February Sucks - the Mulberrry Tree

"The rest of the week was tentative for us; your father didn't sleep on the couch after that. He worked hard that week with Grampa Jack around the ranch. You could see that the exertion was giving him an outlet for his troubles.

"Thursday nite was when we made Tracy - I know it was. We had been sleeping in the same bed, but he hadn't made a move to touch me. But something must have clicked for him because during the day Thursday it seemed like the clouds over his head had cleared. He even smiled a bit. And that night he took me back, he reclaimed what was his. I know Grams and Grampa Jack must have heard me, I was possessed. I took everything he had and then went back for more. We had bonded on our wedding night, but this was different. I was so primal; we were proclaiming to the entire universe that we were one.

"The rest of his leave, I guess another four or five days we spent at the ranch. And every night we made a lot of noise.

"The last day before Charles had to get back to base he took me out to that new tree next to the gate and with his big military knife carved a heart into the tree with our initials. You can still see it if you know where to look.

"So yes I know exactly how you're feeling right now. You fucked up royally; you've done the worst thing a wife can possibly do to her husband. You let another man get close and take what was supposed to only be for your husband.

"Mother, it's not the same. From the sounds of it you didn't go willingly, I on the other hand fooled my husband and snuck out the back door. My sin is much worse that what you did."

"No, I don't think so. I can't think like a man but from what I've observed over the years men don't look at sex the way we women do. For us I think we can separate sex and love, or at least tell ourselves that we can. You were going to come back home today and expect that Jim would take you back after your fling. You said it yourself; you came in the door thinking you hadn't changed, that it was the same old Linda.

"But in Jim's eyes, everything had changed. To look at you nobody could tell that you'd betrayed your husband. But in his eyes you were not the same, you pulled the rug out from his whole world. Men bond differently than women do, at least a good man does. He might be the greatest warrior, a captain of industry, but when he comes home he knows he can relax, let his guard down. And a good woman makes his home a haven from the outside world. So a man let's his wife into his most vulnerable place, he gives her his heart.

"The two of us let the enemy in the gate. Something will have to be done about that."

Saturday - after lunch

The older men made no move to leave the kitchen table after their lunch was done. Jim thought that now he would be clued in to what Charles had in mind.

"Men, an enemy has breached the gate. He got away Scott free and thumbed his nose at my family. It's up to me and Jim to put things right. That Lavalliere guy has stolen his last wife. JJ what has your team learned."

"Well, from the preliminary investigation we can say that our little buddy Marc pulls this stunt once or twice a month. There have been several divorces, a suicide, and other fallout from his activities. Nobody has been able to get him into court to sue him; he's well insulated by the League and his 'charity work'. That's all we need to know for now, add the most recent conquest of Linda, sorry Jim, and he's got quite a lot to answer for. I'm going to tell my team to stand down, unless you want more detail CC."

"No that's enough background on this bad dog. We need to get our hands on him and so we need information about his location. I'm assuming since he has a game tomorrow he'll be lying low at home. About that JJ, what can you tell us about where he lives?"

"Largish house in a fancy neighborhood. Houses on the 5 to 10 years old range, so rather modern. Since he's a big deal guy I would expect alarms and bodyguards."

"JJ can you bring up an aerial view of his property. Steve, what's your take on the layout?"

"Hmmm, shielded from the road out front, large yard with a pool. Nice circular driveway paved with gravel, good. Hah! I knew it, look here. There's only one electrical feed from the power pole at the road, terminating in what looks like a utility shed at the front corner of the property, nicely hidden by shrubs. Can't have that ugly little shed offending any guest's eyeballs."

Charles, then said, "I guess we've got almost too many men for this mission. But having backups makes me feel better about success. OK, here's the tentative plan. Let's assume two bodyguards who sleep on the premises, we don't know if their bedrooms are on the first floor or upstairs; no matter.

"We go in somewhere between 2-3am. Everybody will be loaded, but let's assume we're just going to use Tasers if we can avoid bullets. Gary and Ken will back you two up on neutralizing the guards. Jim and I will target Lavalliere. We will assume the front gate is alarmed too, so the utility closet will be first, Steve that's yours. Then we roll into the drive, make our entry and the three teams move inside. Any questions?"

