The Color of Forever (2 page)

“Trust me. It’s better this way,” he replied as he reached hurriedly for his coat in the front hall closet. “There’s no point dragging this out over months or even years.”

“But…” I watched him slip his arms into the sleeves and check his pockets for his gloves. “You haven’t even given me a chance to process this. I’m in shock, Mark. I come home from work and find you sitting on the sofa with your bags packed. Surely you’re not serious. You’re not going to leave right now.”

“I am.”

The chill in his tone made my stomach turn over with a sickening ball of dread. “How long have you been feeling this way?”

“A while,” he replied, without hesitation, which came as a total shock to me.

“Wait…” I reached out to touch his harm, wanting to hold on to him. He was my husband and I loved him. We were supposed to be building a life together. I thought he was going to be the father of my children. “I know you weren’t keen on the idea of having a baby,” I said, “but we can talk about that. Maybe I’ve been pushing too hard lately. But I still don’t understand how you suddenly decided, at the drop of a hat, to throw our entire marriage out the window.”

“It’s not at the drop of a hat,” he replied irritably as he wrapped his Ralph Lauren scarf around his neck and bent to pick up his travel-sized suitcase. “I told you, I’ve been thinking about this for a while.”

“But you never said anything.” My heart began to thump heavily in my chest and perspiration beaded on my brow.
Was this really happening?
“I thought we were happy.”

He rolled his eyes and shook his head, which caused a sudden rush of anger to thrash in my blood. I gritted my teeth, grabbed him roughly by the arm and forced him to look directly at me. “How long have you felt this way?”

He paused. “You and I both know it’s gotten stale lately. A year maybe,” he conceded at last.

I blinked a few times and spoke with rancor. “A year? And you think we’re
stale
? What the hell does that mean?”

“It means we’re not in love like we used to be. The spark’s gone. Come on, Katelyn, there’s no passion and you know it.”

I let out a breath of shock. “No, I don’t. I’m your wife and I was ready to have a baby with you. Now I find out that you’re
not that into me
?”

This news was like a knife in my gut, because I’d always worked so hard to make Mark happy—to do all the things he enjoyed, like tennis and water skiing. I showed interest in his work and I was always supportive of what he wanted. I was never a nag and I never “let myself go,” as far as appearances were concerned. I hadn’t gained a single pound since the day we married, nor had I succumbed to the temptation of sweatpants, or wearing no makeup, or pulling my hair back in a ponytail on the weekends. I’d avoided all of that, for him.

“There’s really no point in discussing this,” he said, raising his hand in my face and turning away, moving toward the door. “It’s over, Katelyn. There’s nothing you can do to change it. It’s better to make a clean, swift break, because I just don’t want to be married anymore.”

He opened the door and walked out, leaving me speechless and gasping in the front hall, unable to do anything but rush to the open doorway and stare as he drove away.

What I didn’t know at the time was that he had driven straight to Mariah’s apartment, where he’d already begun the paperwork for a legal separation. I received the documents not long after that.

Chapter Four

“I can’t believe it,” I said to my best friend, Bailey, the moment she walked through my front door. “How could I
not
have known? Was I that oblivious to what was going on around me? Am I really that stupid? Or self-absorbed?”

I had called Bailey earlier to tell her what I’d just learned—that Mark had been unhappy in our marriage for over a year, and was having an affair with Mariah, the young clerk at his office.

Bailey had been my best friend since kindergarten, and there was no one in the world I trusted more than her. It came as no surprise when she immediately hopped in the car and drove over.

“I’m a cliché,” I continued as I ushered her in and closed the door behind her. “He called a few times a week to say he had to work late, and I always believed him. I never questioned or suspected a thing. But every time he went to the gym, he was really working out with
her
. No wonder he spent so many hours there.”

“You’re not stupid or self-absorbed,” Bailey replied as she removed her jacket and tossed it onto the upholstered bench next to the stairs. She walked with me to the kitchen where I’d already opened a bottle of wine. “He’s just a really good liar.”

I poured Bailey a glass and handed it to her. We regarded each other intensely for a moment before raising our glasses and clinking them together.

“To your freedom from a total jerk,” Bailey said, then took the first sip.

I let out a heavy sigh and covered my eyes with a hand. Normally, I wasn’t the crying type, but I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. Blindsided. My whole world was collapsing around me, but worst of all, the man I trusted had betrayed me, and he didn’t love me anymore. He felt no desire for me, nor did he care about my feelings. It didn’t matter to him that I was emotionally devastated and crying myself to sleep every night in our empty king-sized bed. I meant nothing to him.

I let out a small hiccup as I tried to suppress my tears. Bailey set down her glass and wrapped her arms around me.

“It’s going to take some time,” she gently said, “but you’ll soon realize that you’re better off without him. He wasn’t the one for you.”

“But he was so perfect,” I replied, recalling the early years of our relationship, when we were head over heels in love. “At least I thought he was. He was everything a woman could ever want. He was unbelievably handsome and devoted—at first—not to mention that he made buckets of money. He was charming and funny and he drove a great car.”

“He did look pretty good on paper,” Bailey replied, stepping back and picking up her wine again.

“When we first started dating,” I said, “I remember ticking off all those little boxes on the Great Husband Material List and believing I’d hit the jackpot, but now everything feels so superficial. What does all of that matter if you don’t really know somebody? If you’re not truly connected—
in here
—like you should be?” I held my fist over my heart.

“He wasn’t the one for you,” she said, a second time.

“But is there really such a thing as
the one
?” I argued. “God, the world’s such a big place. How do you ever find that one person, and how do you know they’re it? I thought Mark was the one for me, but most of the time, I had no idea what was going on inside his head, and he didn’t know what was going on inside of mine. I thought that was normal, because no one’s a mind reader, right? You live together, you get to know each other pretty well, but you’re still two separate people.”

