Respect Ch. 01

I had a hard time figuring out where to put this story. Because of what happens in the second part, it could go in several other categories. However, in the end, I decided to go with the Loving Wives section.

RESPECT

The Beginning of the End

My ears were still ringing after the explosion, and I felt dizzy and nauseous. Finally, after a few seconds, I struggled up to my knees and threw up.

"Fuck!" I said out loud. Then I slumped down against the wall and tried to gather myself. I tried to piece together what was happening as I was now shaking from the blast. It was then that I noticed my shirt was changing color. It had been white, but now it was turning red. I was bleeding.

At first, I didn't know where the blood was coming from, but a pain in my forehead gave me an instant clue. Carefully, I put my right hand up to my hairline, and it came away covered in blood. This made me nauseous again, and I gagged, but there was nothing else to come up. As I righted myself, I probed my wound gently. As near as I could determine, I had a three or four-inch cut diagonally across the left side of my forehead. It was bleeding like a son of bitch, and it hurt like hell.

As I was trying to process everything, I looked to my right. Most of the men were back up and ready, so I took a few moments to assess my wounds. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I remembered that scalp wounds bleed profusely but weren't usually life-threatening. This information calmed me a bit. Next, I tore off part of my shirt and put it against the wound. The bleeding slowed considerably. Then it was time to take stock of the rest of me. A quick scan showed no additional wounds until I checked my left leg. My pants were torn there, and blood was seeping out.

It took more effort to rip apart the bloody portion of my pants. When I exposed my leg, four-inch-wide chuck of something was sticking out. I sucked in a breath and jerked it out. Then, as quickly as I could, I ripped two larger pieces from my shirt, tying one around my head and the other around my leg.

After finishing my quick assessment and bandaging, I determined that my wounds weren't likely to be life-ending. This made me think of a long-held belief of mine - when you're born, God stamps you with an expiration date. And when that date comes up, you're going. Obviously, this hadn't been my time, but in my heart, I was sure that this was the day.

It's funny how a normal day can go. When mine started this morning, I had major problems, but dying wasn't on the agenda. Now it was. I thought back to how I got to this point. I guess it began when my wife, Cassie, wanted to have the "talk."

Andy

"Andy, would you come in here," I heard my wife, Cassie, call to me as soon as I entered the hotel room. "We need to have a discussion."

I had just arrived for a vacation with my family in Mexico City. We were booked at the Fantasia Hotel, the newest and one of the most elegant hotels in Mexico City. It was supposed to be where my family and I were to spend the kid's two-week spring vacation.

My name is Andy Spencer, and I used to be an accountant, but now I'm a freelance writer. Things have not been good between my wife, Cassie, and me for about six months now. Our sex life has dwindled down considerably. I didn't know if that was because my wife was as busy as she said she was or if Cassie was having an affair.

I had taken a later flight because I was wrapping up an article with Miss America on her special diet. I had pitched the idea to "Women's Fitness" magazine. After some back and forth, they had agreed to pay me three thousand dollars if I provided pictures. This trip had been planned months ago by a group of about a dozen couples in Cassie's office. It was clear, my wife was not happy about my delay. It didn't matter to her that it was my job. Cassie was also upset with me because I had turned part of this vacation into another writing assignment. The new assignment was only going to take a day, two at the most. That didn't matter to Cassie. She was annoyed.

About three months ago, Mexico had elected a new President, Carlos Sanchez, who had promised to rid the country of the drug cartels. This was not a new idea, but President Sanchez wanted to attack the cartels in a new way. He was going after their businesses. And so far, he had been more successful than anyone thought possible. Fox News had decided to send one of their top anchors, Maria Shivers, to do a three-part series on the new "drug war."

Fox News had hired me to wade through the financial information and write a detailed overview of the war on the cartel businesses. They selected me because of several financial pieces I had written, including the one that started me on a writing career. I had spent a couple of months going over the reams of financial information, and I was surprised by what I had found. The cartels had infiltrated so many businesses in Mexico that they controlled a disturbing amount of the economy. But the penetration into foreign businesses was even more alarming.