Jim couldn't believe what he was hearing, they were expecting to just waltz into Lavalliere's house and abduct him like some TV movie. "You guys are serious!? There could be a million things that could go wrong. Just getting there from here is a two hour drive each way. What if we get stopped? Once we're in the house what's to say that the bodyguards don't start shooting? I want to get Lavalliere so bad I can taste it, but this seems foolhardy."

There was a tense silence for a couple of beats then the three older men started laughing, big hearty guffaws. Jim couldn't help but join in. They'd obviously been pulling his leg. And then just as abruptly they all stopped leaving Jim the only one still chuckling.

Charles said, "Too much planning and overthinking won't help. There are too many unknowns to try to plan something like this to the minute. We'll just have to go in and trust our instincts and experience.

"Jim does make a good point about being stopped. We'll put a butchered goat in the back of the truck under a tarp. That's our cover story, we're going to a BBQ in town and we are bringing the meat. That story will cover us on the way back too. Nobody will notice ol' Marc under the goat if we should get stopped. The artillery will have to be stowed under the bed strapped to the frame of the truck. We can all wear colorful shirts over our dark gear. I'll go ask Ted to get the goat dressed and ready before dark. JJ you and Steve get started securing the gear under the truck. Jim and I are going to take a little walk."

Jim was in turmoil, these guys were serious. They were going to kidnap Lavalliere and bring him back to the ranch. What were they going to do with him once they got back?

Charles headed out the front door and down the driveway, walking back to the gate and the hole waiting for the tree. He walked over to the old mulberry tree and put his hand on the faded heart with Helen and his initials. The Wednesday night all those years ago came back to him in full detail.

Turning to Jim Charles said, "Lester Holmes has been fertilizing this tree for almost 40 years now. Let me tell you how that happened." Charles then went on to tell Jim pretty much the same story Helen was at the same time telling Linda in the car as they drove to the ranch.

"Then came Wednesday evening and Grampa Jack said to me what I just said to you. A bad dog needs to be put down. Lester had been hiding out in the apartment over his daddy's store. He figured the beating I gave him when I pulled him off Helen was the end of it. He was very surprised indeed when Grampa Jack and I knocked on his door that night. One punch to his jaw and in his weakened state he crumpled like a paper bag. We brought him back here and had a nice conversation with him. Later he went into the hole Grampa Jack had prepared for the mulberry tree Grams had asked him to plant. Then we dropped the new tree into the hole over him and filled it in with dirt. Even though he'd been gutted, I know he was still alive when he went into the hole. Later, everybody thought he'd run off in shame for what he'd done. He tried to steal the most precious thing in the world to me and paid the price. I have slept fine all these years later.

"And son, that's exactly what we're going to do with Lavalliere. He's going into the hole we dug today. He's going to fertilize that new mulberry tree. The rest of the guys won't know anything about that. They'll take off once we're back here with our cargo. Only you and I will know what became of that bad dog. I think Ted suspects about Lester, but he's never said a word. Helen certainly doesn't know."

Jim said with a trembling voice, "We're really going to do that? I know I feel like killing Lavalliere but you talk as if it's the easiest, most natural thing in the world. Damn Charles, I'm seeing you in a whole new light. The idea of taking vengeance into our own hands, I'm having a bit of trouble coming to terms with it. Doesn't that make us just as bad as him?"

Charles was thoughtful for a moment and then said, "The idea that vengeance against evil makes you just as bad as the evil you're fighting feels very much like something the bad guys would say to make sure we don't shove their heads into a noose. In any case, a bad dog needs to be put down for the good of all. I'm sure all those wronged husbands and families would agree. And certainly preventing this from ever happening to anybody else tips the scales."

These thoughts kept going round and round in Jim's head the rest of the afternoon until it got to be 3 o'clock when Linda's car came up the road.

