Caitlin stepped into the air conditioned hallway and set their bags on the sofa. Hunter shut the door behind her. She exchanged a smile with her husband, knowing they would remember the afternoon forever. Not because their purchases were substantial, but because it was one more sign that their children were growing all too fast.
“Do I look like a kindergartner?” Melissa’s voiced faded at the far end of her twirl. She looked ready for first grade, though that didn’t make either of her parents any more ready for her transition. Amy was three years older than her sister, and though they had experienced a particular pain in releasing their first born to the unknown, it was a sharper cut knowing the first verse of their collective song was ending.
“You look beautiful, Sweetheart,” Hunter said, finishing the sentiment with a kiss on his younger daughter’s cheek.
“You do look quite pretty,” Caitlin agreed, “but I think that one looks a tad big on you.” She was right, the navy blue tennis dress hung on Melissa like a pea coat on a coat hanger. Caitlin turned to Hunter and softly shook her head. “You were right, we should’ve ordered online.”
“Nah, no big deal,” Hunter smiled. “We would have had to wait for shipping anyway. If I get online right now we should still get the new dresses a week or so before school starts.”
“I could wear the dress,” Amy offered.
“No, you can’t, it’s too small.” Caitlin chewed on the edge of her lip. Most of her wanted to give Amy the response she’d been looking for since her first little outburst at breakfast, but the mother in her was now nearing a decade and getting wiser by the day.
Caitlin turned to Melissa, “Daddy’s going to order you a couple of tennis dresses that fit.” Then to Amy, “Why don’t you both come help me get ready for dinner.” Hunter smiled, grateful for the even trade and eager for a minute alone. He retrieved Caitlin’s laptop from the table then claimed her groove in the couch. He lifted the lid and went straight to the browser’s history, trying to remember if it was just the day before or the day before that when they had been LCD window shopping for school uniforms. Hunter scrolled down the History and let the blue bar blink on the address he was looking for.
The name he prayed he’d never see again was staring up at Hunter from the bottom of the page – Garrett. He saw it for only a second, but that second was enough to bristle every hair on his body. Confusion danced with horror as Hunter sent the browser away from the uniforms and back toward the White Pages directory search showing the first and last name of the final man his wife had slept with before saying “I do.”
She wouldn’t dare.
A hot gust of dry August air wafted through the window and pulled Hunter’s mind toward a long ago summer afternoon when he had been laying on her bed, alone in her apartment, with a pillow covering his ears as the third voice mail of a friend or family member saying, “Give my best to Garrett!” issued its final click.
Even after a year of dating, Hunter had still felt like a perpetual secret, but that was long ago and mostly forgotten. They had spent the last decade blending future with family. Why would she be looking him up now?
Worse, why would she be keeping it a secret?
Nightmares of suspicion shook the bars of Hunter’s sleep for the next two nights, leaving him agitated by daylight as envy and insecurity set up camp in the halls of his brain. Hunter was in constant quiet rehearsal, forever attempting to string the right sequence of words together. He wanted to be ready to speak when he finally gathered the courage to open his mouth. Though when the time did arrive, Hunter could only surrender his thoughts to timidity while doing his best to ignore the bitter taste of betrayal that coated his tongue.
“You okay, or has part of you gone on holiday?” Caitlin asked, approaching her husband from behind and pressing her thumbs gently into the small of his back as her fingers kneaded the base of his neck. He was sitting in his favorite chair, clearly not reading the book in his lap.
Hunter took a look at the page number, then closed his book and tossed it on the coffee table. “I’ve been dreaming that you cheated on me,” he said, sheathing his hurt in an awkward smile. “For the last couple of nights now.”
“Cheating on you,” Caitlin laughed, “with what time?” She stepped in front of Hunter and sat beside him on the sofa, then removed her glasses and looked him in the eyes. “Don’t be silly. You know I’ve never cheated on anyone, and I sure wouldn’t cheat on you. You are everything to me. You’ve either been watching too much trashy TV or reading way too many tabloid headlines at Albertson’s.”
The inner coward was thick in Hunter’s throat. “You’re right,” he said.
Caitlin brushed her hands across his legs, kissed Hunter on the cheek, then left him behind. He was oddly comforted. Was he really that naive, or did Caitlin really have nothing to hide?
Hunter almost laughed out loud as he realized for the first time that there might be something more to what he saw. Perhaps she was even doing something for him. He had been miserable at the office without a hope of promotion. Garrett, he knew, was the hiring manager at one of the best accounting firms in the city, one that would likely pay a healthy percentage more in tangible take home and probably pay as much as double in appreciation.