Interestingly, the financial piece that launched my writing career came down as an order from on high when I was still an accountant. The powers that be instructed me to write a piece for a trade magazine explaining the latest tax changes. At first, I was annoyed by the assignment as it seemed like a lot of extra work I didn't need. However, I quickly realized that I enjoyed putting the piece together. And when it was published, the reviews were quite flattering. The piece was picked up by several newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal. My company even had it reprinted and distributed to all our offices. Cassie had been very proud of me for that first piece of writing. Since then, she has become less and less a fan of my skill as a writer.

When I told Cassie and the kids about my assignment in Mexico, their reactions were completely different. Cassie's eyes narrowed to pinholes and voiced her intense displeasure immediately. On the other hand, Kevin and Sally had been thrilled. Kevin's eyes widened to saucers, and Sally's grin went ear to ear.

Kevin had been fascinated by anything to do with broadcasting since he built a radio from a kit when he was ten years old. Even though Cassie and I tried to counsel him that broadcasting provided limited opportunities for success, Kevin wasn't dissuaded. When I realized my son was truly interested in the field, I dropped my opposition. That was another black mark against me in Cassie's book. She was convinced that Kevin would be wasting his life. And Cassie was mad at me because she thought I was encouraging him.

Cassie was fascinated by broadcasting as well. However, she was only interested in the celebrities. My daughter read one fan magazine after another. Her hair and clothes were all dictated by what her favorite actors or actresses were doing.

"That's beyond awesome, dad," my son had said with bubbling excitement.

"Really, you're going to disrupt our vacation?" Cassie had chided me. "I can't believe how incredibly selfish you are being."

"It'll only take a day, maybe a day and a half," I countered. "I've got most of it written. I just need some additional information that will be provided to me in Mexico. Then I can finish it off. After the producer reviews my work, I'm done. It's no big deal. Besides, they're paying me four thousand dollars."

"Who is Fox sending to do the series," Sally asked excitedly.

"Maria Shivers," I answered.

"Maria Shivers!" Sally shouted. "OMG, she is gorgeous. Will I be able to meet her?"

"Yeah, I'm sure we can do that," I said with a shrug of my shoulder. "In fact, I'll make sure the whole family can meet her."

"Do you think the technical people will let me watch?" Kevin asked.

"Yeah, that won't be a problem," I said and hoped it was true. I had spoken to the cameraman, Peter Fellers, and the sound man, Billy Taggard. They had seemed like really nice guys. They wanted to go over the different segments I'd written so they'd have an idea of how to handle the entire shoot.

But this last-minute job just furthered the distance between Cassie and me. And now that I had finally arrived in Mexico, it seemed that Cassie's ire had bubbled over. In truth, I had been expecting this confrontation for some time. Still, I was annoyed that Cassie had decided to have the "talk" during our vacation.

I didn't know if my wife was cheating on me, but I couldn't dismiss the idea. However, I had no evidence that that was the case. Outside of our diminished sex life, I haven't seen any of the usual signs you read about. My wife didn't go out on girls' nights and only worked late occasionally. She did, however, bring incredible amounts of work home with her. Even though I only rarely called Cassie at work, I was always able to catch her in. Even if Cassie was in a meeting, she'd usually call me back within fifteen minutes. Cassie didn't spend her time secretly texting, and we shared an email address. Of course, she could have a secret email account that I knew nothing about. Still, no one had called me or emailed me to tell me they had seen my wife out with another man. Like I said, I didn't know that my wife was cheating, but I had a very uneasy feeling about the possibility.

So, if my wife was apparently not having an affair, why was I expecting this confrontation. Our problems had been boiling for some time. My wife had been growing more and more distant over the last six months. In truth, our problems had been building over the last two years, and they'd just kicked into high gear over the last six months.

To me, the cause was that Cassie was "hellbent" on making Partner at the accounting firm she worked for. Cassie's father had been obsessed with becoming a Partner in the accounting firm he had worked for. But it was a dream that he never realized. Now it was my wife's ambition. And over the last three years or so, it had become more of an obsession.

