Читать книгу A New Requiem - B. Lance Jenkins - Страница 4

Just two days prior to the concert, Ben told his wife, Rachel, he planned to get a divorce. He and Rachel had been married for six years, and everyone in town thought she was the epitome of a Southern belle, a darling of a wife. How incredibly wrong they were.

She had cheated on Ben on multiple occasions. And he knew it. But for the sake of his reputation (and hers, which he for some reason insisted on caring about) in this small town that cast judgment so freely, he dealt with it and continued to take her back as she pleaded each time for forgiveness. Ben recalled a monologue that, unfortunately, like a number one hit on the radio, had been heard far too many times.

Please, baby, I have changed! I was going through such a dark time and I was confused. I love you more than life itself and I would never want to hurt you. God put us together for a reason and I know you are the one for me. Please baby, I love you with all that I am, Ben Bailey, and I am so sorry I hurt you! I know God can and will bring us back to restoration!

Ben had grown tired of her saying that God was going to do something to restore the marriage when she herself made little to no effort to save it. Ben had come to believe that the only time she cared about ‘getting right with the Lord’ and ‘being a good wife’ was when the two of them found themselves on the edge of separation, an occurrence that had happened more than once. And just as soon as he forgave her, she resorted back to those same selfish character traits that had habitually led her to another man’s bedroom.

Ben often argued, sarcastically of course, that infidelity seeped into the water around Freeden. It was astounding, how many families broke up due to one or both spouses sleeping around with other people, especially in a community where rumors spread like a highly contagious disease.

Infidelity, which at one point was a part of the underbelly of Freeden, now seemed almost mainstream. This immoral behavior was the subject of gossip all over town, including at 3rd Street Café, the town’s most famous eatery, where little old ladies and stay-at-home wives would gather for lunch each day and discuss who had cheated on whom most recently. Ben knew it because he heard it almost every day.

Despite the damning behavior, husbands and wives, who willingly and discretely cheated on each other on Saturday nights, would all go to church on Sundays and pray and fellowship and raise their hands to God, all the while sitting next to other husbands and wives they had slept with the night before. One time, Ben drove out of his driveway and saw his neighbor walking out of his house with the City Parks and Recreation director’s wife, whose hair looked like it had been pulled at all night long, and two hours later they were all with their own families, reunited for the eleven a.m. service at Freeden Baptist Church where they, along with Ben and the rest of the congregation, partook in holy communion followed by a covered dish potluck with the entire church family.

Deceit, cover up, infidelity, and dishonesty: this small, intimate town was not lacking any of it. And this proved evident in Ben’s own wife. He was thirty-seven going on fifty, and Rachel was thirty-four, yet her behavior could have easily been mistaken for twenty-one. Ben lived a straight edge life. He liked to have fun, but he would often be classified by his friends as a workaholic, and he knew it was true. It had gotten better though. The last time he had discovered that Rachel slept with someone else, he had convinced himself it must be his fault since he worked all the time. She even claimed that his working all the time made her feel unloved, and, as a result, it broke his heart to believe that he was the reason for the marital problems they endured. So he stopped working as much to focus more on the marriage and spending quality time with her, but after two years of this, her same antics persisted.

Drug use, parties, constant flirting with other people, and living what Ben referred to as a double life persisted. The married Rachel, who took considerable advantage of the stability Ben provided, did what she wanted, when she wanted, without regard to the marriage or her husband’s unmatched faithfulness. And it all led to this moment, when Ben had dealt with all he could take.

By this time, his heart truly was broken; he felt helpless. Nothing he could do would change her ways. He wanted to go to counseling, though she never seemed to be interested until he appeared to be ready to give up. Being taken advantage of was gut-wrenching for Ben, and for said advantage to be taken by someone who he thought had loved him… that was even more agonizing.

