Coffee & Adultery

The brewing sounds and scent of hazelnut floated throughout my kitchen, and I took it in with a slow inhale like the most precious thing to savor. My eyes were closed and my head tilted upward as my fingers drummed the marble countertop, accompanying the slow pour from the Keurig into my "Best Wife Ever" mug. I opened my eyes and looked down to watch the steam dance out of the cup. This was usually a pleasure only reserved for the early morning routine. Having it after one in the afternoon felt like a special gift.

The coffee swirled with the French Vanilla creamer that was already in the mug. Once the last few drips dip themselves in, I grabbed the cup from the machine and walked over to the round table centered behind the three-fold window that gave view to our backyard. I pulled back the patted wooden chair and sat, placing my coffee on the coaster. I picked up the spoon from the table and stirred, my head leaning to the right as I listened to the clinking. I couldn't help but smile. It was a beautiful sound.

The over-dramatic moans and screams with the smashing of the headboard scratching my bedroom walls stopped. I chuckled, hearing hard feet scrambling around from the second floor. I may have heard a curse word along with it but it wasn't clear. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking. I placed my spoon on my napkin and lifted my mug by the handle to my lips. I sipped. I sighed. Bliss in a cup.

I took another one while watching the leaves sway on the tree outside, a few feet away from the window as those hard feet pummeled their way down the stairs, followed by two slightly lighter feet. They started running down the hall toward the kitchen and stopped. When I turned to face the hall, there was my husband with a bat in his hand ready to swing. His eyes almost popped out the sockets and sweat beads fell down his forehead, neck, and bare chest. I was glad he gave me the courtesy of putting on sweatpants.

My sister, however, came down wearing my forest green brushed cotton bed sheet from Parachute. I resisted rolling my eyes in frustration. It just had to be my favorite bedding set. I had a moment of wishing I'd changed the sheets the night before like I said I would. While they both stared like a deer in headlights I focused my attention back on my lovely cup of coffee, gripping it with both hands.

"Damn it Danielle, you scared the shit out of me."

"Oh, my bad. I didn't mean to interrupt your lunch break." I took another sip. So, so good.

"Dee I...I can explain." He said. I laughed.

"You can explain? Rickie I would have thought you'd come up with something a little more original. Besides, I really don't want or need an explanation."

"I think we should talk about this. Really, let me explain."

"No, I don't think I will. Like I said I don't need it. I'm fine, really." That time, my sip of coffee turned into three gulps. Jasmine was still behind him holding onto his arm, looking at me like I had three heads.

"How long have you known?" She asked, deciding to fully show herself and step away from Rickie. I shrugged, looking back out at my favorite tree. I fell in love with that tree when we first bought the house five years ago. I climbed that tree our first day, looking through that very window into the kitchen daydreaming about the moments we'd have in it. I saw us dancing around the island laughing, the countertops filled with diced vegetables and spices with two half-filled glasses of wine. I also pictured a baby boy I'd have running through my legs from his father while I was cooking. I was always quite the dreamer.

"You know Jas, I was never certain. Just had a...feeling. I mean I first realized he was an unfaithful bastard a few weeks ago, but learning that it was with you was thanks to my niece."

"What? How?" Jasmine pulled the sheet further up over her chest and under her arms as she moved toward me.

"When I had her last weekend, she told me she just so happened to see Rickie's Chevy parked behind your house before she left with her father to come here. Guess you couldn't wait, huh Rick?"

"Really, Danielle? Kill the sarcasm, would you?"

"No, I think I'll say whatever I want, thank you." I said, eyes darting to him before looking to my older sister. "I wanted to believe that maybe Tonya saw a car that was similar. I even tried to ignore your pathetic excuse for not bringing her over yourself due to a headache. But then I remembered, my lovely husband doesn't often check his location settings. It seemed very convenient that when you had your 'headache' he also left to meet up with a ''brother in Christ'." My coffee mug was less than half full. I put it to my mouth and let more of its contents down my throat, rolling my neck and shoulders to loosen the tension building. Rickie cursed under his breath as he sat across from me, rubbing the upper part of his face with his hand.

