Infidelity (18 page)

( CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE )

“Charlie, we have to end this. For good. You need to stop calling me.”

He had known it was coming. That it had in fact already come, but that he needed to hear her to say it.

“It's not healthy for either of us, and I need to take some time to take care of myself right now.”

“Why, Ronnie? Why do you need to take care of yourself right now?”

It had been weeks and weeks and he had been sending message after message to Ronnie with no response. While he was making real efforts to repair things with Tamara from his hotel room across town, he obsessively checked his email for a sign from Ronnie.

“Tell me you're okay, Ronnie. I worry about you. I miss you so much. Please. I just want to see you.”

“Charlie, you know I can't do that. Not after what happened. Now that your wife knows. Now that you've decided. Now that you've chosen.”

He wanted to know if she was crying. It would mean something if she was crying.

“I just need some time, Ronnie. Some time to fix things. I told you that. I need you to be patient.”

“Too many things have happened, Charlie. Things are different now.”

In his messages he had explained at length how he was sorry, how important it was to try to mend a marriage, that there were so many more people to consider than merely himself. That people were counting on him to be a good husband and father and he couldn't let them down.

Ronnie was pretty sure that this was all a lie, that the reason he was attempting to repair his marriage was because he was terrified of losing the comforts he had grown accustomed to, financial and otherwise. That he was terrified of what other people would think of him. Charlie was gifted at the cultivation of shame; the idea that colleagues, friends, and family would see him as the man whose wife left him and took their child with her was more devastating than the loss of Ronnie in his life.

“What has happened, Ronnie? Tell me what has happened.”

All the freedom he needed to see Ronnie was finally his, in his hotel room where he was never expected to go home, and she was nowhere to be found. The colliding of his life with hers, how real it had all become at his front door and at her place of work, had proven too much for her to handle.

“Answer me, Ronnie.
What
has happened?”

“Nothing. It just isn't right anymore. It isn't fun anymore,” she said.

Fun?
he thought.
What a strange word to use.

“Will it do any good if I ask you to come back to me?” Charlie asked, defeated.

“No, Charlie. It's too late for that now.”

Ronnie knew that love couldn't conquer all. It certainly could conquer most, but it could never erase the reality that Charlie would need to be housed and fed when he was writing poetry. Ronnie's insecurities that she was somehow lesser than Charlie because she didn't have a “calling,” as she put it, were entirely false. Charlie's calling had made him weak and needy. It made him dependent on Tamara and the stability she constantly provided.

“Charlie, we have to end this. For good. I don't think you should email or call me anymore.”

“Please don't. Please don't go. Please just see me one more time. Just one more.”

“It's no use. There's no point.”

“I want to kiss you one more time. Touch you one more time.”

“Don't embarrass yourself, Charlie.”

“There's got to be something worth saving. Anything?”

While it seemed Ronnie had achieved what she had been looking for . . . Charlie without wife . . . she knew the split only increased his longing for his family. Ronnie was wary of consoling him while he lamented the loss. While Charlie spoke mostly of missing Noah, Ronnie knew it was more than that.

When an affair ends, it is difficult to pinpoint why and how it started in the first place.

A witty joke, a shared cookie, and a shot glass in a pocket?

The brashness of writing an unsolicited letter?

A flask of peach schnapps?

A lemon-yellow dress and a fuck in the afternoon?

Ronnie knew Charlie wanted his wife, his life, and while Charlie sobbed Tamara's name and drank himself to sleep in that terrible hotel room on Jarvis, Ronnie spent time convincing herself that she would find away to dissolve the affair.

She was convinced.

“There's nothing real to hold on to here. There never was.”

( CHAPTER SIXTY )

Charlie stumbled around U of T campus in the early spring rain a wounded, lost man, a bottle of whisky concealed in his jacket. He knew that Tamara had Noah and Ronnie had Aaron and that he only had a whisky bottle and a manuscript about a girl he could no longer fuck. The idea of finishing the novel was terrifying; excessive amounts of time spent in a world he'd created to celebrate Ronnie.

