Blended Family

The hotel room smelled like cleaning products and a faint musty odor that Melanie couldn't quite place. She placed the card key and her purse carefully on the bedside table and sat down on the edge of the bed. The room was on the fourth floor and when she stared through the filmy white curtains she could see the outline of the McDonald's Golden Arches a couple of blocks away.

She was early. She was always early. She thought about purposely being late or even just right on time but the thought of altering her natural process was unnerving. She just didn't know how to be late for anything. Even this.

She had been imagining what having an affair would be like for years. She couldn't really pinpoint exactly when the thought occurred to her, but it had been growing and pulsating just underneath the skin ever since she realized it was a possibility.

Maybe it had always been a possibility, just never one she ever chose to entertain. She wasn't that woman. That woman who blamed her sheltered, mundane life, the life that she chose, for her unhappiness. She wasn't going to fool herself into believing all she needed was a little excitement, a little adventure to snap out of the downward spiral she knew she was caught in.

The digital clock read 11:34. Her husband would be breaking for lunch in twenty six minutes. The same time he did every day. He might eat the bologna sandwich she had packed for him this morning. The same one she packed every day. Or he might go down the street to the deli on the corner with his ridiculously large breasted receptionist. He might offer to pay for both their meals and touch the small of her back while they looked for a seat on the crowded patio. Of course, he might just eat alone at his desk while going over insurance claims for the latest car accidents. Anything was possible.

Melanie didn't know how he spent his lunch hour. But what she did know was he hadn't asked her to stop by and spend it with him in at least three years. Something had changed. And her imagination took off sprinting in every direction as a result.

She looked around the hotel room. There was a flat screen television tucked into a large wall unit. The shelves were empty. She imagined the reflection on the TV screen playing back hundreds of affairs that began and ended in this very room. She imagined reenactments of bad decisions and mistakes playing themselves over and over on the screen as she sat there.

It was 11:40. She still had twenty minutes. Unless he was early too. The thought sent her into a momentary panic. She stood up and grabbed her purse but didn't move from that spot in between the two beds. It was cheaper to get a room with two double beds than one with a king sized bed.

The smell of cleaning products was starting to give her a headache. She wondered how filthy the room had been before than they needed to douse it in so much bleach. The dark mahogany headboards were streaked with some kind of wood cleaner that wasn't wiped off properly. Melanie wished she had a canister of Lemon Pledge and a rag so she could fix that.

There was a thump above her. Someone dropped a book maybe. Or fell out of bed. Or was having a heart attack. She stared up at the ceiling for a second. The sound didn't come again.

11:44. She sat back down, balancing on the edge of the bed. She couldn't back out yet. Not before she knew what it was like to be in this hotel room with a man other than her husband. She needed to know what that was like even if that was as far as it went. Even if she left without touching him once. Even if she didn't even take off her heavy winter coat, she was staying until he got here. The plans were made, the room was paid for. It was happening.

Her purse buzzed on the floor in between her feet and she leaned down to dig for her cell phone. By the time she found it amongst all the old receipts, gum wrappers and the box of condoms she bought at the corner store on her way there, it stopped ringing.

One missed call from Brenda. Her sister never called her during the day. She was a strict evening caller. After dinner but before prime time television started. There was a one to two hour window during which she was available to talk about PTA gossip and the new tuna casserole recipe she had just tried out. Just last week they had discussed what they would be bringing to the Christmas potluck at the Church on the weekend.

There was a voicemail. Melanie tucked her phone back into her purse carefully. Whatever emergency Brenda had this time could wait a half an hour. Her deviled eggs would keep for that long. The weird noise in the engine of her car would still be there when she finally realized Melanie couldn't help with that. She would have to call a mechanic.

11:49. Each second ticked by agonizingly slow. Melanie remembered the days after her first date with her husband. Just after she graduated college with a degree in Human Resource Management she met Nick. He was an insurance adjuster and nine years older than her. They got married within a year and had been together for seventeen since then. Seventeen years and four months. Seventeen years, four months and thirteen days. She had taken to counting every day they remained stuck in the mud of matrimony.

Two children later, they were still happily married. Or so they chose to pretend. They still had all the basics. They talked to each other every night, they kissed each other goodbye every morning. They even had slightly tedious and repetitive sex a couple times a week. What more could you really ask for? That's what Melanie used to think. That she should have nothing to complain about. And she didn't complain.

The door of the hotel swung open suddenly. She glanced at the clock. It was 11:52. He was early. He let the door slam by itself. He looked disheveled, like he had jogged there. He panted softly, his chest rising and falling repeatedly under his plaid button down. The sleeves were rolled up and he had the top couple buttons undone casually. His jeans were faded and loose. One pant leg was partially tucked into the tongue of his black Converse All-Stars. He looked his age. Only a couple weeks past his twenty third birthday.

He smiled at her. A lopsided grin that reminded her eerily of Nick. And why wouldn't it, this was his son after all.

"I thought you would have left by now," he said. He glanced at his watch.

"Why.. it's only 11:55. We said 12.. didn't we?" Melanie said cautiously.

"I thought it was 11," he said and sat down on the edge of the bed opposite Melanie. One of his knees brushed against hers and she scooted backwards on the bed so they wouldn't touch.

Melanie knew it was 12. She never got a time wrong. Did he think it was 11 and tried to arrive late on purpose? Or did he really run to get here, thinking she would be gone? She felt her purse buzz again, but ignored it.