Knowing of the multiple previous offenses of unfaithfulness, Ben learned in early 2018 that Rachel was cheating again. Nearly everyone in the town had been aware for some time that she was sleeping with Aaron Carroll, but, as usual, the betrayed husband was the last to get in on the news. Aaron was Freeden’s city manager, a transplant from northern Virginia. He had what every college girl wants in a guy: jock persona, big-man-on-campus label, a chiseled body, and a decent career with a good-paying job. In Ben’s opinion though, he was dumb as a box of rocks, and he began to assume most of the grown women in this area who admired Aaron were too, considering he was what every college girl would want, not what every grown woman would want.

Aaron was the type of guy who would have you think he knew everything there was to know that was relevant in life, but the reality lay just under the surface of his flat persona. Ben perceived Aaron to be a guy who thought he was the shit. And Ben was right: Aaron was a prideful man who would never stoop so low as to admit he was wrong. When he and Ben crossed paths at local events, he often dropped the jock, most-important-guy-in-the room facade, as if he recognized Ben was not buying it. He rarely talked to Ben, because truth was, he was intimidated by Ben’s success and notoriety in the community. Aaron certainly lived a more involved social life in Freeden than Ben did, but Ben had the respect of the community, and that was something Aaron strongly desired. For this reason, Aaron had little to do with Ben, and Ben certainly did not mind.

When it came to being nice and generous to people, you would not find a seemingly better guy. But over time, that too proved to be a result of another motive: he liked to sleep around and show his much-sought-after body to as many women as possible. He could sleep with any woman he wanted in town, and probably would, regardless of the effect it could have in the way of breaking apart families. He simply bet that he would escape each time without being discovered, and that a simple rendezvous would not do any harm. In his eyes, it was just sex.

Ben longed for a relationship built on decent principles, yet Aaron and other community members’ perception of it’s just sex had become the thought of the times –a misconstrued one that seriously conflicted with what Ben thought sex was really supposed to be. Like most people, Ben perceived sex as something he should enjoy, but he viewed it as something he should make exclusive with someone he loved. He didn’t feel that way as much earlier in his adult life, but at this point, it made the most sense to him.

Ben wondered if, perhaps, Aaron viewed sex the way he did because he, like Ben, had never actually made love with someone. Ben had tried to make love with Rachel, but she never seemed interested in cherishing a physical relationship beyond that of friends having sex. She often told Ben she only wanted to fuck, and that she was just not interested in making love with him, implying that she too believed there was a difference. And while Ben desired an exclusive relationship, Rachel often told Ben that she wanted to venture out and fuck around with other people, both together and separately. She was not interested in the intimate, loving marriage Ben so desired, and he held onto the hope there was a difference between just sex and making love, and that perhaps he would one day encounter real love. With Rachel, there was nothing of the sort. And much to his dismay, he knew there never would be.

Whether Rachel had sex or made love with Aaron, Ben knew for a fact she was doing one of the two, and both exemplified unfaithfulness that could destroy a marriage. And regardless of whether they viewed it as making love or just sex, Aaron was sticking his cock inside of her, and she was willingly taking it.

A year had passed since Ben had last suspected that Rachel was sleeping around, and at the time he simply dropped the issue and moved on because he didn’t want to believe she would do this again, especially after they had committed to showing more love to one another. Now though, he was fully aware that she was sleeping with Aaron on a regular basis.

Concrete evidence of the extramarital affair surfaced as a result of a local woman named Terri Hathaway, a psychiatrist who attended the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and returned home to open her own office and serve a community that had a dire need for mental health development and wellness. She, too, performed as a member of the community chorus. A soprano with an angelic voice, she had been selected to be featured as a soloist in Requiem.

Terri always had lunch at the same place as Ben each day, but they rarely spoke other than saying, “Hello” and carrying on a minute or two of small-talk. One day though, about a month prior to Requiem, Ben noticed that she kept peering at him across the restaurant. Her face was blanketed with anxiety, and even though Ben knew very little about her other than growing up together as children, what she did for a living, and that she was widely known to be a kind-hearted person, he could tell something was gravely wrong. Soon enough she abandoned her half-eaten BLT, signed her receipt for lunch, and instead of walking to the door and exiting, approached his table.

“Afternoon, Ben.”

“Terri.” He nodded in acknowledgement of her arrival. “How are you?”