A waste.

He would attempt to work in the library, in a café, at the bar, anywhere but the sad, dark hotel room that had become his home, an award-winning author without a real place to write. The time he spent pretending to work was bearable, but when he returned to his room on Jarvis Street he found he would fall into a pit of longing that only drinking could float him out of.

He would pick up the phone to call Ronnie and then hang up before all the numbers were dialled.

He would pick up the phone to call Tamara and then hang up before the numbers were dialled.

He would fanaticize about confronting Aaron, letting him know that he loved Ronnie more than he ever could.

He rehearsed the scenes in his head over and over, composing the words he would say to each of them to repair the situation to his liking, imagining he had the courage for each confrontation.

But he knew that simply wasn't true.

“We have to end this, not that there's much to end anymore,” Ronnie would say.

“You're an amazing woman, Veronica,” he would say.

( CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE )

Ronnie came in from the back porch just as Aaron returned to the apartment from running errands. She clutched a red lipstick–smeared wineglass and inhaled deeply as she heard his key in the lock. Ramona scrambled toward the front door to greet him, her claws echoing against the hardwood floor as she slid to a stop and jumped to his chest.

“Ronnie? I'm home,” he called from the front hall.

She said nothing, placing her wineglass gently on the counter and waiting.

“Have you been smoking?” Aaron asked the moment he saw her, a look of disdain clearly on his face as he put down his gym bag and unpacked a small bag of groceries onto their kitchen counter.

“Why yes, Aaron. I have been smoking.”

“Why would you do that when . . .”

“We're going to have a baby? Have a baby? Have a fucking baby? Is that what you were going to say?” Ronnie's volume was steadily increasing. “You got so used to saying it, now you've forgotten that we can't have a baby?”

“I was going to say while you're still healing, actually.”

“I'm fine. I'm healed,” she said, tipping back her glass of wine dramatically.

“And we can still have a baby, you know. I don't understand why you have to be so dramatic. I know you're upset about the surgery, that we can't have our own, but lots of . . .”

“Oh, just shut up. We've been trying to have a baby for three years. I'm tired. Let me fucking be dramatic. Let me fucking smoke.”

“Jesus. What is wrong with you? Are you drunk?”

“I can't have a fucking baby, Aaron. There will never be a baby. They've sliced me open. Cut me in half to take out my ability to have a baby.”

“Don't say that. Stop saying that. It's gruesome.”

“Why not? Because it's true? Because there's all sorts of things that are true that we never talk about? That we've never talked about? And you're fucking worried about me smoking?”

“What things we never talk about?”

“Everything, Aaron. Absolutely everything. We haven't been talking for years and you know it.”

“You're fucking drunk.”

“And you're in complete denial.”

This was the moment.

She knew it before it happened.

This was the moment that would send a new set of circumstances into motion. The clarity of it was striking. Whatever Ronnie said from this point on would set them on a trajectory that would never be undone.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

What was wrong with Ronnie was that she had forgotten herself. While she smoked half a pack of cigarettes and drank half a bottle of Merlot on their back deck this became increasingly clear. She knew she loved Charlie with the kind of love that reaffirms life, wanted Charlie even now, but while submerged in him she became the opposite of what Aaron wanted her to be.

“I think I need to leave, Aaron.”

“What, like, go out? Like go to the store? Go to a friend's house? Go on vacation?”

“No, leave. Leave this apartment. Leave the city. Leave the country. Leave you.”

“Leave? For fuck's sake, Veronica. We're supposed to get married in a week. What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I need to leave you, Aaron.”

“Stop it.”

“I think we should cancel the wedding.”

Aaron remained silent for a moment. His fingers curled into fists and his face flushed red. Ramona had wandered in and stared up at them from the kitchen floor, sitting eagerly, right paw lifted, intent on getting a dog treat from one of them. She had never been one for real empathy or even awareness, completely oblivious to what was coming.

