Eavesdropping

Everybody laughed and Beth thanked everyone over and over. "Here's the next. 'Eleven.' Wow that could be just about any of us."

"It's Sue," Cheryl announced.

"How do you know," Sue asked.

"You told me when we were preparing for your wedding that you've been with ten men and were worried that Arnie would find out. You never told him about all your previous boyfriends. So with that ten and Arnie, that makes eleven. Or should we count Leon Parkman as two?"

"Wow, I forgot I told you that. I seem to be forgetting a lot of things tonight. I must have something to do with this stuff we're smoking. Yep, that's my answer."

Everybody applauded and laughed.

"Here's the next answer," Lillie said. "'Five.' Who's that?"

The all mumbled and talked and the consensus was JoAnne. "Nope, not me," she said with a smile. "Now everybody's got to take a drink."

"It's me," Lillie confessed. "I've only been with four men before my Harold. I saved the best for last."

"Aw, that's cute," Sue said.

"That's three down, four more to go," Lillie announced. "Here's the next one. 'Twenty plus.' Okay, now who is the next biggest slut here?"

They discussed the merits of JoAnn or April or Sue and came to an agreement on Sue. "Nope, not me," Sue announced. "It's April. She went through the entire swim team at college, or so I heard."

"Sue, you promised you'd never tell anyone about that," April cried. "Jason thinks he was the only one from the team I was with. If he ever found out that I did them all he'd divorce me. Please don't tell anyone."

"Hmmm, another mental note about Jason and Sue," Phil thought. "It's the quiet ones that you've got to worry about." Everybody assured April that they would keep her secret and in turn they agreed to keep everybody's secrets.

"Three more to go," Lillie announced. "This answer says 'two.' Now which goodie-two-shoes is it? Maureen or JoAnne or Cheryl." They all talked about the relative merits of each and came to a conclusion it was Maureen.

"Nope, not me," Maureen announced sounding smug. "Everybody take a drink but it's got to be either Cheryl or JoAnne."

Phil sat back smiling because he knew it was JoAnne. He knew Cheryl and it wasn't her.

"Cheryl, it's you isn't it?" Beth asked. "Phil and that guy from your work."

"WHAT?" Phil said sitting upright in his chair.

"Damn it Beth, no one's supposed to know about Richard," Cheryl said sounding quite perturbed. "Now everyone knows. What if Phil finds out? It'd kill him and I'd be out of here on my ass so fast I wouldn't know what hit me. Do you want to take me and the kids in when that happens?"

Beth replied, "Cheryl baby, I'd be glad to have you as a roommate again, but you're going to have to make yourself scarce when my moneybags fella comes over."

"Oh my God," Sue gasped. "You had an affair?"

"No, not you," Maureen said. "Of all of us I would have thought that you would be the least likely one to cheat. My God, what were you thinking? Phil's such a sweetheart."

"Just shut up all of you," Cheryl shouted. "I made a mistake and Phil doesn't know about it, so please, please don't say anything to anybody, least of all your husbands. I love Phil and did something that would just kill him if he ever found out. I made a mistake, a huge mistake that I'm going to have to live with for the rest of my life. It was a moment of weakness on my part and it will never, ever happen again."

"Yeah a moment of weakness my ass," Beth chided. "You spent that whole week in Richard's log cabin at the lake and didn't come up for air until the day before Phil came home from that training session in Baltimore. Yeah, some moment of weakness."

"Beth, shut the fuck up," Cheryl screamed. "Everybody just shut up!"

There was the sound of someone running from the room and the bathroom door slamming. Then sobbing.

"Boy, I think we got in a little over our heads tonight," Maureen said. "What in the hell is in these cigarettes anyway?"

"What do we do now?" Sue asked politely.

"What can we do," Beth said. "She screwed up, Phil doesn't know, she has to live with the pain of her indiscretion, and we all have to keep our mouths shut. I think the party's pretty much over. JoAnne, go see about Cheryl and the rest of us let's clean up the mess."

Phil's body was numb but somehow he managed to walk over underneath the bathroom to listen. All he heard was sobbing and JoAnne saying something to console her. He couldn't make out the words she said though. Water ran in the sink and the toilet flushed and then the door opened. He moved back to the register under the living room, standing in the middle of the basement, and waited. Nobody said anything, they just cleaned up quietly. The sound of sniffling came through the register. He turned suddenly at a noise outside the window and saw Sue putting a bag of trash in the trash can. She saw him standing under the light and he saw her holding the trash can lid. Her expression turned to horror. He just moved one finger up in front of his lips holding it there as his head shook back and forth saying 'no'. She understood but still looked devastated.

The moving around up above stopped and everyone gathered together to say goodnight.

