What Happened to Eden

I found a house, which felt like a miracle and was only possible with the help of my parents who are real estate pros and decided what I needed while I was stumbling around in a fog. Good schools, safe neighborhood, low maintenance since I would be alone and very busy, etc. We found a house that met all the criteria and things were set in motion.

I now had a moving date because I had a place to go, so packing picked up quite a bit. I made calls all day while I packed – new schools, utilities, moving companies, current schools, until I was all talked out and physically spent. Packing the entire house without upsetting my children or making the place unlivable was the real challenge, and at a certain point there was no turning back – the place was a disaster.

I continued to hopscotch through the stages of grief – one full day of rage followed by a day equal parts shock and acceptance. It turned out I had been deeply unhappy. Muted. Drab. My loved ones came at me from every angle, reminding me how social and fun I had been before my husband dimmed my light. I don’t think he did it intentionally, I think I changed to fit what I thought he wanted. Maintaining our family was paramount – anything else was a distraction.

There was another weekend without my kids on the horizon and I was dreading being alone in my house. The house we had designed together and had built all while he was having an affair. The house where nothing else had happened except his affair. We’d only lived in it a year so there were no major milestones in that home – no child took their first steps in the playroom and there were no height measurements on the pantry door. It was a house of deceit, betrayal, and lies.

I’d pace the floors at night, looking at every item still not boxed and wonder if she’d touched it. I didn’t think much about who she was or why he picked her. She didn’t really matter much to me. I asked myself if it’d make feel better if she was older or younger than I was, or exceptionally beautiful, and it didn’t make me feel any different. It didn’t matter. He told the lies and he stepped out of his marriage. My preoccupation with what she touched wasn’t about her hands, it was about her presence in my domain, which my husband made possible.

I threw away my vibrator. It was in the nightstand while she was there, and knowing my husband, she needed it.

I didn’t miss him, I was too busy being humiliated and enraged. I didn’t miss his love because I wasn’t sure there had ever been any, and if that was love, I didn’t want it at all. I didn’t miss doing his laundry or cutting his toenails, either. Caring for three kids and packing an entire home was somehow less work than having him in the house. I was glad he was gone and didn’t want him around, but I also didn’t want to be alone.

The house of lies couldn’t stay just that. Nothing had happened in that house of note except his affair. I couldn’t leave the house I built with that stain. It had to be the house where something else happened.

So I made a very out of character, reckless decision. I texted The Cop. Just something vaguely suggestive, to make him think about sex in the back of his mind. Then I mentioned I’d be alone all weekend, and it was too bad he didn’t live closer.

He booked a flight. And then I panicked.