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he didn’t want to lose their marriage. With enormous sadness, Stephanie asked him to move out, until he made some clear-cut decisions. It was a painful time for Stephanie and they had separated for two months. He had wanted to marry Marella, who then decided to stay with her husband. He was honest with Stephanie, and said he wanted to resume their marriage and try to forget his affair. It would be better for their kids, but he didn’t pretend to be in love with her anymore. Stephanie didn’t want him back by default, but she had also had time to realize that she didn’t want a divorce.
    Alyson had been heartbroken for her when Stephanie told her about it, and Jean had said she wasn’t surprised, it was no worse than the dozens of indiscretions Fred had committed over the years. All it did was confirm Jean’s belief that all men were cheaters given the opportunity, and Bill was no better than anyone else. “You can make him pay for it if you stay,” she teased Stephanie, but she was sad for Stephanie that it had happened. It had shattered Stephanie’s illusions about Bill and their marriage, and made it hard if not impossible to feel the same about him again. They had gone to marriage counseling, Stephanie finally agreed to continue their marriage, and the children were aware that something terrible had happened between their parents, but Stephanie had never told them what it was. She didn’t want them hating their father because he had cheated on her. She didn’t think that would be fair to him. Jean was outraged when Stephanie told her and thought that they should know, but Stephanie had spent twenty years creating the illusion for them that their father was devoted, concerned, honorable, and above reproach. She didn’t want to expose him to their children as the cheater he was, nor damage their relationship with him, although her relationship with him seemed to be destroyed beyond repair when he moved home again.
    After the two-month separation, things had never been the same again. They were more like roommates under one roof. She believed that they loved each other, out of a sense of history, if nothing else, and they had children together, but there were no longer any obvious demonstrations of affection, and she no longer complained about how little they saw of him. Before, he had been busy, but now there was a chasm between them that neither of them had been able to bridge. And she never fully trusted him after he returned. They still had sex, but it was infrequent and lackluster. She felt it was an obligation since they had decided to stay married, and he made love to her because he knew he should. Their relationship had never been passionate, but it had been friendly and warm in the early years, and adequate after that, but all desire had gone out of it for both of them by the time they got back together.
    Stephanie knew the young lawyer had left the law firm six months after the affair, but she no longer cared. Bill was still her husband, but he would never again be her best friend, or someone she was even close to. They had nothing to say to each other anymore, except about the kids. She kept him informed of their progress in school and college, and when Michael and Louise got their first jobs. Louise had recently moved to New York to work for Sotheby’s in the art department. They talked about practical matters, but never about their feelings for each other, or his affair, which stood like a wall between them. She had been sad about it for a long time, but now she simply accepted it as the way marriages were after this many years. And his infidelity with the young lawyer had left irreparable scars. But Stephanie had never wavered from her decision to stay with him, for the kids, and Bill had been adamant about wanting to stay married to her. He didn’t want a divorce. They were a family, and he wanted to stay that way, however impaired their marriage was.
    It had been particularly lonely for Stephanie