Scarsdale, New York: Saturday 22nd September 2018

How had it come to this? Just a few hours ago I’d been spooning and making love to my wonderful wife. Declaring my love to her as she told me she’d always love me. And now, just a few hours later, she was gone. Nowhere to be seen in the house. Replaced instead by an envelope on her pillow, on a pristine and perfectly made bed.

Back in 2015, we’d pulled the plug after a weekend of fun with Francis, thinking better of it. We’d survived the horror that was our stupid, misguided experience with Brandon. Survived it by the skin of our teeth. Yet this felt far worse. For nearly a year now we’d been ‘playing.’ First Sue with Francis, and then me with Grace. It seemed to have worked just fine. Sue enjoyed her love affair and the hot sex with Francis. I enjoyed watching once a week. And then there was my own relationship with Grace. My twenty-two-year-old sexy little Malawian minx. Sassy and smart, who was now pregnant with my child.

Of course, I knew instantly that this was what had upset things. This was why Sue had bolted. And I feared the worst. Terrified to read the letter that stared at me from Sue’s pillow. Terrified that letter, once opened and read, would spell the end of my marriage. Twenty-five years thrown down the drain. Ruined and destroyed by my stupid addictions and the cliff edge I kept pushing us towards. Until finally, and inevitably we tumbled over, arms flailing but nothing to grab at.

Physically shaking and feeling sick with fear, I stared at the envelope. Hoping if I stared long enough, as if by magic and a puff of smoke it would magically turn back and be replaced by my wife. Like some Vegas magic trick, and I’d applaud and wonder what all the fuss had been. But however long I stared at the envelope, no magic or puff of smoke occurred.

Finally, I closed my eyes and with heavy heart walked the two feet to the bed, my feet feeling like I was wading through the densest water in the Ocean.

I picked up the envelope. ‘Pete’ was the single word written on it. Not ‘My darling Pete’ or some other affectionate title. Just ‘Pete’. The envelope smelt of Sue, and I couldn’t resist lifting it to my nose to get a better smell. A stronger enjoyment of the perfume Sue had been wearing. I knew I was torturing myself, but even a tiny bit of Sue seemed a million time’s better than what was likely in that envelope. A radioactive isotope would have been more welcome to me than the contents of that letter, I was sure.

After a good minute inhaling as my only remaining piece of Sue, I summoned the courage to open the letter.

‘Dear Pete,

I love you honey, and I always will. Sorry that I’m not there to tell you this to your face. But I couldn’t sleep and when I looked in, you and Grace were dead to the world.

Like I said, I couldn’t sleep. After we made love and you went next door to Grace, I tossed and turned and tried to get my thoughts in order.

Honey, I did lots of thinking and then I got to a point that I realized I need some time and space to get things straight in my head.

This whole situation is already incredibly hard for me. And it’s only going to get harder as Grace’s belly swells and eventually you and she have a child together. With all that entails for how your life is going to be in the future. And I know it will be a difficult time for you as well, although you have the joy of a new child to look forward to.

At one level I’m happy for Grace and you. But at another level staying and watching as you and Grace grow closer and raise your child is going to be incredibly hard for me. I’m sure you see and understand that. And the truth is that, although I’ll always love you and I know you’ll always love me, I don’t know how much I can cope with. I really just don’t know.

And so, I decided last night to spend a few days at Jenny’s, so that I can get my head sorted out and work out what I want to happen. What I can and can’t cope with. And then when I’ve got my own thoughts sorted, I’ll come and you’ll be the first person I’ll talk to about our future.

Darling, I know this will be terribly hard and painful for me. But please try and understand it from my viewpoint. Watching you growing ever closer to Grace as you raise your child together will be terribly difficult for me to see and watch. Especially as you know how much I yearned for the second child we never had. And then I have to watch you raise that child with another woman, a woman twenty years my junior.

So please be patient with me and respect my need for this time and space. I promise I’ll come and talk to you as soon as I can, because I know hard this is for you and I hate to hurt you like this.

