Overmatched - Pt. 02

She glared incredulously at me. "Sorry," I said with no hint of being apologetic. "You can tell him if you like. He might have a certain control over me - over us - but I'm not risking my life for anyone."

Katie dropped her eyes then to her coffee cup and so I went on. "Lastly, that right there," I said more sternly, "Won't be tolerated. He's had you all week. Monday morning you'll be back with him at the office. I'm not prepared to spend my weekends for the next twenty-four months or so letting you get over yourself and your trysts. Get yourself under control on your way home and don't darken 'us' time or I'm inclined to find others to hang out with who have a happier disposition."

Katie contemplated for another minute and, finally, she nodded her consent and came over to hug me. She held me tightly for a while then said, "Don't leave me - emotionally - I mean. I love you. I'll get tested on Monday at lunchtime. It looks like we don't have any more trips planned until April."

Katie got tested and was clean. I wish I could say I was fully relieved but it wasn't only her health that affected me. Yeah, I was becoming a hard ass of a husband. I knew, we both did, that Katie was the one dealing with the physicality of our ordeal. She was the one who had to give her body.

Mine was a mental fuck. I had to constantly tell myself that I wasn't less of a man because I couldn't defend her or save her. I'd proffered the solution, which was to run, and she wouldn't accept that solution. I kept telling myself, 'You can't save someone who won't let you.'

Despite my attempts, I fell into a deeper depression. Part of it was the fact that I kept coming to dead ends while looking for the smoking gun at Worldview. Winter gave way to spring but entire days went by when I didn't set foot out of the house. Working as a food delivery worker means you work when you feel like it and I didn't most days.

Katie did all she could to jolt me out of my funk. It wasn't as if we never talked because we talked plenty. My wife was struggling to find a way out of her own hell just as I was and thus simply couldn't help each other. Some days, we were so inwardly lost that we could barely commiserate. The outcome was the dark coldness in our home slowly became a mini Antarctica. We rarely had sex and that's all it was.

The summer, a time of fun and rejuvenation in the Pacific Northwest, found us both as recluses. Jack had been much more of a critical boss than a lover due to Katie's declining attitude and her productivity. Since their April trip, they'd only gone to a weekend conference at the end of June and back to McMillin headquarters the first week of August. It was that trip which led to the beginning of the end.

It was after Labor Day that I began to notice a change in my wife. In fairness, there was no longer a barometer for normal but Katie and I were always trying our hardest, it seemed to me anyway, to remain upbeat. We were caring and open with one another and even if some days it was a façade, we wore the smile of a happy couple. There wasn't any point to do otherwise. Neither of us was the enemy.

Katie suddenly became withdrawn for about ten days, then she gradually came back from whatever funk she was in. She knew I knew because I'd asked what was wrong and what I could do for her. Her answer was always a very pointed "nothing."

A few days later, I was loading our washing machine and noticed a pair of Katie's panties in the bottom. It was a cute white pair with several little hearts running the color spectrum between red and pink. I always had a little trouble sorting lights and darks and, since I was doing jeans and dark blue bath towels, I decided to take the panties out so as not to ruin them.

That's when I saw the blood. It seemed to be too red for her normal period and there was a lot of it all the way to both seams in the crotch. I studied them for several minutes. I'm no doctor but something was out of place.

Katie was on birth control even before all the shit with Jack started. I didn't pay any attention to her cycle, yet I racked my brain for the last time she'd had her time of the month. If I recall correctly, it had been the third week of July. That didn't mean much. She probably had one in August but we weren't having regular sex anymore so I could have easily not known. It wasn't like a major topic at dinner. I put the panties aside, on top of a plastic bag, and made a mental note to ask her that evening.

Unfortunately, I didn't - couldn't - put it out of my mind. I quickly searched on my phone for words like ovulation and most fertile after the menstrual cycle. What I learned in a few minutes took my blood pressure to unnatural levels.

By the time she was due home, I'd already done the math several times and I'd drank two full glasses of rum and coke. I wasn't sure I wanted to know the truth but I committed myself to getting it all the same.

