The Mother Road Read online

  Thinking of losing Jade turns my urge to laugh into a need to cry. Back when my writing took off and it became clear I needed help keeping all the bits and pieces of my career organized, I posted a flyer at the community college. Jade was the only one to call about it, and when she showed up for her interview, flyer clutched in her hand, I understood why. It was just as well, because we clicked right away. But she isn't just my employee—she's my friend. Sometimes she's the daughter I will never have. The idea that I might have to lose her too makes me want to find something of my husband's— something small, fragile, and precious to him—and throw it against the fireplace bricks.

  Does Tony have any clue how much damage has been done thanks to his raging hormones? If he did, would he care?

  I motion to Jade, then pat the seat cushion beside me. "Come. Sit."

  Her hands slice through the air even as she drops down on the couch. "I can't believe he'd do something like this. Is he crazy? Is he—"

  With the reflexes of a kung fu master catching a fly with chopsticks, I grab Jade's hands and hold them still, enfolding them in my own. "He is a man," I say quietly, "who decided to change the direction of his life. It's lousy, and I certainly don't understand it, but there's nothing I can do about it."

  Jade tilts her head to the side, eyes narrowing. "How can you be so calm?"

  I give her hands a final squeeze before letting them go and falling back onto the sofa. "I've had a few days to process everything."

  By "process" I mean completely fall apart and then drag myself together.

  The opening notes of "Stayin' Alive" fill the room as my cell phone vibrates on the coffee-table top. Tony's ring, assigned to him because Tony Marino sounds so much like Tony Manero, the John Travolta character in Saturday Night Fever. I've got to change that ring to something else. Maybe "Love Stinks."

  I reach for the phone, but Jade gets to it first. She snaps it up and holds it in both hands, pleading with me. "Oh, please let me get this for you."

  It's juvenile to avoid his calls, but she's giving me an offer I can't refuse. "Be nice," I warn her.

  Responding with a sideways eye roll, she pushes a button and puts the phone to her ear. "Natalie Marino's cell. How can I help you?"

  A pause, during which time Jade sticks her tongue out at the phone.

  "No, I'm sorry, Mr. Marino. She's unable to speak to you now."

  Pause.

  "That's right. She told me."

  Tony's voice goes up a level and snippets of his side of the conversation travel out of the earpiece and over to me. "No reason . . . difficult . . . act like adults . . ."

  Now it's my turn to stick out my tongue. Act like adults. What does he know about acting like an adult? Acting like an adulterer, maybe.

  "Just a minute." Jade covers the mouthpiece with her thumb and leans toward me. "He wants to come over and get the rest of his stuff," she hisses. "What should I tell him?"

  Oh, there are so many things I wish she could tell him, but I restrain myself. So he wants to get his stuff. I could put him off, could make him wait just to inconvenience him as much as possible. But I don't want to put Jade in the uncomfortable position of relaying that kind of information.

  "Tell him to come by tomorrow after ten. I'll be out of the house."

  I wonder what he'll take. His toiletries and clothes, obviously, and anything that's used only by him. But what about our communal objects? Will he want any of the photos from our vacations, birthdays, time with friends? Our wedding pictures? Then again, now that my marriage has crumbled in a deceitful heap, do I want to keep any of those things?

  Jade ends the call and holds the phone out to me. "He'll come by tomorrow. Stinking sack of—"

  "Jade." Even though I agree with her, my tone says Step lightly.

  "Sorry. So where are you going to be while he's here?"

  I sigh and take the phone from her, rubbing my thumb across the top of it. "I don't know yet. I'll figure out something." It might be a good time to find an attorney of my own.

  "You're going to let him come in here unsupervised and take whatever he wants?"

  While the idea of letting him pick and choose what he wants to salvage from this relationship is like sandpaper on my skin, the alternative is even worse. I refuse to stand by and watch him do it. My shoulders jerk in a defeated shrug. "Do you have a better idea?"

  "Actually, I do." Jade twists a piece of hair around one finger, her mouth sliding up into a sly grin. "Why don't we make it real easy for him?"

