Acts of Contrition Read online

  Acts of Contrition

  By

  Katherine Rhodes

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Acts of Contrition

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright 2015 © Katherine Rhodes

  Originally Published in

  Windswept: Stories of Enduring Love

  Cover by JRA Stevens

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

  Michele and Craig are tired of their marriage. With the sins of their past haunting them each day, a vacation together is the last thing they need. Or maybe, it's exactly what they need...

  Contents

  Chapter One:

  Chapter Two:

  Chapter Three:

  Chapter Four:

  Chapter Five:

  Chapter Six:

  Chapter Seven:

  About The Author

  Katherine Rhodes

  Chapter One:

  “Pay the woman, Craig.”

  Michele’s voice cut straight through him. Maybe this idea wasn’t so great after all. Craig cleared his throat, and pulled out his wallet. The words from his last therapy session rang in his head. “Don’t let her provoke you. You do it to each other, and if you don’t respond, you don’t start the cycle.”

  Which was simple when they weren’t fighting. Which was nearly never at this point.

  Craig laid the card down on the counter, and clerk looked horribly uncomfortable. “Ah, uh…would you like to upgrade to the suite, Mister Ferguson? We have one that came available due to a cancellation.”

  He looked at his wife, who was utterly unreadable. Great. He had no idea if it was the right or wrong thing to do. He paused a moment and thought about it. There was a good chance the suite had two rooms. Which might save the trip after all. “Yes. Yes, I think we’d like that.”

  Michele threw her hands up and walked away.

  Goddamn it.

  The clerk ran the card, running through the polite, silence-filling chat as she did so. A bellhop appeared near Michele and the luggage on the other side of the entrance. She waved him off, and Craig groaned. Why was she being so cheap now? He wasn’t carrying her damn sixty-pound bag.

  “Do you need the bellhop, sir?” the clerk asked, quietly.

  “Yes, please,” Craig answered.

  “Very good sir,” she said. The card was handed back. “Would like to open a room charge?”

  “Oh, no. No, not right now.” Craig cringed at the idea of his wife knowing that was option.

  Michele motioned to him to grab the bags when he was done at the counter. The bellhop was back over in an instant to pile the bags on to the cart. She gave him a dirty look and huffed, slinging her purse up onto her shoulder. A move, Craig knew, that signaled her displeasure.

  Whatever, Mishi. It’s a sixty-pound bag. And I’m not twenty-three anymore.

  * * *

  Of course he upgraded to the suite. Why wouldn’t he upgrade to the suite. He wasn’t the one with all of his cards and checks taken away. He wasn’t the one on an “allowance.”

  Michele could feel her ire rising again. Her husband had put her, a thirty-eight year old woman and mother of two, on a fucking allowance like she was a ten year old. And then had the damn nerve to upgrade this miserable vacation to a suite, and get the bellhop to help them.

  Could have carried the damn bag. Michele pressed the button for the elevator and waited for her darling husband and the bellhop to show up.

  Naturally, they got the chattiest bellhop ever. “How ya doin’, folks? First time on the island? I think that you’re going to really like it here. Chef Hilde is so awesome in the kitchen and if I may say so, I think that you should really think about the jet skis. It’s a hell of an experience. We have our great ice cream social on Thursday night, and I promise you will never have ice cream like this again.”

  Mercifully, the B&B was only three floors, and the elevator opened and spewed them on to the floor they were staying on. It didn’t really dissuade the bellhop from talking.

  “Oh, ho, the Tiller suite! Nice! Have you ever been in the suites? The Tiller is nice. There’s a living area, bedroom, and a kitchen. The bathroom is amazing—there’s a huge shower and huge tub, and the toilet is in its own stall. I’ve been in there a few times and it’s so nice. And the view is amazing. Just wait. I really hope that you folks have a great time here. I’m so happy working here. I’ve seen so many wonderful things happen to folks. I hope to see you down in the pool later. There’s a barbeque under the stars. Thank you, sir! Very generous! Enjoy your stay!”

  The bellhop had managed to get them into the room, unload the luggage and head back out the door while Craig was shoving a tip into his hand, all without missing a beat. He leaned against the door, voicing the first thing they agreed on in years.

  “Christ, I thought he’d never shut up.”

  Michele opted not to let him knows she agreed. She folded her arms, turning away. She surveyed the suite and was quietly impressed. It was spacious and well appointed, and had an expansive balcony that looked out over the muted blues of the wintery Gulf of Mexico.

  “What the hell are we doing here, Craig?” she asked, walking to the doors.

  “We agreed on this, Mish,” he said. “We had the money spent, we had the baby sitting set up. Almost a year ago.”

  “Things sure do change in a year, don’t they?”

  “Michele.” She instantly knew Craig’s tone: condescending, exasperated, trying not to get mad at her. Which instantly made her angry, but she bit her tongue.

  He’s trying when he sounds like that, the therapist said. He’s becoming aware of his temper and thinking things through now. Be patient with him.