Katie strode through the door at five-thirty, as she did most days. It had been the norm for me to prepare dinner most nights since I was barely putzing around with my part-time delivery job. She found me at the kitchen table staring out the window with no signs of any cooking activity.

"Andy, what's wrong?" she said, alarmed.

"We need to talk," I told her with no emotion. Her face went through a range of emotions though, and a few color shades. Finally, she went to the refrigerator, pulled out a half-bottle of white wine, and then went for a glass. She sat down and filled the glass to the brim.

"The washing machine?" she inquired with only a glance out of the corner of her eye.

"Yeah," I quietly replied. Then I waited.

Katie gulped the wine and refilled her glass. Maybe she was stalling, thinking, but I couldn't say for sure.

"I meant to retrieve those and discard them," she began. I'd been waiting most of the day to get painful words out and get answers so I cut her off.

"To keep your poor, clueless husband in the dark?" I prodded.

"Yes," she stated. I didn't detect any remorse yet, so maybe she thought she had a chance to fix things.

"Mostly to keep you from being hurt, honey," she continued. I guessed there'd be no remorse today. She seemed eager to get it off her chest, rehearsed or not, I'll never know.

"Miscarriage or abortion?" I interrupted again.

"The latter," she replied after a pause.

"Fuck, Katie," I growled. "You can't even say it so why do it? This is where your level of respect for me is now? Disrespect more like it."

That made her reflect. I wondered. Maybe I'd called it just as it was. If that was the case, we were already done.

"I forgot to take my pills," she finally said something. "I..."

"Bullshit!" I screamed as I slammed my fist against the table, toppling her empty wine glass. Fortunately, it didn't shatter on the floor.

"Can I explain please?" she said, also in an elevated tone. "I know you're mad."

I wanted to state the obvious but held my tongue. I was already tired. Tired of this day, tired of our situation, and the last thing I wanted was some big conversation laden with excuses. I waved outward for her to go ahead.

"I did miss several days in late July," she restarted. "Right around my period and some days after. I'm so damned distracted these days with the pressure and all. Anyway, I didn't think too much of it, making a mental note to get back on track. Then it hit me the first night I was away with Jack."

I'd become quite irritated at her using his first name as well. It wasn't that I didn't understand that after being intimate and working together every damned day, it was normal to her. To me, it always felt like a slap in the face.

"I stopped Jack before we got started," she was talking faster then. "I had to say something so I explained my dilemma. He gave me a strange look, then an evil grin. He told me that was perfect. He said he was going to suggest that I go off the pill anyway and give you a child for being such a good... boy."

I jumped away from the table in a rage. "Is that the word he used? Boy? Or something else?"

She looked down. "I thought you said Mr. Perfect never trash-talked me?" I interrogated. "What happened to that? When did that stop?"

"This was the first time," she told me staring into my eyes as if daring me to call her a liar.

"I don't believe you," I sat back down. "He'd never want you to give me a child. He likely wanted to turn it into a competition. Looks like he won. But hey..."

I had another thought. "You told him that I make you get tested every time you come home, didn't you?"

She looked at me, then down, and nodded. "Anyway, I didn't think much of it. I've missed a few days many times. I knew I was ovulating but those drugs usually take a month or more to get out of your system and I'd already restarted."

"Funny thing, that," I snarled, holding up a round package with little pills inside. "Looks to me like you only restarted a few days ago."

Fear crept into her expression. "I know you... look, I know what you must be thinking but you're wrong. He went into the bathroom at some point and must have gone through my travel case. The next morning my pills were gone. When I confronted him, he said he was serious the night before and he'd taken them and flushed them.

"He told me that it would be good for us. He said if you were too lazy or depressed to find any meaningful work, then staying home and taking care of a baby would be good for you, give you perspective, and rejuvenate you. I knew he didn't mean that. I'm pretty sure he wanted to impregnate me but what was I supposed to do?"

"Tell him to go fuck himself," I yelled. "Or any other means of saying no!"

"You know better," she retorted.

"I know you probably laughed and agreed with him," I replied with a snort.

