How High a Price: Long Ending

Susan sat with her hands clasped together in her lap staring blank faced at a spot on the floor and nodded in silent agreement. What had seemed so clear a few days before had turned into a smothering nightmare. Now she felt lost and empty and she had no one to blame but herself. But Susan had never been a quitter and if the spark of hope Early had given her looked like a candle in a distant window then she would find a way to get to that light.

Taking a deep breath and setting straighter on the bench she gathered her resolve to fix this. The time had come to make things right no matter how difficult, and if in the end it didn't work out it wouldn't be because she didn't try.

Steeling herself she raised her head to look directly at Early "What do you want answered? I will tell you anything you want to know."

Early noted with interest the small change in Susan's demeanor, he was adept at reading body language and was pleased that her intellect was starting to assert itself. He had much more confidence in discussion and decisions based on intellect rather than emotion. At least now he felt he had a chance of reasoning with Susan.

Early looked deep into Susan's eyes and asked "How long have you been having an affair with Stickner?"

"We didn't have an affair! I told you this was a one-time deal and I told you what was behind it. I swear to God Early. Having an affair never entered my mind. You must believe me."

"How many other times have you paid "debts" to someone with your body, with sexual favors?"

This question put Susan on the verge of tears. "There have never been any others Early, how can I convince you that I love and want only you. I have never loved anyone else in my whole life, I have never wanted anyone else! I BELONG TO YOU!"

"I always thought you did. Until now I would never have questioned it. Now I'm not sure you know what that really means. Somehow you convinced yourself that this set of circumstances was so important and unique that they overrode your wedding vows and promises to me. That your love for me and "belonging" to me does not preclude you having sex with another man!"

Early's anger continued rising as his mind lapsed back to picturing Susan's car parked at Stickner's house for two days, "How could you love me and spend two days and three nights playing "wife" to someone else? What you did was cold and calculated, not a spur of the moment indiscretion. You took time to take an overnight bag, and even to call me and pretend you were home being the dutiful, loving wife. Where was Stickner while you were talking to me? Was he laughing quietly as you told me about being in our "big lonely bed?"

"Stop it! Stop it! Stop it Early! No one laughed or made fun of you! This is bad enough without you making it worse" Susan screamed.

Shocked at Susans outburst he calmed his anger and sat silently, struggling with his emotions. Susan hugged her arms to herself and a look of helplessness on her face.

"Susan, I need to say some things and I want you to listen very carefully to what I'm saying. It's extremely difficult for me to remain calm here so I need to get these things said before it gets out of hand. Will you hear me out?"

"Yes, of course I will. I want us to get back to our normal lives, I want you to love me again. I will do whatever is necessary to make that happen."

Early moved his chair facing Susan and took her hands in his and looking directly at her he spoke softly but with strength "Susan, you are not only an immensely attractive woman but also very, very intelligent. I want you to think carefully about what I am saying and in a few days you need to tell me how you really feel about it. Will you do that?"

Susan nodded her head in silent agreement.

"It seems to me that we have different views of certain ideas and the meaning of certain concepts. For us to reach any kind of resolution we need to come to an understanding of how we each feel."

"What do you think it means when someone is said to commit adultery?

What does that mean to you? Is it something inconsequential?"

"You swear to me you have never had an affair; that what happened last week was something else. Susan, what was that if it wasn't an affair? I suppose a one night stand could be excluded from consideration as an "affair" but even there this assignation qualifies as more than a one night affair."

"Our wedding vows included the phrase "forsaking all others." We both repeated those words in a solemn oath to each other in front of witnesses. As an attorney what is your opinion of the validity and meaning of that particular promise?"

Susan visibly paled at Earlys words but said nothing. He could see pain in her eyes as she struggled with what he was saying.

"Have you been a lawyer for so long and become so used to bending the meaning of words and phrases around to conveniently suit your goals that these things don't mean to you what I have always assumed they meant?"

Susan started to speak but Early placed a finger to her lips to gently silence her.

"Before you answer I truly do want you to take time to consider it. What I am about to say may affect your consideration."

"As I said before Susan, I love you and want you more than my own life and I want for us to find a way to put this behind us. Hopefully someday it will be just a dim memory that we have been able to push into the dark recesses of our minds."

"However, you need to be aware of a couple of things and I want to be very, very, clear about them."

"First, under no circumstances will I live the life of a cuckold. I will not tolerate the slightest competition for your love and affections. Should there ever be another occasion where you compromise our marriage agreements then our marriage is over. As much as I love and adore you I cannot and will not stand the pain and humiliation of going through this again. If you feel that my position is unreasonable and you feel a need to have latitude in our marriage agreements for whatever reason, then let me know and we can start divorce proceedings now and go on with our lives"

"Early I have told you it will never happen again! How many times must I tell you! What must I do to convince you?"

"Susan, don't be too hasty saying that. I would never have thought you would have done it in the first place but it did happen! You need to consider the circumstances and conditions that led you to believe that it was OK to cheat on our marriage this time and make sure that there are not circumstances where you feel it would be acceptable to do it again. And remember this, things have a habit of coming out into the open. Certainly you never expected me to come home and intrude on this "other world" of yours. The world of your work where you feel I don't belong."