"I'm sorry, Danielle. I don't know what to say, it just sort of happened."

"I told you, I don't need the details. I don't need to know when. I don't need to know how, and I sure don't need to know why."

"Are you...are you serious?" Jasmine asked. "What is going on here? You're acting like you don't even care."

"What I care about is that those are my favorite sheets. I would really prefer for you to put some clothes on. Your own." I replied, rolling my eyes and shaking my head.

"Dee I really think we need to talk about this."

"Yeah well I strongly disagree. This is clearly something you want and if you wanted to talk to me about this you've had plenty of opportunity, perhaps. before you brought her into our my bedroom."

"It's not like you've made it easy to talk to you."

"So that's the angle you're going to take? I don't listen to you? I'm not there for you? I'm not present enough to stroke your ego the way she does?"

"You're not there to be a wife! To be here not just as some prayer warrior or worship leader or a damn counselor." He said. I took another gulp of the coffee and estimated that I only had a gulp or two left. My hands tightened around my mug and my leg trembled under the table.

"Yes that's right, I forgot. I'm only supposed to be here to convenience you, not help you live to the fullest of who you're called to be. Forgive me Pastor Richard, my mistake."

"I'm more than a damn pastor, Danielle!"

"Yes, I can see that. You have needs, right?" I kept my tone even, but I felt a crack creeping through my throat. I looked back at the Keurig. I needed more coffee.

"Yeah I have needs, I'm not a robot."

"Okay, thank you for letting me know. I'm sorry I couldn't maintain your standards."

"Danielle what is going on with you?" Jasmine took another step toward me, still holding that stupid sheet over her body. "He's telling you he was unhappy and you're acting like you don't give a crap."

"I don't. I won't say it again. I don't want to hear anything about it"

"Fine. So what now?" Rickie asked, watching Jasmine before turning to watch me.

"Well I suppose you both should start making arrangements, right?"

"Arrangements? For what?" Jasmine asked.

"For Rickie's move. I assume you both will be trying to start your lives together, free from all the secrecy."

"What? You think I'm just going to up and leave?"

"Well, yes. Isn't that how it goes? I'm sure you promised her that you'd leave me at some point, didn't you?"

"No, I never said anything like that. Look, this was just a-"

"Just a what, Rickie? A fling? A one time thing? An accident? If I have to tell you one more time that I do not care..." my tone was sharp. The leg quiver quickened. I felt the sting in my eyes and swallowed. I needed more coffee!

"No Danielle, I'm not doing this. We're talking about this."

"No, you're getting out." I demanded, jaw tight with my teeth stuck to each other.

"You can't just make him leave, this is his house too."

"Were you smoking up there? His house? I won't get into the fact that his name isn't on this deed, or even acknowledge who became the breadwinner here since he went to follow his "calling" as a pastor. I won't get into the fact that every week while he's been sleeping with you I've been having conversation after conversation with banks, accountants, the board and God knows who else to make sure no one knows he's not the man they see on the pulpit every Sunday. I won't get into the fact that while he's making you scream in our bed, I'm putting out fires, or that while you're loving this 'commitment free' relationship that I'm dealing with the real him."

"I know the real him, Danielle."

"You don't know a thing. You don't know the one that beat me over the head with scripture whenever I made the slightest mistake, the one that would spend days in his office and never touch his own wife except maybe once a month for the past two years. I still didn't entertain another man. Ever. You really don't know the man who blames me for not being able to make him a father, as if that was even a good idea. So I definitely will not get into the fact that you both want to bear your soul now that you got caught and know there's a chance to lose the very person who up until this point was unknowingly supporting your secret lifestyles." The stinging in my eyes didn't stop. I closed them, turning my head from Jasmine and Rickie. I didn't want to take the last sip that I knew grew cold. It was all I had left.

