a far too regular basis? I might not tell Bob to mind his own business or lie to him outright, but evasive answers didn’t count as lying in my book. “Friday?”
“Besides that.” When I didn’t waltz into his trap he snorted out a breath. “Your anniversary. Your twentieth anniversary.”
“Eighteenth.” Eight if you counted the legal service. Travis and I had always celebrated on the anniversary of our original commitment ceremony and not the mad scramble we’d made to Massachusetts the moment they’d legalized same-sex marriage. The first event had been an act of love, the second, a desperate attempt for formal recognition before our fickle government changed its mind.
“Really? I thought…”
“The clock stopped when he walked out.” A scowl on the face of one of the nearby fathers chastised me into dropping my voice.
Take a good look, buddy. This is what will happen to your family in a few years when your man decides he no longer needs you. I managed to keep my warning inside my head. No need to disillusion the coddled youngster with my cynicism.
Instead I informed my son, “We might be legally married, but I stopped counting two years ago.” Stopped the clock, as though our marriage were a taxi cab, idling, waiting for the passengers to make up their minds and either get out or move on. I worked at a law firm. How easy to open the door, pay my fare, and end the ride, but yet here I remained, in limbo.
“He’s got his career,” I added, “and probably doesn’t even have time for me.” There had been a time when he’d given up his passion to stay home and take care of me and Bob. I thought we’d be enough. Apparently, we weren’t.
I’d planned a trip to Paris to mark our two decades together. Then Milan for the following year, and Hawaii after that… Now, instead of a fine meal in a star-bedecked restaurant in the City of Light, I’d likely eat a takeout sandwich in a cold and empty house, on just another day of work. Bright lights and applause had replaced his need for me.
Bob returned to his tabletop fascination. “He’s not working.”
What? “What do you mean he’s not working? He always works.” Recently Travis had taken a page from my book and become a workaholic, making up for lost time with any and all roles available to a man more suited for a curmudgeonly father than the hot romantic leads he’d played when we met.
Hey, just because he no longer shared my bed didn’t mean I couldn’t keep a watchful eye on the man who bore my last name, did it? I’d even attended a few of his plays. Okay, I’d attended all of his plays, sitting away from the stage and never, ever, clueing Bob in. A fifteen year hiatus while Travis had stayed home to raise Bob hadn’t damaged his acting skills. No matter if he played Hamlet or Polonius, he owned the stage. I’d become a groupie to my own husband.
“You know how it is; there aren’t many good parts for a man his age. At least that’s what he says.” If Bob had been under interrogation on a witness stand, I’d have moved in for the kill. Nothing in my son’s statement spoke of truth. He couldn’t even meet my eyes while uttering those words.
Travis had recently played a doting father in a peanut butter commercial so convincingly. Years of practice, I suppose. And now to say he can’t find roles. He’d been in My Fair Lady as Professor Higgins a few weeks ago. Or maybe a few months. Strange thing, time, how quickly it slid through the fingers.
Bob dropped his pretenses when I didn’t make the suggestion he’d hoped, and took a more direct approach. “Please, Dad. I’m worried. Just go see him, okay?”
Should I go? I weighed the pros and cons, the twisting in my chest worsening. What if my husband’s not working turned out to be something more than lack of opportunities? The hurt he’d caused whispered in my ear, See, he can’t make it without you—serves him right. Another part of me, the part that remembered the poor man pushing himself to the breaking point to nurse me and Bob through a horrible stomach bug said, Would seeing him be so bad?
Actually, yes, it would. The man who was almost mine. But not quite.
If I visited, maybe he’d tell me why he hadn’t filed for divorce, since my busy schedule didn’t allow