The assault on me started roughly two years ago with gentle suggestions urging me to return to the firm. Then Cassie began saying that they needed me back at the firm. That turned into mild reprimands that I was wasting my talents. The criticisms escalated subtly, but I knew that it was directed at my chosen profession -- writing. I don't know if Cassie had already checked out of our marriage, or she was just trying to justify her actions before she moved for divorce. But I knew that the ax was about to fall when Cassie began talking about what a real man needed to do to keep the respect of his wife. So yes, I knew this talk was coming.

"What is it that we need to discuss, Cassie?" I asked as I flopped down onto the couch in the sitting room attached to our bedroom.

"Andy, I fed up," my wife said directly. "I'm tired of doing all the heavy lifting. I'm tired of you doing whatever you want while I'm working my ass off. You're not carrying your weight."

"Really? I'm not carrying my weight? How do you figure that?"

"For starters, I pay ninety-five percent of all the household bills," my wife said with disdain.

I could feel my blood begin to boil, but I tamped it down.

"It depends on what you consider the household bills," I said calmly. "I told you when you decided to buy that monstrosity of a house that I was totally against it and wasn't going to help pay for it. But you went ahead and bought it anyway. And you have conveniently forgotten that I pay for all the groceries, all the kid's clothes, and for all the kid's extracurricular activities. And even though we have medical insurance, I pay all the copays."

"And I pay for our medical insurance," she snapped back.

"Which is provided by your company," I shot back.

"Still, they take out my share of the insurance from my paycheck," Cassie wasn't going to concede anything.

"Oh, you mean the fifty dollars a month. You conveniently forget that I more than compensate for that by paying for all the gas in our cars. And let's not forget that I also pay for all the maintenance on the cars as well as the insurance."

"As a husband, you should be doing that anyway," Cassie said, raising her voice.

We sat there and stared at each other. I had come to Mexico with exciting news about my writing, but now I decided that I'd keep it to myself. It was clear that my wife felt my occupation was beneath her regardless of what I did with my writing. I was tired of the put-downs and the disrespect. I loved my wife and kids dearly, but it was clear to me that Cassie was moving in a different direction.

Finally, I said with a sigh, "This isn't about household expenses, Cassie. Say what's really on your mind."

My wife shifted uncomfortably but finally steeled herself. "As you know, I'm up for a possible promotion to Junior Partner. Ted Walker is head of the review committee. He tells me that the Senior Partners look as closely at the prospective Partner's families as they do the candidates themselves."

And there it was, the root cause of all my marital problems, Ted Walker.

I had worked briefly with Ted when I was an accountant with the same company. I was his boss at the time, and I was not impressed with him. He relied heavily on his good looks and charm. Oh, he was incredibly smart and could have been a first-class accountant. But Ted was lazy.

It was standard practice for accountants to check each other's work. At first, as I was the team leader, Ted brought me his work to check. I found so many errors that I finally had to call him out for his sloppiness. Ted had been furious at me for the reprimand and even madder that I had put it in writing. Now, I knew this was his payback. He was going to destroy my marriage because I had put a black mark against his name.

Ted was crafty, though. After my reprimand, he started having one or another of the female accountants check his work. I'm sure they found the same things I did, but they never complained. So, when Ted's work was finally turned into me, it was flawless. I should have pushed the matter, but I couldn't be bothered.

Since, six months ago, technically, Ted was Cassie's boss. And Ted had turned his considerable charms and deviousness toward my wife. Ted had the looks of someone who had just walked off the cover of "GQ" magazine. He's a little over six feet tall, black hair, and a very boyish smile. Every time I saw him at a party, Ted was working the room like a political candidate. Not surprisingly, Ted was already a Partner, and in Cassie's eyes, that made him like a god.

Cassie was completely under his spell, and there was nothing I could do about it. She didn't want to hear anything bad about him. She discarded any talk, whether from me or others, as malicious gossip spread by people jealous of Ted. My marriage was collapsing, and I was powerless to do anything about it.

