A Final Excerpt from the Anthology of Jules & Geneva Wiley

41 years.

That’s how long Jules and Geneva had been married. 

Exactly.

As Jules sat in bed on the dawn of their anniversary, on top of the covers, wiggling his toes, he took time to reflect on the past four decades of his life. 

Many mornings since his retirement started off much like this. Jules would naturally wake up at the first signs of new light, but having no real need to be up and about at this hour he would often just sit and think, allowing his own imagination to entertain him. On occasion he would read or watch the television without the volume, but he was mostly content in his own mind, in the peaceful still and quiet of the very early morning. 

He looked over at his sleeping wife, her back to him. When their kids were young, they would start their days together this early, changing diapers and making lunches and whatever else needed their immediate attention. Now the kids were grown, one living out of state and the other two raising families of their own. Geneva needed no beauty sleep to be beautiful, in Jules’s eyes, but most mornings nowadays she would sleep till nine or ten. 

She had always been a poet, Jules liked to say, though Geneva argued against it. His thoughts drifted all the way back to the first time they met. “A poet uses words,” she had corrected him, “to convey what they are feeling. I paint houses. Tell me how that makes me a poet.” She stood on the top step of her father’s ladder, painting over all the discolored spots at the top of the Wiley’s house, and so many times Jules worried she might fall, but then no worries because he’d be there to catch her. Geneva had not turned her focus away from her work for even a split second to regard Jules standing at the base of the ladder, but somehow he knew her to be smiling at his flattery of her. 

“A poet doesn’t just use words,” he called up to her. “It’s not about the words; it’s about the way the poet’s voice trembles, her stance when she takes the stage, the intensity and sincerity when she looks you in the eye. A poet has the power to express herself in a way no combination of words could ever articulate. Maybe it’s the way you move or...how you pretend to ignore me when I’m talking to you. I don’t know, there’s just something about you.” 

Geneva climbed down the ladder carefully and Jules’s heart beat in time to the sound of her work boots touching down on every rung. 

“Well then maybe you, Mr. Wiley, are the poet,” she said before walking away. 

Mr. Cronan’s contracting company had been hired to do a whole bunch of work on the Wiley’s house, work that would take weeks over the summer to complete, and Jules was thankful for that. Every day he would “bother” Geneva Cronan, asking her about this and that and doing whatever he could to get to know her. Over the course of six or seven weeks, they became good friends with a mutual attraction for one another, and subsequently began dating in the fall.

And though Geneva had and would go on to call Jules a poet throughout the years, he always remained a bit envious of her ability to take his breath away, thus he never stopped referring to Geneva as the poet. 

Geneva was facing Jules now, her eyes still closed, feeling around for her husband. Her hand found his and he closed his fingers around hers.

“Happy anniversary,” she muttered into her pillow. 

Jules smiled faintly, though his wife didn’t see it, before murmuring “happy anniversary” in return. 

They remained like that for a while, Jules watching the sunrise through the sheer white curtains that hung in front of the window. Geneva, he thought, had fallen back asleep and, not wanting to wake her, Jules allowed himself to slip back into his memories. 

They married when Jules was 25, Geneva 23, the wedding a small gathering with just their closest family and friends. Everyone knew from the moment they became an official couple that they would make it this far. Geneva herself knew it, she admitted to Jules on the eve of their wedding. “I was up on that ladder that day and I wasn’t going to let you get me down. But try as I might to stay strong, I knew from the moment we met that I had a major weakness for you.” Those had been her exact words. 

Jules was certain she was the love of his life too, until the moments he wasn’t. In high school his sexuality had been...fluid, to say the least. He had probably been with other boys more times than girls when he first met Geneva, and this he took no shame in, despite the line-up of bullies waiting to kick him around every day. He confided in Geneva about this very early on in their relationship and she simply shrugged it off, not as if it didn’t matter, but as though she didn’t care, and this irked Jules for a period of time. But that was before he really started to fall in love with her, and after that, nothing she ever said or did could upset him for long. 

Brendan was born about five years after their marriage, Nicole a year after that, and Sarah three years after that. In raising their children, Jules and Geneva discovered their strengths and weaknesses together. As a high school teacher, Jules had learned to be patient, but was a harsh disciplinarian who had difficulties apologizing. The kids turned to Geneva for advice and she was well liked amongst their friends and their friends’ parents. But she could sometimes let it get away from her; the fact was, she could be too lenient at times. 

