My girlfriend, Robin, cheated on me.
I didn't exactly "find out". She told me this morning while I was still in her bed, watching her dress.
First the light black pantyhose, and the bra, then the dark skirt, then the light blue angora sweater. Then the sigh.
"I did something terrible," she said.
That was the beginning.

It had been a guy from work, a guy I didn't know. I wasn't sure what I would have done if I had known him. Probably nothing. I'm not a violent guy.
I gaped, frowned, shook my head.
"I'm sorry," she said.
Then she left for work.

I lay in her bed, stunned by her news. I was supposed to have locked up Robin's apartment and driven to my own to change twenty minutes ago but I couldn't bring myself to move. It wasn't only her betrayal that floored me, but mine eight months earlier as well. One transgression mirrored another. I felt ill. What was happening to us?
I called in sick.

It had been a girl from work, a girl she didn't know. One night, I'd stayed late. She'd stayed late. I'd been tired, stressed, not thinking clearly.
Robin and I had been having problems. Our hours hadn't been compatible, and we saw as much of each other as two passengers on two trains traveling on opposite tracks. To paraphrase a saying, absence made my brain about as intelligent as a squash.
My co-worker and I had gone to her place.

I'd told Robin what had happened the next day. She hadn't screamed, she hadn't yelled, she hadn't rent me limb from limb. She'd given me that "look" and had stalked off into the bedroom. I hadn't thought we'd make it. But we had.

She loved "Fear Nothing" by Dean Koontz, an iced cappuccino after tennis, toasted marshmallows, dryer-fresh bedsheets, star-gazing, sage, callas, koi, and me. But now I wasn't so sure what she loved. Whom.

I knew I loved her. I loved her for forgiving me, for taking the seconds, minutes, hours, days, months that were needed to work it out with me. For believing my words and my body again. Couldn't I extend her the same courtesy? Because forgiveness was a part of love, wasn't it? And didn't I love her, faults and all? If she could forgive me, couldn't I forgive her?


"Can I ask you something, love?"
It had been dark, and sleep had nearly taken both of us. It had been our first night together since she'd forgiven me. Her feet had been warm against mine and I remembered the way my arm had fit like a piece of a puzzle against her waist.
"What is it?" she'd murmured, voice thick with impending dreams.
I'd hesitated then. Could I live with knowing she'd forgiven me but not why? What would she tell me? Did I want to hear it?
I'd breathed in her scent, warm and earthy. Would knowing disturb the trust that had been at last rebuilt?
I'd decided to take the chance. "Robin," I'd said softly, "why do you still love me? After what's… been done. After what I did."
Her eyes had stayed closed. "I don't know," she'd whispered. "I just do."

I'd fallen asleep oddly unsatisfied with her answer. Perhaps it was because there was no substance to her response, no tangible reason. She hadn't forgiven me because she loved my eyes (though I know she did; she'd told me so), or because she loved the way I made coffee for her, or because she loved how I always opened the door for her, or let her shower first, or nursed her aloe plant back to health or folded her laundry or scooped her cat's litter. It was because she just loved me.

Was that everyone's answer? Was failing to forgive failing to love? My stomach turned at the thought. Didn't I love her enough to forgive her? God, didn't I owe it to her?

My resolve hardened, a reflex response. She'd cheated on me. Someone else had run his hands through her hair, kissed her mouth. And she'd let him, she'd encouraged it.
An amazing, sickening thought crossed my mind. God, what if she'd done it to get back at me? Had she decided that she hadn't forgiven me after all and had sought to hurt me the way I'd hurt her? Were we "even" now? Oh God.

No. No. Too much time had passed, too many tender gestures, too many sacred words. She'd told me it was carelessness on her part, failure to repel his repeated advances. She didn't love him, she loved me. She didn't love him, she loved me.
I repeated the words in my head, tried to make myself believe.

What's it like to forgive someone who's hurt you so badly you think you'll spend the rest of your life on your hands and knees? Maybe it's tide water on sand, smoothing out the memories wave after wave after wave. Maybe it's building a wall one brick at a time; maybe it's knocking one down.
Maybe it's walking away.

Robin returned from work to find me still in her home. I was in the kitchen, mulling over a cup of coffee, my fourth. We exchanged looks. She said, "I'm so sorry," and went to the bedroom. I stared at my cup.

Did I owe her the chance to make it up to me? Yes. Did I have it in me to forgive her? I wasn't sure. I could almost believe that my leaving now would make it easier for both of us. Clean slates. The thought was like a fruit on a branch, tempting. No messy arguments, no messy make-up, no messy breakdown. One betrayal in a relationship was destructive enough, but what about two betrayals? If two wrongs didn't make a right, what did they make?

I closed my eyes, remembering the first time I saw her, the first time I heard her laugh, the first time I touched her, smelled her hair, tasted her lips. My heart ached with the knowledge that we could never be the same again.

I walked to the doorway, put on my shoes. With my coat on my arm, I put my hand on the doorknob. I could feel my heart breaking. God, I still loved her.

Then, from the hallway, she said softly, "Jack? Are you… leaving?"
Good question.