The trajectory of what was coming.

“I don't believe you. I can't believe you. You're overtired.”

“I don't need you to believe me. I just need to go. I don't know who I am anymore.”

“You're Ronnie! You're my wife, Ronnie! That's who the fuck you are.”

“No, I'm not. And I don't know if I can be next week.”

Aaron's face changed dramatically. “Don't you love me?”

Ronnie recognized this part. It was the pleading part where things became awful, where no amount of confidence or certainty can make them not awful. Aaron leaned back on the kitchen counter and then slowly sank to the ground, putting his face in his hands. The dog got up and wandered over to him, sniffing and licking the exposed parts of his face. A guttural noise erupted from within him, a noise she hadn't heard him produce before. It sounded like a tortured animal, the kind of gasping, heaving cry that comes only from the knowledge of real grief.

“Of course I love you, Aaron. I'll always love you. I'll love you forever.”

“Ronnie. Please don't.”

“But I can't marry you,” she said softy, quietly.

“You just have cold feet. That's all. You'll get used to it.”

“Aaron, I need you to sleep somewhere else tonight. Just while I get some things together. Okay?”

“This sort of thing happens all the time. My guy friends say this always happens. They warned me about this. You'll get over it. I understand. It'll pass.”

“Aaron. I need you to leave.”

“Veronica.”

“Please leave.”

And it was done.

( CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO )

Aaron slowly packed a small overnight bag while Ronnie watched. She leaned against the doorframe of their bedroom while he folded a shirt and placed it into his backpack. She was adamant about him leaving and her uncertainty about the wedding left him weak enough to agree. While he was reluctant to leave her alone, he believed that if he gave her the space she desired, checked into a hotel for an evening, she would grow to miss him, realize her mistake, and beg for him to come back.

“Call Lisa. Call your mom. Talk to them about how you feel and let them convince you you're making a big mistake. I'm coming back tomorrow morning. And next week we're fucking getting married.”

“Aaron, just go.”

He had heard about this phenomenon before, women becoming doubtful that a union was the best plan, panicking and sending their to-be-weds away for a brief moment before the walk down the aisle went ahead as scheduled. He could handle this. It was no problem. She just needed a night to get her thoughts in order.

Aaron had catered an event at a hotel on Jarvis a month before, so it was the first place he thought of, called to make a reservation with the phone number he still had in his cellphone, the one he had once used to make food delivery arrangements. They let him know a room was available for one night and that he could check in immediately, so he kissed Ronnie goodbye, only to find she turned her head away from him when he did.

He hailed a cab on Queen and paid the nearly twenty-dollar cab fare to get there.

Lulled into the comfortable belief that she would come round if only he gave her some space, by the time he checked into the hotel, lay out on the bed, and put the news on, he was actually calm and relaxed. To him her reluctance was merely a stage in the process, a thing on the wedding to-do list that had finally been crossed off, and in a few days she would be fine. By the time it got dark he was so deluded he decided to go down to the hotel bar and have a drink to celebrate the milestone.

He asked the bartender for a pint and then surveyed the bar for possible conversation. The only three people there were a couple, likely American tourists with sprawling waistlines and slogan T-shirts on, and an older man scrawling in a notebook at the other end of the bar.

He looked reasonably sane enough.

“What you writing?” Aaron asked.

The man looked up slowly, dazed. His face was haggard, and Aaron immediately noticed he was unshaven and his clothes were rumpled. Perhaps the assumption of sanity had come too quickly. For a moment he regretted asking the question and wondered why he had.

“Excuse me?” the man asked with slight disdain.

“Sorry, never mind. It's really none of my business,” Aaron said, returning to his pint.

The man composed himself and instead offered a meek smile. “Oh, I'm sorry. No, it's fine. It's nothing. Just notes for something I'm working on.”

