Love and Other Natural Disasters
been this humiliated, but I know it's my own fault. The only thing is,
you love me, too.
     

L
    L,
    You're right about some things. I
do feel love for you, and I am attracted to you. You're a phenomenal woman. If
I'm honest with myself, I sensed that right from the first night, and when the
bar was closing down, I should have gone back to my own room. That would have
been the safest thing. But I didn't, and that was one of the best nights I've
ever spent with a woman. The way we talked, and the way we laughed... I hadn't
felt like that in I don't know how long. I was buzzing just being near you.
    I can still laugh just thinking
about us nominating the worst songs of all time, you explaining why "Take
A Letter, Maria" is worse than that pina colada
song (you said, "He's blowing off his wife for her, but she still has to
take dictation," and I said, "How hard is it really to find someone
who likes... pina coladas and sex on a BEACH?")
and then we were both singing and laughing until we could barely breathe. It
was perfect, there's no other word for it.
    But tempted as I was, I didn't want
to have an affair, not then and not now. I want to be married. I want to raise
my kids with their mother. I can't give that up. Last week, when you said it
would be enough for us just to spend a night together, I didn't believe you.
And even if it was enough for you, it wouldn't be okay with me. I can't live
that kind of a double life.
    I've looked forward to you, to
telling you things, having you tell me things. I looked forward to seeing you
more than I let myself realize. Somehow you became the easiest part of my life.
But that changed when I had to lie to Eve's face so we could go to the baseball
game, and then afterward, in the car, when I had to tell you no, the way I had
to say it twice, once while prying your hand off my jeans.
    Things are different now, and the
reason I went all the way back to the beginning, to those feelings I couldn't
admit to myself, is because I want you to know how fantastic you are. I want
you to find love with someone who'll see that and love you back and marry you
and give you a family. He's not me. J
    P.S. I've rewritten this e-mail
five times. I've never had to do that before with you, do rewrites. It's always
been so effortless. Can it go back there? The answer's probably no, but I have
to ask the question.
    That brought the count to four.
Four times he'd mentioned my name. I had to lie to Eve's face. How many
times had he done it today? Every time he'd said Laney was just a friend. When
he talked to her, I had no name; when he talked to me, she had no name.
    But that wasn't the most chilling
part. No, the worst was that he didn't say he wanted to be with me, he didn't
call me the woman he loved; no, he wanted to be married. He wanted to be with
the mother of his children. I just happened to be that woman. He never said he
was in love with Laney, only that he "felt love" for her, but it
wasn't at all clear that if the playing field was level, he'd choose me over
her.
    I didn't want to—Lord knows I
didn't want to—but I resumed reading. I had to know the next chapter.
    I could tell he and Laney weren't
the same after the visit. Occasionally they skipped a day in their
correspondence, and some of the lightness was gone. I got the impression that she
sometimes cried to him on the phone. She was afraid she'd always be alone, that
she'd never love someone else the way she loved him, and that no one would love
her the way she believed he could, if he'd only let himself. He never told her
he loved her again, at least not in print.
    I caught up to the present. There
were no more secrets, at least none that could be discovered this way. Turning
off the computer, I didn't know if I'd ever been so exhausted. But my mind
wouldn't stop. I was fighting to reconcile the type of man who would redact his
own wife for another woman with the notion of my husband, the father of my
children. Most terrifying was that he
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