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Clear Conscience

Clear Conscience

I am his wife and this is my story. A month shy of our 25th Anniversary I opened the diary of their love affair. The writing was as cheesy as Robert Waller's schmaltzy The Bridges of Madison County. The plot was as predictable as a Tom Brady and Giselle Bundschen breakup. The details were as banal as a breakfast of oatmeal with a few raisins sprinkled on top. Yet the discovery set off a barrage of destruction of immeasurable cost, a cascading confetti of abandoned dreams and broken hearts. And, certainly, the effects last longer than Grandmas Christmas fruitcake. The devil is certainly in the details. And how pedestrian the particulars are. A list that reads like a guidebook of Cambridge, Massachusetts and its neighboring towns. Necking in the alley between the Broad Institute of MIT and Genzyme. Lunching on the banks of the Charles River, feeding fig spread and cream cheese to one another, with the Boston skyline as a backdrop. Dancing till midnight at Cuchi Cuchi (and we are talking about two 50 year old scientists here, so Dancing with the Stars need not worry). Sipping tea at the Clear Conscience Café in Central Square. Dining al fresco on a warm summer evening at Oleana. Canoodling over canolli at La Groceria. The love story deepened nearby. A room for some quick afternoon sex at the Holiday Inn Express in Woburn. Another evening at the Coolidge Corner Marriott Courtyard. A rendezvous at a shabby, down at its heels guesthouse on Beacon Street in Boston. A romantic weekend in Rockport at a quaint bed and breakfast in a Victorian house. Such a mundane way to end a lifelong, enduring bond. For this, a marriage ended, a family broken, a career in tatters, a home wrecked. I cry buckets nowadays. My son curses his father as treacherous as the serpent in the Garden of Eden and as faithless as Lot's wife. My daughter is failing math and bitterly unhappy at school for the first time in her life. My husband is apt to be fired for missing deadlines and meetings while preoccupied with his affair. Should we stay together or should we break apart? The way forward is littered with land mines no matter what direction we forge. To divorce is to unravel a skein of life knitted across 30 years of shared days, both quotidian and epic. The rainy days spent making love, the baby almost born in the back seat of the 1974 BMW, quick picnics with the kids at playgrounds during lunch hours, an earthquake while 81/2 months pregnant, reading Good Night Moon at least 1,962 times, a pregnancy beset with problems, cross-country treks in 20 year old cars, winter afternoons wrapped in each others arms, napping and snuggling on the sofa. Yet, to remain married is to forgive. To pardon the no-show for his son's academic convocation, the absence at his daughter's s grade school graduation, the lack of help with flat tires and dead batteries. To persist as one is to overlook the cold conversations and missed meals, the lies about late trains and delayed Red line trolleys and never-ending business meetings, the wordless drive to my father's funeral, the silent and anonymous middle of the night sex. To continue united is to excuse the heartbreaking words, "I'm in love with her and its been going on for a long time." How is it ever truly possible to forget such a devastating statement? The past cannot change. The future remains disappointingly doubtful. Do we have the fortitude to slog through the battered landscape, wary of the unexpected explosions underlying each tentative step? Midway through the race, Heartbreak Hill looms. How will we finish this marathon begun so many years ago, when only a bright future beckoned?