Such was not just the case with the kids, but with Jules too. She would never forget his affair during the summer of their twentieth year of marriage, though Jules sometimes swore she had. The way she loved him, even after he came clean. It was as if she had never heard him confess. 

Jules thought about this now as he sat in bed, staring out the window at nothing in particular. He loved Geneva; God knows he loved her. But if he had gotten away with it once, he wondered, could he get away with it again? What caused Geneva to forgive him so easily the first time? What prevented her from walking out the door with their beautiful children and his whole life in tow? It remained a mystery to him, but as of late he had been tempted by a man who was surely the devil himself...

Why? He asked himself this question often. Why risk everything that was important to him all for just a few hours of a stranger’s time whenever he could manage? Oh, but he would be more than a stranger, bound to become another one of Jules’s loves. At least, that’s what happened with the first one. Michael, his name was. Perhaps that’s why Geneva forgave him--she was under the impression that Jules was just having his fun with this man. Had she known the truth, that their rendezvous had blossomed into a very new and still fragile love, she would’ve packed it all up and left him for good, no doubt about it. 

“No doubt about what?” Geneva, wide awake now, stared up at Jules with her striking blue-gray eyes. He didn’t realize he had drawn his conclusion outloud. 

“That I love you,” Jules covered, craning his neck down to peck her on the forehead. Geneva scoffed, rolling onto her back and stretching. 

“No doubt that I love you either. Want breakfast?”

“Let’s go out, shall we?”

Geneva rubbed her eyes and nodded groggily. 

“Perfect.” 

“Jules? No, he’s not here right now. Can I take a message? Okay, great. Uh-huh. You too. Bye.”

Geneva hung up the phone and returned to her book and tea in the living room. She never realized how popular her husband was until he was suddenly absent all the time. A light drizzle started up outside. He had left just after noon that day and it was now almost four o’clock. It had been much the same two to three days a week for the past several weeks and Geneva wasn’t sure what to make of Jules acting so out-of-character. Whenever he left, whenever he returned, Geneva would ask him where he was going, where he had been, and Jules would brush her off like some pesky house fly. Now Geneva could indeed be tolerant of a great deal of things, but Jules hadn’t been this way since…

She swallowed hard, overcome with a wave of awareness at her foolish oblivion. 

Brenden was fifteen, Nicole fourteen, and Sarah around eleven when Geneva found out about Michael. According to Jules, it had only been going on for a couple of months. Summer was drawing to a close and Jules had been less than an active parent those past few months, alright. Geneva didn’t know what to think. Her mother had suggested it might be some sort of midlife crisis, but that almost seemed to be too logical of an explanation. Now Geneva was left to her own devices. She could talk to the kids; oh, but they were busy with their own lives and Geneva feared being written off as just a senial old woman. 

None of the kids knew about their father’s first affair. Both Jules and Geneva thought it in everyone’s best interest to keep it between the two of them. 

She had forgiven him solely for that reason--she didn’t want to ruin the kids’ lives, paint them a distorted picture of their father who, as far as they were concerned, was a superhero off fighting crime in the city all the time. But now that they were grown and out of the house...not that they wouldn’t care, but...Geneva felt somehow it would be understood if she were to leave Jules now. 

That is, if she found reason to. She would never up and leave him by her own accord. 

The front door opened and slammed shut. The jingle of keys. The scuffle of shoes. 

“Jules? Is that you?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m in the living room. Where’ve you been?”

“Out.”

“No kidding. Seriously.”

“I had stuff to do.”

“Could you be a little more specific?”

“No.”

“Jules…”

“Why can’t I have some alone time?”

A brief silence fell over them. Geneva sat anxiously on the edge of the couch, waiting for Jules to appear, but he stood around the corner, just out of sight.

“Were you alone?”

“Yes! Jeez, what are you thinking?”

Geneva heard Jules stomp away. 

“I’m thinking that you most certainly weren’t alone.”

This routine carried on for several more weeks and Jules’s disappearances only became more frequent. The time of his departure only got earlier and the time of his arrival home only got later. He became more and more irritable. And Geneva became more and more certain that her husband was engaging in another affair, no doubt about it. 

She had been trying to hold it together, but everything collapsed one night when Jules didn’t come home until after ten o’clock, the latest he had ever been. He had left exceptionally early that morning too. Geneva waited up for him in bed, in the dark, though she wondered whether there was really any point anymore. 