With all my love, always, Sue xxx’

Tears ran down my cheeks as I read through this letter, first once, then twice and finally a third time. Part of me was relieved that Sue had not upped and left and moved in with Francis. Part of me was terrified at the pain and anguish that shone through in every sentence. And what this meant for the way Sue was thinking and what this was likely to mean for our marriage.

As I re-read the letter for a fourth time, hoping to find some chink o light or hope, I knew I had to drive over and talk to Sue. I didn’t really care whether this was respecting her wishes or not. I had to be active, to have a voice in her thoughts and to show and let her know how much she was the center of my life. Baby or not.

I looked at my watch and saw it was just after seven. Jenny’s house was only twenty minutes away. I didn’t bother to do anything but throw some jogging pants on and brush my teeth. I was out the door and driving inside four minutes, planning what I’d say to Sue as I drove the quiet early morning streets.

When I pulled up outside Jenny and Ken’s house, I wondered what I might walk in on, or not walk in on. Jenny and Ken had an open marriage and I knew there was a fair chance she might not even be home, or that I’d walk in on her shacked up for the night with her black boyfriend, Sean.

There was no surefire winner so I just dialed Jenny’s number. Even in my panicked state ingrained manners had to be observed. It was their house, not Sue’s, so especially at this early hour it was right I contact them rather than Sue.

After a couple of rings, Jenny picked up. “Hey, Pete. I guessed we might be hearing from you. How are you doing?” she asked, with a tangible tone of caring for my terrible predicament.

“I’ve been better, Jen,” was my honest and emotion-laden reply.

“I can see you outside, I’ll be down in a minute to let you in.”

She greeted me with a huge hug, which was just what I needed.

“I’ll go and get Sue and tell her you’re here. Make yourself at home, I’m sure you can work out where the coffee and the food are.”

I know sometimes she’d played games or been a bit of a bitch, but I knew deep down, however Jenny might yank my chain that she’d never do anything to hurt Sue or me. She loved us both too much.

I needed a cup of coffee, and I reckoned Sue would also need something to help her wake up and help the conversation, so I busied myself in the kitchen to brew us all some fresh coffee. Food was too hard as I wasn’t familiar, so coffee would just have to do.

That wonderful fresh coffee went a little way to lifting my spirits. But only a little way, maybe one degree above freezing. The ritual and familiarity and just doing something helped, kept me going until finally a few minutes later an awkward looking Sue appeared at the door to the kitchen in a long flowing nightgown she’d borrowed from Jenny.

“Hi honey,” she said in a faltering and nervous voice.

I looked at her, our eyes locked together, both of us feeling awkward at being in this position after twenty-five years together. It was like two gawky and awkward teenagers, not two mature professionals with a grown son. But I guess love does that to you, however young or old you are.

I lost control and just blurted it out. “Come home, Sue. Please, just come home, and we can work it out together, just like we always do.”

As soon as I’d said it, I knew it was a mistake. I had listened to her letter and heard her cry for room and space. Honestly, I had. But I was frightened and nervous, and I let my own fears and needs trump my ear for Sue’s needs.

Sue was just about to speak, but I held up my hand and closed my eyes in a way I hoped showed contrition.

“Sorry, honey. Let’s start again. Of course, I’d love for you to come home. I love you and I hate it when we’re apart. But if you need time and space, because I know this is a hellish difficult thing, then I’ll try my best to give you what you need. I just wanted to say my piece. To tell you how much I love you. And of course, yes, I need to be there for Grace and the baby, but you’ll always be the be all and end all of my life. The Alpha and the Omega. And I know I screwed up with this thing, and you’re right when you said I’d never walk away from it, but you and Donovan will always be my everything.”

There were tears streaming down Sue’s face as she stood there listening to my words, and she threw herself at me, wrapping her lace clad arms tight around my neck, hugging and holding me tight. Sobs being the only words she could manage as her tears wetted my cheek.