Saturday - 2:30pm, car ride

"Mother, I'm glad you were finally able to share your story with me, but how does that help me with the mess I've made?" Linda, her eyes blazing and her face contorted. "Hell, I don't know what's true about me anymore! I'm a good person. I've always thought so and Jim has told me so I don't know how many times. Does a good person leave her husband sitting alone to go fuck another man? No. Does she buy a special dress for her husband, then wear it to go fuck somebody else? Hell, no. Good people keep their promises, don't they? What does that make me, then?" She took a couple of breaths to settle herself and went on.

"I knew when we married that I wasn't the prettiest girl Jim had dated, or the best lover, or the smartest. But one thing I brought you was my fidelity. If I gave him nothing else, I could give him that. I would go to my grave a faithful wife. But now that's gone, and it's gone forever! Never, ever again! And worst of all, it's my own fault! You think that's easy to deal with?" She shouted before dissolving into tears.

"Well Linda, it really all boils down to what you're willing to do to keep your marriage. To you it seemed all you had to do was just mouth the words that you were contrite and Jim was just supposed to forgive you and welcome you back with open arms. Men don't work that way, they view actions as speaking louder than mere words. In my case, I have demonstrated to your father every single day for the last 40 years how sorry I am for what I did. He may forget about it sometimes, but I never do. It's my penance, I think about what I almost threw away by my naiveté with Lester. I never, ever let my guard down again.

"I think you need to do two things. The first is to make Jim understand how sorry you are for what you've done, how sorry you are for cuckolding him, and how sorry you are for publicly humiliating him. You have to convince him that you take responsibility for your mistake, that you did the wrong thing. That you were wrong in assuming you could have a single night in ten years away from your marriage.

"And the second is to demonstrate to him starting immediately by your actions how you're never going to let anything like this happen again. Further, if you ever talk about it, you better not be bragging that you spent the night with a celebrity. You had better speak of it in shameful terms forever more. If you're going to keep your husband you need to change how you think about your night with Lavalliere from a fantasy to the nightmare that it really is."

"Mother, Jim might never have been a sex god, but he was always attentive to me, eager to learn what pleased me, and he did it all out of love. I was more than content with that, I was profoundly happy. It might be stretching to call Marc a sex god, but he's as close as I'll ever experience. Nothing that I did with him makes me any less content or happy with Jim. Jim still wins, every time. I choose Jim, not Marc; I love Jim, not Marc. I'll repeat that as often as Jim needs to hear it. Don't you think that will reassure him?"

Helen shrugged. "You can say that now, because Marc was only a temptation on that one night. If he, or someone like him, became available again, how can Jim know you wouldn't choose him over your husband again, like you did so easily that night?"

"I don't know." Linda's face was troubled and sad.

"Honey, that is exactly the problem. You need to internalize the answer to be an emphatic NO. And not just in conversation, but by your actions. You are different now in Jim's eyes, in fact tainted. You're going to have a long road to convince him to trust you again."

Saturday - 3pm, ranch

"Linda." Jim looked pretty pissed as she got out of the car in front of the ranch house.

"Hi Jim, where are the kids?"

"Uncle Ted is keeping them busy running around down by the pond and generally distracting them."

Linda started to cry, "Jim I'm so sorry, I such an idiot. I don't know how I'm going to make it up to you, but I want to try. Please tell me you're going to give me a chance to make things right."

Turning to his mother-in-law, "Hi Helen, Charles is in the kitchen with some friends of his. Linda and I are going to take a walk around the property." And with that he turned start walking away, Linda hurried to catch up.

"Lavalliere sent videos to my phone of your fun last night. I got to see it all in living color. Based on his comments, he didn't seem to think it was as magical as you did."

Linda realized she was on very thin ice; Jim's whole body language was closed and angry. Her mother had been right, she need to get into damage control mode and fast.

"I saw those videos too; mother had them ready for me to see this morning when I got home. I looked like a cheap whore in them. Marc must have grabbed my phone without me noticing. And those awful things that Marc said to you in the videos, while pretended to be a gentleman with me. But all he wanted was some married pussy and to humiliate the husband. I was such a stupid fool to fall for his line of bullshit."

