How Did We Get Here?

'When can we fuck again?'

He sent that text last week.

And not to me.

With a shaky finger, I tap open the text thread. She hasn't answered him. I scroll through their conversation. It's happened more than once, and it's been going on for a while. Once while her boyfriend was waiting in the car outside. I can't feel my legs. My heart is beating so fast my ears are pulsing. I knew it. I fucking knew it! He laughed at me when I told him about the dream I had recently. A dream where he cheated on me with someone we know. He laughed and said that I was crazy. He fucking laughed at me.

'It's such a small town, you'd find out.'

And then kissed me good-bye, like everything was fine, and left for the shop, like it was any other day. Did he fuck her in our bed while I was at work and our daughter was sleeping in the next room? Did she ride him while facing the poster sized family portrait that hangs above the couch? This can't be fucking happening.

I put his phone back exactly where he left it on the kitchen counter, sit back down on the couch, and wait for him to return from the laundry room in the next building over.

Not even two minutes later the apartment door opens and closes.

I have to ask him now, or I never will.

Now or never.

Now or never.

Now…

"Have you ever cheated on me?" He puts the laundry basket down.

"What? No," he doesn't look at me when he stands. Liar.

"I'm going to ask you again. Have you ever cheated on me?" I'm looking straight into those beautiful, lying green eyes now.

"No, I haven't. Why are you asking me?" Fucking liar! I've kept my cool this far. I snatch his phone, a little shocked he doesn't stop me, find the text again and shove it in his face.

"Really? Then who the fuck is this?" He silently reads it before he closes his eyes, pinches the bridges of his nose, and heaves a big sigh. Much like the night I told him I was pregnant with our first child, who is asleep in the next room. But something tells me he won't be calling everyone he knows and telling them about this news.

"Who the fuck is that?" He heaves another big sigh and seems to shrink a little in size.

"Jamie Miller," I know her. What. The. Fuck. Would it be better if I didn't? I've always been envious of her natural beauty. A couple of years ago I caught him trying to take a pack of cigarettes out of her back pocket and giggling like a fucking school boy who just touched a girl's butt for the first time.

"How long has this been going on?" His eyes are still closed.

"Since you moved to Arizona," Arizona. That was seven fucking months ago. Was she the woman I heard when I called him on the fourth of July?

"Was she good?"

"C'mon, Sam, you don't want to know the details, it will just hurt you more," he's almost pleading with me not to make him answer that question.

"You don't get to tell me what is going to hurt me, you fucking asshole! So tell me, was she good?" I know he doesn't want to answer, but I'm not breaking our stare, which feels like the only thing connecting us right now.

"It was… different," I don't even know what to say to that. This apartment is so fucking small and feels like it's closing in on me. I decide to leave our daughter sleeping in her bed and grab my bag, my car keys and the baby growing inside of me, and head for the door.

"Where are you going?" I turn to him, but only so he can see the pain on my face. The pain and anger that he caused. Fuck him. He doesn't deserve an answer.

***

Sam: Hey, are you up? I'm coming over.

Heather: Yea, Daisy thinks it's playtime. What's up?

Sam: He cheated on me.

Heather: I'll start the coffee.

***

"What a dick," Heather pretty much sums it up. She's sipping her coffee and gently tapping Daisy's bouncy chair with her foot. She's she cutest. I swear, she was born with perfect eyebrows; she'll probably never have to shape them. My baby will be just a few months younger than her. I moved Heather out to Arizona, but shortly after, she got pregnant, her boyfriend showed his crazy, and she fled back to New Hampshire. Not long after she left, I would follow in her footsteps, pregnant and all, back to New Hampshire. I don't know what I would do right now if she were still in Arizona.

"What are you going to do?"

I rub my belly and silently tell my baby I love them and that everything will be just fine, even if I don't believe it. FUCK! It wasn't supposed to be like this! He has everything he's ever wanted, and even things he never thought he would have, like a wife. I've stood by him all these years, through relapse and slip ups, through weekends spent in jail, and missed birthday parties. I've defended him to family when they questioned why he doesn't get a paying job. He's working on his dream I'd tell them. I've stood by him in court trying to get custody of Michelle. I've had my own child pee in a cup so he can use her urine to pass a fucking drug screen. We took vows. We are supposed to grow old together. We promised to love each other forever, to be together until death do us part.

"I don't know."

***

He didn't want to come to the ultrasound, convinced that if he changes routine (attending the gender reveal twice before) he will get his wish and the Holton name will be passed on.

"Let's stop at The Dollar Store and get some balloons before we go see daddy, sound good?"

"Yes! Can we tell him what it is?" She is so excited to be a big sister.

"That's what the balloons are for."

It doesn't take long to choose balloons and get to his shop. I park and let Hailie take our inflatable announcement and run ahead. He's outside smoking a cigarette when he turns and sees her running towards him.

"Hey baby!" He scoops her up, balloons and all and rests her on his hip. He looks at me with such hopeful eyes.

"It is really?"

Suddenly we are back in the river and he's skimming his finger tips across the top of the water, splashing me, finally confessing his middle name. Gary, like the pet snail in Spongebob. And how one day he will pass it on to his son. In twenty-two weeks he will be able to do just that. I nod and return his smile. I'm giving him a son. This moment isn't lost on me; standing outside of the tattoo shop that my husband is co-owner of, under a sign that he designed, and I just told him he's having a son. Short of a white picket fence, I'm pretty sure this is all he's ever wanted.