I hugged her back, never wanting to let her go, my heart soaring as I hoped this was it. The storm was over and she’d be coming home with me in a few minutes. I waited patiently for her sobbing to reduce to just a minor squall, as slowly it blew out. When the moment was just right, I gave her an extra hug, kissed her ear through damp hair and eased her back so we could see each other’s faces.

“I love you honey, and I’ll respect what you want to do, always. What do you want to do?”

My heart sank, my earlier hope a fool’s gold. Her voice was gentle and loving, almost as a mother speaks to a child, but the words weren’t what I wanted to hear.

“I love you, Pete. But I need time and space to think. I’m glad you came over. I really am. I really wanted to talk to you last night. I’m glad you came and reminded me of just how much I love you and you love me. But I still need time and space.”

And she continued, giving me words that I would play over and over in my head in the coming days. As if on some old school audio loop. “Pete honey, I’d always known it was going to be hard. But yesterday really brought it home to me just how hard it’s really going to be. And this is just the start. Until now this was a game. You sharing me with Francis, me sharing you with Grace. It was a game, and we set the rules. You and me, Pete. We set the rules to keep us safe. Turning the dial down when it got too much. Too painful, or too risky.”

“But, Pete, honey. The game just ended. The game just became real life. No more turning the knob up and down to control the pain and the risk. Grace and your baby aren’t a game. Not a toy. They’re going to dominate your life for the next twenty years. I’m not saying you’ll have no time for me. But let’s be honest, honey, what’s going to be left for me?”

“But there’ll be plenty of time for you and me, Sue baby,” I cried out, more because I didn’t want to face the truth, rather than because I believed what I was saying.

Sue knew me too well after the life we’d shared all these years. “Do you really believe that, darling?”

I hung my head in shame. “No, not really. It’s just I’m scared, Sue. I didn’t want all this. I was hoping beyond hope that the baby wasn’t mine. Sure, having a baby’s a wonderful thing, but not if it means I lose you or have less time for you.”

Those beautiful green eyes looked back at me. “I’m scared too, honey. But that’s not an excuse for pretending this isn’t there. For ignoring it and hoping it will go away. Before you know it, Grace will need you to be taking her to ante-natal classes. Before this time next year, you’ll be changing diapers, cradling your infant child and looking after an exhausted wife.”

Sue cut herself off instantly, immediately aware of the understandable Freudian slip she’d just made. But as she blushed and we both stared with heightened fear, she continued. She wasn’t in the mood for half-truths. She wanted it all out there.

“I didn’t mean to say that, but it raises a question. Do you want your son or daughter to grow up illegitimate? Without your name, teased by the kids at school? And you can only have one wife, right?”

On a different day in a different situation, one of us might have made a crack about Mormons or Polygamy, but this wasn’t one of those days and Sue had raised another issue I’d rather have avoided.

I looked sheepishly at Sue, somehow feeling like the man I should be, leading all these discussions. Part of my husbandly duties. But throughout our years together, she’d often been the one who’d forced us to face difficult issues, blessed with a better emotional sensitivity than me much of the time.

“Honey, I think now you maybe get why I need some time and space to think about things. It’s going to be hard for both of us. I love you, Pete. Yes, I love Francis, but you’ve always been my man. The one who owns my heart. And I honestly don’t know if I can bear to live in the same house and watch, as the man I love brings up a child with another woman. Watch you do all the things we did with Donovan. It might just break my heart. Day after day. Time after time. Leave me feeling like a dried-up old woman, no use anymore. Just a part of your history.”

Sue was sobbing all over again as she painted this terrible picture of all her worst fears. All I could do was hold her tight, there were no words to help soften or happify her imagined picture of the future. Each step and part she described would happen, so why would the total picture be any less scary than she anticipated.

I don’t know who was grasping who more tightly. We were both terrified at the crossroads we’d reached. Reached due to a freak of nature we’d carelessly allowed to happen. As the winds died down for a second time, I whispered softly my love for Sue.

