“Are you effing my wife?”
HELL NO was my immediate response. Of course.
I was on my way home for the day when the call came in. Shutting down my computer. Logging out. Keys in hand. Then the phone rang.
I worked with his wife at corporate.
We’d become good friends. Both of them had even helped me out in a pinch when my car broke down.
I thought we were cool.
“I don’t believe you,” he said.
Damnit. How does one prove this type of thing?
“Come meet me in person,” he said. “If you didn’t do it, you shouldn’t have a problem. If you’re a man, you’ll meet me.”
Well, shit.
I don’t have a problem meeting him. I didn’t do it.
But what’s an angry, jealous man capable of when the guy he’s dead sure slept with his wife shows up alone, somewhere no one knows about?
I agreed.
He gave me the address. Jotted it down. Printed the directions off Yahoo Maps on the office printer and ran out the door.
This was after my own divorce, so I had time to kill, if the summer heat didn’t kill me first. IYKYK.
My little purple Mitsubishi Mirage had a broken AC and was on its last leg.
The closer I got, the more I realized I’d made a mistake. This was not a public place. It was some old abandoned warehouse.
Damnit. I’m gonna die.
At least I’ll die “being a man.”
I finally pull up. There he is, seated on a lawn chair outside.
I get out, take a deep breath, and walk over. I reach out to shake his hand. He obliges.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” he says. “I’m impressed.”
“Well, I had to come,” I tell him. “I didn’t touch your wife.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
“I know. They lied to you.”
He studies me for a second.
“So you didn’t eff my wife.”
“Nope. Not me.”
“You clearly feel something,” I go on.
“And y’all aren’t doing good. That’s obvious. So you’ve got your own hunches. But I ain’t the one.”
He leans back in the lawn chair.
“Fine. I believe you.”
Whew.
I get up to leave. We come face to face for one more handshake.
He crushes my hand in his grip.
“I believe you,” he says. “But if I find out you’re lying, I’m gonna find you and kick your ass.”
“Cool. Not worried about that. I’m not the one. Good luck.”
That’s the last time I ever saw him. They divorced soon after.
Wasn’t me.
They had issues. That much I’d already found out from his wife.
Tough conversations like these are hard. And in situations like this, maybe a little dangerous.
But necessary.
I’ve always been open to having them. Tough talks with my family? That’s a Sunday drive with the AC blasting compared to that warehouse.
At worst, I get my feelings hurt and they cut me off for good. It’s happened. At best, I show my integrity and my desire to mend things, and we mend.
So no. I’ve never slept with a friend’s wife.
But I have driven a dying purple Mirage into an abandoned warehouse to prove it.
Somehow that feels worse to admit.
—
If this resonated, you belong here. Subscribe to the Becoming Better Ancestors newsletter at teevee.mx/newsletter.