Things at work had been growing increasingly difficult and Caitlin could probably nab him the new job with a simple phone call. Still, if that was her plan he certainly deserved to know.
Two weeks passed without incident and the initial episode wormed its way to the back of Hunter’s thoughts to settle in with the rest of life’s unfinished business.
“I need your phone,” Caitlin said as she plugged her pink LG into the charger and dropped Hunter’s in her purse. “Mine’s about to die.”
Hunter smiled at her usual routine. “Drive safe,” he said with a playful salute.
“I don’t know about that,” Caitlin laughed. “If Amy gives me any more attitude, I might just find a nice brick wall to plow into.”
It wasn’t until Hunter decided to order a half cheese, half pepperoni pizza about half an hour later, when the green demon returned to its nest. He flipped Caitlin’s phone open to search for the number to Mossimo’s, but his eyes instantly fell on the row of numbers two-thirds to the bottom. Numbers are second nature to Hunter and it took him all of a second to recognize Garret’s seven digits staring at him on the screen. He clicked view, heart thudding just loud enough to hear, and saw that Garrett’s number had been dialed the previous Friday morning, about five minutes after he had left the house.
There’s nothing to worry about, man. You’re being silly. She’s doing something for you. Hunter almost had himself convinced. Even so, Caitlin’s quiet cut like the mean side of a fresh razor.
Hunter checked the time, quickly calculated the 40 or so minutes before Caitlin would return with the girls, then quickly walked toward the bedroom and headed straight for Caitlin’s laptop and the people search he’d landed on a couple weeks before.
What he saw gave birth to an instantly dry throat and complete hollowness in his bones. Hunter stared at the screen for seconds that felt like minutes, flirting with the thought of sifting through Caitlin’s entire hard drive. Instead, he closed the browser, shut the lid and returned her laptop to the nightstand next to her journal. Though it was tempting to tear through the pages in search of the truth, if the Universe was testing him, Hunter intended to pass.
His mind’s eye rewound to the last time he almost went too far, during their first “break” when he had spent Super Bowl Sunday driving through Garrett’s hoity-toity neighborhood, trying to get a glimpse of Caitlin’s lime green Neon. This was back in the late nineties before the Internet had crept into every unguarded corner of the country. Now finding the address of your rival was almost as easy a few diligent points and clicks. Back then it had required the investment of an aimless afternoon.
Hunter had driven around for a couple of blocks, then turned the car around, angry at himself for each of the hundred thousand things that had led him to that moment. He drove the 40 minutes back to his hotel room in the pouring rain, tears streaming down his face as a series of intentionally sad songs sounded through the radio. They had made up the following weekend and Hunter admitted he had spent Super Bowl Sunday looking for her. Caitlin had rolled her eyes.
“Why would I be there?” she asked. “I haven’t seen Garrett once since I met you. Honestly,” she shook her head, “I have no idea why you give him so much power.”
He didn’t know then and wasn’t sure now.
Of course that all happened before the girls. With two daughters, one with his exact same brooding shade of hazel in her eyes and the other, with her father’s mottle of chestnut hair, life was good. He and Caitlin had never been closer and he hadn’t a single legitimate reason to doubt her. Yet the possibility was there; a wind’s whisper turning to argument.
Hunter heard the key turning in the lock and felt grateful he had let his Jiminy Cricket do the walking. The door swung open and all three of his girls poured into the room. “It’s so quiet in here,” Caitlin said.
“I was just thinking.”
“Yeah, but you’re usually just thinking to some Hendrix, maybe the Stones if you’re feeling thoughtful,” Caitlin said.
Hunter laughed, Caitlin’s calm repose massaging the doubt from his mind.
“I guess I was feeling quiet more than thoughtful.”
“Ah,” Caitlin smiled. “Are you feeling quiet like a glass of wine quiet, or quiet like you need some time alone in your office quiet?”
Hunter exhaled and tried to decide. Not only what he thought he should say, but the true tenor of what he was feeling. After a long pause he said, “I don’t really want to be alone right now. I’m glad you guys are home.”
Melissa crawled like a kitten into her daddy’s lap.
“Mommy said she would take us to story time at the library tomorrow, but Amy said she was too old for stupid baby books, so mom said she could just stay home and stare at the grown-up books on the shelf.”
“Well, maybe your sister is jealous that story time is more for you than her these days,” Hunter said, “Sometimes we don’t like it when the spotlight isn’t on us.”
Melissa smiled and Amy scowled. Hunter could hear the sound of clinking wine glasses coming from the kitchen.
