A Family Affair(23)

“Has he known about this all along?” Joe asked.

“The details are still a little murky, but she said she met him when she was a teenager but thought he was a family friend. She learned more about him later and she contacted him recently. She said she knew I’d have questions and she’d meet with me later, after I’ve had time to gather my thoughts and decide what I want to ask. She did say he’s contributed to her welfare and education.”

“But they had no relationship?” he asked.

“Apparently not much of one,” Anna said. “I don’t know about her mother. I don’t know if he had two families. Joe, did you know any of this?”

He shook his head. “No, and I never suspected he was keeping any secrets.”

“He never said anything that made you wonder if his relationship with the woman was ongoing? If there was more to it than a fling? Or even an affair?”

He put his wine on the side table and took her hand. “Listen, here’s how it went. In anger, you ratted him out, told me you’d caught him in an affair and you were leaving him. A lot of excuses and arguing and jockeying for position followed, and while you two stayed together, it was rocky. And then it seemed to smooth out. I didn’t dare ask if you’d forgiven him because all I cared about was that you two weren’t living in misery. I cared about you both. And besides, I was going through my own thing then.”

“Were you? Was that when you were going through your divorce?”

“Prelude to divorce,” he said. He took a sip from his wineglass and hung his head. “We were all so young and thought we were so old. I was just over thirty and had two kids and I remember thinking I was wasting my life by staying in such a toxic relationship. I was very sympathetic to you and Chad but my situation was so much sloppier.”

“It was?” she asked. “Forgive me, I don’t even remember. Just that you were divorced about the same time we were contemplating...”

He took yet another deep breath. “It was a mess. Lots of abuse and neglect, several affairs or flings... Whatever they were, they certainly counted as cheating. Arlene was unstable, her whole family was unstable. I followed suit and mimicked all the instability. We lived in chaos for about five years. My mother left my father at home and moved in to make sure the kids were being taken care of. It was unhinged and crazy. And in the midst of that, you and Chad seemed to pull it together and I found myself leaning on him.” He sat up a little straighter. “I’m sorry, Anna. I made that all about me.”

“What was going on with you and Arlene?” she asked, almost grateful to take the focus off her.

His dark eyes were glassy. “Everything. Our romance was tempestuous and burned hot, our early marriage was a painful roller coaster. We married poorly and divorced even worse. Couples fight about things like possessions and custody, that’s a given, but our divorce was so filled with lies and delusions and obsession for control on both sides it’s a miracle we survived. In anger she even stole my car and torched it. She spent a few days in jail for that, but only a few days and then got community service. It was horrendous and went on for years.”

“I wasn’t even aware...”

“Because you were fighting your own battle. It seemed like no time at all passed when you were put back together and you were in law school, then pregnant. I don’t know how you pulled it off.”

“It was more than the marriage. More than his affair. I didn’t realize it for a few years, but it was so much more personal. You know that I was raised by a single mother,” she said. “It was a good life, but there were times we didn’t have enough. There were times we were broke and times my mother was scared. Sometimes she brought food home from the restaurant where she worked. She might’ve taken it off patrons’ plates. She was a waitress and worked so hard and pushed me to go to school, to plan on a future that wouldn’t be as hard. Every year older I got, in spite of debt and struggle, the closer I believed I was getting to not feeling that any second I’d be hungry and homeless. We were never completely without a roof over our heads, but there were some close calls, like sleeping on a friend’s sofa while waiting for an apartment to be available. But I got through school, I worked and helped my mother, we paid off a lot of debt. Then I met Chad and fell in love.” She swallowed hard. “It was a defendant who said to me, ‘We’re all just one man away from being cleaning ladies or waitresses.’”

Chad came from an entirely different kind of family, a stable, upper-middle-class family. His parents funded his undergrad education; he went to good schools and they lived in an upper-class neighborhood. She thought the rest of her life would be safe and secure; she thought she was building the kind of family she had always longed for. The kind of family he had come from. Then his mother had said, “If you don’t put your marriage to my son back together so he can be with his children, don’t expect any help from me!”

She had worked and supported him while he finished his PhD; he worked part-time while he finished his degree, which set him up for a long and distinguished career as a therapist. At the time it had been all she had ever dreamed of—a spouse who was kind and helped people. A husband with a strong moral compass. There was nothing more she longed for.

“Michael was a baby when I learned of Chad’s affair...”