“I know, Pete honey, and I love you too. But I need some space and time to think. And I promise you I’ll come home and we’ll talk as soon as I’m ready. As soon as I can.”

I looked into Sue’s loving face, the face that had been there morning and night for nearly all my adult life, and I worried more than I’ve ever worried about anything in my entire life. It was like a blackjack table where every risk or every danger I’d ever taken with our marriage had come back to haunt me. All the black markers now piled high on a single square, with all the odds facing away from me.

Sue kissed me with a lingering gentleness and stroked my face. “Honey, I love you. I’ll be home as soon as I can. I’m going to shower now. I’ll see you in a few days.”

She was too loving and gentle to say it directly, but I knew I was lovingly being dismissed. So that the doors could be bolted shut and Sue could go into her one-woman enclave on the future of our marriage. Gently telling me I’d have to wait for the white smoke.

As Sue gave me a final kiss, I looked with every fiber of my being at her as she turned and headed upstairs. She looked stunning in Jenny’s long floaty black nightdress, and this didn’t help my state of mind as I wondered if this might be the last time, I saw Sue with the expectation that we’d still be together.

As I backed out the drive, I felt like a retreating and defeated army as I headed back to Scarsdale, to await the news from Sue’s deliberations

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As I drove back across town, my mind was full of regrets and what-ifs. What-if we’d never gone to the dance for the Homeless Shelter? What-if I’d never encouraged Sue to dance and flirt with Francis? What-if he’d not been a handsome and eligible doctor, grieving for a lost wife and on the look-out for a replacement? What-if I’d never stayed at that hotel in Malawi and met Grace?

So many questions. So many alternate paths that could have been taken, but which remained untrod. If I’d have turned left, not right at any one of a thousand different forks in the road, most likely we’d not have ended up here. We’d not have ended up with me driving alone across town while Sue stayed away, contemplating and deciding the future of our marriage.

As I finally arrived home and pulled in, I was a little dismayed to see Grace’s face at the window. I wanted more than anything to be alone, by myself to maybe work out a way to fix this thing and rescue my marriage. I wasn’t sure I had the energy or will to meet any of Grace’s needs. I knew I should, but there comes a point where there’s nothing left to give. And where other things take priority. I wasn’t going to worry about a knife-fight level of conflict in the Grace and Pete situation, when Sue had a battleship gun pointed right at the thing, I held most dear, our love and marriage. Nothing big, just my entire life and happiness, all I held dear in the world.

Back to the bloody mis-taught scripture, love others before yourself.

“Hi, how are you?” using my last reserves of energy and plastered on bonhomie.

“A lot better than you, by the look of things,” came Grace’s empathetic reply. “I take it this has got to do with Sue?”

My grimace said it all before I spoke a word.

“What’s happened? Where’s she gone?”

“She’s gone to Jenny’s. To think about things. To think about what she wants. What she can cope with. To decide about our marriage.”

I didn’t mean these last words to come out with anger or with spleen. But I guess there’s only so much pain and pressure someone can take before it’s got to vent or leak out in some direction. Never mind if it’s misplaced or misdirected, it’s got to go somewhere, right?

I felt bad, speaking like that. My expression got the message across to Grace.

Grace came over to me and gave me a big hug.

She just held me there for what seemed an age. Just cradling my body to hers, my nose deep in her shampooed hair given our six-inch height difference. Just being held by someone felt good. The fact she was a fragrant, warm, and vibrant young woman did no harm. As she held me there, the disloyal thought went through my head, she had a similar emotional sensitivity and intelligence as Sue.

When the triage was complete, no word spoken, she led me by the hand to the sofa, sitting at the end and making me lie lengthways with my head in her lap. She gently stroked my hair, allowing the silence to envelop and repair me. Words were dangerous. They required thinking and outcomes and risk. Touch and feeling and being had no downsides. Medicine with no side effects.