Dinner was delicious and Hunter found it relatively easy to relax into the full body of his aged wine. After a quickly-abandoned game of Monopoly and a drawn out round of bedtime stories, Hunter and Caitlin finally found themselves alone on the couch.
“It’s hot tonight,” Caitlin said, pouring the last drop of wine into Hunter’s goblet. “You trying to get me drunk,” he said.
“It’s never taken much.”
“Nah, I’m only pretending. You’ve never actually seen me drunk.”
Caitlin’s rolled her eyes. “Brian, Maya and everyone at their wedding would disagree.”
Sudden laughter drifted into lingering silence. Half a minute later, Caitlin picked up her glass and grabbed her tongue from the cat. “You still think I’m cheating on you,” she asked somewhere just above a whisper.
“I never thought you were cheating on me.”
Their eyes met, the room now just dark enough to prompt shadows to dance by the light of the single candle flickering on the coffee table. Caitlin pulled Hunter into her gaze and smiled. “I love you, Hunter,” she said, eyes fastened to his. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you.” She set her glass on the table. “Nothing. If there’s something on your mind, you have to tell me. I can’t help you if I don’t know and I don’t really feel like guessing.”
Hunter squirmed against the challenge, cast a glance at his empty glass and then picked up Caitlin’s, swallowing the four year old Merlot in three rapid gulps.
“When’s the last time you’ve spoken to Garrett?”
As though his nerves weren’t already in ragged spools of frayed wire, Caitlin gave vent to a cool laugh. “Is that what this is about?”
Hunter quickly drifted from confusion to anger. How could she be so dismissive? Mounting ire sharpened his tone. “Why are you calling him?”
“I’m not calling him, Hunter.” All levity fled from her tone. “I called him once and let it ring twice before hanging up.”
“Why?” Memories like smudged fingerprints began to blot his ability to reason.
“I don’t know really,” she said, “I guess I was just curious. He crossed my mind, I wondered why, then did something about it.”
“Why wouldn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what? That I called an old friend to see how he was doing?”
“No.” Hunter was seized with a sudden urgency to flee. He didn’t want to have this conversation, but knew if he didn’t face the darkness, he would live with ripe regret for who knew how long. “You should’ve told me you were calling the one who got away.” Hunter’s voice quivered at the edge of composure before collapsing completely into a cold puddle of gradually gathered sorrow.
Caitlin did the unthinkable and surrendered to a dizzying fit of guffaws and giggles as Hunter’s heart continued to shatter. A chill like a knife slipped into his side. There it stood – the undeniable fact – he was lying waist deep in the cracked fissure of betrayal and all she could do was mock him.
What had happened and where had he gone wrong?
“Hunter, honey,” Caitlin pulled her husband toward her, swept the hair from his face and then lowered his head onto her chest. “You’re sitting on a broken pew in the wrong church. There is no one walking on this big blue marble that I’ll ever love more than you, and our two girls are marching right behind. There’s no room for Garrett or anyone else. Yes, I called him. I’m not even sure why and I’m sure as hell sorry I didn’t tell you when I decided to grab the passing whim. But believe me, it had everything to do with me and nothing to do with you. You have to stop giving him power. We’ve been together for more than 10 years. That’s longer than I’ve been with anyone and nearly a quarter of the time I’ve been walking on the planet.”
“But I was always a secret with your little crowd, never good enough to introduce. If you hadn’t met me you would probably be married to him right now.”
Caitlin sighed, then slid into the cushions, lifted Hunter’s chin and locked their eyes together. “I’m human, and since I’m human I’m going to occasionally do some stupid shit – no different from you. Gun to head, I probably wanted Garrett to know that you and I were happy and maybe see if he was happy too. Maybe there’s a part of me that saw it as an open loop that needed closing. I’m not sure, and we either need to open another bottle or you can take the girls and give me a long afternoon of think time to figure it out. Either way, we’re fine and this has nothing to do with you. Yeah you were a secret. You were my secret, way too dear to share with that gaggle of shallow people who would have loved nothing more than to tear you down. You meant too much to me to share. Every day I was with you, they meant less. They were my past, you were my future and every moment widened the gap. I love you, Hunter. And I’m sorry. What more do you want me to say?”
“Nothing,” Hunter smiled and put his lips to hers. “I was so scared.”
“You don’t ever need to be. Not with me.”
Hunter stared into her eyes and let relief color the desert of his previous two weeks. “I’m sorry for doubting you,” he said, hating himself for thinking of Maya.
Writer Dad
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