Susan said nothing but began crying softly again. Was she envisioning what Early said? Were there circumstances where she might do it again?

Wiping her eyes with a tissue until her crying had diminished enough to talk she finally looked at Early, "I made a mistake, I know that now. I don't need to think about what "adultery" means and I don't need to examine what "forsaking all others" means. I will never ever do anything again that will put our relationship in danger. You may be right, I am so used to viewing the meaning of things in "legalize" that for a while I lost sight of how absolute the meaning of these things are. Attorneys do play with words, we don't see that the absolutes that are behind the words and phrases. I swear to you that it will never happen again."

"I am sure you mean that Susan, but I still want you to think it over for a few days. Give yourself time to think about what I have said and consider your personal ambitions. Sitting at the desk in your office may change your outlook."

After a short pause Early continued, "I don't want any final decisions or promises to be made here right now by either you or myself. We're both very distraught right now and we need time to give our intellects a chance to seek out the truth. Let's agree to not make any promises until Wednesday. After you have returned to the environment and influence of your office for a few days you may feel differently. I'm trying hard to deal with this unemotionally but you must know that underneath what seems like a calm facade I hurt."

Susan watched Early's face as he spoke, feeling his obvious pain and responded to him in a voice of resignation "I don't need time to know what I want, but if it will make things better I will do as you ask although it is a waste of time. I already know how I feel about you and what I am willing to do to keep you."

"Thank you, I appreciate that, but I want you to be very sure that you can keep the promises you are making."

"You said there were a couple of things you wanted to be clear about, what else is there?"

The look on Early's face became dark and in a voice that didn't conceal his anger he answered "You need to know that I have a personal issue with John Stickner and his participation."

Susan's eyes widened in surprise at Early's comment, her voice anxious "What do you mean you have an issue with John? Early I told you this was my doing, it wasn't Johns idea, it was my idea. He didn't do anything wrong, please leave him out of this!"

"I'm sorry Susan but he had plenty to do with this, I suspect much more than you realize, but that's another issue I don't want to go into now. Right now there is another, very clear cut issue that must be addressed and quite frankly one that doesn't involve you."

"What are you saying, how can there be an issue between you and John that doesn't involve me? It was my stupidity that caused all of this."

"He knew you were married and has known for a very long time. Did he have any reason to believe that ours wasn't a happy marriage?"

"No, of course not. Everyone knows we are very happy in our marriage"

Early visibly winced at Susan's last comment.

In a controlled but strained voice Early continued, "So you are saying that John knew you were "happily married" during the period leading up to and while you were having your tryst with him?"

"Yes"

"Did you ever tell him that we had some kind of "open" marriage? That I knew about what was going on and was OK with it?

"No, I told him we must keep it very quiet, no one was ever to find out."

"Well my dear wife therein lays the crux of the matter between Mr. Stickner and myself. He knew you were spoken for, those rings on your left hand say "Private Property" "No Trespassing" " He chose to ignore it."

"But Early, I am the one that told him it was OK."

"I know you did but you're missing the point. Regardless of what you said he still knew you were married, was aware of the implications and did it anyway. This issue has nothing to do with you personally; it is between he and I. He knowingly dishonored my marriage and knowingly dishonored me, there is a price to be paid for those transgressions."

"Early, you can't mean this, what are you going to do? Please don't do anything foolish! What are you going to do, please tell me! This kind of talk scares me, it is not like you at all." Susan became more and more alarmed as she considered what Early had just said.

"Well wife you should have thought of this before you decided to go play house with another man. Do you really think I am going to just sit by and let another man steal what is mine and put up no resistance? I am paying a terrible price because of your infidelity. You say you want to continue our marriage, that we can fix it and things will be OK again. Well you may change your mind about that by the end of the week."

"John Stickner is not going to escape without paying a price for his part in this and it is going to be high enough so that it stays with him for a very long time."

"Just what are you planning to do Early? What kind of "price" are you talking about?" Susan asked anxiously.

"Frankly, my original thought yesterday when I left the house was to kill him. Luckily I calmed down and came to my senses before I did something that foolish but this is not something that I will ignore."

Susan paled at Early's comment about killing Stickner. "You can't do this, you can't blame John for something that was my doing. I can't let you do that."

"To quote someone else, ..."this has nothing to do with you, with us." This is something I feel I have to do. This has nothing to do with my love for you. It is something that I owe John Stickner for what he has done to me."

Early's anger grew as he spoke "Susan, you created this situation, put me in this position and now I have something I must do because it simply must be done. It's not important that you understand this. You need to stay out of it. If you interfere in any way or decide you need to take his side against me then we are through, we don't need to discuss anything further. Your actions and cooperation set these events in motion and now you are going to have to live with the consequences!"

Susan stared with wide eyes at Early as if suddenly he were a stranger. The silence lasted for a very long time with neither of them saying anything.

Breaking the silence he addressed Susan in a calmer voice "Do you still want to try to save our marriage, considering all of the things we have talked about this morning?"