“I’m fine.” She nervously looked around, then back at Ben. “Mind if I join you for a minute?”

“No, please do!” Ben grew concerned about the way she looked, even more so now that he could see her close up and the anxiety seemed to be growing. More often than not, Terri was a woman who looked calm and poised, and at this moment, she was neither.

She sat down in the booth across from Ben, peered around the restaurant once more to see who might be listening, and said, “I need to tell you something that has really been bothering me. And…umm,” she stuttered, “I am not sure anyone else has told you.”

Ben raised an eyebrow, leaned back in his chair, alarmed at her approach and what she might tell him. “Well, to be honest, Terri, I have no idea what you are talking about, so it is a good guess to assume no one else has told me anything.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“Well, what’s going on?” he asked.

“Ben, I don’t know how to say this but to say it direct and straightforward.” She stopped, all the while looking down and avoiding eye contact with Ben.

“Go on,” Ben nudged.

She looked up, directly into his eyes. “Your wife is cheating on you with Aaron Carroll.”

The blankest, most emotionless stare must have come across Ben’s face as he looked into Terri’s eyes, a gaze that could have drilled a metaphorical hole through her head.

A man constantly worried about the impression he made on others, it killed him to be told this by someone else other than his wife, and it also hurt to think that if Terri knew about it, that it was very possible a large number of others did as well. What made Rachel’s past transgressions easier to deal with was that he did not think the folks around town knew, so when she asked for forgiveness and he granted it, Ben thought the hard part was just between the two of them. If a church-going, good girl like Terri knew about his personal problems, he surely believed they had become ingrained into the heart of Freeden’s gossip pipeline, and the old adage of everybody knew but him was probably applicable.

He did not want her to know, but his heart was breaking again. He could feel the tears welling up, but he fought hard to keep them away. He had tried so hard to be a better husband and had blamed himself entirely on previous occasions for the marital issues. But now, he knew he had given everything he could in the last year to be the best husband he could be, and, despite the agony, he felt comfort in knowing that this time it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t encourage any of this. Rachel just could not resist living her double life.

“Well,” he started as he stared down at the table, avoiding eye contact himself now, “I can admit I was not aware of this.”

She continued, “I know this is tough, Ben, but I just could not live with myself knowing that I knew this was happening to you and not telling you what was going on. It just isn’t right, and–”

“I know,” he interrupted, “I know you mean well, Terri.” He then looked up, paused for a moment, renewed eye contact with her, and smiled. “I know your heart is good, and I know you mean well.”

“I truly do,” she said.

Terri was a respectable woman, a wife who encouraged her family to live morally and honorably, and certainly not someone Ben suspected would ever be unfaithful. She was happily married to an equally respectable farmer, so Ben knew her reason for telling him this was not to get close with him and take advantage of the situation. She was a straight-shooter, and she was being truthful about what she knew.

Ben carried on, seeking more details. “How do you know this?”

She gulped, as if she was nervous to tell him. “I had already heard this about four months ago.”

“Jesus, that long?”

“I’m sorry, I should have told you before.”

“No, no, I’m not upset with you, just a little surprised that, you know, if in fact it’s going on, that I wasn’t aware and that it was going on that long.”

“It’s definitely going on, Ben.”

He stopped. “Okay, well how do you know for sure? I mean rumors get around.”

She looked around again, then leaned in to talk softer. “I saw them.”

Ben’s eyes opened wide, both eyebrows raised. “You saw them?”

“Yes, I saw them.”

He whispered, “Where? How?”

About that time, Buck Henson walked in. Buck led the Freeden Planning and Development Department as the senior city planner and was one of Aaron’s friends, or goons, as Ben saw it. And like Aaron, Buck was an active participant in the town’s social arena.

Buck sped right in, headed to his usual lunch table to wait for Aaron and the other city hall folks who hung together. He surprised Terri when he came up quickly behind her and said, “What’s up, guys? Are you working hard today or hardly working?”

