AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“My current husband. We’ve been together for fifteen years now, and we have an eight-year-old daughter. Trent owns Mountainscapes Landscaping, Tree Removal, and View Enhancements, and I work for Tuttle and Sons Realty in the Luxury Mountain Homes Division.”
“She’s good at it too. She outsells the other agents three to one,” Erin adds.
I turn to her. “What about you?” I ask.
She told me she was on her second marriage too.
“My first husband was cheating on me with one of his friends’ wives. It went on for a while unnoticed until one of her co-workers spied them together after hours, and word got out. When the talk finally reached my ears, I confronted him. He denied it for a while, but he eventually fessed up. I kicked his ass out, and I moved into one of the apartments out beside the fairgrounds. Ted moved into the apartment three doors down later that year. He’s a big ole bear of a man who works for the Department of Fish and Wildlife, and there was just something about him that made my pulse race. Before I knew it, I was at the altar again.”
“So, you’re all happily married now?” I ask.
“Except for Ansley. She’s too busy pining over Garrett Tuttle to give any other man a chance,” Jena says.
“I am not pining over Garrett!” Ansley protests.
“Right. You haven’t so much as batted an eyelash at another man since he took off to Nashville,” Erin says.
“That’s not true. I’ve dated a few people. I just haven’t married any of them. I figure I’ll just skip that first bad marriage all of you had and go straight into that second good one.”
“That’s not a bad plan. I wish I’d thought of it. It would have saved me a lot of trouble,” I say.
“Yeah, she found out her husband was fooling around and knocked up his assistant,” Erin tells them.
“Y’all want to know the most pathetic part?” I ask.
Erin leans in and starts rolling her hand in invitation. “Lay it on us.”
“It wasn’t the first time. About a year before, I caught him in a hotel room with an X-ray tech.”
They gasp.
“You did?” Ansley asks.
I nod.
“Yep. He was in Chicago for a conference. I usually accompany him for those, but Caleb had a band recital that weekend, so I stayed home, and he went alone. During the recital, I got an emergency call from Damon’s mother. His father was having chest pains, and she had called an ambulance. She was frantic and wanted Damon and me to meet them at the hospital. So, I left Caleb with one of the other band moms, and I started calling Damon. His phone just rang and went straight to voice mail. I figured he was probably mingling with colleagues at the hotel after their meeting, so I drove straight into the city and decided to pick him up on the way to Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
“When I got to the Palmer House, I valeted and ran to the desk to find out what room he was in. I had my ID out and told the clerk who I was, and before I could say another word, she started apologizing. She said, ‘Oh, Mrs. Lowder, we’re so sorry you had to come down. We were just about to deliver the extra towels you requested.’ Confused, I said there was no need and I could take them myself. She waved over a worker who had an armful of towels, and I took them. Then, I looked back to her and said I walked out of my room without my key, so she told the other desk clerk to make me a new key for suite 2026. I took the room key and the towels, and I rushed up the elevator.
“When I entered his room, a woman was in the bed, and she sat up and let out a scream before yelling at me that I shouldn’t just enter their room without knocking. Damon ran from the bathroom, fresh from his shower, and I threw the towels at him as he started trying to explain that it wasn’t what I thought.”
“Did you kick him in the balls?” Jena asks.
I halt my tale and blink in her direction.
“Did you?” she asks again.
“No,” I answer.
“Why the hell not? He was standing there in his birthday suit; it was the perfect opportunity to nail his nuts,” Erin interjects.
“I didn’t think to. I just wanted him to get dressed and for us to get out of there.”
“You should have kicked his ass, broken his legs, or something, and then loaded him up to go to the hospital. You were already headed that way,” Jena adds.
“I didn’t have time to process. I was in concerned daughter-in-law mode.”
Erin shrugs. “Sucks you missed the chance.”
“Yeah, hindsight,” I agree.
“Then, what happened?” Ansley pushes me to continue.
I take a deep breath.
“I told him about his dad and demanded he got dressed,” I say.
“What did the tramp do?” Erin asks.
“She leaped from the bed and wrapped her arms around him to console him.”
“The nerve!” Ansley screeches.
“I hope you yanked her hair out of her head,” Jena squeals.
“Did you kick her in the twat?” Erin asks.
I shake my head.
“Dammit,” Erin bellows.
“I know. I should have done all of that. Instead, I picked him up and drove him to the hospital, where we spent the night comforting his mother and praying for his father, who ended up having bypass surgery. Damon was in doctor mode, and I was caught up in the emotional support role. By the time his father was home and recovering at our house, it all got shoved under the rug. Damon apologized. Said it had never happened before and would never happen again, and I was stupid enough to believe him.”
The table goes silent for a moment.
“The worst part is, I’d worked so hard to keep us afloat all those years. We only had one child because we couldn’t handle more at the time. Hell, Caleb was raised by television and video games while we both worked our asses off. We were finally in a place where we were going to start reaping the rewards. The practice was thriving, and we both had more time. Time to be a family, to travel, to make Caleb the priority. I didn’t want to throw that away over one indiscretion, so I forced myself to believe him. How pathetic does that make me?”
Erin sighs. “Yeah, well, we’ve all been stupid before. I believed my first husband too, at first.”
“So did I. I believed him when he said he was going to stop drinking,” Jena adds.
