infidelity

I travel back in time, falling back into what I know for certain, the historical data I cling to in order to not go mad, not assume I made a suicidal and well-informed error in marrying this man.

This is much worse than losing a cat. You do not wish the cat dead, for example, after the first two days. You still love the cat and presumably the cat still loves you, or some variation of love that may in fact be dependence and even indifference.

The whole world seems tilted, my inner ear displaced by a hole where my spouse used to be.

This is much easier than when N left. Our son is unable to grasp and simultaneously turn doorknobs yet. If only this trick could be unlearned by men over thirty, many more families would celebrate Christmas together.

The abandonment came, and now this shabby bacchanal.

Soon he was online every night until one or two a.m. Often he would wake up at three of four a.m. and go back online. He would shut down the computer screen when I walked in. In the past, he used to take the laptop to bed with him and we would both be on our laptops, hips touching. He stopped doing that, slipping off to his office instead and closing the door even when A was asleep. He started closing doors behind him. I was steeped in denial, but my body knew.

This people know where their husbands are. I would like to vomit. I would like to vomit my soul out.

I am not ready to think of him as either insane or evil, to consider in full how I could love and have a child with such a person. I am not ready to think about anything, except ways in which this may still be averted.

I want to own this transition, not to simply swallow the shame of it entire. I will push for every little irony.

He left a bit too easily and with obvious relief. His feet were swift and sure on the muddy path.

I played possum. I did this, as the possum does, out of fear.

Someone told me the delightful story of the crusader who put a chastity belt on his wife and gave the key to his best friend for safekeeping, in case of his death. He had ridden only a few miles away when his friend, riding hard, caught up with him, saying 'You gave me the wrong key!

A heart can stop beating for a while, one can still live.

I have a new mantra, which I chant softly to myself: "Oh My God Oh My God.

I am going insane. Yes. That is what´s happening. Good. Insane.

I was steeped in denial, but my body knew.

It´s like watching someone do a triple backflip dismount and land on two feet, solid, arms splayed in the air. I know I could never do it, don´t even know where I would begin to learn, but some people are built for it. He was handcrafted to leave, had practiced on other women since adolescence. I was one of an unnumbered series.

Such silence has an actual sound, the sound of disappearance.