Terri smiled and said nothing. She was visibly uncomfortable, especially now that her fear of someone listening in may have, in her mind, become a reality. She was unaware that Buck had been too far away when she last mentioned Aaron’s name to have heard anything.

“Always working hard,” Ben said in his typical jolly way, carrying on as if nothing was wrong.

“Well, that’s good,” Buck replied. He sped back up and walked on to his table.

Terri gazed at him to ensure he sat down and was far enough away, then said, “Did he hear me?”

“No,” Ben assured her. “I saw him come in, you’re good.”

“You know how people are around here.”

“Yes, I know,” Ben said while nodding. “So, where did you find them?”

She looked around once more to assure no one was listening. “Well, I had to go into the church the other night to get my sheet music. I had left it at rehearsal Tuesday night, and, because I am chairperson of the social committee, they gave me a key a while back. Well, it was about eleven-thirty, my husband was home with our baby girl, and I had not worked out all week, so I went to the gym. Got done and realized I did not have my sheet music and figured since I was out and about that I would just go ahead and get it. When I got there, I parked out front on the street, but my key would not work for the front door, so I walked to the back since I knew my key would get me in there as it had before. As I turned the corner to the back, I saw what I thought was Aaron’s Denali and Rachel’s car parked in the alley behind the church. It is not very lit back there, so at first I thought it was them but I still did not know for sure whose cars they were. Then I got closer to them and it became very apparent that these were definitely their vehicles. So I walked up to the cars, trying to see if anyone was in them and if they were okay. As odd as it may seem to you that at first, I still did not realize what was going on, and when I got about twenty feet away from his Denali, I heard her…” She paused.

“Go on,” Ben said.

“Well, it’s just….”

“Please, Terri, just tell me,” he pleaded.

She breathed heavily. She was ashamed to tell Ben for sure. Ben was embarrassed, too, but at this point he considered the damage done. Whatever she had seen was engrained in her mind, and she already knew all she would know.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Please.”

She continued, “The street light in the alley was pretty bright. I don’t think they saw me, but I assure you that it was definitely them, Ben. What I saw was validation of what I’ve told you today… I’ll just leave it at that.”

Ben wondered if he looked shocked enough for her. It hurt to know Rachel was doing this again, but it unfortunately did not come as much of a surprise to him. With the news came humiliation and sadness, but in reality all of that was coupled with a great sense of relief. Ben needed to know this. He knew there was no need for this fledgling marriage to go on if it had no chance anyway. And Ben knew Terri would never tell of such a thing if she was not certain it was true. For a moment, worrying about what the townspeople thought of him, for once, ceased. He was sure most people probably knew what was going on already. And as he viewed it, not one person, until now, had stepped up and said anything to him. That was more disheartening than the act itself. He grew up here. He lived and worked here. He knew these people. And no one had said a thing.

Nonetheless, Ben knew his life was about to change, as he would not tolerate living in the same house as an unfaithful woman any longer. He had struggled to love her in the past despite her infidelity but had tried desperately in the last year. To him, she had become too hard to love. For so long he thought he could fix her and the marriage. Continued unfaithfulness, though, proved to be the last straw for him. He had had enough. And so he convinced himself, that day at the 3rd Street Café, that despite his desire for this to work because he believed marriage simply should, he would not tolerate living like this anymore.

The decision to end his marriage, if he made it, would not come without objection or ridicule. Rachel’s father, Dr. Dan Henson, was the senior pastor of Freedom Baptist Church and the metaphorical mayor of Freeden. He ran this town. There was no chance Rachel Henson Bailey would be accused of cheating in a public Freeden courtroom, or even the social arenas of the surrounding area. Everybody believed every word Dr. Henson said like it came from God Almighty himself.

He would not allow his daughter to be publicly shamed. Every judge in the county attended Freeden Baptist and so did the district attorney and his assistants; there was no way his political buddies would embarrass him or his family if this was pushed so far as to end up in civil court.

