Page 39 of Infidelity Rules

“I never meant to start cheating on my wife,” Marcus says to Alex.

Alex continues to just look at him. I can read his thoughts. Tired excuse. Boring. Cliché.

“She checked out of the marriage a long time ago,” he says. “Long before I did.”

“So why not get a divorce?” asks Alex, never one to mince words. “Why are you still married?”

Marcus sighs and runs his fingers through his thick, wavy hair. “Believe me, I’ve thought about it. I even contacted a lawyer. And this was before I met your sister.”

Both Alex and I are quiet. This is all news to me. I’m not sure how much I want to know. Damn that brother of mine.

“Have you ever been married, Alex?” Marcus asks.

Alex shakes his head.

“Marriage can be very, very complicated. Especially when you’ve been together a long time. Quinn, you can attest to this. You were married.”

I nod, recalling the life-sucking quagmire of my marriage to Chris. When I was in it, I couldn’t see. It wasn’t until I got out that everything became clear.

But I got out. I didn’t have an affair .

“Yeah, sure, I get that,” says Alex. “But now you’re having an affair. With my sister. And I don’t like it.”

“Alex. I am in love with your sister. I didn’t expect that,” says Marcus, taking my hand.

My heart flutters and swells at his use of the word love. Here we are, discussing my married lover’s wife, and I can’t help my delight. I’m such a goon.

Alex does not appear at all impressed with Marcus and his professions of love.

“I don’t claim to know what it’s like to be married, but I’ve had a front row seat to Quinn’s failed marriage,” says Alex. “She got out, though. She never broke her vows.”

It’s like he’s reading my mind.

Marcus just nods.

“Who knows what would have happened if I had met Marcus in the middle of my mess with Chris?” I say, jumping to Marcus’s defense. “I might very well have cheated on him.”

Alex just looks at me, eyebrows raised. “But you didn’t.”

“But I could have, just as easily,” I say. “If I had met Marcus then, I’m almost certain I would have.”

I put my head in my hands as Marcus wraps his arms around me. “How did we get into this mess?” I whisper. “I love him,” I say to Alex. “I love you,” I say, looking up at Marcus.

“I love you too, sweetheart,” he says, pushing the hair back from my face.

“This is insane,” Alex says, exasperated. “Marcus. I like you, I really do, but you have a wife. And you are carrying on with my sister as though you’re single. Have some balls, man. Do the right thing.”

Marcus is quiet. I don’t know what to say.

What is the right thing? Leaving his wife? Or leaving me?

My brother stands with his arms crossed, watching us.

“Marcus, you still haven’t answered my questions,” says Alex. “I get that you love my sister. I can see that. But what’s up with your wife? Why are you still married?”

Marcus slowly pulls a small square of black and white paper out of his wallet and carefully unfolds it.

“I was going to tell you eventually,” he says to me. “Privately.”

“Is that an ultrasound picture?” I ask. “Is that … is that your baby?”

“Yes,” he says, gently folding the picture and placing it back in his wallet. “That was my son.”

I put my hand over my mouth as my eyes swim with tears for this man that I love and his lost baby boy. “Oh Marcus, I am so, so sorry. I didn’t know …”

“Shhh, it’s okay,” he says to me. “Really, it’s okay. And of course you didn’t know. How could you?”

“I’m sorry man,” says Alex. “I can’t even imagine that kind of pain.”

Marcus sighs. “I know this still doesn’t explain things.”

Alex holds up a hand. “It’s okay. You don’t have to go on.”

“No, I do,” Marcus says. “My wife, Juliette, always wanted to be a mom. Always. She got pregnant soon after we were married but lost the baby. No real reason, the doctors said. Just told us to keep trying.”

My eyes are glued to Marcus’s face as I watch his Tahoe blue eyes mist over.

“So we did keep trying, but she never got pregnant again. Something inside Juliette died the day we lost him. And with each negative pregnancy test, well, it was like I lost another little piece of her.”

“Oh Marcus,” I say, reaching for his hand.

“I begged for counseling. I begged to stop trying for a while as it broke me to see her so crushed. But she was like a robot — intent on the task and yet so frighteningly detached. She wouldn’t touch me unless she was ovulating. And even then it was like she was cringing her way through it.”