Her stroking slowly extended from my hair. Stroking became curling. Fingers left my scalp and soothed my troubled brow. My temples and sinuses were touched and stroked, a caring and therapeutic touch with physical and emotional content. She kissed my head a couple of times other times choosing to rub my chest or weave our fingers together to tell me I wasn’t alone in this.

As she continued to minister to me, still not a word exchanged, I began to feel guilty and, I’m ashamed to admit, filled with just a few percent of hope. Hope, because if the worst came to worst, I knew I’d still be heartbroken, but at least I had a woman waiting to love and care for me. To share her life with mine. Guilty because in my slough of despondency I was ignoring her needs. Ignoring what she might be feeling or might need comforting about.

“Sorry.” It felt like the right thing to say.

She kissed my forehead again. “It’s okay. It’s to be expected. I’m here for you, Pete.”

As I lay there with my head in Grace’s lap, it suddenly occurred to me we’d never really had a deep and real conversation about our feelings for each other. Part of me screamed out that this wasn’t the time for this. My emotional engine was going through the wringer, focused on events on the other side of town where no doubt Sue and Jenny were discussing the future of our marriage.

But another part of me said maybe this was exactly what I needed. Maybe a distraction? Maybe a way out, an emotional fire escape should the worst come to the worst? Maybe just because it was the right thing to do? After all, this was the woman carrying my child. Wasn’t it right that she and I should have a deeper conversation about how things really were between us?

Since Grace had been back in New York, we’d grown closer every week and every month. We didn’t over-use the word ‘love’, but we did sometimes use the ‘L word’. Even before Grace became pregnant with my child.

But for me, and I think for Grace, it had never felt like the ‘L word’ that two people use before they embark on engagement or marriage or a deep and exclusive relationship. It was more the kind of love of two people who genuinely care for each, but that doesn’t end up in a long-term exclusive relationship. Not that there was nothing much exclusive about any of my relationships these days.

“How do you feel about me, Grace? If none of this had ever happened, if we’d never made a baby together, how would you say you feel about me?”

“Wow. That’s a big question,” she answered as she scrambled to sort her thoughts. I knew Grace well enough to know she’d be straight with me.

“Honestly, Pete, and don’t read anything weird into this, I do love you, but I love you like a cross between a big brother and a father-figure. I mean, I find you sexy and funny and kind and smart. I love the chats and talks we have. I love spending time with you. I love you like that. Like all of that.”

But there was something she was leaving unsaid. And we both knew it. And I couldn’t let it drop. Not now. Not while a woman on the other side of town was mulling over whether to throw me back into the sea.

“I get all of that, Grace. I do. But there’s something you’re choosing to ignore. Not to say. Do you love me in the sense of thinking about me as a life partner? Someone to build a life with? And not just because we’re going to have a child together. Plenty of people have kids together but aren’t a couple.”

There was a painful, almost never-ending silence. Or at least that’s how it felt to me. My heart sank. Why the hell had I started this bloody conversation. Wasn’t it painful enough that Sue and Jenny were, as we speak, pulling two ends of a saw and sawing their way through my heart? Why the hell had I handed this young woman a hammer and invited her to work on the parts that Jenny and Sue hadn’t reached yet?

The silence went on and on. Grace’s hand was still toying with my hair and soothing my brow, but I felt like any minute I might have to run off, lock myself somewhere secret and burst into tears. To bawl my eyes out until my tear ducts were rendered useless. I just about managed to hold it together, although I was on the edge.

When Grace’s answer to my question finally arrived, I was glad I’d eked out my last reserves of emotional strength.

Grace’s voice was nervous and shy as she allowed me a peek behind the curtain. Into her inner sanctum.

“I never allowed myself to love you in that way, Pete. I never allowed myself to have that hope. To open my heart in that way. I always knew you were married. I always knew you loved Sue. I could have loved you in that way. Sure, why not? You’re a great guy. But I never allowed myself to think like that. I always closed it down. It would have been too painful. I’d be the one lying here with a broken heart, and you’d be the one with the thread and needle.”