Even the fact that Ted had been divorced three times and was on wife number four made no impression on Cassie. The funny thing was that wife number four, Sylvia, was the one he really wanted to keep. She was not only beautiful, but her father was extremely wealthy. If the rumors were only half true, the father was worth more than a hundred million dollars. Sylvia's mother had died about five years ago, and she was an only child.

Things started to go south with my marriage about a month after Ted arrived. For eighteen months before his arrival, Cassie had been urging me to return to my accounting career. After Ted arrived, the disrespect began to pick up. She would make snide comments like, "no assignments this week?" or "do you think you'll ever sell one of those books you've written?" Then Cassie began complaining about my not making enough money. This last month it was a combination of everything plus her complaint that I was dragging her down. And now, I had no idea what Cassie's end game was. But her attitude was getting intolerable.

I let out a loud sigh and rolled my eyes. "Oh, for Christ's sake, what has he got his shorts in a knot about now?"

"Your political pieces," Cassie said and expanded. "They're too controversial. Ted thinks they will reflect badly on the firm."

"So, writing about the problems facing our country today is too controversial," I said coldly. "That's a sad commentary on your firm."

"What else is good old Ted upset about?" I continued.

"He says the Partners are extremely upset that you are writing articles for "The Federalist."

"So, what?" I was getting angry. "I'm trying to make a living, and last I checked, we still have free speech and a free press in this country."

"Stop treating me like I'm stupid," I could see that Cassie was angry now.

"I am not treating you like you're stupid," I snapped back. "I'm trying to have a rational discussion with you, but you're not making any sense."

This entire situation made me sad and mad. Cassie and I had been married fifteen years. We had married while in college, right after our first child, Sally, had been born. It had been a really hard struggle, working, taking care of Sally, and attending classes. But our struggles, plus our common goal, had made us stronger.

I first met Cassie at the University of Texas on the Austin campus. She was two years behind me. When we first met, I was totally bowled over. She was a tiny little beauty at five foot three with dark black curly hair and deep blue eyes. But it was the vulnerability that drew me to her. Cassie was a little on the shy side but had a tender and caring nature. Back then, she'd give you the shirt off her back. Today, the beauty was still undeniable, but if the tender and caring sides were still there, neither our kids nor I received any of it. Now, all we saw was a woman driven by her career.

In college, Cassie and I had been accounting majors, and we both had the same goal; to be hired by a major firm and become Partners. Cassie seemed to have inherited this goal from her father. Sadly, I couldn't help but believe that he worked himself into an early grave in a hopeless quest.

Cassie was a good student, but I was a much better one. I graduated Magna Cum Laude and was recruited by three of the biggest accounting firms. I chose the one that had an office in Austin, so Cassie could finish her degree. The firm I went with also promised to pay off my student loans if I stayed with them for three years.

When Cassie graduated, I was able to get the firm I worked for to hire her. Cassie was smart and a hard worker, but I knew that her chances of making Partner were slim. Still, I did nothing to discourage her. Despite my reservations, Cassie rose through the company but at a much slower rate than me.

I was on the fast track to Partner, but I had a major problem. I hated my job. At the same time, I believe Cassie began to have doubts that she would ever make Partner. But rather than give up on her ambition, Cassie put her nose to the grindstone and worked even harder. Unfortunately, this meant that she was clueless about my growing dissatisfaction. And among other things, our love life began to suffer.

Even though I don't think she realized it, Cassie had pulled away from Sally and our son Kevin over the last two years. Our son was three years younger than his sister and already distant from his mother. There was no doubt that Cassie loved Kevin, but she seemed to also resent him a little for interrupting her career ambitions. The last six months had been especially bad as Cassie blew off our kid's activities one after the other. Now the kids were beginning to resent her.

I think, in the back of her mind, Cassie realized that she had been a less than ideal mother, but I was sure that she blamed that on me too. I loved Cassie to death, but I was tired of watching my marriage fail while I could do nothing to stop it. If Cassie hadn't slept with Ted, then it was only a matter of time. As I watched my wife in that sitting room, I wondered where this discussion was all leading.