The Phone Call

“ My marriage is a lie”. I say this to Melanie, my therapist. Melanie leans back in the chair and looks at me with her concerned brown eyes and a caring expression.

“Bonnie, tell  me what happened, what is going on?”

“It’s so hard to think about this much less even talk about it. But here goes.”

I leaned back on the sofa positioned a gold-trimmed pillow in my lap and began my story.

Billy’s Silverado was parked in front of the garage. He is usually home before me. I came home from work exhausted and plopped down on the lazy boy in the sitting room. The mail from the day was laying on the table, unopened and I glanced at it. Maybe he is in the shower, I thought. I kicked off my shoes and glanced out the window to the deck overlooking our yard. The day was beautiful, a light breeze blowing through the open sliding door. Then I heard a slight muffled noise. Words. Talking.  Normally Billy is very loud, not a subdued low spoken voice, but loud, the life of the party type loud. Mr. joke teller.  Today his voice is low, above a whisper but low tones. Oh my god, my first thought, his dad. Something happened.  No. As I stood up,  I crept slowly over to the door. I listened. 

“ I only have a few minutes before Bonnie gets home, please calm down. What? No, of course, this will not change anything. I am here for you, no matter what .”

I am speechless. This is not his Dad or any other family matter for that matter. This is a woman. What?  Something is going on. Something very serious, something that will jeopardize our marriage and ruin our lives. All these thoughts are running through my head. With that, the front door opens and Allie our 10 year old enters the front door and drops her backpack on the door.

 Hi! I’m home! she shouts as  I hear her enter the kitchen. I rapidly step away from the door and enter the kitchen.

 “Hey, You! How was your day ?” I reach over and surround her in a “mom hug “  a term she invented with endearment.  

 “ It was great! I  got a B on my science project and Zoey and I are friends again  !” She says gleefully.

With that, Billy strolls into the room, “ Hey my two favorite gals! “Allie rushes up to him to be surrounded in his warm embrace and he gives her a smooch.

 “Great dad! What’s for dinner ?”  Billy glances at me for guidance and I shrug my shoulders. I have not even begun to think of dinner. How can I?  I am still devastated by that little call I overheard just 10 minutes before.

Ok, he says “let’s order in from Chum Bo.”

 “Yay !” says Allie accompanied by a clap. I tell her to go on upstairs and start her homework, which she grudgingly agrees to and grabs her back and proceeds to drag it up the steps.

 At this point as I busy myself putting breakfast dishes in the sink and wipe off crumbs from the table. I give Billy a sideways look as he is going through the mail and has a very relaxed look on his face. He is almost whistling. He looks very content. What? What is going on here? 

“Hey,” I begin as I turn around and lean against the sink with a towel in my hand. 

 “ How was your day? “

 “Fine! “ He says. “ Good day! We sold the Raitt contract, so it is all good on this end! It was s tough but they signed off on the final proposal this morning and 

I’m ready to celebrate !”

 Billy is a General Building Contractor and is responsible for managing projects involving two or more unrelated trades.

“ Ummph.” That is all I can manage at this point.  I continue, “That’s good, congrats. “

 He responds, Thanks for the big congrats !” and laughs good-naturedly.

“ Hey are you okay?” he says this with concern and looks at me in the eyes. “ Did something happen today ?”

I turn back to the sink, as I  feel tears starting to sting my eyes. I quickly wipe them and shake my head. “ No. I’m fine” I reply, “just something that happened today.”  I continue trying to keep my composure, “ I’m going to lie down until dinner.” I  give my husband a quick glance and he seems worried about me. Concerned for me.  I trudge up the stairs. Not knowing what is happening.

 After dinner, Allie helps me clean up and goes up to her room to call her friends. Billy and I finish up in the kitchen and he asks me once again what is the matter. I cannot bring myself to discuss or think about it.

 He finally said, “Let’s have a wine and sit in the living room.  I’m concerned for you and this is not like you. I’m worried.”

 We sat together in the living room across from each other. Me on the beige chair with the ottoman, and Billy on the sofa. I looked up over my wine glass and mentally thought,  okay here goes.

 “Billy, when I got home from work  I heard you on the phone out on the deck “.

 “ Yes ?” He said. “And ?”

“ Well,”  I continued, and lowered my voice to a little above a whisper. “You  were speaking to someone and, well what you were saying sounded a bit like, well, um maybe you were talking to someone  and did not want me to hear .” There, I said it. Whew!

Billy’s eyes widened and he said, “What? What are you saying?  Wait,  were you eavesdropping on my conversation ?” He saw the look on my face and said, loudly, “  You were!” “Bonnie, why would you do that? Why would you sneak and listen to my conservation? why not walk outside? I replied softly, “because I did not think you wanted to be heard .” I looked down at my hands clasped in my lap. I continued, “ I thought you were talking to someone that you did not want me to know about.”

Billy jumped up from his seat and almost knocked over his wine glass. “How could you? Isn’t our marriage based on trust? Funny! I always thought it was! I still can’t wrap my head around you standing  by the door and, and listening !”

“I’m sorry, it just happened so fast, It caught me off guard.” I continued, 

“ Well, who was it? Who were you on the phone with ?”

At this point, Bily was raising his voice, and I was glad Allie was upstairs with the television blaring. 

“ Who was I talking to? ,  I was going to tell you, because I tell you everything! I  did not have the change yet! Maybe this is happening  because you are keeping  secrets and  choose not to tell  me things!”

 With that his cell phone rang, he glanced at it and let it go to voice mail.

That was my brother Stevie. He called me today to tell me that he received test results from Dr. Drake.  “ Bonnie he is losing his eyesight. He has  Glaucoma. Can you

imagine? He may possibly be going blind and all he was concerned about was his job, at our company .“  I told him I would be here for him no matter what.” He has tears in his eyes. 

 At this point,  I look up at my Therapist and say softly. “There is someone else. But it’s on me. I have been seeing someone at work for the past month.”