"Well, it doesn't matter now I guess," she said. She folded her hands together in her lap. She was wearing a grey skirt which she resisted rubbing her palms over because she knew the sweat would leave a mark. She was painfully aware of how she looked. She brushed her dark hair behind her ear nervously, then pushed it back to where it was.

"I just came from his office. He insisted on taking an early lunch so we could go together. I told him I had a class at 12." Brent rambled.

So Nick hadn't spent his lunch hour ogling his receptionist's cleavage. Melanie felt a slight pang of guilt.

She remembered the day two years ago when Brent showed up at their doorstep. He was attending school in the area and would really appreciate the opportunity to get to know his father. And the rest of his family. He was polite and considerate. He had been so soft spoken and understanding then. He didn't want to impose, he just wanted to spend a little time with the father he never really got to know while he was growing up.

Nick had mentioned he had a son years ago, but never talked about why he didn't see him. It was implied that they just weren't close because Brent lived with his mother on the other side of the country. Nick sent money and the occasional letter. That was the end of it. Melanie never pried for information.

And then Brent showed up on the door step. Twenty one, tall and innocently attractive. He looked like a younger, more cheerful version of Nick. The Nick that Melanie had never gotten to know. By the time she met him he had settled into a routine of nine to five and insurance jargon. She settled into that routine right along side him never thinking maybe she was missing out on something.

Until she saw the way Brent lay sprawled on the couch one evening watching Survivor with his new half brother and sister. He was relaxed in a way Melanie had never seen Nick relax. He was care free. He was inexperienced but seemed to know something Melanie didn't.

"You look really.. beautiful," Brent said and smiled.

Melanie smiled back. She wasn't sure what he saw in her. His father's wife. But the attraction grew until they were meeting for coffee behind Nick's back. Going to matinees when the theaters were mostly deserted except for a couple stoners skipping school and retired couples with nothing else to do.

They had been discussing this for a couple months now. Meeting in this hotel. This wasn't a spur of the moment decision. The consequences had been iterated and reiterated. The solution was simple. It could only happen once. Then Brent would leave and never come back. That was the plan. But now, sitting in that hotel room across from him, he looked so young, so unsure of himself.

Melanie knew she couldn't do it. Not in that hotel room full of the guilt other people left there when they went back to their real lives. Not on that bed people thought was free from consequences. She couldn't be that woman that destroyed lives for a one time thing.

"So... are you ready?" Brent asked. It struck Melanie as incredibly unromantic. Something a doctor would ask a patient about to have a colonoscopy. Something a pair of suicidal teenagers ask each other before jumping off a bridge.

She stalled by leaning over and pulling her phone out of her purse. Two more missed calls.

"I just need to check my voice mail," she said and dialed the number.

"Mel, where are you? You need to get to the hospital now. Nick has been in an accident," it was Brenda's frantic voice.

"Why aren't you picking up? Call me back right away. We are at County General," she gasped and hung up.

"Mom? Where are you. Dad is really hurt. Please call us back," it was Melanie's thirteen year old daughter. She sounded weak and she let out a controlled sob, her voice cracking before she hung up the phone.

Melanie stood up quickly.

"What is it?" Brent asked.

"Your father is in the hospital, we have to go," she said and flew towards the door.

"What? He was fine when I left, that was less than an hour ago. What happened?" Brent asked. He was chasing her down the hallway of the hotel, tripping over his shoelaces.

"I don't know, we just have to get there," Melanie told him. She wished beyond belief that he wasn't there right now. That they didn't have to drive to the hospital together with the weight of what they were about to do hanging in the air, choking them silently.

Please let him be okay, Melanie pleaded in her mind. But the thought of karma rushed in, flooding her imagination with ways in which she deserved to have this happen. She was about to betray her husband in the worst way possible and now she was going to lose him. But I didn't do it, she bargained silently. I wasn't going to go through with it.

They found Nick's room with the help of an orderly. Brenda was sitting outside with her arms crossed over her chest. She was frowning at the ground, shaking her head and mumbling to herself. She looked up, sympathy in her eyes when she saw Melanie coming.

"What happened? How is he?" Melanie demanded.

Brenda looked from Brent to Melanie and hesitated.

"It's fine, just tell us," Melanie said.

"He's going to be okay. He was shot. In the stomach," Brenda said.

"What? By who?" Melanie asked.

She hesitated again.

"Just tell me!" Melanie shouted shrilly. The nurses looked up from their charts and stared at the scene that was developing in the hallway.

"You know Sabrina? His receptionist? Her boyfriend showed up and caught them... you know... in Nick's office. He shot him right there," Brenda explained and braced herself for the aftermath.

Melanie let out a long whoosh of air and slumped against the wall.

"But he's going to be okay?" she whispered.

Brenda nodded.

Melanie looked at Brent. His face was white and his eyes were wide in disbelief. A calm realization washed over Melanie and she hitched her purse back onto her shoulder. The consequences of an affair had been so abstract before, now here they were personified in the bullet wound in Nick's abdomen. Brent swallowed hard but didn't say anything.

So maybe anything is possible. Maybe your husband can cheat on you with his receptionist and take a bullet for it. Melanie's lack of surprise comforted her despite the situation. She never fooled herself into thinking this wouldn't happen to her. She had been in a hotel room about to do the same thing, after all.

But now she could thank Nick for doing it first. For letting her off the hook. For being the one to end an uneventful marriage with a bang.

Now maybe she could move on, knowing what it was like to stand in a hotel room with a man that wasn't her husband but choosing not to go through with it. For one reason or another.