She shook her head in mock disbelief. "We were supposed to be a team. We aren't anymore. I was afraid to tell you so I told him. He was elated, as I expected. I put my foot down and told him I would not force you - I think I said 'have' you - raise another man's child. He didn't believe me. He made a few jokes and disparaging remarks about you. Loser, I think, was the word. I told him if he didn't pay for an abortion immediately, I'd do anything I could to destroy him or die trying."

She was out of steam. Katie sat back down and took a swig of the remaining wine straight from the bottle. "He reminded me what he's always said to both of us. We'd be missing, he'd make sure the police would look the other way. He'd lay things out about your anger issues, our personalities, and our pasts. He chuckled when he told me to go ahead and record him or try to get something - anything - I could use against them. But I held my ground. I wouldn't do that to you! I love you!" she was bawling then.

I looked her in the eye again. "If you loved me so much, you'd have listened to me long ago," I stated. "We'd be somewhere far away by now, living new untethered lives. But no, you want to see this through. It's easy for you."

"You sonofabitch!" she raged. "I'm the one having to have the sex! Fuck you, sitting around here wallowing in self-pity, while I'm basically raped."

"I don't see it that way," I said coldly. "You're off traveling to exotic locations, being wined and dined, and having sex with a handsome powerful man. Even without the sex, you're on his arm in public like some sort of trophy. You could have left with me a long time ago. You keep saying you're trying to protect me, doing this for me but I don't think so anymore. I think you enjoy it. The glamour of it. The excitement."y

"I've told you - fuck, Andy," she was infuriated and too mixed up to form a coherent thought for a few minutes. "When we were in Belize, that first weekend. On the last day, we were out with two of the top brass from McMillin. A cargo plane was being loaded with one hundred or so refugees - immigrants. The plane, hell the entire runway area was surrounded by agents. FBI and DHS with the emblems on their windbreakers. Jack and another exec from McMillin were standing there talking with them like old hunting buddies. The plane was bound for Kansas City, Missouri. That's seventy-five miles from the Kansas border and just another few miles to the large ranch that McMillin had just purchased. After they finished chatting, Jack came over to me as we were boarding our plane with a shit-eating grin, as if to say, "See? Look who's on our team."

"That doesn't mean we have to take it," I shouted. "We're losing the game, Katie, in case you've gone blind. You got pregnant with his child! What the actual fuck?!"

"What happened to you?" Her tone was now agitated. "Huh?" she reached over and held my chin, forcing me to look at her.

"What happened to the man I married?" she went on. "The strong, reasonable, loving, and confident man I fell in love with. Where did he go?"

I pulled my head away from her grasp. "He's dead. Dead on the inside, just not the outside yet."

"I DON'T BELIEVE YOU," she screamed. "You're right here but you're acting like some neighborhood kid came over and took your favorite action figure. You won't find a job. You sit in that office doing god knows what on your computer. Some secret shit because I looked. Imagine my surprise when I find our hard drive partitioned and yours is password protected. What is it? Porn? Just a little something to take the edge off while I have to make nice and work with my tormentor all day?"

"Yeah, you're the victim," I mumbled.

"We both are, Andy," her voice was laced with exacerbation and she let out a deep sigh that broke my heart. "Alright," she said sitting up straight in her chair. "You want to leave, go on then. I'll give you a running head start. I won't say a word to anyone but eventually, they'll find out, probably sooner than later. It won't just be your ass then; it will be mine as well. I'll take that because I love you. I'm just not signing my death warrant by running with you. That's all you."

I let out a relationship-ending sigh of my own. She'd never get it. I guess from her perspective, I'd never see her point of view either. The impasse was insurmountable.

I already had everything that I needed in my car. I had somewhat of an escape plan, too. The new laptop I'd paid cash for that afternoon had all my files from the home computer and I'd wiped that machine clean. I stood up and looked down at my wife. Things weren't supposed to end this way. Little voices in my head were whispering, some screaming at me to sit down and try to work things out. I couldn't.

"I loved you with all my heart," I said as I kissed her forehead. It took a second for her to register that comment and then I heard her sob as I was walking out the door. My comment was brutal and unnecessary but I was so angry. For a long time afterward, I wished I'd never said that. Moreover, I wished I'd said something loving that encapsulated our long relationship before Jack Powers.

