American Outlaw - Jesse James [126]
I guess I always felt like sooner or later, she was going to see the real me. And then she’d leave me. Well, I figured, if I was going to be left, then I wanted to make the first break. I’d reject Sandy before she could reject me. I’d expose myself as broken and incapable of love before someone else could beat me to the punch.
I have no problem admitting that I fucked up. I cheated on a woman I cared deeply about and I am so regretful. If there was any possible way to undo my actions, to communicate instead of cheating, to be able to say to her, “Hey, I think we need to change some things about our marriage, because I’m losing my mind in this world we’ve created for ourselves,” then I would. But I can’t. I transgressed against the vows of my marriage, and it doesn’t really matter whether I did that ten thousand times or just once. Once you’ve lied, there’s no taking it back. There’s no way to erase the deceit that you’ve created.
Instead, you have to live with it.
——
I probably almost blurted out the truth to Sandy more than a hundred times.
“How’s the steak taste to you, Jesse?”
I fucked someone. I didn’t mean to, but somehow it happened and I can’t take it back.
“Jesse? Anybody home?”
“Yeah,” I said, shaking my head. “Sorry. I’m just tired.”
“Well?” Sandy said. “Everything taste okay?”
“It’s great,” I said, stiffly. “Just like always.” And also, do you have a moment while I admit something that will end all happiness as you know it?
Being around my kids was almost as bad as being around Sandy. I’d always prided myself on being straight with them. I wanted to earn my kids’ respect, not demand it, and I knew that the only way to do that was through honesty and by being a decent person. Now I was caught up in this big lie that followed me around from room to room like a dark cloud.
I’d never lived as a liar before. It was something to get used to.
I couldn’t look in the mirror for too long. I didn’t want to examine myself too closely.
I couldn’t listen to the lies I told Sandy, my weak cover-ups. I pretended that my voice was coming from someone else.
All the self-respect I’d accumulated over the years, through seasons of hard work, through refusal to quit even in the face of hardship, it was all gone, because I was full of shit and I knew it. My confidence was at an all-time low. And ironically, the sex that I’d sold my soul for wasn’t even good. There was no relationship and no personal connection. I was just there coldly, for myself, and even though I figured that detachment would make me feel less guilty about being unfaithful, that made me feel like a heel, too.
Months went by like this, the guilt mounting and my loathsome behavior making me feel like the lowest rat in the world. Then, one morning, I stepped out of the shower, and caught a good look at myself. I was a fully-grown man, complete with graying temples and a few wrinkles across the forehead. I wasn’t a child any longer. I had the power to stop what I was doing. I’d acted mindlessly. If I continued down this road, I’d lose everything, starting with my self-respect.
And so I stopped. The decision, arrived at in a moment, was final, and my execution of it was cold and definite. It was just like turning off a switch. Bam. It was all over. Several weeks after the fact, I realized that I’d quit drinking in precisely the same way.
It took a good long while before I began to feel better about myself—not to mention secure enough around Sandy to act like a normal human being.
“Want to go take a walk on the beach? It’s so beautiful out tonight.”
“All right,” I answered carefully. “That’d be great.”
We strolled along the beach in the evening air, arm in arm. Sandy was a trusting woman at heart, and that made me feel even more guilty. She’d never suspected a thing. Sometimes,