How typical of this wonderful young woman. Totally open, making herself vulnerable, but with just a hint of humor.

Her answer wasn’t what I’d been expecting. I’d been expecting a simple binary answer. Yes or No. But Grace’s answer gave me a lot of food for thought.

“Are you saying that if Sue wasn’t around, you’d feel differently about me?” I’ve always felt a need to spell things out. Deeply insecure, grey is a shade that frightens me and I hate. Black and white is my comfortable habitat.

“Fuck,” Grace declared, a real rarity to hear from her mouth. “That’s not fair, Pete. Sue is around. And I’m not going to be the woman to wheedle you away from your wife. That’s not me. It might be Francis, but it’s not me.”

Grace’s words brought me up short. Shamed me. She was the one prepared to stand up for the sanctity of my marriage, while my frightened brain wanted to inch open another door and see what lay behind.

As her hand continued to stroke my brow, the silence descended on us again. I closed my eyes and just wallowed in the feel of her soft fingers in my hair and on my head. It wasn’t fixing the problem, but it was a passable pain-killer. A mid-level Codeine when Morphine would have been nicer.

I think Grace sensed my guilt at the conversation’s previous direction of travel. Despite her tender years, she was equal to it. Gently lifting my head and then my whole body, before pulling me to my feet.

This time the hand that had led me to the sofa led me to the stairs and led me then back to the empty master bedroom. The letter was still lying on the bed, where I’d left it earlier. Grace didn’t hide from this, she looked directly at the letter as a very clear signal.

Then she kissed me and had me sit on the end of the bed. Her large brown eyes, physically so different from Sue’s green eyes but offering the same window to the soul, looked deeply into mine.

“Pete, darling. I know you’re frightened and I know you’re hurting. But know this. I don’t know what Sue’s going to decide. But what I do know is that you’re not going to be alone at the end of this. You’ll either have Sue back and a dear friend who doesn’t allow herself to love you. Or you’ll have an ex-wife who never stops loving you and a woman who’ll be by your side as the three of us build and explore a new life.”

Her words were beautiful and poetic, and I cried. I was more than double this woman’s age, with more education than her family had ever been able to afford, but she left me for dead when it came to her humanity and her real intelligence.

With tears on my cheeks, I took her head between my hands. I saw in her eyes permission to kiss her and make love to her. A permission given even though she knew it eased the lid up on a possible world of hurt for her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I don’t know how I should feel as I describe the rest of that Saturday and the Sunday that followed. Part of me feels guilty. The ache and pain and worry were still there in my heart. But to a large extent, both of us allowed ourselves to shut out the outside world and not allow it to hurt us.

It was ten a.m. on Saturday morning when Grace led me upstairs to our master bedroom. A choice of bedroom she later told me was symbolic. Not in a snatching, negative way. But as a sign to me that however things turned out, I’d not be alone. And, apart from the odd break to collect food or stuff like that, it was seven a.m. on Monday morning when we next left the bedroom. Aside from showers and our necessities, we spent all of that time in bed. Mostly talking and exploring our relationship at a deeper level than ever before. But also, of course, using our bodies. As a way of sharing and expressing our new deeper feelings for each other.

A big part of me knew I was giving myself a possible big problem for the future. On Friday night, when we’d returned from the paternity test, I’d felt bad enough choosing whose bedroom to visit first. And I knew the longer Grace and I spent like this then the harder any future choices might be for both of us. But when you’re terrified, you’re about to have your legs sawn off, you opt for Morphine not Codeine. However short-sighted, my choice made sense. For Grace, not so much.

I loved the time we spent together making love. It was a throwback to our time in Malawi, only better. Before the pregnancy, things had been great, but without the excitement of back in Africa. After the announcement of the pregnancy, Grace and I still made love when Sue was with Francis Tu-Fr-Su. But it was like the pregnancy threw a big blanket of worry and unanswered questions over us, so our love-making was no longer the carefree and hedonistic pleasure it had been before.