Ben knew that Dr. Henson would never accept that his daughter would do such a thing as be unfaithful, especially after a raising that was often touted by the Henson family as being a Christian one. Ben knew better, well before he ever had the most recent information that she was sleeping around on him. Dr. Henson might never admit it, but his daughter was uncontrollably unfaithful, and a liar, and while all signs pointed to her at least keeping it exclusive with Aaron, Ben believed that if “you’ll cheat once, you’ll cheat again.” Rachel had proven that time and time again.

Ben never thought he was better than anyone, but he knew he was too good for this. As much as he had longed for the marriage to work despite strong indicators it never would, she wasn’t going to make any real effort to give up her unfaithful ways. It was time to cut the cord. He did not need her or her family to make it, and he knew that as much as she enjoyed the lavish lifestyle Ben provided her that she would milk this allegorical cow as long as he allowed it. So in that moment as he walked from the 3rd Street Café back to his office along the faded brick sidewalk that lined Main Street in Freeden, he decided that, no matter the scars his reputation or career might take as he broke apart from Rachel and her well-known family, he was going to end this marriage once and for all. Unhappiness was no longer an option for him. Suddenly, he did not love her anymore, and when Terri told him what happened earlier at lunch, the grim hope of love returning simply vanished. As of this moment, he no longer wanted to love her.

Ben believed that love was a choice. Dr. Henson once told him that, and whether he believed his own teaching or not, Ben certainly adopted the outlook on one of the world’s most mysterious subjects. He recalled Dr. Henson saying when he asked him for Rachel’s hand in marriage: “Ben, love is work, and you make a daily choice whether or not to love someone.” A true Christian principle that, while true, came from the mouth of an authentic hypocrite.

Sometimes Rachel would get on Ben’s nerves, and he had to choose to keep loving her and look past certain things. But they were the small quarrels; things like how she never rinsed the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, and how she never cleaned around the house or picked up after herself. Those things Ben chose to get over; they were trivial. Unfaithfulness, on the other hand, which he had chosen to move past before, would not be subjected to such passive handling now. In Ben’s mind, this simply could not continue.

That day after returning to his office after lunch, he started taking notes to build a case in his own mind against Rachel. Is it just to leave her? Has she done enough wrong? One of the things he learned in the coming weeks was how much she was “going to the gym.” She would return home drenched in sweat, presumably from getting a great Insanity or P90X session in with her fitness group. Only problem was that once he checked with the gym she claimed to be attending to see if they were all paid up for the quarter, they had no record of either Ben or Rachel being members for the previous two years.

Time brings all things to light. A favorite line of Ben’s from the 2006 film All the Kings Men that proved true when all the lies told over the years finally came raining down on Rachel in one night. It was Tuesday, February 12, and Ben told her he had to leave town for three days for a class. He went to the class on that Wednesday, and after one session they had to cancel the rest of the class due to the instructor’s illness preventing him from being able to teach. So on that Wednesday night, he returned to Freeden, unbeknownst to her, and when he drove onto the street they lived on, he noticed Aaron’s truck parked in his driveway. Ben pulled over, and turned his truck off, and watched.

Sure enough, Aaron eventually exited his truck and walked to the front door, which opened and quickly closed behind him. Ben turned his truck back on and drove forward, leaving the lights off, and then parked at a diagonal view of the house from the street. He looked through the window at the now well-lit living room, and saw the two embrace, then kiss, until she finally realized the blinds were open and rushed over to shut them.

Neither of them saw Ben, he was certain, but he had seen enough for himself. As much as he had cared for her, Rachel was just too ignorant to realize this town was too small for that type of thing to go unnoticed forever. Or perhaps she thought, with the clout Dr. Henson had, that it just didn’t matter and no one would ever believe she did anything wrong.

Whatever she thought, on this night the veil was lifted from her lies.

Ben turned the lights on, then drove to the nearby Hampton Inn and checked in for the night.

The next day, Ben felt ready to divorce his wife. He was sat in his favorite spot at his favorite place, 3rd Street Café, and was mulling over these thoughts as he drank his first caffeinated beverage of the day.

