I stood, took my coffee, and started walking around the house browsing at everything. I don’t even think I knew the reason why I was doing it. The pictures on the wall with the children. Family portraits. I had to admit we had made a very nice home. I continued walking around looking at souvenirs and knick-knacks we’d gathered over the years. I went to our children’s rooms and I saw them still asleep (almost time to wake up). They were beautiful and healthy. That’s as good as it gets.
I finally walked into our bedroom and Dan looked a little better. He was drying himself off, but when he saw me, he turned around to finish. I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t find the words. With the towel wrap around his waist, he turned around, picked some clean clothes from a drawer of his dresser, and with an apology said, “Excuse me, Carrie, I need to get dressed now.” With that came the realization for the first time in our married life my husband didn’t want to dress in front of me.
He smiled at me, but there was something wrong. I think at that point he noticed the concern on my face. Then tried another better smile. That’s when I saw what was wrong; his eyes weren’t smiling. He was forcing himself to smile.
With clothes in hand, he returned to the bathroom and closed the door. I put my coffee on the nightstand by the lamp and sat down on the bed. Dan was behaving so out of character I was at a loss. I started to get a very uneasy feeling at that moment and suddenly stood up from the bed to stand outside our bathroom. Leaning against the door, “Honey, are you ok? Do you need something? I put on a pot. Do you want a cup of coffee? I can bring it right now. Are you hungry? I can make you breakfast. Anything you want. Anything at all.”
“No Carrie, I’m good. I may go out a bit later though. ”
“Honey, if you’re not feeling well, maybe we have something in the medicine cabinet you can take?”
I waited by the door for a reply and got none. Finally, the bathroom door open. Dan avoided looking at my face and had to walk around me because I was standing in the in his way, “Carrie, it’s all good. I’m just not feeling well. Can we drop it?”
Dan turned and displayed that same forced smile as before he left the bedroom. I grabbed my coffee quickly and rushed to follow him immediately. He walked where the computer was and removed what disks were there. I was quickly losing interest in ever seeing that video. “Dan, about last night. That was a onetime thing that will never happen again. Get rid of that disk. I should have never asked you to video what happened. It was just a stupid fantasy. It was all my fault for bringing it up. Don’t let what happened last night do anything to us. Please, it was a stupid idea that got in my head. It didn’t mean anything. Please, Danny, get rid of that video.” I was almost pleading in the end.
“Carrie, give it a break will you, it’s fine. I just need some rest, that’s all. The kids will be up soon so we’ll talk about this later tonight. We can even see you in action with your fantasy man after the kids are in bed. Sound good?” Without waiting for my response, he hugged me, kissed my forehead, but before he left he looked me in the eyes and said, “I love you, Carrie. Now and forever.” Then he left upstairs to the guest room.
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