Let No Man Rend Asunder

When she walked into the door I just looked at her. My eyes full of confusion, hurt, anger. I couldn't believe she would betray me like that. Betray seven years of marriage, her oaths. Destroy our once cherished hopes and dreams..., our sacred bond. My soul cried out at me to scream, rant, rave. To lash out. To vent my pain and anguish on her. Yet I also wanted to tell her how much I loved her. How she had always been the center of my universe since the first time I had seen her standing in the moonlight on the edge of the river. This vision of loveliness which the very moon seemed to focus on.

Her long dark hair was disheveled. The very hair I had spent hundreds of hours stroking, brushing, smelling. Running my fingers through the cascading auburn waves. The silken, luxurious hair I loved to snug my face into as we lay snuggled next to each other at night; smelling her coconut and lavender shampoo. Her lipstick was still marred. The lips they adorned swollen, full, beautiful. The lips I still longed to kiss, taste. Yet those same lips, sworn to kiss only me, had an hour ago been kissing another man in the throes of forbidden passion.

She refused to look at me. Wouldn't meet my gaze straight on. A heated flush on her cheeks betrayed her shame, her guilt. She knew she had torn our home, our family apart. Knew she had shredded my very soul, rent it to tattered, bleeding bits.

Finally she met my eyes. I could see her begging for forgiveness. Emerald green eyes beneath long lashes roved over my features. Those eyes. I could get lost in them. Swim in their depths forever. I had thought her eyes were the window to my soul, for in her eyes was where I wanted to dwell eternally. She searched my face for any sign of understanding, compassion, forgiveness.

A tear rolled down my cheek. I had never before truly understood the phrase 'cut to the quick.' Now I felt as if the very core of my being had been lacerated. Her infidelity was a knife thrust into my chest. It's point having skewered my most vital organs. I was bleeding out.

She reached out a hand. I looked at it. That hand that I had held thousands of times. The fingers intertwined in mine as we leaned close to each other, giggling as we walked through the park. The hand I had thought I would hold forever. The hand that had given me neck rubs when I was sore. Stroked my brow when I was feverish. Tickled my ribs in abandonment during foreplay. Long supple fingers: The nails colored in that shade of crimson she knew I loved. The hand that wore her wedding ring. The physical symbol of our commitment.

Every fiber of my being said "Forgive her." My shattered soul said "No. I can't. At least not yet." My chaotic brain whirled, screaming “Why? How could you?”

She looked down. Her eyes lit upon the photograph there on the carpet. Our wedding photo. Ripped down the middle. Two halves that, like us, had once been whole. Two souls, once conjoined, that another man had rent asunder. Her hand dropped. Silently she walked past me to the bedroom. Shoulders slumped, my body exhausted from stress, I dropped into my recliner. There I sat as she packed a suitcase. There I remained when she walked past me once more.

When the door closed behind her, perhaps for the final time, my head dropped into my hands. I cried.