  4

  While I was tempted by Jade's idea of gathering all of Tony's belongings and dumping them in a heap in the middle of the lawn, I vetoed it for several reasons. First off, it would draw way too much attention from the neighbors. Not that they won't notice Tony carting his stuff away, but why give them anything more to chatter about? Second, as much as I hate the idea, I'm heading into divorce proceedings with this man. Antagonizing him before we start divvying up our assets would be just plain stupid. Satisfying, but stupid.

  Instead, I sent Jade off to purchase packing supplies. We'll box it all up and put it out on the porch. The neighbors will still talk, but perhaps it will be about how giving I am. My goodness, did you see the large donation Natalie Marino left out for the Salvation Army? That woman is such a giver. If they only knew the half of it.

  I'm standing in the middle of the family room, staring at the entertainment center and wondering which one of us should have custody of the VHS copy of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when Jade returns. We go back and forth through the door that connects the garage to the kitchen, and I help her carry in several six-packs of collapsed cardboard banker's boxes and two bags of miscellaneous supplies. It looks like she picked up everything we'll need: a tape dispenser, rolls of packing tape, Sharpie markers, and a little something extra.

  "Really, Jade?" I hold up a huge bag of M&M's. "Five pounds? Don't you think that's a little much?"

  She looks up from the kitchen floor where she's wrestling to assemble the boxes and shakes her head. "Nope. I almost bought two bags."

  I turn to leave the room, then look over my shoulder. "I'm going to start in the bedroom. Pray for me."

  "Already am."

  Rather than stuff Tony's clothes into boxes, I decide to put what I can in his suitcase and garment bag. Except that the garment bag is already gone, along with most of his suits. Somewhere along the way, he snuck them out without my noticing.

  I toss the suitcase on the bed and flip open the top, releasing a residual hotel-room smell. He's taken a lot more business trips this year than usual. He said things started with Erin in Omaha, but is that when it really began, or is it just the first time they had sex? How many of his trips were actually for business, and how many had been excuses to spend time alone with her? Suddenly, I want to know everything. I want proof, concrete proof that my husband isn't the man I always thought he was.

  I open every zipper and pocket on the case, running my fingers through them, searching for what he might have left behind. Other than a handful of lint and an extra set of earbuds, I find nothing.

  His clothes are next. Before putting them in the case, I thoroughly inspect every item. If it has a pocket, I check it. But again, I find nothing. Doubt and hope start to churn in my stomach. Surely, a man having an affair would leave some evidence behind. Maybe this is all a big mistake. Maybe Tony's just confused. Maybe Erin tricked him, and the baby isn't his. Of course, for him to believe it is his would mean he'd been unfaithful at least once. It would still be awful, but if it was just once, maybe there's a sliver of hope for us. Maybe we can work through this. Maybe . . .

  My hand freezes as my fingertips brush against a piece of thin cardboard in the pocket of a pair of brown Dockers. I pull it out. It's a movie ticket stub. Just one, hardly proof of an affair. Except that I remember sitting at the breakfast table barely a month ago, telling Tony about this exact same movie and asking if we could go see it together. He'd lowered the newspa
per far enough to look at me over the top of it, his face puckered up like he was sucking on a lemon drop.

  "You know how I feel about those sappy romantic comedies. You couldn't drag me to one."

  Now, the ticket stub mocks me. You couldn't, but she could.

  Ice-cold reality falls on my shoulders, chasing away my need to search for further proof. Now, I'm fueled only by a need to get this over with as soon as possible. Folding and neatly stacking is no longer an issue. I snatch clothes from hangers, wad them up, and toss them into the suitcase. My breath comes faster as T-shirts, old tennis shoes, and a pair of flip-flops encrusted with year-old sand from the last time we ventured to the beach are mixed in with silk ties, cashmere sweaters, and Brooks Brothers shirts. Finally, when the mound in the middle of the suitcase is impossibly high, I smash it all down, swing over the soft lid, and practically sit on top of it to force the zipper closed.