We moved into the living room and sat down on the sofa, facing each other from opposite ends.

“But the whole time,” I continued, “it was like we were playing house, pretending to be each other’s one and only, but we weren’t really connected at all. We couldn’t have been, or I would have known he wasn’t happy.” I sat forward and set my wineglass on the coffee table.

“Is that what all marriages are like?” I asked Bailey, thoughtfully. “Is it just a big act for everyone? After the initial passion wears off, do most people just pretend to be happy and in love as the years go by? Do they stay together for appearances, or because they signed a piece of paper that said ‘until death do us part,’ and feel as if they have no other choice?”

Bailey considered that for a moment. “I wish I had the answers, but I don’t because I’m still single. All I have to go on is my parents, and they seem pretty happy—
genuinely
happy. I can tell by the way they look at each other sometimes. They share intimate, knowing looks and they still make each other laugh after all these years. I’m pretty sure it’s the real thing.”

“You’re lucky,” I replied. “My parents got on each other’s nerves constantly and divorced when I was fourteen, so I don’t really have much of an example to go by.”

Bailey sipped her wine. “For what it’s worth, I do think it’s possible to find your soulmate and be happy together, forever.”

I let out a sigh. “Maybe, in rare cases. And to tell you the truth, I would have been perfectly happy growing old with Mark if he’d been willing to stick it out and start a family. I’m sure he would have been a wonderful father. He would have taken our kids to the playground and taught our son how to throw a baseball. And he had such a great sense of humor. The family dinner table would have been lots of fun.”

Bailey’s eyebrows pulled together with a look of sympathy. “But he cheated on you, Katelyn, and he lied to you, so I think you need to stop idealizing him as your dream husband. That’s just a fantasy because he probably wouldn’t even have made it home for dinner most nights. He would have called to say he was going to be late.”

I lowered my gaze and nodded. “You’re right. I’m dreaming. He saw something shinier and younger and he broke our marriage vows to go after it. And I hate him for that—honestly, I do—and feeling that way is killing me because I did love him. Maybe I’m crazy, but in a way, I still do and part of me wants him back. I loved our life together. If only he could have loved me as much as I loved him, and wanted the same things.”

I paused a moment and felt my throat close up again.

“But was it Mark that you loved?” Bailey asked. “Or was it the idea of married life?”

I buried my face in my hands and groaned with frustration. “I don’t know, but either way, my heart is broken. He’s ruined me for anyone else, because how will I ever trust someone not to do this to me again?”

“I’m so sorry,” Bailey said with compassion. “I wish there was something I could say to make it better. To take the pain away.”

“I wish there was, too,” I replied, “but there’s nothing anyone can say.” I fought to collect myself. “I’m just going to have to get through this somehow and hope that in time, I’ll get over him and find a way to move on.”

We sat in silence for a long moment.

“Why can’t people just
resist
the desire to cheat?” I asked heatedly, lifting my gaze. “I understand feeling attracted to someone different—that can happen—but why not just wait for it to pass? Exercise some self-discipline, for pity’s sake. Go home and make love to your wife.”

“I agree wholeheartedly,” Bailey said with a nod. “You’re absolutely right.”

“And honestly, what marriage, after seven years, is still as passionate as it was in the first two? No relationship can sustain that kind of madness for an entire lifetime. But if you’re committed to a life together, and you enjoy each other’s company, shouldn’t that be enough?”

“Absolutely.”

My shoulders slumped with resignation. “I just wish Mark had been more willing to have a baby sooner. It might have given him something else to focus on besides himself.” I lowered my eyes and shook my head. “Poor Mariah,” I said, regarding Bailey in the warm lamplight. “I hope she knows what she’s getting into. Because you know what they say: Once a cheater, always a cheater.”

Bailey sighed with resignation. “I wonder if that will be true in his case.”

“Only time will tell.”

Chapter Five

The thing I remember most about the crash—besides the strange, unfamiliar life that flashed before my eyes—was the sound of the cyclist’s wheel a few lengths in front of me, clipping the wheel of another cyclist beside him. My awareness of the impact sent my blood racing through my veins with white-hot terror because we were traveling at a tremendous speed downhill, coasting around a bend with nothing but a guardrail to keep us from flying over the edge, into the ravine below.

Both riders’ bikes began to wobble, and my heart exploded like a fireball in my chest.

Time stood still as the rider in front of me became tangled in a jungle of spokes and wheels and went flying over his handlebars.

In a panic, I squeezed my brakes and tried to swerve around the pileup, but everything was happening so fast, it was impossible to avoid it. Another rider went down in front of me and suddenly I was catapulted through the air, over a sea of carnage and mangled bicycles and spinning wheels.

In that instant, everything went silent and still as I flew toward the guardrail and steep cliff beyond. My husband’s face appeared in my mind, but strangely, it wasn’t Mark’s face I saw. It was another man I didn’t recognize, and yet I knew him intimately. He was a good man, a faithful man, the father of my child, who loved our son as deeply as I did. Our boy’s name was Logan, and he was the most beautiful baby imaginable. After a long, hard labor, I held him in my arms and wept tears of joy and love, while my husband kissed the top of my head and told me how much he loved me.

Moments flashed by like shooting stars—incredible moments that filled me with exhilaration, euphoria and hope. Our son took his first steps at eleven months; my husband put together the swing set in the backyard; I said good-bye to Logan on the first day of preschool, went home and cried over the loss of his sweet presence in the house during school hours.

We spent summers in Maine, where Logan played on the beach and caught hermit crabs with his cousins.