  Michele let him speak.

  “Things have changed. You know Doctor Amblin believes this might help us. We agree to not get angry with each other at the outset of an offense. I know you got pissed at me in the lobby for the upgrade. Why?”

  “You’re flaunting money again,” she grumbled. “Want a suite? Sure why not. Meanwhile I get my ass handed to me if I come home from the grocery shopping even three dollars over the budget.”

  “That’s part of the deal, Michele,” he said. “You have spending problems.”

  “I like to shop.”

  “I like to have a fucking roof over my head.”

  Michele unfolded her arms. “Don’t start.”

  “Start what?” Craig was really getting riled, and she took a sick pleasure in it. “I have to finish it. Finish paying for all those damn credit cards that you ran up. Finish cleaning up the loans you took out. Finish cleaning out the storage bins of all the fucking clothes and crap you bought that we never needed.”

  Michele quirked a lip. “We’ve been here for less than an hour, and you’ve already dragged it up. Just that easily. It’s never far from your mind, is it?”

  “You nearly made our children homeless!”

  Michelle stopped cold. She turned, slowly and leveled her gaze at him. “You asshole. How dare you bring the kids into this.”

  “I didn’t,” he growled. “You were the one who was robbing Peter to pay Paul and you were the one who started sh
orting the mortgage. You nearly put our children on the street. I don’t care if I have to live in a cardboard box, but those children need so much more than that, and you nearly took their chances away.”

  It was her breaking point. She loved the children. She marched up to him and slapped him hard across the face. “Stop making me out to be the only bad guy in this relationship, Craig. Stop it. I couldn’t help myself. It was an addiction. I’m not proud of it, and I’m certainly not proud of what we were going to have to do to clean our lives up. But I wasn’t the only who was at fault. Or have you really forgotten about Tara that easily?”

  * * *

  Michele hit below the belt with that one. He wanted to scream at her to leave Tara out of it, but if he brought up the shopping, he couldn’t expect her not to bring up Tara. Worse, she was right. He hadn’t forgotten her that easily. He also hadn’t forgotten the decision to walk away from her.

  “You’re not the only who gets to pull the punches, Craig,” Michele said. “You’re not the innocent party. You cheated on me.”

  “I didn’t cheat on you,” he said.

  “You made friends with a woman, and became so emotionally involved with her that you were discussing our lack of a sex-life. You would text her before you would text me. You would spend hours talking to her on the phone. You involved her in our lives from top to bottom, Craig. You put having a beer with her over your daughter’s first ballet recital. You cheated on me, even if it was an emotional affair. You may not have fucked her, but you sure did fuck this family, didn’t you?”

  He slumped. Michele was right. She might have nearly bankrupted them, but he had left them high and dry for months while he and Tara had grown closer.

  Worse, before the bank had called and told him about the mortgage issues, he had been ready to take their relationship to the next level. Finding out that his wife had spent them into near homelessness made him cling to Tara even more—until Michele heard the voice mail setting up a hotel room for them.

  “Truce,” he said. “Please, truce.”

  Michele took a step back. Craig didn’t know how much more of the constant bitter fighting he could take before they both just walked away from the marriage. Certainly, he could see that she wasn’t expecting him to use the safe-word the therapist had made them pick. He was just exhausted.

  Craig walked to the couch and sat. This was exhausting, and they had come here to try and relax and restore themselves. He watched as Michele left the window and sat in the chair across from him. She tucked her legs under her body and stared at him, then folded her arms.

  “So. What do we do?”

  Craig dropped his head in his hands and stared at the floor. “Let’s enjoy ourselves. You do what you want and I’ll do what I want.” He paused, and couldn’t believe he was going to say this. “And when we get home, we’ll talk to a lawyer.”

  Michele’s breath was short and sharp. “Lawyer.”

  He raised his gaze to hers. “What else is there? All we do is fight. Argue. Throw bitter insults at each other. The kids are starting to be affected. My work is starting to be affected. Michele, I don’t think any amount of therapy is going to help us. We are broken, and I don’t think we have all the pieces anymore.”

  “So we give up?”

  “How many Band-Aids can we put on this?”

  Michele looked at the rug and back up at him. “What do we do?”

  “Whatever we want,” he said. “With two conditions, one for each of us.”

  “And those are?”

  “I’ll lift the credit card spending restriction as long as you don’t spend too much and put all of your receipts on the counter for me to see. And I will leave my phone out every night, all night, for you to confirm I’m not talking, texting, or messaging Tara in anyway.”

  Craig waited on Michele. She was clearly thinking even as she stared at him. He was tired. The fighting was wearing everyone down, making them and the kids miserable. The pretending they were a happy couple for their families was exhausting. Thinking about how they had both messed up this relationship made him feel sick.

  Slowly, she nodded. “All right. I agree. I’m tired of fighting too. It seems like that’s all we’ve been doing for months.”

