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Circumstances have arisen…how trite.  She sought someone else’s touch I scream internally.  Gave herself to someone but me.  I know our ***** life hasn’t exactly been as scintillating as it once was.  Wasn’t that a consequence of the maturity of our time together? 

Of course it wasn’t just about whether we had ***** or how often.  But who can dispute the physical act was a manifestation of deeper emotions?  When did those emotions lose hold in us?  Did they vanish – or were they perhaps just laying dormant?

I could count the number of times we really connected when making love in the last three years.  Of course, more recently there was the time we had entertained a three-some.  She suspended her fervent desire to have an artist, fully screened by us to father our child.  She just wanted to be with me during conception.  How memorably sweet it was after his departure.  That night seeming to bring us close to each other again after some time of not – connecting.

Then the day we inseminated at home, punctuated by my willingness for the baby to be reflective of Bette, of us, choosing Marcus’ sperm.  My decision was so poignantly meaningful for her – clearly etched in the pleasure expressed in her surprise that morning.  Why I first resisted I don’t know.  The hurt she felt still elicits self-distaste to this day. 

I was just so overwhelmed with our continued effort to contend with the empty space between us, then the struggle to get pregnant.  Pointedly, I didn’t want to contemplate having our child live through the unfortunate social consequences of having two mothers, in addition to being biracial. 

But what was I thinking?  He was going to be our child.  Of course it would be natural for him to show traces of Bette and who she was.  Faced with a choice today, I wouldn’t hesitate to use a black donor. 

Sadly, I seem never to have to confront or make that choice again.

Of course there was the night we celebrated our being pregnant.  Her passionate anger for the hindrances posed by those around her for the exhibit fluidly transformed to loving passion in the bedroom.  We were both brimming with joy.  Her professions of love so heartfelt that night, verbally, physically.

Then we lost him.  Our son.  I grimace still at that memory.  After that, the remnants of that last physical union and our brief reconnection faded into the background.  I felt more and more the emptiness stretch between us as we slowly drifted apart, even further this time it seemed.  Culminating in her affair.

Live apart the lawyer also said. 

Permanently – is that what he said?  I actually look at the document this time and it does indeed confirm this.  I’m sure it’s standard verbiage for an agreement such as this but who would have thought it would come to this?  I certainly never did.  I thought she was my forever.  That I was hers.

I’m now lost in the way the paper on which the words were printed captured the rich texture and feel of natural linen.  How elegant it was similar to a finely woven cloth. 

I let the pad of my index finger trace Bette’s name in the first paragraph. It smudged.  Probably because of the sheen of sweat coating my hands if not my entire body given the enormity of the impact of what was happening.

It was odd how the strangest things reminded me of our relationship.  Like this paper, once elegant, now marked imperfect with the smudge of the affair.  

My brow furrows as a thought passes.  It dawns on me it’s only now I can think it.  The benefit of hindsight given time that passed allowing me to distance from the anger, rejection, hurt and devastation. 

At least enough for me to ask now, it can’t have just been Bette’s affair that befell us could it?  Why did it happen?  Something or things would have been precursors. 

Perhaps not as extreme as having an affair but what damning evidence of culpability lay squarely on my shoulders?

Were my fingerprints on the smudge of our relationship too?