There was no need to go inside of his home the night before when he found her and Aaron. Ben’s pride had told him to go in and beat the shit out of Aaron. It was so clear to him now that there could only be one reason Rachel stayed with Ben all this time: the money. He knew it to be the case, and that was the part that did actually hurt. To think she, who he had considered not only to be his wife but for the longest time his best friend, was shallow enough to use him for his money was a major blow for Ben. Whom could he trust? When he married Rachel, he just knew she was the one for him. Her kind, gentle personality was all he had ever wanted; she was a sweet soul, someone who, for the first time, granted him the feeling that the stresses of life were usually exaggerated, and that life was to be enjoyed to the fullest. She had once made him feel like his money, or money in general, did not matter, and that she was committed for the long haul to a relationship together no matter the trials they might face; but on that night where he finally caught her in her wrongdoing, he began to see clearer the scars on his soul that had worsened over time. From day one of their marriage, literally the day they married, Rachel changed. And to this point, she too, worsened, caring less about Ben and the marriage and more about herself.

Have I tried everything? He wondered if there was anything left he could do, even though his pride was telling him the marriage needed to end.

Will God be disappointed with me? He couldn’t determine if this was God’s attempted inspiration or if it was the remnant of another long, deep “talking to” from Dr. Henson, who often felt the need to have these narratives with Ben after Sunday lunches and social gatherings, perhaps because deep down he wondered if his daughter was a snake and he wanted to do all he could to ensure Ben stayed around. The idea that he simply wanted to refrain from embarrassment if the two ever split up proved more probable, though. If there is one thing Ben had learned about Dr. Henson over the years, it was that he cared about self and image more than anything and anyone, and that’s probably why he had risen to the top in the Freeden pecking order. Ben whole-heartedly believed that Dr. Henson would care more about his own embarrassment than his daughter’s well-being if they separated. Ben wondered if the talk from him, which was sure to come, about how God wanted this marriage to stay together would surely be a disguise focused on one thing: saving face for Dr. Henson. Not for Rachel or for his daughter’s marriage. Solely for the benefit of Dr. Henson.

Only a sick son of a bitch would feel this way. How did I not know who I was dealing with? Perhaps it was because Ben finally had begun to realize that people weren’t so good in Freeden. For the longest time he was engulfed in trying to raise his status in the community he grew up loving that he wondered if he had just been blinded to who Rachel and her family really were.

Sometimes people force something as long as possible, even when it is not for the best. That is what Ben believed he had done in his marriage. If he wanted true happiness, he knew what he had to do.

Before when Rachel and he nearly separated, she would sob and beg him not to say what she referred to as “the D-word.” But he knew it: the “D-word” was now the only option. And he hoped he had prepared enough for the ramifications that would ensue in this hateful, judgmental town.

There was a clatter in front of him as the waitress put his plate down on the table. The noise cleared his foggy mind and pulled him from the mist he too often got lost in. “Thank you,” he said. “I guess I was in my own little dream-world there.”

“Don’t worry, dear,” she said. “Lord knows everyone else in this town is, too.”

She was right, and Ben hated her for it. Today that would end though. He wouldn’t succumb to this town and its judgmental ways. It was time to live his life the way he wanted to, and damn anyone who frowned on him for that.

He devoured his scrambled eggs, praising the cook for doing a good job with the most key detail of such a dish. Scrambled eggs were way easier to eat in a hurry. He slammed back the rest of his coffee and headed for the door. His office awaited.

“What the hell happened to you?” Brenda Haley, his administrative assistant, who had worked for him since he opened the firm, noticed he looked significantly less put together than normal.

“Rough night,” he replied.

“No kidding. You look like shit.”

He continued walking past her desk toward the hall to his office. “Try not to flatter me, darling.”

She was always very forward with him, but he liked it and encouraged it. The two playfully picked at each other almost every day, and in many ways he believed it kept them both sane. Ben’s team, in general, fostered a good, playful relationship.

Ben sat in his office with the door locked and waited. He thought of how he would say it, how to respond if she went on another emotional tirade where she begged for forgiveness or where she fought hard to persuade him she hadn’t done anything wrong. He knew it was coming, and even though he shouldn’t have worried one bit about how she responded or felt, somehow he still did. He wanted this to be a moment for her where she realized she needed to change her life around and be a better person. He doubted that would happen, but wanted it badly, not only for her own wellbeing and future but also because he wanted her and her family to move on as soon as possible.

