Runaway Vampire (Argeneau, #23)(50)
“Then Joe had a big project come up. If it was a success, he’d get a promotion. If not . . .” She shrugged. “He started working late hours on it, probably partially because he needed to, but maybe also a little to avoid coming home to my misery.”
“And he started the affair with his secretary,” Dante said quietly and glanced over to see her nod in response. His mouth tightened as he shifted his eyes back to the road, and he growled, “You were carrying his child, Mary, and apparently very sick in doing so. It is not okay that he had an affair.”
“Oh, of course it isn’t,” she agreed. “Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying it was okay that he had the affair. He should have talked to me. I was so miserable myself; I didn’t realize how miserable he was. He should have suggested I see a specialist and see if anything could be done about the nausea. Or, he could have suggested I get a friend or family member in to help me. Or found any other way to handle it. But he didn’t. He had the affair. That was his choice, and what he had to live with afterward.”
“My choice was in what I did when I began to suspect he might be having an affair. I didn’t talk to him either. I too turned to someone else and hired a private detective. And then when the detective gave me that address, I chose to go to the motel and catch him rather than simply confront him with the information when he came home. And when he didn’t satisfy my need for confrontation and my “Ah ha!” moment at the motel, I was the one who drove out of there like a maniac, straight into a semi.”
“Most of my anger was at myself for doing that, but I buried it under my anger at him and blamed him for everything. He, in turn, felt guilty about his part in it and so let me punish him for the next fifteen years rather than leave me to find a healthier relationship and happiness. He even refused to see his own biological children because he felt that would be the ultimate betrayal.”
“The affairs were not?” Dante asked with disbelief.
“The first one was, but after that, as I said, I wanted nothing to do with him in that area. He figured I didn’t care anymore if he slept around, but acknowledging and being a part of the life of a child he’d had a part in creating when I couldn’t have children anymore . . . ? To him, that seemed like the ultimate betrayal. Especially when he felt guilty for his part in the accident that caused the miscarriage and my inability to have those children. He felt like he’d ruined everything, especially me. And I felt the same way. So I punished him, and he took it. But it was a punishment for me too. I wasn’t any happier than he was.”
“And yet you stayed together,” he said grimly.
“We almost didn’t,” she admitted. “I mean, when I realized how much time I had wasted on punishing us both . . . And I think he felt the same way. Like we’d done enough damage. But Linda suggested we at least see if anything could be salvaged. We’d been in love once. Could we get past the hurt of the past and find that love again?”
“She sounds like a quack to me,” he said abruptly, anger sliding through him for everything she’d been through. Mary was a beautiful, smart, and caring woman. She should have been loved and cherished, not cheated on and betrayed and that quack counselor should have said as much and encouraged her to get the hell away from Joe Winslow.
“Joe said the same thing,” Mary said with a chuckle. “He’d liked her until then, but that suggestion convinced him she was a quack and he said it to her face. She just smiled and asked, “What’s wrong? Are you afraid? Besides, what have you got to lose? If it doesn’t work, you divorce, just a couple months or so later. But if it works . . .”
“So, we both agreed to give it a try with her counseling. He continued to live in the apartment and we started to have dates that we then dissected in her office during our appointments.” Mary sighed. “At first, it was hard. There were still a lot of emotions to work through, but she helped us get through them. And eventually, we started to find each other again, but this time it was better.”
Dante couldn’t keep the skepticism from his voice as he asked, “How?”
“I’d always looked up to Joe and kind of put him on a pedestal,” she said, trying to explain. “First he was the “senior boy” to my freshman in high school, and then he went and got his degree while I didn’t, and then he got the big impressive job while I was a housewife. In my mind, we weren’t so much a couple as he was the star and I was just the supporting cast,” she admitted quietly. “But after everything that happened, he was no longer on that pedestal. He was just Joe. On top of that, I realized that I needed to boost my self-esteem and think more of myself, so I started taking classes at the university.”
Dante glanced to her with surprise. “In what?”
Mary hesitated, rolled her eyes and then admitted, “psychology.”
His head swiveled toward her, his eyebrows flying up in surprise and she shrugged helplessly.
“I wanted to better understand myself so I didn’t mess up again,” she admitted wryly, then added, “And I wanted to help others who might be going through the same things I had. Joe and I had wasted so many years on useless emotions we didn’t even understand.” Mary was silent for a minute, then sighed, and said, “So I got a bachelor’s, then a master’s, then went on for my doctorate.”