Two days later, at her follow-up appointment, the doctor removed the bandages and inspected the incisions. She declared Valerie good to go. She was instructed to wear a sports bra for the next few weeks. Once the incisions were healed, she could resume normal activities as needed. They drove back to Houston, arriving just as the sun set.
Tommi dropped Valerie off in front of her apartment building and headed home. The pain had subsided, making it possible for Valerie to function normally, for the most part. She wheeled her suitcase to the elevator and headed to the apartment.
As the elevator rose, Valerie shifted from one foot to the other. Without question, there would be a confrontation. She had imagined his response a hundred times. He was either going to be thrilled at the new tits or apeshit that she spent the money, money he didn't know she had.
End of the day, that's gonna be the real issue.
Even though she had prepped for the confrontation, a wave of apprehension chilled her resolve. She struggled to ignore the towering doubts that grew louder with each passing floor.
Just stand your ground. Don't let him intimidate you.
The elevator opened, and she crossed to the front door. Before she slipped in the key, she took a deep breath, a final preparation for the onslaught. Entering the apartment, she called out, "Hey, Rod. I'm home." Silence rang out. "Hm, a reprieve. I'll take my blessings where I can find them," she said to the empty apartment.
Wheeling her carry-on into the bedroom, she unpacked and tossed her laundry into the basket in the corner of the closet. One of her shirts missed, so she had to drop to her knees and dig it out of the darkness under the clothes rack.
Ouch, not that nimble yet, but still... I got it.
A flash of color caught her eye. Reaching in a bit deeper, she found a pair of women's purple lace bikini briefs... that were not hers.
"What the fuck?" she said out loud.
Now on the alert, she stood and spun around to check out the neatly made bed lying in the middle of the room like a mute murder witness.
He made the bed?
Could anything have been more suspicious? Then came the next logical assumption.
Would he be so stupid to bring some bimbo here?
Like a bloodhound on the trail of an escaped convict, she began to inspect the apartment. She looked under the bed; nothing. She went downstairs and checked the dishwasher; there were no extra glasses or coffee mugs.
Where's the damn doorbell camera when I need it?
The most obvious thought finally came to her: the bed. Running back to the bedroom, she stormed in and yanked back the covers. Planting her face into Rod's side, she inhaled deeply.
"Damn! These fucking sheets are clean," she gasped. "When did he learn how to use the washing machine?"
She thought about the logistics. She had told him that she'd be back today, so he could have had someone here for the last few nights if he wanted.
Still looking for proof, she realized there were other ways to tell if a woman had been in her house. Habitually, Rod only used the bedroom toilet to piss. He always used the hallway bath if he had to take a dump. The paranoia he held about his bowels was beyond the bounds of normality. She had asked him about this once, and he simply said the fan in the hallway worked better. He didn't want to stink up the bedroom. Very soon after they were married, she learned to appreciate his thoughtfulness.
Stuffing the underwear into her pocket, she walked into the bathroom and checked the toilet paper roll. As it happened, she had replaced it just before she left for Dallas, not because she suspected anything, but because it was empty. It should still be pretty much a full roll. After checking the roll, it became obvious: somebody had used a third of it. Now, it could have been that, being alone, Rod didn't care about stinking up the bedroom, but she didn't believe that. He had always been very discreet and truly a creature of habit. His feces phobia was ever-present. A used roll of TP indicated that a woman had most likely used the toilet, but that alone was not conclusive proof of an affair. However, the TP, combined with the lace underwear, offered too much of a coincidence.
She opened her phone and used the Find My Phone feature. Rod had never been very tech-savvy, and without his knowledge, she had activated that option on his phone without returning the favor.
His phone pinged right away, and she found him at a bar about a mile away.
Valerie took a deep breath and grimaced. "He better be sitting there with Mark."
She headed out of the apartment.
Pulling into the parking lot of the Lonestar Steer, she saw his faded red F150. She spotted it right away because of the rust pattern around the right front wheel.
She found Rod, sitting at the bar, wrapped around a brown-haired bimbo, his arm around her side and his hand on her ass. They were kissing, and apparently, Rod's tongue was exploring the Mariana Trench.
"What the hell is this?" Valerie boomed from the doorway. Like in an old Western, all of the patrons fell silent and turned to the woman scorned.
Rod jumped and threw his hands in the air.
"Oh shit, look, honey, I can explain..." he stammered.
Valerie didn't wait for his excuse.
She moved toward him with a vengeance, the urge to lash out burning hot.
But then, as she looked into his face, that urge vanish.
The anger surging in her heart dissipated, replaced by something else. She had planned to grab his balls, get him to scream, and shove those purple panties down his throat.