I look over at Alex who is just listening, quietly.

“She’s not the same person I married,” says Marcus. “I lost her a long, long time ago.”

Marcus grips my hand and turns his gaze to me. “I haven’t felt married for years. But I just could never bring myself to push for a divorce. To hurt her even more.”

Marcus looks at Alex. “And then I met Quinn and I fell in love and well, here we are.”

Alex nods. “Thanks for being honest. Sorry for the grilling.”

“No problem,” says Marcus. “I would have done the same for my sister.”

We all take a sip of our now lukewarm beers.

“I don’t promise to have all the answers yet, but any other questions?” Marcus asks.

Alex shakes his head.

“What was his name?” I whisper, looking up at Marcus. “The baby. What was his name?”

“Jett. His name was Jett.”

.....

A couple hours later, after an emotional goodbye to Marcus at the train station, I’m now strolling along the Baltimore waterfront with Alex, per our usual routine. Today’s revelations exhausted me, but Marcus assured me we would figure things out. And then he boarded a train homebound to Manhattan.

To his wife.

“What a day,” I say to my brother. “I am wiped out.”

“Quick, if you were on a desert island and could only bring three games to play, what would they be?” asks Alex, trying to lighten the mood. “Assume you have somebody to play them with, of course.”

I sigh. “Alex, I have no idea. I can’t think straight right now.”

“Come on Quinn,” he says, jabbing me in the ribs. “That’s the beauty of this game, no thinking allowed. Just go.”

“Scrabble. Bocce ball. And Twister,” I say triumphantly.

“Twister?” asks Alex, laughing. “Seriously, Twister?”

“What? It’s my island. My games.”

“But Twister? What are you, four?”

“Hey little brother, no more giving me a hard time today.” I give him a swat. “You have reached your quota for the day. The year, in fact.”

“Okay, okay. Truce.”

We walk in silence for a while, our long strides mirroring one another. My head is spinning. Marcus, Chris, Liam, vows, marriage, divorce, love, sex, Jett and Juliette, all are whipping inside my mind like laundry during a spin cycle. I can’t tease it out. I can’t see what’s what.

Where does my heart begin and Juliette’s end?

“What am I going to do, Alex? What on earth am I going to do?”

I feel sliced in two, punctured and cleanly slit by a surgeon’s scalpel. I am half delirious with joy and half wild with fear. What if Marcus stops loving me? What if our delight in each other suffocates under the slop of daily routine? What if he breaks Juliette’s heart?

What if he breaks mine?

“Try and be patient, Quinn,” Alex says. “Let your subconscious chew on this for a bit.”

“You’re the one who’s been pushing me to figure this all out,” I exclaim. “And now you want me to be patient?”

“You were hit with a tsunami of information today,” he says. “You need to let it sink in. And talk to Marcus.”

I sigh and plop down onto a bench, beckoning Alex to join me.

“You’re right,” I say. “I know you’re right. I can’t possibly think clearly at the moment.”

“And you don’t have to figure it all out right now, anyway. At least you have some clarity.”

“I suppose,” I say, stretching my arms upward to the sky, trying to release some tension. “So, what do you think of Marcus now?”

“I told you, I like him. I like the way he seems to adore you. And I’m sorry he lost a child. I just wish he wasn’t married.”

“You and me both,” I say quietly.

“Really?” asks Alex. “Do you mean that?”

I sigh and roll my neck from side to side, working out the kinks. I’m not sure what I want anymor e.

“Quinn. Look at me. Do you genuinely mean that?”

“I think I do,” I say, returning his gaze.

“That’s good to hear. Because I think he’s going to leave his wife.”

My mouth falls open. Thankfully, there’s no food in it.

“Does that mean I have to marry him?”

“Of course not,” says Alex.

“Then what does that mean?”

“It means you are very, very serious about him. And that he’s very serious about you.”

“And …?” I prompt.

“And that you have to learn to trust your own judgement again. And to get over this notion that marriage strangles romance and kills love.”

“You are just full of doozies today, aren’t you?” I ask.

“What it really means, Quinn, is that you’re finished dating married men,” says Alex. “That you are ready for the real deal. And everything that comes along with it.”