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“That’s a lovely idea.”
“It’s not just an idea. It can be our reality, but only if it’s what we both want. Never in a million years would I want you to feel pressured into something you don’t want or aren’t ready for.”
He slides his hand down my back to squeeze my ass. “I think I’ve proven repeatedly that I’m interested.”
“After the dry spell you had, any naked female body would’ve sufficed,” I say in a teasing tone, echoing our first night together.
“I already told you that’s not true at all. I would’ve turned anyone else away, naked or not.”
“Really?”
“Yes, Iris,” he says on a sigh. “Really. If I was going to do that for the first time after being widowed, it wasn’t going to be with some random person.”
“Like I did.”
“Still no judgment. I swear. I just couldn’t make myself do it.”
“I wish I hadn’t done it that way, although at the time, it felt necessary to my survival. Imagine that I felt like I was cheating on Mike by doing it with someone else. Ironic, huh?”
“Very.”
“I think I want to talk to her.”
“Who?”
“The mother of his other child.”
“Iris…”
“I know what you’re going to say, and I even agree with all the reasons you’ll tell me it’s a bad idea. But I want to understand what happened between them and how he could’ve had another family I didn’t know about.”
“I understand that need to know, but what concerns me is how it might devastate you.”
“I’m sure it will, but at least I’ll know.”
I want so badly to throw myself in front of her doing this, to protect her from being hurt ever again.
“You know how everyone tells us that time heals and how angry that makes us?” she asks.
“I do. I got to the point where I feared I might punch the next person who said that to me.”
“Right? Ugh. But here’s the thing about the passage of time… I feel oddly disconnected from Mike and our marriage after almost three years without him. What would’ve been unfathomable to me when he was here feels different after so much time without him. I’m not explaining it well.”
“No, you are. I get what you’re saying. Enough time has gone by that you don’t feel married to him anymore, and as a result, finding out he was unfaithful hits differently than it would have before you lost him.”
“Yes,” she says on a long exhale. “Don’t get me wrong. It still hurts like a motherfucker, but I feel this odd sense of detachment from it, as if it happened to someone else. It’s the hardest thing to explain.”
“I get it.”
“That’s why I think I can handle talking to her and finding out more about what went on between them.”
“I still wish you wouldn’t.”
“I know, and I appreciate the concern.” After a long pause, she gives me a pointed look. “You know what would devastate me?”
“What’s that?”
“If you were to dothiswith someone else while you’re doing it with me.”
