar and ordered a drink while I waited to see if Sue would show up. Suddenly Kyle was sitting next to me. He told me that I looked unhappy and the next thing I knew I was telling him everything."

"While you were bitching to Kyle about what a terrible husband you had, did you happen to mention my name?" I said.

Kate just looked at me like she didn't understand what I was saying.

"Did you mention my name to Kyle? Did you tell him who I was?"

"No."

"Why not."

"I don't know. I guess I didn't want him to know," Kate said. "Anyway, by the time I finished telling Kyle why I was in Cortland without you I was almost in a rage. I could feel the blood burning in my face. That's when Kyle suggested that I should do something to make sure you knew how angry I was. Somehow, in my disturbed state, that made sense to me. I felt that I needed to do something to punish you.

"I started drinking martinis and we moved from the bar into a booth. I don't remember when I actually decided that I was going to have sex with Kyle that night but I knew that it was going to happen. I am not proud of this, but when I felt the martinis starting to kick in I started making out with Kyle in the booth like we were a couple of teenagers. That's when Kyle suggested that we get a room."

"So what you are trying to tell me is that you were so angry with me that you went to the Holiday Inn and got drunk then went to bed with Kyle Porter?" I said.

"No. The first part yes. I did go out to the Holiday Inn that night because I was angry but I didn't go to bed with Kyle because I was drunk. I got drunk so that I could go to bed with him. I never could have made myself do that if I was sober. I decided to let Kyle have me because I was angry but I had to get drunk so that I could go through with it.

I was stunned. "I can't believe that you could have been that angry," I said. "I find it hard to believe that you would do something so stupid just because you were mad at me. Why didn't you talk to me about it instead of jumping into bed with a pathetic lounge lizard?"

"Don't you think I asked myself that same question over and over? I would never have believed that I was capable of doing anything so destructive," Kate said.

"Was the sex worth it? Did you enjoy it?" I said.

"God, no. I know I did it but I don't actually remember much of what happened once we got up to the room. Anyway, as soon as it was over I went into the bathroom and got extremely sick. I vaguely remember taking a shower and going to bed. When I woke up in the morning I was in the room by myself. That weasel Kyle didn't even stay with me to make sure I was okay. I guess it was actually a good thing that he wasn't there. I really didn't want to face him after what I had done.

"I was sick most of the day, not because of the hang over but because of what I had done. The anger was gone and all I had left was the guilt. I was disgusted with myself. I have been trying to make it up to you ever since that night. I've tried to show you how much I love you.

"Jim, if you think my explanation of what I did sounded rehearsed you'd be right. I have been worried that you might find out someday and that I would have to face you with the truth about that night. I have been thinking about and rehearsing what I would tell you for almost a year and a half. I wanted to make sure that if you ever found out and confronted me about it that I wouldn't panic and try to lie my way out of it. I wrote it all down in my journal. What I was feeling and what I did and why and then I even wrote the scrip for how I would tell you about it. To be honest I was praying that I would never have to tell you.

"The biggest problem for me has been that right after I did it I knew that I was wrong and that my anger was misguided. I had never told you how angry I was every time you had to miss a special occasion because of some trip you had to go on. I just bottled everything up until I finally lost control. I wanted to hurt you but I didn't want you to know that you had been hurt. How sick was that?"