Neither of them spoke. My hands and arms shook from my grip on the mug. I tried to pray in my head, asking God for peace to get through the conversation, or to get them out of my house in less than five minutes.

When I finally opened my eyes, the two of them were exchanging looks I didn't understand. I didn't want to understand, Jasmine's expression didn't read as one who didn't believe me or didn't care about my words.

"Dani, I'm so sorry. I didn't know you'd been going through all of that."

"How could you know? Did you ever want to? The thing is Jasmine, I can't even be mad at you. I was so foolish to not see how you looked at him, how you moved around him. I kept telling myself, 'my older sister wouldn't do something like that to me because surely she wanted to be a good role model for her daughter. Surely she wouldn't do that to the sister who took care of her when her ex-husband left her with nothing', and even with all of that you were never the sister I could count on. You were never the one I could call when I was having a rough night and needed to rest my head and cry, never been the one to give me advice or help me understand the crap that life had to offer." I shook my head slowly, drinking the last bit of cold coffee down. I pushed away from the table and rushed to the counter, rummaging through the cabinets to find the coffee pods. I pulled out the Folders box and placed it down, a few of the pods falling out. I shook my hands out as if they were an etch-a-sketch that could erase the shaking. I switched the pods out before putting my mug under the nozzle and pressing "brew."

"Dee, listen. There's clearly a lot we have to work on. You and I, and you and your sister." Rickie said. I heard the chair he sat in lightly scratch the floor.

"Don't come over here." I said

"Dee, we can all fix this. Jasmine and I made a terrible mistake. We've treated you horribly. I'm sorry. But we know what the Bible says, about turning the other cheek, about forgiveness, abou-"

"Oh Richard Sawyer, please cut the crap." I replied with clenched teeth, fists balled on the counter as I inhaled that sweet aroma again. I let it go, and took in another breath.

"You really think you're going to appeal to my good nature right now? You want to keep me in compliance with your foolishness with more scripture?"

"Is that not what the Bible says?" Jasmine asked. I turned away from the counter to face them, leaning back against it with a sigh.

"Yes basically, that is what is says. It also basically says that adultery is one thing that gives permission for divorce. I'm sure I will forgive you, both of you. But both of you are still getting out of my house right now, and neither of you are welcomed in it again. So you have thirty seconds to get out of my sight before I really lose my 'Christian', starting with a phone call to the police and another to our board members." My arms crossed over my chest, eying both of them.

"You wouldn't do that! You'd do that to your own family? Your niece?" Jasmine asked.

"I won't have to if you leave."

"Danielle stop this right now!"

"Or what, dear husband? Please inform me on what you plan to do. I'd love to let everyone in every church committee what came out of your mouth. I want a divorce and I'm getting it."

"I won't sign it."

"Yes you will. Twenty seconds." I went to the refrigerator to grab the creamer from the door, then went back to the coffee machine. I grabbed my cup from it and added the creamer, my other hand already holding onto the spoon. The breath I took then was audible, that 'clinking' sound in my mug again starting to calm me a bit more.

"You won't do a damn thing, Danielle."

"Ten seconds." I held my freshly brewed coffee by the handle, turning once more to face them while using my free hand to dig my phone out of my pocket. I held it up, shaking it a bit and showing them the screen.

"I've been recording by the way, for my conversation with the board. After all you're always one to say it's your word over mine, right?" I said directly to Rickie, whose eyes would have burned a hole in me if they could. I watched his nose flare, and it did nothing to me. Instead of responding to his anger, I unlocked my phone and clicked the "phone" icon. I showed them the screen again after I typed those three numbers.

"Alright damn it, alright. We're going." His hands raised in surrender, his body slowly moving toward the hallway. Looking at Jasmine, I made a mental note not to address the tears running down her face. My own tears betrayed me, one of them falling down my right cheek. I saw her neck jolt, swallowing her pride as she followed Rickie down the hall and upstairs.

The moment they were out of my sight I took a sip of my coffee, and then another. I smiled. Another perfect cup, with some peace and quiet. Bliss.