But the baring of our souls that morning stripped away that blanket and took things to a higher plane. Like when propellers gave way to jets, or sail to steam. We’d been lovers now for nearly a year, but that weekend Grace and I explored each other’s bodies with a vigor and a freshness that was amazing. Maybe weird as a thought, it reminded me of our old family dog: A beautiful golden lab who’d excitedly explore the garden with it’s fresh dew every morning, as if he’d never seen it before; his nose leading him around to every nook and cranny, enjoying every little nuanced scent; his tail a wagging radio antenna transmitting his happiness back to his family watching over their breakfast bowls.

That was Grace and me. I couldn’t be hard all the time. Being hard and being deep in her body, either close and loving or doggy and animalistic, was wonderful. We both loved these parts of the weekend, our bodies united, somehow feeling all the more special as I shot my load into a body, we both knew was already carrying the tribute to our closeness.

But the times we kissed and nibbled, touched and stroked were just as special. With all manner of positions possible over the day and a half we shared.

At times I felt on cloud nine. Unbelieving of my luck, an ordinary looking guy of forty-nine snuggled up in bed with this amazing sexy and smart twenty-two-year-old. When I confessed this to Grace, she just giggled. Joking that maybe this was the way of her tribe. The elder of the tribe being the de facto chief and picking out whichever sweet young girl he fancied for himself. I quibbled at her self-image as a ‘sweet young girl’, but we both laughed at the idea.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By Monday morning I was spent, Grace having milked me dry for one last time. I suspected that, with youth on her side, she had a few more rounds left in the tank. But she looked happy enough as I dropped her at the hospital, providing the lift that Sue normally provided.

I then drove off to work, and of course, this was when my panicked mood from Saturday morning crowded back in. Grace was no longer by my side, as distraction and placebo. Unfortunately, Monday was a slow day at work, which gave me plenty of time to worry and think.

I wasn’t as despondent as I’d been on Saturday morning. Grace and what she’d said about her feelings had seen to that. But I still had a dull, deep ache at the thought of what Sue might decide.

A couple of times during the weekend I’d reached out to Sue and dropped her a text to tell her how much I loved her. And a couple of times she’d replied in kind. But with no hint forthcoming as to what she was thinking or what conclusions she might have reached.

Despite all our history, I was glad she had Jenny there as a sounding board. Despite all her bluster and sometimes questionable influence and antics, I knew she loved Sue and me as surrogate sister and brother. And that she was smart and wise and would give Sue good counsel and prompt and probe her thinking with the kinds of questions we all need when we’re thinking over such huge life choices.

It was about two p.m. I got a text from Sue saying that she loved me and that she’d see me at home later, for the discussions she knew I wanted to have. Other than that, her text was non-committal. I tried to stop myself doing it, but I must have analyzed that short text every way possible, trying to tease out some hint or sign as to Sue’s thinking. But however hard I tried, there was no blood to be squeezed from the stone.

I cursed my luck that on an otherwise quiet day, I had a conference call that wouldn’t end until six-thirty. Meaning I’d be home after Sue. I wanted to be home before her and prepare myself and everything else. But the call was with my boss’s boss and so there was no way I could skip it or shunt it or delegate it.

Finally, the call was done, and at least I left the office on a high note with the head man complimenting my team on our financial results and the quality of our work and client feedback.

I had his positive words still buzzing in my ears as I drove back to Scarsdale, desperately trying to stop myself thinking about what lay ahead. I was pretty successful and then finally I turned into our road and my mind suddenly went to hell in a handbasket.

My brain turned to mush as I saw not one, but two cars parked in our drive, where I’d only expected to see Sue’s mid-size. Because right behind Sue’s mid-size was parked Francis’ large black Escalade.

I actually pulled up in the street. Closing my eyes and wondering if I had the strength to go on in. This could only mean one thing. Why else would he be here?

(Thanks to cbears52 for his kind help in fixing my normal list of mistakes.)