Despite my need for flight, I meandered around aimlessly for an hour or so. I felt so lost but no more so than if I'd stayed. When I stopped daydreaming, I realized I was downtown Spokane. It's a much different place after dark than in the daytime. If you've never been, it can be a scary place. At the time I was going through all this, the crime rates and homelessness were higher than in metro Seattle.

There was a time, even a year before, when I hated the homeless problem, and even despised it. Since Jack and Mortimer, though, I'd come to see these people as victims as well. Most were probably cheated out of what little they had; some became victims to a one hundred-billion-dollar drug trade. I'd read but never believed that two percent of the world's population controlled ninety-five percent of the world's real wealth. Not banking Monopoly money or over-inflated stock exchange prices, but tangible things of value. I'd read in context that if the shit ever hit the fan, a guy like Tom Cruise would end up just like me. His bank card and credit cards wouldn't work either. He might have a little more clout than a guy like me but his three-hundred and forty-five million dollars didn't even come close to getting him into the two percent club. The thought of what little chance I had against those pricks at Worldview almost made me turn the car around.

At a red light, a ragged, older homeless man wandered into the crosswalk swinging his ratty wooden walking stick in the air. At one point it landed on my hood, hard. Maybe it was my anger or an inner need for some retribution but I jumped out of my car and screamed obscenities at him. Several other homeless people came out of nowhere. I remember thinking it was an ambush as I jumped back in the car. By the time I locked my doors, several of them were banging on my windows on all sides. I put the car in gear with my foot on the brake, hoping to get the men in front to move aside but they didn't. I gave it a little gas still with my foot on the brake pedal. Nothing. Someone was using a metal bar on the top of my vehicle and I knew it would only be a matter of time before the window came crashing in.

That happened right after I thought it and, instinctively, I punched the gas, running over at least three men as shattering glass flew into my face. I felt and heard them pelting my vehicle with whatever they were throwing as I made my getaway.

Trying to think quickly, I decided to head north out of the city towards the Canadian border. Twelve blocks or so later I saw the red and blue flashing lights in my rearview. I seriously thought about punching the gas but my car would never outrun them so I pulled over and played it cool.

That did no good at all. The description of my vehicle had been given by at least four eyewitnesses, one even remembering my license plate number, plus my driver's side glass was busted out. I was arrested immediately and booked into county rather than Spokane because I'd been caught by a sheriff's deputy.

After my mug shot, I was handed a pillow and a blanket and led into a communal cell. There were four other men already there who just stared at me with unemotional eyes. I sat huddled in a corner. Thirty minutes later, I looked up at the others as I had been every so often and one of them stood up rapidly.

"What the fuck you lookin' at?" he grumbled at me, moving in my direction. The very large man sitting next to him was on his heels as they both came at me.

"Nothing!" I must have sounded like a scared little girl.

The first blow deflected off the top of my head as I cradled my face in my hands. Then I felt a few kicks which instinctively caused me to roll up in the fetal position. Blow after blow descended upon me as I tried to shield my most vulnerable body parts. The beating went on for several minutes with me crying out like a baby for help.

Just before I blacked out, I saw one of the other men, a giant of a fellow, fighting the two who'd attacked me.

I heard the rhythmic beeps before I felt the I.V. in my arm. A man, probably a doctor said my name. I grunted. My eyes hurt from the light - or the beating. Someone dressed as a nurse turned the little nozzle on the drip mechanism and I soon fell asleep.

Conscientiousness came and went for I didn't know how long. When I was awake everything hurt. Eventually, the pain lessened.

Then I met Felicia.

She stood patiently next to the doctor who'd become familiar to me by then. Dr. Smith told me I was in a private hospital in Kellogg, Idaho. He ran through a laundry list of my injuries, including cerebral edema, which had caused me to be in an induced coma for two weeks.

I first asked about Katie which made me realize I still had feelings for her. The doctor seemed reluctant to answer my question, as he looked at the black-haired beauty next to him. She nodded and he left. I just stared questioningly.