Jim could hear that Linda was trying to be sincere, but he had his doubts. After all she'd left him to make off with Lavalliere in the most humiliating way last night.

"So tell me Linda, how do you think we can fix this? Can it really be fixed at all? I feel like I don't know you, what you did was such a massive betrayal of trust and loyalty that I can imagine. I thought you loved me, but last night made me doubt the very foundations of our marriage. I honestly don't know how I'm ever going to get those images of Lavalliere's spunk running down your chin out of my head."

Linda was steadily crying now, her mother's admonishment to change her view of her night with Marc to one of shame needed no further help, she was feeling genuinely ashamed of herself. She could see the pain in Jim's eyes behind all that anger. How could she have done him so wrong, Jim would take a bullet for her.

"Jim, honey, I need to apologize to you and keep apologizing to you until you believe I truly am sorry for what I did. I'm ashamed that I humiliated you, I'm ashamed that I did so publicly, and I'm extremely ashamed of what I did with Marc last night. All those things are so unlike me that I really don't know why I did them - I guess I went a little crazy. Maybe I need some help, you know, like a marriage counselor or something. Would you be willing to help me with that?" Linda had to be honest with herself, she really was feeling that way, she wasn't just acting for her audience of one.

Jim knew Linda well, he'd come to be sensitive to her moods and behavior over the years. He could tell she was telling the truth, but what if this happened again. How could he ever trust her not to fall for the next celebrity? "Linda you've done more than run off for a one night stand to be Lavalliere's whore for a night. You've seriously eroded my trust in you. I thought I could count on you to have my back. But on our most special night, you run off with a big shot. How do I know you won't do that again? How can I ever trust you again? What if you come home late from work, or have to go out of town? I'm going to be wondering who you're with and what you're doing. That sounds like an awful lot of pain and anguish for me. I'm not sure I want to live like that."

Those words stung Linda deeply. Even so, she was thinking that Jim needed to stop obsessing and get over it. She was back and nothing had really changed. But then her mother's words came back to haunt her - she was "tainted" now. And what she had said came back to her too - she was no longer "faithful". Her actions had trashed Jim's faith and trust in her. She really was internalizing the shameful things she had done. She would have to own that and try to make amends.

"Honey, you have to believe me; if there was anything I could do to erase last night I would do it in a heartbeat. But I don't have a time machine; I can't undo what I've done. I can only try to make it up to you, to ensure you can learn to trust me again. I'm so sorry!" With that Linda sank to her knees in the dirt path, sobbing, letting her grief overtake her.

Jim watched her for a bit, thinking that she needed to cry it out, to get herself under control. He couldn't help himself; he still loved her too much - so he reached for her, to comfort her, but as he touched her shoulder.

"Don't touch me, I'm unclean. I don't deserve your compassion. I'm a dirty whore!" Linda grabbed two handfuls of dirt and smeared her face with them. The dirt mixed with the tears on her cheeks and turned into mud. She fell forward prone right in the middle of the path, her face buried in her arms. She was sobbing hard now, the depth of last night's betrayal finally hitting home. How was she ever going to fix the mess she'd made?

Jim was now concerned for Linda, this outburst and then rubbing dirt on her face seemed out of control, unhinged even. Maybe she had gone a bit crazy. He sighed internally, "in sickness and in health". And Charles words popped into his head, he needed to step up and take care of business. He might never understand why Linda had done what she'd done; she might never be able to explain it, maybe not even with counseling. But he had a role to fulfil, protecting what was his; supporting his woman in her time of need. He would have to leave his own healing for later.

So he scooped Linda up, she wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. Jim thought with some humor, with Linda's tears and all the dirt on her face he was going to have to get that shirt washed, it was the only one he had besides his 'work clothes'.

"Let's get you back to the house and cleaned up. Maybe a stiff drink and a nap are what you really need right now."

Saturday - evening, ranch

Linda woke up and came downstairs in the early evening.

"Honey, we'll have dinner in an hour or so. Jim is getting the kids settled over at Ted and Sue's cabin; they think this weekend is a big adventure. Can I get you anything, a highball or some wine?"