He sat at his desk, deep in thought, and waited for night. Then he returned home.

He walked in the front door, and Rachel was sitting on the couch. The house reeked of pot; she had clearly intended to light incense, but must have grown too tired to light it as it remained unlit on the coffee table with the lighter set right next to it.

She was not expecting him home until the next night, so she had her tablet laying out still with a video of two guys fucking a girl in a gym locker room. She didn’t know Ben saw it, as she hurriedly pushed the button to put the tablet to sleep.

“Hey baby,” she said. “I didn’t expect you home.”

“My training ended early,” Ben replied as he went to sit on the love seat next to her. “Got home yesterday evening, actually.”

She looked confused, and slightly worried. “Yesterday? Why didn’t you come home? I wish you would have.”

“Rachel, I saw Aaron come into our house last night. I know what’s going on.”

“Oh,” she paused, trying to figure out how to respond to his abruptly calling her out. “Baby, he was just dropping by something I left at the gym. Why would you think–”

“Cut the shit, Rachel. I saw you kiss him, and I’ve heard a lot worse. No telling what else went down here last night… in my house.”

“No, no, no, baby,” she said as she began to cry. “Please understand.”

“We are getting a divorce, Rachel.”

“No, no, no,” she said, “he made me do it! I would never choose to hurt you.”

“It’s finished, Rachel, I can’t take this heartache any longer.”

“He raped me! I swear he made me let him in!”

He chuckled in a disgusted manner, and got up from his seat. “Oh, please – Rachel, I saw for myself. You’ve done this before. I’m not putting up with this anymore.”

“Baby,” she pleaded, “I need you.”

“We’re finished, Rachel,” he said as he walked out of the room.

She sobbed, cried out for him, then literally screamed as loud as she could. “Ben what is the matter!? I want you but you work all the time and don’t act like you love me anymore. I feel so unloved and now you’re blaming it all on me!”

“Rachel, you are a pathological liar and you’re convinced that this must not be your fault. I’ve done everything I can to help build a stronger marriage. This divorce will be on your hands.”

She grabbed him. “Please don’t say that word! Daddy won’t let that happen.”

“Daddy doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself!” Ben shouted. “And your Daddy doesn’t have anything to do with me or my choices anymore. And you can tell him I said that when you move back in with him.”

Ben started walking to his home office, which was upstairs. It was where he planned to sleep that night. He was halfway up the stairs when she said calmly, “God wants us to be together. He shared this vision with me. I am a better person from within because of us going to church and getting involved in the marriage classes. You’ve been with me through the dark times. I’m coming out of them! Can’t you stand with me now through the good?”

Ben had his back to her the whole time. He just stood there, looking up the stairs and listening. It was symbolic in many ways; he was facing up finally and realizing there was something higher and better than what he had and where he had been in life, but the simple reality was that Rachel was still trying to drag him back down into a pit of unfaithfulness and misery in which she was deeply rooted. In many ways, he felt sorry for her.

“Tomorrow, you will pack your things and go somewhere,” Ben said, still refusing to look at her. “And you will not be welcome back in this house. We are done, Rachel.”

“No, no, no,” she said as she began to cry again. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“Go to your parents’.”

“I can’t,” she said, still whimpering and sobbing. “I don’t want to go there… I want to be at home with you, like I should be.”

“This is not your home anymore,” he said. “This will never be your home again.”

She was an emotional wreck. He peeked back, and she had fallen on the floor. She was propped against the wall and crying hysterically. Emotions always got the best of Ben; he hated to see even his enemies in this type of pitiful display. This time, though, he felt nothing. No remorse and no sympathy. He had given in so many times because he did not want to see her hurt, even when she had pained him. It would go on no longer.

She cried and wailed, now laying in the fetal position. Instead of walking down to comfort her as he always did, he just walked upstairs, never looking back.