"Are you trying to tell me you are having an affair?"

The flight back from International City was a long one, and I didn't sleep very well. On top of that, I didn't fly into home because I couldn't find a flight with a decent schedule; so I landed in a big city a good two hours away by car. I probably could have made the drive if I had pushed myself, but I was also thinking of visiting my brother, who lives en route between those two termini: this airport and my house. We don't get a chance to see each other often, and he has just recently moved -- and hell, I never even saw his last place. High time to remedy the situation.

So I got directions and drove over to see him. His place took a little hunting to find -- some of the streets are strange and narrow -- but I finally got there. He was home (because he works irregularly) but his girlfriend -- oops, fiancee -- was still at work. So he let me in, opened us a couple of beers, and we chatted.

I've told you that it has bothered D that I have told no-one of my family or friends about her, literally no-one except the Consultant. She got to the point of more or less asking me if I could tell anybody, because she said it made her feel like a ghostly presence in my life that I hadn't. And I mentioned that I could probably tell Brother safely. Also, I have found that it really is hard to carry on a simple conversation about what's been going on in my life when I can't even mention the biggest topic that is going on at all. So I figured that if an opportunity came up, I would say something. Sure enough, after a while we started talking about vacations and Brother asked if I ever take any vacation time. So I mentioned that I don't take much time in blocks, but I may add a day onto the beginning or end of a business trip as vacation: to do some sightseeing, to wander around being a tourist, or to spend time with this friend of mine who oddly enough has to take time off of her work on exactly the same days to be able to meet me in a city where neither of us lives. (Yeah, it was a little awkward. Actually it didn't come out even that smoothly, but that's what I was aiming at.)

And Brother asked me, quite naturally, "Are you trying to tell me you are having an affair?"

"Ummm ... yes."

I think this was not the kind of news he was expecting from me. (My family tends to have a fairly straight-arrow image of me, probably because I am stuffy and boring.) He did say that this called for another beer for each of us. But in some ways his response was dispassionate. There was none of the enthusiasm D described hearing from her sister at the same news, for example, although Brother did acknowledge that the relationship between Wife and me could hardly be called "marriage" and that this had been true for quite some time. He asked if I was happy with D, and I said yes. He asked how we met, and I explained that she used to be Wife's friend and colleague. He asked what I think the future will look like, and I sketched out the scenario I have described for you: that I will stay with Wife for another year and a half, till Son 2 goes away to high school, and then that we divorce as amicably as we can (if that's possible at all). He asked if Wife wants to separate from me, and I explained that in past years she probably did but at this point she is probably afraid to. This guess of mine was consistent with his own assessment that she seems more fragile than she used to. He said he had already heard about the night that D and I sat up drinking wine with my parents; he quoted my father as saying “Hosea looked happier and more engaged than I have seen him for a long time.”

On the other hand, Brother also said that he didn't think he could tell his fiancee about my affair, because he didn't think she could "compartmentalize" the information as well as he could. He was not (as noted) terribly enthusiastic. And he concluded by saying he hoped I wouldn’t ask him and his fiancee to start being mean to Wife. He explained that they have tried to be kind or charitable to her because they realize she doesn’t have any friends: this does not mean taking her side in fights (Brother avoids taking anybody’s side in a fight, including his own if he can help it), but it means little things … such as that whenever his fiancee cleans out her closet, she looks through the discards for things Wife might like and offers them to her. I said I understood; and second, that of course I agreed it was sad that Wife had no friends (never mind that often this is because she drives them away or neglects them); and third, that I would never ask him or his fiancee to be cruel to anybody. I said, “Last time I checked, kindness was still a virtue”; and if the two of them can be kind to Wife, of course they should do it. For all I know, it will earn them crowns in heaven, and well-deserved.

I'm not completely sure how to summarize the conversation. On the one hand, he said he was glad I had found someone I am happy with, and that he had known for a long time that wasn't going to be Wife. On the other hand, there was something a little bloodless about the conversation. I don’t know if that was my fault (timidity, shyness), or if it was the result of his “compartmentalizing” the information. If the latter, then I suppose it is possible that he may have told me some part of his opinions but not all of them. I don’t know.

Still, I don’t regret telling him. It has always been very difficult for me to answer the question “So, what’s going on in your life?” when I haven’t been able to say what is really going on. And Brother and I have often had too superficial a relationship anyway. It has always felt uncomfortable to me when it was so. Getting over the initial hurdle was tough, because as you know it has always been tough for me to figure out how to make the conversation turn in that direction. But once I was past the fear of that first instant, it felt right to be able to talk about it. So I think in the end it was the right thing to do.

I slept the night at their place and left early the next morning to drive home. And soon it was the weekday again, and back to work ....