He awoke the next morning with more hope than he had dared to feel in months. But his heart sank when he rolled over and realized she wasn’t lying there next to him.
 
The house was unusually quiet for a Sunday morning. He got up to investigate.
 
The kid’s beds were empty. Dirty breakfast dishes were piled in the sink. Pam’s keys were gone from the hook by the garage door. He ran his hands through his hair not really knowing what to do with himself.
 
Jim was always in charge of Sunday breakfast. He loved having the family around the little table in the breakfast nook while he whipped up waffles or omelets and they all talked and laughed about what they had done on Saturday. He loved not having the TV on; loved having the kids really talk to him and Pam and each other. It was his favorite time of the week.
 
Now the house felt devoid of life. Pam hadn’t left a note. A dark thought popped up unexpectedly in a deep recess of his mind. He pushed it away.
 
The hope he had felt upon waking was faded. Instead of facing the day alone in the big, quiet house, he crawled back into bed. Not surprisingly, he fell into an exhausted slumber.
 
He was well into a dreamless sleep when he was awoken by a noise. He heard the garage door open and footsteps up the stairs. She turned the knob on the bedroom door quietly and he rolled to see her face as she opened it. She was even more pale than she had been recently.

Jim felt a sudden twinge of panic that maybe she had relapsed.
 
“Hey,” she said, her voice catching in her throat.
 
He propped himself up on his elbows and regarded her from across the room. She was still so beautiful to him after all she had been through. Even though he had been crazy about her when they first got married, he never imagined she would still take his breath away after all this time. He also never thought he’d ever feel so distant from her again.
 
“Where are the kids?” His voice was cautious as he remembered his earlier fear.
 
“I dropped Elizabeth off at the movies with Abby and her mom and Ben and Annie went to the Nelson’s.”
 
She walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. Looked at him for a long moment. Finally, she reached over and ran her hand through his hair. She was struggling to find words to say to him.

“Jim, I…” she broke off. Swallowed hard. “I’m sorry…”
 
Something in the trembling of her voice was all wrong. Jim felt a wave of nausea as the realization hit him. She sounded guilty.

She is having an affair.

He felt his throat constrict as the fear turned to anger. Her hand was still entwined in his hair. He pushed it away roughly and threw back the covers. Grabbing the clothes he had thrown over the chair last night, he practically ran into the bathroom.
 
In an instant, she was at the door.
 
“Jim! Don’t do this. Talk to me, please!” She sank to the floor.
 
Fully dressed, he opened the door and brushed past her, making it down the stairs in a few giant steps. She was slow to rise from the bedroom floor and he managed to grab his keys and squeal out of the driveway before she could stop him.
 
Now it was her turn to cry.
 
He wanted to keep driving. Just drive and drive for miles and days and sing loud, angry heavy metal songs, and drive until he found somewhere where his pain couldn’t follow. Never stopping, never caring, never needing another human being.
 
But Jim knew he could never be that person. His family was as essential to him as oxygen. Even now, without them for mere hours, it was becoming hard to breathe. Besides, he knew that he was the responsible parent now and he couldn’t let down the kids. He loved them too much for that.

And no matter what happened between him and Pam, he knew he would do anything he could to make her happy. Even if it meant sacrificing his own happiness.
 
He drove for a few hours until the nausea had subsided to heartburn and the pounding anger in his head was a dull thud. But pain continued to permeate every cell in his body.

He hadn’t felt like this since… he had to think for a moment but he remembered finally. It was a warm evening in May over 16 years ago. The day when he had finally told her the truth about how he felt. The day he bared his soul to her and she had initially rejected him.
 
Back then he had only imagined what it would be like to be with her and still the heartache of her turning him away was agonizing. Now that he had tasted the pure joy of sharing his life with hers, the pain gnawing at his gut was much, much worse.
 
He pulled into the driveway. Stared critically at the house that Pam had never liked. In a place she never wanted to be.

Had he driven her to this? He was beginning to blame himself.

He sat there looking at the darkened windows thinking it didn’t seem very much like home right now. Not without knowing that she and the kids were waiting for him.
 
His breath hitched as thoughts raced through his head. His hands trembled slightly, still resting on the steering wheel. He finally pulled it together enough to get his shaking legs to take him to the door. Her car was in the garage. Now was the time to talk.

He needed it. But he wasn’t looking forward to it.