Page 11 of Stay Away from Him

My husband is cheating on me with our next-door neighbor.

Next up on the irrational thought tour!

But is this one really so irrational? Thomas did used to be in a relationship with Amelia.

They were together for a couple years in med school, then they broke up not long before Thomas and I met and started dating.

From what I can tell, things were pretty serious between them.

I don’t know much about that time in their lives.

They never really talk about it. But from a few things they’ve said—stray, barbed comments—I’ve gotten the sense that they weren’t so much broken up when Thomas and I met, as taking a break.

(Cue Friends music and Ross shouting, “We were on a break!”) I was Thomas’s rebound from Amelia, a fling that wasn’t supposed to last. But then we did last, got married, had the girls, bought a house.

And Amelia Harkness, for some reason, stayed close by every step of the way.

She was Thomas’s best friend during the years we were dating, my maid of honor in our wedding, at his insistence.

And when we settled in this house by Lake Julia in the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities, she somehow ended up as our next-door neighbor. The girls call her Aunt Amelia.

My husband’s ex-girlfriend—his beautiful ex-girlfriend—is an honorary member of the family. Thomas loves her. So do the girls.

I’m the only one who’s not so sure. Who’s merely tolerated Amelia’s presence for years.

Sitting at our table for weekend dinners.

Her occasional pop-ins asking for Thomas’s help lifting something heavy or doing some work in the yard.

Or when I wake up from a midday nap and realize I’m alone in the house, only to find my husband and kids next door with her, playing board games and eating popcorn and laughing.

The very picture of a perfect, happy family—with Amelia Harkness playing the role of wife and mother in my place.

Sometimes I can’t tell if she’s the other woman, or if I am. If she and Thomas were meant to be together, and I’m the one who’s the usurper.

But are they having sex? That’s the question.

They certainly have before. You don’t spend two years in a relationship in your twenties without having lots of sex.

And that’s bad enough. Not that my husband had prior relationships, prior sexual partners—everyone comes into a marriage with a history.

No, what’s difficult is constantly being reminded of that history.

Plenty of women are married to men with ex-girlfriends in their past. But how many women have to live next door to one of those ex-girlfriends?

How many of them have to be constantly reminded of their husband’s past love for another woman?

It comes to me in flashes. Some of the time, I can put all of this out of my mind, think of Amelia as just another person, a woman living her own life, no threat to me.

But then she and Thomas will exchange a glance, a brief gaze that feels charged and private.

A smile will come to the corner of Amelia’s mouth, a distant and intense look to Thomas’s face, and then I’ll remember.

Amelia and Thomas have been together. They’ve seen each other naked, can close their eyes and picture it anytime they want to.

And I picture it too, not wanting to, but the images come to my mind all the same, Amelia and my husband tangled together in ways that are as intimate and vulnerable as it is possible for two people to be together.

No one should have to have these kinds of thoughts. And sometimes I’m furious at Thomas for forcing me to have them, by insisting on keeping Amelia in his life. Shouldn’t I be enough for him?

Ok, so they have had sex before, and that’s bad enough—but are they having sex now? Have they ever had sex while Thomas and I have been together?

They’ve certainly had the opportunity, living so close together.

All Thomas would have to do would be to sneak over when nobody was watching, creep through Amelia’s back door, go to her in her bed.

She’d be waiting for him, I’m sure, in something silky, something she bought with him in mind, meant to slip easily off her body.

Then he’d creep back home after they were done, maybe take a shower over there first to wash the smell of her off him before sliding back into bed next to me.

This is what I imagine. But has it ever happened?

I’m ashamed to admit it, but there’ve certainly been nights when I’ve been dead enough to the world—passed out from too much to drink or overmedicated with pills to help me sleep—that he’d easily be able to slip out of bed and come back an hour or two later without my knowing.

***

I even mentioned it to Amelia once. We don’t often spend time alone, just the two of us, but a week ago she came over and rang our bell in the middle of the day, when Thomas and the girls were gone.

She’d gotten a piece of our mail by accident and wanted to return it to us.

When I answered the door, she looked surprised to see me, and she explained what had happened with halting words, handed the envelope to me from a distance, as if afraid to get too close.

Her nervousness piqued my curiosity, and I invited her in.

Maybe I wanted to torment her. This woman, a family friend, who I’d come to view as a rival.

We sat in the living room. I didn’t offer her a glass of water or a cup of tea, even though that would have been the polite thing to do.

Instead, I just watched her, observed her hesitation to meet my gaze, fascinated.

Amelia was usually so confident, but something about being alone with me unsettled her.

Eventually I just came out with it.

“I think Thomas might be cheating on me.” I didn’t mention her, didn’t make any accusations. I just said it and waited for her reaction. Maybe I was testing her.

Oddly, she seemed to get calm then. Her fidgeting fingers stilled, and her eyes rose to meet mine. She gave no sign of being perturbed. Only blinked, cocked her head with a disinterested look, and asked, “What makes you say that?”

I realized then that I’d made a mistake, given Amelia the upper hand.

I’d allowed her to transform into her therapist self, the way she’s most comfortable: treating others as specimens to be studied.

Now I was the one caught off guard. I couldn’t say anything about her, about the fact that she’s Thomas’s ex-girlfriend and that sometimes I catch them banging each other with their eyes. So I made something up.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “He seems…distracted. We haven’t really been having sex—my fault, mostly, since I’m never in the mood, but I imagine it makes him frustrated. Unsatisfied.”

“And you think he’s found someone else to meet those needs,” Amelia offered.

“Might be cheating. I said might.”

“Have you considered talking to him about it?”

I scoffed. “What, asking him if he’s cheating? He’d just deny it.”

“I was thinking talking to him about the lack of intimacy you’re telling me about.”

I cringed just thinking about it. “I couldn’t.”

Amelia was quiet for a bit, thinking. “And the thought of him cheating. What does that do to you?”

“It’s torture.” I looked her square in the eye. Challenging her to see me, to understand what I was really saying. You’re hurting me. Please stop. Please stay away from my family. Please let him—let me—go.

“If the thought hurts you so much,” Amelia said, “maybe there’s something else you should be thinking about. Something else you should be asking yourself.”

“And what’s that?” I asked.

“Is your husband the kind of man who would do that?”

***

I thought about it for a long time after she left. Thought about what Amelia was really trying to say to me with the question.

Because Thomas isn’t the kind of man who would cheat on me.

Not because he loves me, not because he only has eyes for me, not because I’m as beautiful, as sexy, as the day we first met. Not even because he’s faithful, dependable, or good.

No, Thomas wouldn’t cheat on me because he’s too attached to the idea of himself as a good man. Because he’s built up this image of himself—in our family, in the community, in his own mind—as the perfect man. A protector of children. A supportive friend and neighbor. A good husband. A great dad.

And cheating on your wife—well, that’s something that bad men do. Not men like him.

But what keeps chilling me, what I keep coming back to, is the way Amelia glared at me when she asked it —Is your husband the kind of man who would do that? Her eyes an accusation.

She knows.

Thomas isn’t that kind of person. But I am.

I’m the one who cheats.