I ran down the hall to the ladies room and vomited. I washed off my face with cool water, sank down on the floor, and 83

started bawling. Sheila came in and found me.

“Oh, Maggie. Are you alright? She’s asking for you.”

“I don’t know what to do, Sheil.”

“Well, she needs you right now. You can fight about it tomorrow.”

“How could she do this to me?”

“I don’t know. I’m sure she didn’t do it to hurt you. She made a mistake.”

“That’s a pretty big fucking mistake,” I sobbed, sniffling.

“I know.”

She came over to me, helped me up off the floor, and wiped off my nose with a paper towel. “Come on.”

She walked me down the hall back past the waiting room to the ER bed where Janine was and everyone else was crowded around her. When I walked in the room went silent.

Cindy spoke up and said, “Come on everyone. It’s been a long night. I’ll take everybody home.”

One by one they filed out of the room. Dean kissed Janine on the forehead and squeezed my hand on the way out.

She looked at me and tears welled up in her eyes. My heart was breaking, I loved her so much in that moment. I knew I would forgive her and that made me feel weak and foolish. I went and sat down on the edge of the bed and took her hand in mine.

Soon we were both crying, and neither of us said anything, we were just there looking at each other with tears running down our faces. A nurse came in with a clipboard. “I’m sorry. I’ll need you both to sign these discharge papers, then Miss Jordan is free to go.”

* * * *

That night I slept on the couch with Sebastian and Joplin.

I tried to go to bed with her but I couldn’t sleep. Every time I rolled over I knew I woke her up, and every time I even glanced at her I got angry. That combined with knowing she’d been through a trauma and I knew she needed her rest. I could be considerate, even when I was mad.

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Around 11 AM on Sunday morning, I heard her shuffling down the hallway toward the living room. I got up and went into the kitchen because I didn’t want her to come sit by me and start crying again, it would dissolve my anger and what I had to say along with it.

I stood at the kitchen island and drank my coffee while she slid into the breakfast nook. We had argued about the damn nook for a week, we couldn’t agree on the tone of the wood.

Janine won and we got the pine. She always won. God, I hated myself.

I poured her a glass of apple juice, I knew that’s what she would want, it’s what she always wanted when she was hung over, so I assumed her body was feeling very much the same as it would under those circumstances.

“Thank you.”

I sat down across from her and said nothing.

“I don’t know how I got pregnant.”

“Really? What are you, five?”

“I didn’t mean it that way. I meant…I thought he wore a condom.”

I glared at her.

“Maggie…I don’t even know what to say. I know 'I’m sorry'

doesn’t do the trick. I know you’re angry, and you should be. I have no excuse.”

I glared at her some more.

“I assume next you’re going to tell me it didn’t mean anything.”

“It didn’t.”

“Of course it didn’t. Does anything?”

“Of course. I love you. I made a mistake. I was…loaded.

And I was lonely.”

“Lonely?”

“Yes, lonely.”

“Usually, when people get lonely and they are in a relationship, they call their partner to feel better, not go fuck some guy.”

“I’m sorry Maggie.”

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“You were right; sorry isn’t going to cut it.”

“Well what is?”

“I don’t know. I just…can you at least tell me what happened? When it happened? According to the doctor, it could not have been that long ago.”

“It was the show at Roseland. You were away for those couple of days, at that book expo down in Atlantic City.”

“I was away. So now this is my fault?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Glare, glare, glare.

“The show at Roseland had some problems. Me and the guys weren’t getting along, we argued about the set list right up until we went on stage. There was a lot of fighting in the audience, a rowdy crowd. It was one of those shows where I felt like I was singing out all my emotions and no one was listening.”

Oh, the poor, misunderstood artist, I thought to myself.

“I was a wreck, and I drank a lot during the show, there were these girls in the front that kept handing me shots. After the show I was backstage and this guy, a stagehand, walked right up to me and said, ‘They didn’t appreciate you, are you alright? It looked to me like you were having a hard time, like you could use a hug maybe.’ He was so sweet, and I was so…”

“Horny?”

“No! It wasn’t like that, Maggie. I didn’t plan on it happening, it just did.”

“At the club?”

“No.”

“You went home with him?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus Christ. Did you even think about me?”

“Of course I did. There were a couple of times I almost told you, but the more days passed, the harder it got, and then I felt so guilty, and you’ve been so content lately, I didn’t want to ruin everything.”

“So you were just never going to tell me?”

“I don’t know. I mean, it doesn’t matter now, does it?”

“Have there been others?”

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“No. I was still having sex with other people when we first started dating, I know you were too. But after a while, maybe not even quite a month, I stopped seeing anyone else.”

I decided not to tell her I kept fucking other women for about three months, not one. I was having sex compulsively because I was so afraid of falling in love with Janine. They meant nothing, so I wanted to believe this guy meant nothing to her too.

I softened a little.

“You really hurt me.”

“I know.”

“Did you miss men?”

“No. It wasn’t about that at all. I promise.”

I softened some more. “Are you feeling okay? Do you need to rest more?”

“I feel fine. Tired, but fine. The cramps have stopped and there hasn’t been anymore bleeding. The doctor said there might be, but there isn’t.”

I sighed. I wanted to be angry enough to leave her, or at least to threaten to leave her. Deep within, my heart could not deny it would forgive her even if the mind didn’t want to follow.

Things, a lot of things actually, would be different if I didn’t believe she loved me. In my own history there had been a fair share of cheating on both sides, so it wasn’t as if I didn’t understand why she had done it. And I knew the remorse, the shame, the self-loathing that came afterward. Dammit. I got up and went over to her side of the nook and pulled her up into my arms. She cried on my shoulder and I did my best Otis Redding, “I’ve…been…loving you…too long…I don’t wanna stop now…” We danced into the living room and she went and pulled the Greatest Hits CD off the shelf and popped it into the stereo. He sang it much better than I did. She dragged me onto the couch and made love to me slowly, passionately, apologetically. We fell asleep intertwined among the cushions, I heard a soft rain on the windowpanes and the rooftop, and slowly drifted into peace once again.

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