There were fifteen minutes between my decision to cheat on my wife and the arrival of Vanity Hall, my seductress.
There was still time for me to change my mind and get out of there—leave the restaurant and go home to Faith.
I knew I should, but I felt like Prufrock—strangely empowered, yet powerless.
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
I was sitting in a window booth and it had begun to rain. I thought of another restaurant on another day, and a smile so radiant, it made the clouds go away.
“I got rained on.”
It was Vanity, droplets sparkling like jewels in her hair, giggling at her little misadventure while men’s heads in the restaurant turned her way.
So intoxicating... I was drowning in chains of seaweed while my Siren was preening and turning men to stone.
“I cleared my calendar for the afternoon.”
We clinked glasses and wordlessly toasted our freedom, and I pushed aside a mountain of guilt.
“Bless me Father, for I have sinned.”
Breton slid open the panel behind the grate and the Good Father listened to a sad refrain—one he had heard many times before—just not from me.
“Have you told Faith?”
“No. I don’t think I can.”
He nodded as if understanding, but even he had to pause and stare off into space.
“I thought you two had something special—I suppose no one is immune from the weakness of the flesh.”
It was my turn to nod.
“You’ve ended it, of course?”
I stared at him and blinked.
His countenance fell.
“Oh Jay—you know I can’t absolve you. If you’re bent on continuing in this sin, it would be a sacrilege—living a lie. You have a choice—either admit it, or quit it. There’s no other way.”
“I sighed. “I know it, Father—I guess I just had to hear you say it.”
I left with no absolution, no penance—other than a huge mountain of guilt I was carrying on my back. I carried it two more months because I couldn’t let her go.
I left her a dozen times over those months—tear-stained and desolate, yet I always returned. In the end I was found out, as inevitably, I knew that would be the way things would fall out for me.
“What are these charges at the Park Hotel?” She was asking, but the crumpled MasterCard statement, said she already knew.
“Is it over?”
I shook my head.
“It is now.”
Three months and thirty thousand dollars in lawyers’ fees brought me to where I am now.
I’m standing by our curtainless window staring at a gloomy sky, white drop cloths over the furniture and wondering how the years sped by.
What happened to that adage of saving for a rainy day? Faith is gone and Vanity is too… with a banker from Credit Suisse near King and Bay.
I have my absolution. I’m living my penance every day.
Funny how love becomes
A cold rainy day…
Funny now, how that rainy day is here to stay.
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Thank you for writing a story so beautiful.
thanks
An awesome post. short but it doesn't miss vitality
thank you