  My eyes burn as I pull the case off the bed and let it thud to the floor. I turn to drag it from the room, but stop short when I see Jade. She stands in the doorway, her nose red and lower jaw jutting forward, holding the open bag of M&M's in her hand.

  At this point, I have two choices. I can give in to the tears that are pushing against the back of my eyeballs, in which case Jade will most likely lose her composure too, leaving us both emotional, soggy messes. Or I can decide that enough tears have been shed over this situation and begin moving forward.

  Abandoning the suitcase, I step up to Jade, pat her cheek, then sink my fingers into the bag of candy. Pulling out a handful, I smile. "Such a wise girl."

  5

  So you just piled all his things on the porch, eh?"

  I nod at Pastor Dave who sits on the other side of his desk, hands clasped over his stomach. Poor man. He looks more than a little stunned after all the information I just dumped on him.

  If he thinks hearing about it is bad, he should try living through it.

  After Jade and I finished all the packing and stacking yesterday, it struck me that I still hadn't made plans to get me out of the house the next day. It was far too late to start looking for an attorney, let alone make an appointment with one. Which was probably for the best. I hadn't taken the time to consider it before, but it made sense to seek spiritual counsel before sitting down with the legal kind.

  I've been a member of Grace Community for fifteen years, and in all that time I haven't asked for much. But this morning, I not only asked, I stooped to bribery. When Sarah, the church secretary, arrived to open up the office she found me standing on the doorstep holding a bag of warm muffins and a full coffee carrier. "I know he's probably super-busy," I said, handing her a cup before she could stutter out a hello, "but I'm in the middle of a crisis. Please, I really need to talk to him."

  Sarah is not new to the church secretary gig. She's been doing it long enough to know who's in desperate need and who just craves a little extra attention. I had no doubt that my haggard appearance would telegraph just how dire my situation is. Sure enough, one sympathetic smile later, she ushered me inside the office and told me to have a seat until Pastor Dave got in. Ten minutes after that, he walked through the door, looked at me and my bag of bribes, then asked Sarah, "Do I have some free time this morning?"

  Now we sit in his office, our muffins barely touched but our coffee cups drained. Other than the initial "What can I do for you?" he hasn't said much as I spilled out my tale of Tony and the shambles my life has become. Apparently, my pastor can relate to the pain of a man finding his belongings piled up outside the house because this finally gets an audible reaction out of him.

  "Do you think I went too far?" I ask.

  He purses his lips and moves his head slowly from side to side. "Oh, no, I wouldn't say that. On the topic of taking things too far, Tony is the clear winner."

  He's got that right.

  "I'm just wondering . . ." His voice trails off. He leans forward and gives the muffin a poke, as if a tactful way to say whatever he's thinking might reside within the banana-nut treat. "This all seems to be moving very quickly."

  I sigh and immediately regret making such a weak and hopeless sound. "It feels quick to me, too, but that's because you and I just found out about the whole thing. It's not quick to Tony. He's been living this other life for quite a while."

  "And you're absolutely sure you want to give up on reconciliation?"

  Am I sure? No, of course I'm not. Marriage is a lifetime commitment. I believed that when I said my vows, and I believe it now, despite Tony's betrayal. If there were a way to fix this, I'd try. I really would. But Tony made it quite clear that he's only interested in moving on, not in repairing our marriage.

  "What I want doesn't matter. Tony's made the decision to leave. He's chosen to be with . . . her. And now that she's pregnant—"

  Pastor Dave bows his head for a moment. "I remember how you and Tony struggled."

  Thanks to my book, Just the Two of Us: How to Remain Happily Married While Struggling with Infertility, the whole world knows about it. Of course, that's an exaggeration, but my whole world knows the details. More women than I can count, faceless women I'll never meet, have sent me e-mails and letters recalling their own stories and telling me how much the book meant to them. That they would share their hearts in such a raw, open manner touched me, and I wrote back to most of them with encouragement. But Pastor Dave is one of the few people who walked through the actual experience with us.