She heard him enter the room, shut the door behind him, and head 

straight for the bathroom. When he flicked on the light, Geneva saw the silhouette of a man she did not marry. She did not fall in love with this man. She had not bore his children. She had not dedicated forty plus years of her life to this man. Perhaps she should not have taken his words so lightly when he told her about his experiences with men all those years ago when they first got together. Perhaps the boat in which they sat sinking now could have been kept afloat; maybe they could’ve turned back around when they weren’t yet very far off the shore.

“Do you think I don’t know?” she heard herself saying. Jules startled at the sound of her voice. 

“I thought you were asleep.” 

“And I thought you were loyal. I thought you were faithful, Jules. I thought you were honest. I thought you were…” She began to cry now, and rather unabashedly. Jules came as close to the bed as he dared, switching on his bedside lamp. Her tears took on the appearance of dew drops, or...small pearls rolling down her crimson cheeks. 

“Geneva....” All the words he had planned on saying when this moment came--for he knew it was coming--were suddenly lodged at the back of his throat. “You are the love of my life….”

“Then why? Why have you done this to me twice now? You know I love you, Jules. I love you with all my heart. I love you so much, I forgave you once. But now I’m starting to think I should’ve let you go…” 

“Is that why you forgave me?”

Jules sat on his side of the bed now, staring at Geneva playing with her hands in her lap. She let the question settle like dust before answering. 

“Yes. Of course. I forgave you because I love you.”

The moment Geneva said it outloud, she knew it to be true. Of course she hadn’t wanted to uproot her children’s lives in the wake of their father’s affair, but she hadn’t wanted to uproot her own, or Jules’s either, anymore than he already had. 

“My weakness for you has...only gotten greater as the years have gone on. I may very well be at my weakest right here, right now.” 

Yes, sometimes Geneva let it get away from her; the fact was, she could be too lenient at times. But this was not her fault.

 Jules felt his heart shatter in that moment. What he had done this time to this poor woman was far beyond what he could repair. He hadn’t even fixed it himself the first time. She had by forgiving him. He couldn’t expect her to do the same once more, shouldn’t have expected it the first time. The more he thought about it, she had done all the heavy lifting in their relationship, only asking for him to be honest with her and to love her unconditionally, and he had failed at even that. What was there left that he could do? 

“If you want me to stay, then I’ll stay, but if you want me to leave…” 

“Stay. Just for tonight. Just for me. Tomorrow I’ll help you pack and you’ll go...to be with him or wherever it is you want to go. Just stay with me for tonight.” 

Jules was a little taken aback.

“Is that what you want?”

“It’s not only what I want. It’s what both of us want. You want him and I want you to be happy. I can be happy knowing you’re happy. Knowing I did the right thing...for you and for myself. I can forgive you a million times over and over again. I can love you in this life and the next. But I can’t keep on getting hurt when I can’t make you happy anymore.”

Jules crawled into the bed and Geneva didn’t hesitate to move as close to him as possible. She planted her face in his chest as he combed his fingers through her hair and kissed the top of her head. Despite all he had put her through, she was still the love of his life; no man could ever strip her of that title, no matter how much Jules loved him. Jules would always remain the love of Geneva’s life too--her greatest weakness in this life and the next. And though they were separating, for better or for worse, both found it incredibly difficult to let go of the other that night, as though some invisible force had bound them together forever. 

Perhaps it was merely love. 

“That’s everything,” Jules sighed, closing the trunk of his car. He walked across the grass to the front porch where Geneva stood, arms folded over her chest. Jules smiled remorsefully and took her in his arms, tears stinging at his eyes, but he would not let them fall. “I guess this is goodbye,” he rasped. Geneva pulled back to look at him. 

“Don’t say that,” she said. “Don’t ever say that. Today we part, we go our separate ways, but that does not mean we must say goodbye. I’ll see you again. I’ll come find you in another life and I’ll love you all over again. I’d make the same mistakes over and over and over again just for another day with you. But that’s in another life. In this one…” 

Her voice trembled. Her stance, sure yet insecure. Her stare, intense and sincere, and Jules heard her words, but it was the way she made him feel that caused him to break down. It had always been that way. 

“Never forget that for forty years, we pledged our lives to each other. We watched each other stumble and fall and we picked each other back up every time. I love you and that is why I forgive you. My love for you will always be greater than my weakness for you and that is why I am letting you go. I will always love you and that is what fails to make this a goodbye.” 

“You’re a poet,” he whispered. “You always have been.” 

Geneva smiled, drying up all of Jules’s tears. 

“Maybe we both are.” 

So concluded their anthology.