Possibly Your Last

Lisa surprised herself by not getting out of the car. The valet stood by shifting from foot to foot while her body stiffened, holding still as a tombstone. Cars began to line up behind her in the hotel’s semicircular drive. She could sense this but was paralyzed by the smallest shift in her mind, something she felt but couldn’t quite grasp, like an elusive stray hair that tickles your face.

Marcus was waiting for her inside, she knew. Predictable as a puppy, though less forgiving. This would hurt his pride, her no-show to their, what is it now, tenth meeting? If it could be called a meeting. That’s what it says on her digital calendar on her desktop at work in case her assistant, Christina, were to snoop.

Though how Christina had not caught on by now, Lisa didn’t know. Marcus was not her first affair. There was Clarence who got too clingy and threatened to tell her husband, and before him was Steve who was also married and ended the situation after nearly drowning from guilt. A one-night stand before that whose name she’d forgotten, who was probably a dozen years her junior. And that delivery guy, Jeff—or James, something—whose charm wore off with almost as much ease as the removal of his drawstring shorts.

A car horn snapped Lisa back into her body. She put the car in drive without a glance at the surely irritated valet and sped out onto the street. With an hour to kill, according to her work calendar, she headed straight for her therapist’s office.

***

“I’m having another affair,” Lisa blurted before Dr. Nguyen had even asked her to sit.

Dr. Nguyen’s eyes lowered slightly; otherwise, she did not react. “Okay then. Have a seat, let’s get into it.”

Lisa sat, dropping her purse to the floor like that was the weight she had been carrying all these years. “Not my first, as you know. But…” the thought could not reach her mouth.

Dr. Nguyen finished it for her. “Possibly your last?”

Lisa looked down at her lap.

“Can I tell you something I’ve noticed about you over the years?” Dr. Nguyen asked softly.

Lisa nodded, unable to meet Dr. Nguyen’s eyes.

“You might think counseling is all about the mind. Dissecting your thoughts and feelings, trusting me with your secrets, sorting it all out through words. What you may not know is how much I have studied you, the being in front of me, your physical body. I have spent many hours watching and processing.”

Lisa looked up and raised an eyebrow, not following.

“To put it more bluntly, when you come in here, I can tell just from looking at you when you’re in the middle of an affair.”

Her jaw dropped.

Dr. Nguyen explained. “Your shoulders slink forward, your arms stay crossed most of the time, and your skin is a bit grayer. It’s almost as if your body is trying to camouflage itself to your surroundings, so that you—and your secrets—will not be seen. Also, you tend to lose weight because, I presume, the guilt suppresses your appetite.”

Lisa was stunned silent. She wanted to be hurt but couldn’t be because, after taking a quick pulse of her posture and feeling her ribcage through her blouse with the tips of her fingers, she knew Dr. Nguyen was right.

“When you are in between the affairs and spending more time with your husband,” Dr. Nguyen continued, “it shows on your body, as well. You stand taller, even sit taller, and there’s color in your cheeks.” Dr. Nguyen paused, then said, “Lisa, would you do something right now? Would you stand and go to the mirror to the left there and tell me what you see?”

Lisa obliged, fear creeping in with every step for what she might see.

She froze. Someone who appeared ten years older and racked with guilt was looking back at her. Her skin sagged, her collarbones protruded, her mouth was stuck in a frown. And protruding from her top lip was a blistering cold sore. When had that shown up? Lisa took her fingertips to the face in the mirror then to her own cheek to check the reality of it all. Tears sprung to her eyes. Her resolve, years of well-built defensive walls, began to crack.

“What do I do?” Lisa asked, not for the first time. Before, she’d always asked it hypothetically with a shrug and a not-my-fault attitude, like this way of living was her destiny, the only way she could be. This time, the question rose from her gut, a sincere cry for the answer to unbecoming a monster.

Dr. Nguyen motioned for Lisa to sit. “Like I said, let’s get into it.”

***

Lisa texted Christina to let her know she would not be coming back to work that day.

Christina responded within seconds. “Everything okay?” It’s what Lisa expected, though it felt accusatory.

“Of course. I’ll be back in tomorrow,” Lisa sent. Her thumb hovered over the harsh reply. She added, “Thanks for checking.” Then, she turned off her phone for fear of Marcus finding her number and texting her. He knew not to, that was their rule, everything was planned in advance over email. She used an ancient email address in which the messages to and from her secret lovers were obscured by pages of spam.