  Tony and I met with him before we started looking into medical treatments. We had so many questions. Were we wrong for doing everything we could to conceive a baby? After all, if God wanted us to be parents, wouldn't He do all the heavy lifting? We truly wanted to know. Pastor Dave prayed with us, asking that we'd feel God's peace and know what to do.

  For a week, Tony and I prayed. We prayed together. We prayed on our own. And finally, we both knew we'd gotten an answer from the Lord.

  Unfortunately, we didn't get the same answer. Tony felt certain that we needed to do things the old-fashioned way. If God wanted us to have a baby, we would. But Tony was wrong. I was sure of it. We were supposed to do everything we could, follow every medical lead, to have our baby. And we would have a baby. I knew that in the same way I knew how to breathe. We just had to have faith and walk through the wilderness first.

  I shared my revelation with Tony. Gently at first. When he didn't come around right away, I became a bit more forceful. I showed him Scripture. I cajoled. I cried. And then I pulled out the biggest gun in my arsenal: the best-selling author and oftrequested teacher gun. If thousands of women turned to me for marital and spiritual guidance, then shouldn't Tony trust me too?

  Remembering that now, I'm ashamed of how far I went to get my way. If I hadn't pushed, if I hadn't made us go through endless rounds of tests, shots, taking body temperatures, and making love to a schedule, would things have turned out the same? If I hadn't made my husband feel like I heard God and he didn't, maybe he wouldn't have stopped talking to God completely.

  Pastor Dave knows about all of it. He knows that after the final round of in vitro, the one when the doctor essentially pronounced us a lost cause, Tony pulled back from the church. He stopped going to the men's group. He suddenly had to work more on the weekends than ever before. And when he did attend Sunday services with me, he was sullen and withdrawn the rest of the day. I'm sure Pastor Dave's made the connection, but he's kind enough now not to bring it up. Instead, he tends to my wounds.

  "This woman's pregnancy," he says, "has to be the unkindest cut of all."

  "You know, it is." My nose tingles and tears start to leak from the corners of my eyes, but I don't care. "It would be bad enough if he was just leaving me for another woman. But to leave me for another woman and their baby . . . there's no going back after that."

  Pastor Dave reaches behind him for a box of Kleenex, which he then sets in front of me. I pluck two tissues from the top when I hear him mutter under his breath, "Dirty dog."

  My hand fre
ezes in midair. I can't believe my loving, evenkeeled pastor has just called my philandering husband a dog. As I stare, the hint of a blush colors the skin around his ears. "Sorry about that. My pastor hat fell off for a second."

  I burst into this crazy sort of half-laughing, half-crying sound punctuated by a hiccup. After mopping up my face and blowing my nose, I muster a smile. "Thanks. I needed to laugh at something."

  "Glad to be of help. But we both need to remember that no matter how heinous Tony's actions are he's still a child of God. He still needs our prayers. Now more than ever."

  "You're going to have to handle that part, Pastor. I'm doing all I can to hold myself together."

  "I'm sure it's the last thing you want to think about now, but forgiveness is a vital component of your own healing process. Eventually, you're going to have to forgive Tony."

  He's absolutely right. Forgiveness is vital. It's the cornerstone of my faith. Not only have I studied it in the Bible, I've taught it too. How many times have I stood in front of women's groups and encouraged them to let go of the hurt and anger from their pasts? Told them unforgiveness is a poison that will eat away at their souls? Too many times to count. It's one of my most popular speaking topics. And now, it's one more thing Tony has destroyed. Because how can I teach others to do something I can't do myself?

  6

  When I pull back into my driveway, Jade is waiting for me on the porch, a porch that is now completely empty of everything but the white wicker rocker in which she sits. My stomach does a little flip beneath my seat belt. Did Tony pick up his things, or did he send someone else to do it? Was she with him? I cut the engine and shake my head hard. No, even Tony wouldn't be that insensitive. Still, it's probably better not to ask. I don't even want to know the details. I want to move on as if nothing out of the ordinary happened today.