“There are no words,” Rory said.
Jasper groaned. Didn’t look up. Still sitting next to Jasper, I bounced my eyes back and forth between them. Before Jasper returned home, I thought it might be easy enough to forgive and forget, but I hadn’t realized how angry Jasper was. My son was intent on protecting me.
Rory cleared his throat. “Can we talk, Jasper?”
Jasper chose silence.
“I’m going to talk,” Rory said. “You don’t have to say a word. I know I don’t deserve for you to listen. I don’t even deserve to be here. But I will say my piece. Then I’ll get out of your way.”
With his hands at his sides, Rory began a long apology I interpreted as heartfelt. My husband was broken. He was sad. After his attempt at some sort of explanation—how he’d been drowning in work and life—he pleaded, “Don’t give up on me.” He instantly broke into a cry and could barely speak for a while. Ending his plea, he said, “Please don’t give up on me, family. You’re all I have. Let me make this right.”
“Rory, these are not decisions that can be made right now,” I said.
My husband raised his hand, that familiar gesture I knew so well. “I know that. I don’t expect decisions to be made right now. You can take as long as you want. I’m not going anywhere. I justwant to know what I can do for you. How can I help you both get through this?”
“Oh, c’mon, Rory,” Jasper said with contempt. “Don’t pretend to care now.”
“Please don’t call me Rory.”
“Would douchebag be more appropriate?”
Though I didn’t disagree with the nomenclature, I intervened with, “Jasper, don’t stoop to his level.”
A few long beats of silence stung the air, all of us staring away.
Rory ran a hand through his hair. “That’s fair. It’s all fair.” He sighed. “I would never need to pretend to care. You two are my everything. Jasper, things become complicated when you grow older. You can lose your way. I lost mine. We can get through this. We will look back one day and know that we stuck together. I can find help. I can leave the office. I can go back to being a lawyer. I will focus on family, nothing else. Enough of this “climb to the top” mentality. It’s hell to pay, but if we can find any good out of what’s happened, this whole public debacle, it’s that I clearly see how awful I’ve been. I’ll never slip back to that man again. What do you say, Jasper? Can we at least try to work through this thing?”
Jasper slid his plate away and pushed away from the island. He walked up to his dad, stopping a foot from him. Jasper was much shorter. They locked eyes, and I had no idea what would happen next. Had Jasper already forgiven him? Maybe he was young and strong enough that he could move past it.
Jasper finally said to his father, “You’re dead to me.” With that, he turned back and approached me. He offered a faint smile and whispered that he loved me. It was then that his eyes revealed the enormous pain weighing him down.
I caught myself from falling as all the air escaped my lungs.
“Jasper,” I whispered. I opened my arms to him, but he turned away and left the kitchen.
I pointed toward the front door in the other room and said to my husband, “Go. Go.”
As he turned to leave, I fell to my knees and broke into tears.
Never do you think this will happen to you. We were so happy. Our meet-cute in New York, our wedding, our first few years. Your friends go through divorces and your heart breaks for them, but you secretly think:they must not have what we have.
How’d that work out for you, Margot?
12
SYSTEM ERRORS
How is it that some people become depressed and stop eating for weeks? It’s the perfect diet. Almost worth the depression. I, unfortunately, don’t fit into this category.
Two days after the media broke the news, complete with a sexually explicit video showing my husband cheating on me, I broke down. When dealing with emotional turmoil, some might not be able to eat a morsel, but I tossed my diet out the window. After all, I do cook my feelings, and when I’m depressed, I eat them too. All of them, every morsel in sight, like Pac-Woman.Chomp. Chomp. Chomp.
What the heck was the point of eating air anymore?
Though the news of my husband’s sexual misconduct wouldn’t fully go away for months, our public debacle was no longer the headline-breaking news alert on local news programming, and our story was no longer front-page news in the local newspapers. The lengths of the articles and the sizes of the fonts, thankfully, had decreased and were published a few pages deeper in. But, let’s face it, the story would remain in the memories of many fordecades. I still hadn’t left the house since the news broke. Neither had Jasper. A few news vans still lingered on the main road.
Rory and I texted each other. Not like we were friends or lovers. Texts about logistics. He’d already done his time with the press, confessing the error of his ways and asking that the media and public respect the family’s privacy during this difficult time. Just like that was all there was to it. The four-step program. Indiscretion. Public humiliation. Publicly accept full responsibility. Ask for privacy. Done? Is that supposed to wipe the slate clean? He even stopped by the house several times to talk. We still had lots of details we had to work out if we were ever going to see the other side of this hell.
One by one, I returned calls to my friends and family and thanked them for their concern. I’d let them know if I needed anything. Offering to help was what people thought they were supposed to do, but realistically, whatcouldanyone else do to help? Bringing a casserole by felt like bringing brass knuckles to a nuclear war. No offence to casseroles; I really like them under most circumstances.