  “That’s because that’s all we have been doing.” Craig sighed and pulled his wallet out to hand Michele a card. He didn’t even know if he cared anymore if she spent the roof off the limit. He was relived to not be arguing anymore, as long as this held the week.

  Chapter Two:

  Craig tried to get the keycard in the door at least twice before he managed to get the door open. The last two shots had really put him over the edge, and he was slightly embarrassed that he was more drunk than intended. He stumbled in, letting the door close and headed for the bathroom.

  Tripping over nothing on the way out, he found the corner of the table with his shin quite effectively. It skidded a bit, making a bad, loud noise, terrifying Craig for just a moment that Michele would wake up.

  When she didn’t come out, he allowed himself to breathe again as he sank down on to the couch. On the table he had just kicked were three pieces of paper. The receipts. He pulled out his phone and put it on the table with them.

  Now that he and Michele were actually on the path to divorce, the urge to call Tara and talk to her was overwhelming. But he had promised, and from the look of things, Michele had held up her end of the bargain. He picked up the three slips and looked at them in the dim light of the room.

  The first was a receipt from the gift store for two sweatshirt in the kids’ sizes. A good place to spend money. The second was from a jewelry store for a pair of marcasite earrings, at a reasonable fifty dollars. He’d like to see those—Michele had amazing taste in jewelry. He’d been intimidated by her style when they first met, but grew to understand it as they got closer. She could find a five-dollar trinket and turn it into a million dollar look.

  The last was a note in Michele’s ‘product of the 80’s’ bubbly handwriting. Reluctantly, he flipped the light on. His eyes felt like they were going to explode for a moment.

  Craig

  As promised, the receipts. Thank you for trusting me that much. I hope you don’t mind what I bought for the kids. We can at least be civilized for them. I am sorry this didn’t work out for us. There was a time I would have given the world for you. I wish I knew where we went wrong. Let’s enjoy the vacation and see if we can’t continue the civility when we get home.

  Mishi

  Craig ran a hand down his face. He wished he knew where they went wrong, too. They were so happy when they were younger. Life was wonderful. Sex was awesome. Everything was good. And now…they could barely be in the same room with each other. He stood and walked to the door of the bedroom where he knew Michele was asleep. He could hear the light snore he had always associated with her.

  She was on the right side of the bed. They had shared a bed so long she couldn’t even sleep in the middle anymore. Craig laughed lightly. She was on her side, facing the moonlight that was streaming in, her dark black hair behind her almost as if the moonlight had blown it back. Once, her hair had been pure jet, but now it was shot here and there with white. He liked it.

  And with the moonlight falling on her sleeping face, Craig saw the gentle beauty he’d fallen for in his sophomore year of college. She had more life on her face, and had lost the thin, shapeless form with boobs she used to be and had turned into a curvy, voluptuous woman. She bitched all the time about her ass and her hips, but she had grown into them, and earned them. She looked like a woman.

  For the first time in months, maybe years, he felt himself stir at the sight of his wife laying asleep in the moonlight.

  He wondered if he had called the game too soon.

  * * *

  Michele stretched in the bed, careful not to cross the invisible center. A heartbeat later, she remember she and Craig weren’t sharing the bed anymore.

  That thought was more sad than it had any ri
ght to be.

  She grabbed her robe and headed for the bath off the main room. The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon, and she swore. Even on vacation, she couldn’t get off that damn early schedule.

  She spotted Craig’s phone on the table next to the receipts she had put out. Did she dare? Did she want to know if he was really keeping his promise?

  It had nearly killed her when she found out the length and breadth of the relationship with his ‘work-wife’, Tara. They had been going to dinners and movies and plays and bars for months and months before she finally really caught wind of what was really going on.

  She had been crushed when she found the email with the hotel suggestion in it.

  So crushed, so hurt that Michele did retail therapy damage on one of the credit cards to the tune of nearly $10,000. Most of it, she managed to return in the next ninety days, but nonetheless, she had torn through that limit like it was a suggestion.

  And when Craig saw that bill the next month, the shit hit the fan. The marriage hit the skids. The relationship rushed down the drain. And they were both holding on to the same rope, but it was more a game of tug-of-war than holding on for dear life.

  Michele swiped the phone open and tapped in his code. The phone opened. He’d trusted her. She saw there were a dozen text messages from Tara.

  Tara: Did you really go to the beach with that witch?

  Tara: You can’t ignore me forever.

  Tara: Come on, C. I have a hotel waiting for you.

  Tara: You know, I was thinking, if you don’t get along, get divorced. Why make this hard.

  Tara: I had a Tito’s and tonic in your honor today.

  Tara: You aren’t really at the beach right?

  Tara: I miss you at work, C. Why did you transfer?

  Tara: That B&B for you 2 was a waste of money.

  It kept going. Not just the new ones, but ones from weeks and months ago. Nearly three months without an answer, and Tara kept sending the message. When did this crap turn to stalking? While she and Craig might be headed for divorce, this woman was really pushing boundaries.