Lisa stopped at a grocery store. She would pick up all the ingredients for her husband’s favorite dinner of chicken parmesan and mushroom risotto. She was proud to know that part was her idea, not Dr. Nguyen’s. Maybe she had some semblance of kindness left in the depths of her black soul. She tossed her phone into the glove box of her car, as if it were a weapon she had to hide. She imagined herself shrinking and climbing into the glove box, closing herself into a dark, deserved prison cell.

Lisa knew she had to work through these new feelings, that she had to emerge from this newfound land of guilt and negative thinking, even if she had to crawl. This feeling, guilt, was less than pleasant. Heavy and tight, like a strait jacket. She had reparations to pay, and this was part of it, she supposed.

This version of herself on this day was unrecognizable. You don’t become the head of HR of a massive engineering firm if you’re afraid to interact. Lisa had worked her way up by hard work and grit, yes, but also by charming the socks off her supervisors and colleagues. She was efficient and creative in solving her colleagues’ problems. She effectively carried the burden of everyone’s secrets, the heaviest being her own.

She and Dr. Nguyen decided together that the weight had finally become too much. Lisa thought of Steve who had cried into her shoulder when he couldn’t take the secrecy anymore. She’d never known if he told his wife or how she had reacted. Lisa hoped, for some reason, that his wife forgave him and that Steve was happy.

Bile sneaked its way up Lisa’s esophagus just as she made it back to her car. She tossed the bags onto her passenger seat and gripped the steering wheel, waiting for the nausea to pass. Something needed to come out and soon. Her body was finally rejecting her choices, her secrets, her self.

***

Lisa was stirring the risotto with a shaky hand when her husband, Greg, emerged from his art studio behind the house. He came up behind her, as he often did at the end of a long day, and kissed her on the back of the head. He said he would clean up and be ready for dinner soon. She nodded, her throat stuck, her eyes threatening to burst and oversalt the risotto. She poured them each a glass of Greg’s favorite cabernet, taking a big gulp from the bottle for courage.

When he returned, showered and fresh, her heart felt it was being run over. He seemed brand new to her but also the man he’d always been, loving and loyal. Ten years of marriage, the last five of which she had essentially ignored. Greg had always been so patient, so forgiving. She took advantage, she knew that. She knew a lot that he didn’t. But by the time the bottle of cabernet was empty, that would no longer be true.

Lisa told her husband everything. No sleazy details, no names, but otherwise everything. He listened and sipped and listened. His eyes filled with tears and his nose dripped. He sat still as a statue until she had drained her soul. Then, after an eternity of silence, he said, “Let’s get some air.”

Lisa misheard and stayed put as Greg slid open the back patio door. When he said, “You coming?” she realized with shock that she was being invited. She had heard I need some air, but this was something else entirely. She hoped this was a small hint at we will get through this. Together.

Lisa followed Greg to the patio. They spent most of the night outside, mostly in silence, letting the secrets, the guilt, the shame settle into the grooves between the patio stones. Lisa imagined herself emerging from a shower one day, looking new to Greg. She knew it would take time, and maybe never happen. She knew he could leave the very next day. That it was out of her control, or that’s what Dr. Nguyen told her anyway. All she could do now was let this night be what it would be.

***

The next day Lisa left for work before Greg awakened, too ashamed to face him in the morning’s light. She was lighter, having laid herself bare, but gripped with a deep sadness that felt like a black cloak tied around her neck. Relief and remorse, entangled.

Christina knocked and came in just as Lisa sat down with a cup of coffee. Lisa tried to distort her face into the confident form that it would normally take, but she was already forgetting what that form was. She imagined her current face looked pained.

Young, carefree Christina stopped in her tracks and touched her fingers to her own lip, mirroring the spot where Lisa’s cold sore lay. She looked so alarmed that Lisa thought she might call 9-1-1. Lisa pulled the coffee mug to her face to disguise it.

“Everything okay?” Christina said with her voice and her eyebrows, equally.

Lisa set down the mug and sighed. “It will get better. I believe it will get better. With time.”

After minutes of convincing Christina to let her be, Lisa finally sat alone at her desk. The first thing she did was delete her old email account. She noticed that Marcus hadn’t even bothered to write after she stood him up.

Maybe Marcus was never real, maybe none of them were. Maybe some parallel version of herself had been faithful to Greg, her first and only real love. Maybe she could introduce herself to that person; it seemed she was knocking at Lisa’s door. Maybe she could let her in. And then, after working and growing and working some more, maybe

she could begin to

tinker with the idea of

forgiving herself.