“You a business guy?”

“No, I'm a writer.”

“Oh wow, like books?”

“Poems, novels.”

“Have I heard of you?”

“I doubt it.”

“So what's this book about?” Aaron said, gesturing toward the notebook.

“A girl,” he said, concealing the fact that the “what's it about” question was his least favourite hazard of being of writer.

Aaron laughed. “Yeah, this beer's about a girl.” He raised his glass in the man's direction.

The man's face softened a bit, and he laughed, as if he recognized a sympathetic ear. He raised his glass in solidarity.

Aaron's pint was close to empty so he motioned the bartender over for another. “Can I get you something? On me?”

There was hesitation. “Sure. Whisky. On the rocks.”

The bartender brought another round as the men began chatting. Aaron moved down a few stools and thrust his hand out and introduced himself. “Aaron.”

“Charlie.”

“Nice to meet you, Charlie.”

“So what did your girl do to you?”

“We're supposed to get married next week and she's got some cold feet. That's all. I'm sure it's nothing. I'm just giving her space.”

“I'm sure. You know how women can be,” Charlie said, realizing how ridiculous his agreement sounded.

“Yeah. I'm sure she'll be calling me any minute, begging me to come back.”

Charlie noticed the man's cellphone next to him on the bar. He was aware of this kind of narrative. A hopeful, awkward tale told by a wronged man, the ragged edges smoothed out and punctuated by “it's nothing.” He knew the tale because he'd told it himself over and over again in the past month. To colleagues and friends. To anyone who would listen. “Tamara is going to let me come back. She just needs some space and some time. She's just angry but she'll cool down. It'll pass,” he'd say.

“It'll pass,” Aaron said, taking a long gulp.

“Of course.”

“The girl in your book. What's her deal?”

“You don't want to hear about that.”

“Sure. I always wanted to be a writer. I always thought that maybe I could write a book.”

Charlie was used to this line, this idea that everyone had a book in them somewhere. Personally he thought that was bullshit, but was drunk and permissive and decided to humour him. “Just your typical failed love story. Guy wants girl, guy can't have girl.”

“What's she like? Hot?”

“Well, I guess she's pretty simple. Nothing special. Pretty, but not beautiful. Interesting, but not fascinating. But he doesn't see that. For some reason he sees more. It's like he's been tricked. Like she's tricked him.”

“Fuck, I hear that.”

Aaron motioned the bartender back toward them.

“Round of shots please. Jack,” he said with confidence. As if they were celebrating.

“I mean, she likes peach schnapps. Who likes peach schnapps?” Charlie mumbled absently, his head light with drink.

“Who does?”

“The girl. In my book.”

“Veronica liked peach schnapps. Likes peach schnapps.”

“Veronica?”

“Yeah. Veronica. She's my girl.”

Charlie felt as if he had been punched in the chest. The fuzziness of alcohol lifted dramatically. Everything fell together quite suddenly, into a neat picture, and as the shot arrived and he downed it, a wave of panic overtook him suddenly, the kind of panic he recalled from his youth, when he was twenty and he wrote poems about conquests and hid out in bathrooms.

“Veronica. Pretty name. Will you excuse me for a moment?”

Charlie retreated to the bathroom, away from this boy who shared a bed with the girl he was convinced he loved. He swung open the stall door and without shutting it behind him collapsed to his knees, vomiting whisky with a guttural moan, his breathing strained, gagging, tears running down his face. He stared down at the filthy tiled floor, trying to figure out how to escape, what it meant, what he should do.

And then he realized.
She told him to leave.

“So what did your girl do to you?”

Charlie splashed water on his face, composed himself, and went back out into the bar.

“Well, it was very nice to meet you, Aaron. If you'll excuse me, I have somewhere to be right now.”

“Sure, no problem,” Aaron said, surprised at Charlie's sudden departure. “Well, nice to meet you too. Good luck with your girl.”

“Yeah, you too.”