Our Seventh Anniversary

Author's Note: I wrote this some time ago and it was misfiled. I stumbled across it recently. It's not very long, maybe I was thinking of adding more. There's no sex.

It was an anniversary, not a happy one, the seventh anniversary of discovering my wife was cheating on me. As I sat at the bar, the bartender place two glasses of Guiness in front of me. One was for me and the second was for my now ex-wife who sat down next to me like she has done every year since. I sometimes wondered how Jesse knew of my arrival, I didn't have a set time when I was heading to the bar. But like clockwork, Jesse was climbing into the stool beside me as soon as my ass touched the barstool.

My anniversary beers were a compromise I made with my sister Annie. Our parents were raging alcoholics and killed themselves in a car accident one night, fortunately no one else was injured. At the time, I had just finished high school. Annie was the oldest, had just graduated college and became like a mother to me and my brother who was two years older than me. She made sure we both finished college. Annie was the person the bartender, a family friend named Bill, called when I was spending all my free time in the same bar stools my parents occupied. Bill let it go for two months before he called Annie, then Annie, her husband and my brother dragged my ass out of the bar.

Annie was blunt, slapped the shit out of me and demanded I quit my pity party. She was right. That's how we came up with the compromise, I could have three pints of Guiness one night a year. This was the night I chose. I'm not sure who told Jesse.

Annie and my Jesse were friends growing up but I thought Annie was going to kill her when she found out Jesse was cheating on me. I don't know firsthand but my brother told me that Annie did smack Jesse around pretty good and Jesse did nothing to defend herself. Annie would knock her down and Jesse would get back up, keeping her hands at her sides. My brother pleaded with Jesse to stay down but she refused. Eventually Diane was physically and emotionally exhausted and walked away. My brother said it was only after Diane left that Jesse began to cry.

This anniversary pity party never played out the same. Maybe it varied by the emotional roller coaster I lived on. Most years we just sat there staring at the TV after exchanging a cordial greeting. Jesse would always ask if I was seeing anyone and I would shake my head no. I couldn't tell her that I would never be seeing anyone ever again. I never asked her the same question.

The first two anniversaries, Jesse would wait until I was almost done with my third Guiness before she would grab my hand and ask if I would take her back. I would just leave and walk back to my shitty basement apartment. But I felt an electric shock when she touched me. She never asked again. On the third anniversary, I didn't say a word to her or acknowledge her presence the whole time I was at the bar. She still touched my hand as I prepared to leave and I still felt an electric shock.

Bill always called my sister when I arrived and when I left. It was after the fifth anniversary that Diane called me as I walked home. She wanted to know how long I was going to punish Jesse and how long I was going to punish myself. I hung up on her. She was sitting on my doorstep when I got home.

"If you ever hang up on me again little brother, I will kick the shit out of you. Let's go in, I don't want to disturb the neighbors."

Annie was pretty blunt again. She hated Jesse when she found out she cheated on me, she hated Jesse when she saw what her infidelity did to me. Diane almost killed her that night. Now she was sitting across from me pleading Jesse's case. Diane and Jesse reconciled over the last two years, according to Diane, Jesse and I lived almost identical lives. We worked, we came home and then we worked. Sometimes we would attend a family event and our anniversary glasses of Guiness, but that was it.

"This isn't about saving Jesse little brother, this is about saving you dumb fucking ass. Take her back." Then she stormed out of my apartment.

On the sixth anniversary, we exchanged cordial greetings, I again told her I wasn't seeing anyone. We watched TV, as I was finishing up my third beer, Jesse grabbed my hand and I felt the same electric shock.

"Jack, I've been offered a promotion at work but it will require me to move out of state."

"Good luck with that Jesse," and I turned and left.

The next morning my sister sent me a text calling me a dumb shit fucking asshole.

A month before the seventh anniversary, I was at my sister's house celebrating the fifth birthday of her oldest. Uncle Jack was always a big hit with my nephews. I loved playing with them and spent most of the party on the floor with them or running around her yard. I was holding my baby niece while Diane lit the candles on the cake. While my nephew was blowing out the candles, Diane realized I was crying. I never cried, not when my parents died, not when I found out Jesse was cheating, never.

Diane took the baby and gave her to our sister-in-law and dragged me into her room. She held me and I cried like a fucking baby on her shoulder. We didn't talk, I realized she was crying with me.

Finally, she said, "Let me guess little brother, you're finally realizing all the things you lost all these years."

"All the things she robbed from me Diane."

"If we were having this conversation four or five years ago, I would have agreed with you. Its been over six years Jack, now you are robbing yourself of all the wonderful things life has to offer. Did you know that's why our parents drank themselves to death. I forget who cheated first, but they could never forgive each other and they couldn't live apart. They couldn't live together either so they drank themselves to death. Is the path you're living that much different. Even if you don't take Jesse back, you have to forgive her for your own sake."

Diane helped me sneak out the back door so I wouldn't have to face her guests again. I spent the next month thinking about what Diane said, I hated when she was right and she was rarely wrong. It was my dream when Jesse and I married that we would have three, it should be my sons running around the yard with me and my daughter held in my arms. What was I going to do about it eluded me. Even on this seventh anniversary, with Jesse sitting down next to me, I hadn't a clue.

Jesse and I exchanged our cordial greeting and she asked me if I was seeing anyone. I shook my head no.

"I thought you were leaving for a promotion Jesse."

"No Jack, I turned down the promotion."

For the first time in seven years, I turned and looked at Jesse, I mean really looked at her. I studied the lines on her face, the early grey in her hair. There was a tear forming in her eye.

"I forgive you Jesse." The words came out of my mouth, they were not planned but I meant them. The tear that had been forming in her eye became a stream of tears.

"Will you come home with me Jack?" I took her hand, felt that same shock and led her out of the bar. Looking back, I could see Bill dialing his phone.