Week Ten - "Battle for Positions"

Week 10, Journal 1

In the dark room, Adele sat in the chair by the window, staring into the night. The only light came from the streetlight. She'd been sitting in the same spot for hours, thinking, not knowing what to do. She couldn't believe what she'd seen earlier that day – him with another woman. And he'd looked right into her eyes, caught red-handed.

He'd pulled into the garage a few minutes before and she heard the front door close and knew he was on his way up the stairs.

As he opened the door, she said in a dull monotone, “Don't turn on the light.”

“Honey,” he asked, concerned. “Are you OK?”

“Richard, please don't,” she said.

“Adele, look, I just want to make sure you're -”

“Like you really give a shit! I've been sitting here for 8 hours now, Richard. Don't pretend you're all concerned about how I'm feeling.”

Richard took a deep breath and said “Adele, I don't know what to say.”

“How long?”

“Sweetheart, why are you sitting here in the dark? Let me turn the lights on.”

“HOW LONG!?”

The room was suddenly very quiet. Richard said nothing. He slowly walked across the room to the bedside lamp and turned it on. Sitting down on the bed, he turned towards Adele at the window. “Four months.”

“You've been fucking her for four months?”

“Sweetheart, listen -”

Adele sat frozen for a moment, and then she raised her hands to her face. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God...........”

“Honey, it meant nothing.”

She looked at him incredulously. “Nothing?! Nothing? You have no idea. This means everything!”

“Please calm down, Adele.”

“I will not calm down,” she said, finally standing up and walking over to him. “You know? I thought I knew you. I thought we had a happy little life in our happy little home and that everything was hunky-dory in our happy little world. I guess I was living in a fairy tale, hunh? And the sad part about it is I was so in love with you that I couldn’t see how big an asshole you were!”

“Honey, listen to me,” Richard said.

“Oh, Richard, please! Save it!”

“Sweetheart, please listen to me.”

“STOP TELLING ME TO LISTEN TO YOU!! I don’t want to hear a word you have to say! Not one word! I’ve been listening to you lie to me all this time…listening to you say, “I love you”, listening to you say, “You’re the best little wife in the world”….listening to lie after lie after lie. And all the while you're lying, you're out sleeping with that whore! Well, I’m done listening!” she says, staring directly into his face. “And to think, I almost brought another life into this house of lies.”

Richard's face was suddenly a medley of emotions as he tried to figure out what she meant. “What?”

“I’m pregnant!! How’s that for a laugh? That’s the fantastic news I was running to your office to tell you when I saw you with your whore today. Yeah, I’m pregnant….but it doesn’t matter. I’ll be damned if I have this baby.”

Richard sat on the bed, stunned, as Adele turned and walked out the bedroom door, slamming it behind her.