“Thanks for the warmup Brian. What is this problem you think I can help you with?”
“Grace cheated on me Gramps. She fucked another man.” He slumped in the chair and covered his face with his hands. I wanted to pick him up, put him on my lap like I had done countless times when skinned he his knee, or some other childhood calamity that needed a grownup to fix.
“Alright, start at the beginning. When did this happen, I need some details.”
Brian sort of shook himself and straightened up in his chair, “I guess I first suspected there was something wrong about six weeks ago. Grace’s demeanor changed. She was normally a happy person with a bubbly, effervescent personality. Overnight she became moody and seemed to want to avoid being around me. Several times I’ve tried talking to her. I asked her what was wrong. She just got mad and yelled at me. She is just getting hard to live with.”
“Finally, about four days ago, I had enough. Yeah, last Friday I came home from work and told her we were going out to dinner, have some drinks and come home and make wild monkey sex. She shut me down and grabbed her purse and left the house. I opened a beer and tried to watch TV. I was at my wits end. What was wrong, what happened to my perfect wife?
The phone rang and I ran to it thinking it was Grace. It was Vicky, Grace’s best friend. In a low voice like a whisper she asked me to come to her house and get Grace. She said “Brian, you know Grace loves you more than any other man on earth. She really needs your understanding right now. I’ve convinced her that she must come clean with you, that the only way she can get past this is explain everything and if you really loved her she would get your forgiveness.”
“Gramps, you don’t have any idea what was going on in my head. What was so important to change my wife completely that I have to forgive her.?”
I had a fairly good idea, but it was too early for my input to Brian’s narrative.
Brian was determined to give me the whole story as he continued, “When I got to Vicky’s house they were waiting for me on the front porch. Vicky had her arm around my wife’s shoulders in a protective way. I parked in the driveway and the women walked toward the car. I opened the passenger door and barely heard Vicky whisper “You’ve got to tell him everything and trust in his love.”
When we got in the car, Grace said she didn’t want to go home. That surprised me and ticked me off a bit. “Where the Hell do you want to go!”
She shrunk as far away from me as she could get and I saw a tear slide down her cheek.
“Aw honey, I’m really sorry, I’m just really on edge. I don’t know what is going on, but I have a nasty feeling I’m not going to like what you are going to tell me.”
“It’s OK, It’s all my fault, you’ve done nothing wrong” she murmured. ” Let’s go to the park. I think I will do better if we are outside.”
We found an empty picnic bench in a leafy alcove that would give us the needed privacy.
It was evident that Grace was trying to control herself and gather the courage to tell me what may change our lives forever. The five minutes we sat there in silence seemed much longer.