"Yes of course I do Early, I will do anything to fix it but this thing you feel is between you and John frightens me"

Looking directly at Susan, Early spoke in a quiet even voice, "More than anything I want us to be together and whole and back to like it was. I love you Susan, you are my life but I doubt we can ever get back all of what we had. All we can do now is build a new future and hope it will be as wonderful as our past was. I will probably never have the trust in you that I had in the past. Probably you will never look at me as the same person. This has changed me as a person and a husband."

Susan burst into tears, as the price they were paying for her lapse of good judgment continued to grow.

"Being concerned about how I intend to deal with Stickner is a waste of your time, it happens whether we stay married or go our separate ways."

Waiting until Susan had regained her composure he leaned close to her and took both of her hands in his. "Susan, do you still want to continue on investigating what we must do? Do you think you can do your part?"

Returning Early's look Susan answered immediately "Yes, I know I have hurt you terribly and want to make it up to you. I love you more than you know even though my actions would seem to belie that statement. I'll do anything to make you happy again. Just tell me what I have to do to make that happen."

"By your own words you did something ..."as if you were another person." What happens if that other person surfaces again? What happens then?"

With a hint of steel in her voice she replied, "Early, I swear that it will never happen again, not ever."

Getting up Early returned to the kitchen, "I'm going to finish cooking breakfast, would you like some pancakes and sausage?"

"Whatever you are cooking is fine, I'm not very hungry though."

Early finished cooking breakfast and they sat mostly in silence, as they ate, neither eating very much. After they had completed Early started gathering the dirty dishes and putting them into the dishwasher.

"I need to be alone for a while Early, I need to do a lot of self examination."

"Fine, I have some things I need to do myself. Why don't you use the study and I will make sure I don't disturb you."

"Thank you, I would appreciate that."

Susan left the kitchen for the study and Early finished cleaning the kitchen and then after careful thought knocked softly on the study door.

"Come in."

Opening the door enough to see into the study but not going in Early could see Susan sitting at the desk with a pen and writing pad making notes.

"Pardon the intrusion but I'm going to be gone for a while and wanted to let you know. After I return perhaps we could go out to a late afternoon lunch. Getting out of this house into the sunshine and fresh air might be good for both of us."

Her eyes brightened as she responded to his invitation "Yes, I would like that"

"I'll be back in about three hours, we can leave after that" Then without waiting for acknowledgement Early closed the door and left.

That afternoon Early purchased the new beds and made arrangements for their old bed to be picked up and disposed of when the new ones were delivered on Monday. Next he purchased linens and other accessories necessary to go with the new bed arrangement. There was no joy in this shopping trip.

Afterwards Early stopped at a Starbucks with sidewalk seating and had a cup of coffee while he contemplated what he was planning to do. What was it really going to take to save his marriage? Was it worth saving? What had really precipitated this catastrophic event in his life? As Early remembered the wonderful years with Susan he became angry that it might now be ending. He found solace in the anger; it helped to assuage the pain in his gut and gave him the desire to fight back against this assault on his personal world.

Being a man of careful consideration, Early never went into a negotiation without a plan and had found over the years the effort put into a plan was never a waste. His "cool" had become a legend in his company, and had come to be recognized far outside the industry he was in. He never seemed to be flappable, always spoke with cool precision and invariably what some considered wild guesses were proven correct. Early knew of the reputation and attributed it to his meticulous planning. By the time he entered a negotiation he knew all the players and all the chips on the table. He tried to know all those under the table too and his connections usually were precise.

As he drank his coffee he mulled over in his mind the plan of action he had started formulating since walking out of the house at Susan's return. Finally completing his mental deliberations he decided on a course of action. The act of deciding on a plan cleared away the fog that had cluttered Early's mind and he could now see clearly where he was headed. Right or wrong he had a course of action for dealing with this crises, the most important of his life. At last he begin to feel better. It reminded him of a time years before when he was a younger man in a hostile desert environment. He had made his plan, executed that plan and had then watched his adversaries yield before him.

He reasoned that if you couldn't undo a thing then acknowledge that fact and go on to something you could do. What he could do is end this chapter of the life he and Susan were in and start a new chapter.

Getting outside away from the dark interior of their house and into the sunshine would be a beginning. Go to lunch where they could sit and relax and talk. Talking was always good even if it didn't appear to be of significance for there was always something to be gained in every conversation.

Looking at his watch Early noted that he had been gone for over three hours, it was time to go back to the house and get Susan.

Returning home he found her freshly bathed and changed into a modest sun-dress and sandals waiting for his return. Looking up Susan asked "I wasn't sure you meant it when you said you wanted to go to lunch, did you really mean it?"

Except for her puffy swollen eyes she was radiant, and seeing her made Early's heart beat faster. Even dressed plainly she exuded an aura of class and understated beauty. "Where would you like to go?" he asked in as cordial a voice as he could muster.

"Somewhere new, somewhere we can be alone away from the city, this house and our jobs if for just a little while"

"OK, why don't we take a ride out towards the mountains and see what we can find."