Instead, the realization that her heart wasn't filled with anger and outrage stopped her cold. In its place came an engulfing relief. The weight of this relationship, the weight she had carried for so many years, lifted off her shoulders. In his deceit, Rod had given her the one thing she hadn't been able to admit she wanted: a way out. By betraying her, he had handed her everything she needed to walk away from this shitty life, guilt-free.
She stopped in front of him as he cowered, stuttering, struggling to say something that would explain his actions. Her entire body, instead of coiling for an attack, relaxed. She experienced a deep-seated sense of relief. The ambiguity of their relationship had finally crystallized.
As he muttered incoherently, she said as simply as she could, "Wow. I guess I owe you a debt of gratitude. I've felt for a long time that you were weighing me down. As hard as I tried to build something in this life of ours, you were always there to fuck it up. But you were my husband, and I committed to that. Despite the ridicule from my parents and the embarrassment of your behavior, I made a vow."
She paused as the reality of her words sank in. She pulled the purple lace out of her pocket.
"I wanted to shove these down your throat and tear into both of you." She threw a glance at the tiny woman. The woman flinched and recoiled against the wall.
"But no, instead, I have to thank you. I know now what I need to do." She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, letting all the anguish, doubt, and unhappiness flow out of her.
"We're done. Your stuff will be waiting for you in the hall, outside the apartment, but... you no longer live there. Find somewhere else to go. It's over." Valerie turned to the pint-sized woman.
The little gnat scrambled away, talking in a raspy, brittle tone, "I didn't know he was married. He told me his wife died in a plane crash." Her hands extended out in an attempt to ward off this blistering giant.
Valerie's brow furrowed, and then she looked at Rod. "Dead? You fucking coward." Stepping toward the cowering woman, she said, "As you can see, I'm not dead, and as of right now, he is no longer married. Keep him."
She turned, flipped the purple lace panties into the air, and walked out of the bar with a skip in her step.
Her soul rested easy as she returned to the apartment. With careful precision, she gathered all of Rod's stuff. His clothes and his boots, his boxers and his socks were stuffed into a large black garbage bag. She emptied the hall closet of the two jackets that he would wear on alternate outings. His softball uniforms dropped into the bag along with his glove and bat.
She looked at two framed photos of her and Rod camping at the Jetstream RV Resort at NASA. She hesitated. A pang of nostalgia swept over her, and for a brief moment, she wondered if she had done the right thing. Men had been cheating since they could first stand on two legs.
Is it really a big deal? Maybe I overreacted?
She shook her head violently, dropped the black bag, and held her hands in front of her in the universal symbol for "stop." "Fuck, no!" she said with fierce determination.
The two framed photos went flying into the bag.
With meticulous care, she swept Rod from her life. There were no hysterics, no screaming, no tantrums, just solid, precise packing and organizing. A welcome calm settled on her as she felt the burden of a 13-year mistake slide into the past.
She tossed his pot plants and growing paraphernalia into the bag, finally freeing the house of that smell.
The quiet calm that engulfed her was frightening. During this purge, it occurred to her how little of this apartment belonged to Rod; it barely filled one large garbage bag. Ten years in this place, and he lived like he had one foot out the door, a go-bag mentality, ready to vanish at a moment's notice.
Is that what he really felt? Was he as anxious to escape as I was?
The idea that, deep inside, he expected their relationship to end triggered her. All those years, all that wasted time, when she could have been living a significant, more satisfying life; he stole that from her.
As she absorbed the betrayal, humiliation, and neglect of her husband, a wave of hatred consumed her. The calm, ordered behavior of the past hour dissolved, replaced by a vengeful wrath. Fueled by the pain and anguish she had lived with for so many years, her pent-up rage exploded. She grabbed the bag of Rod's stuff, the remnants of a shattered life together, and emptied it off the balcony. Releasing a scream of fury and pain, she shed the life she had wallowed in for 13 years and freed herself from her own personal penitentiary.
Unencumbered and no longer obligated to the piece of shit she had married, she raised her head and howled at the night sky. On the TV table stood two bowling trophies that Rod had won eight years earlier; grabbing them, she launched both over the rail. A malevolent laugh burst from her as they shattered on the black pavement of the parking lot.
The millstone that had dragged her to the depths of despair had shattered.
Unfettered by Rod's existence, she floated to the surface of a new life.
Ironic tears of relief and regret rolled down her face. Gripping the railing, she looked down on the scattered residue of Rod's life.
A thought came to her.
What would he do right now if the situation were reversed?
This thought made her laugh.
I know exactly what Rod would do. He'd stand on the balcony railing and piss
all over my stuff.
The idea appealed to her, but men did have that advantage over women. Rod had always said that men and women weren't equal because no woman had ever cleaned the skid marks off a toilet bowl when they peed.
"But...I'm not Rod, so... no."