"Listen Cheryl," Maureen said. "You're secret's safe with us. I can only imagine what my husband would do if he found I did something like that. We're sorority sisters and would never do anything to hurt another sister. You can count on us."

"She's right," Beth said. "I've screwed up enough in my lifetime to know where you're at now. We won't judge you. We love you. If there's anything I can do just let me know. And from now on I'll keep my games, and my big mouth shut. By the way, can you get me some of that grass? It's fucking fabulous. Goodnight babe."

Everybody hugged and said their goodbyes. Sue was last. She said, "Cheryl, I'm sorry for everything that happened tonight. If you need anything please come see me, don't go to Beth, she'll just get you in more trouble. I'll do anything I can to help. And that goes for Phil too. I love you both like my own family and don't want to see either of you hurt. Please talk to me before you do anything. Okay?" Her words were intended for both Cheryl and Phil.

The last car pulled out of the driveway leaving Cheryl upstairs sobbing and Phil downstairs in shock. He didn't know what to do. His mind wasn't working properly.

He started to shake and his mind went blank.

Phil was sitting on the bench at the bus stop and had no memory of how he got there or where he'd been. It was three a.m. and the sign to the side of the bench said the last bus went by at midnight. He didn't remember seeing the bus. He didn't even recognize where he was. Across the street was a little diner that had a sign in the window saying it was open 24-hours a day. He walked over, plopped himself down in a booth, and ordered a cup of coffee. He sat there nursing the vile brew until the sun started to peek through the window. His mind was starting to work again. "I must have shut down after everybody left the party," he thought. He thought about the confession he heard and was just as devastated then as he was when Cheryl spoke those words. He didn't know how long it went on but he was crying into his hands when he felt the hand on his shoulder.

"Excuse me sir, but is there a problem?" The police officer stood beside him trying his best to look sympathetic but he just looked hulking, mean, and not somebody Phil wanted to talk to right then.

"No, officer," he lied. "Just a little..." He choked on his words. "...problem at home."

"Can I take you somewhere sir, maybe back home?"

"I..."

"Sir, have you been drinking?"

"No. I'm as sober as a judge, unfortunately. Just a little domestic problem officer."

"Can I see some id?" The officer held out his hand and Phil gave him his driver's license. The officer walked over to the counter, all the time keeping an eye on the distraught man, and talked into his radio for a few minutes. After some back and forth that Phil couldn't hear he came back and gave him his license back.

"Mr. Harclerode, we've had a couple calls about you. It seems you're missing and a lot of people are worried about you. Your wife said you didn't come home Saturday night and someone from your work called to say you never showed up to work on Monday. You've got a lot of people worried about you. How about I take you down to the precinct station and let you call home?"

"What day is it?" He asked looking out the window at the sunrise over the Texaco station across the street. "Where am I?"

The officer sat in the booth across from him and smiled. "It's Thursday and you're in Mount Joy. You've been gone since Saturday night. Where've you been?"

"I don't remember. The last thing I remember was being in the basement of my house when..."

"When what sir?"

"When my world ended," he said solemnly.

The cop sat back and just looked at Phil wondering what kind of nut case he'd found. With as sympathetic a look as he could muster he said, "Come on. I'll take you to the hospital and see if you've got some kind of an injury of something. Maybe you ate some bad mushrooms or something. Come on."

Phil walked with him out to the cruiser hanging his head looking at the pavement. The officer opened the back door and stood aside. Phil just stood there wondering what to do when he remembered something in his pants pocket.

"Uh, officer, could you hold this for me please?" Phil took a 9 millimeter Glock handgun out of his pocket, checked the safety, ejected the clip and handed it over to him. To say the cop was stunned was an understatement.

"Where'd you get this?" He asked taking the gun and placing it in the lockbox on the front seat.

"It's mine," He mumbled standing there. "I have a permit to carry it in my wallet if you want to see it."

"No, that's all right, but I'm going to have to pat you down before you get in the car. Standard procedure, that's all."

The cop patted Phil down and didn't find any more weapons. After he shut the back door with Phil in the back seat, he shook his head and got in.

Thirty minutes later Phil was in a little alcove at the emergency room with the officer standing beside him and a doctor looking him over. The doctor ordered CT scans and x-rays and all sorts of blood work that he endured over the next two and a half hours. When Phil got back to the little alcove the officer was gone. He sat there in silence wondering what he was going to do next. He had nothing to go back to. His wife was no longer his. His children... "Oh my God, my children," he lamented. "What am I going to do about my girls?" As he sat there wondering about his life the doctor came in.

"Well Mr. Harclerode the good news is we didn't find anything physically wrong; no injuries, no head trauma, nothing in the blood work, you're normal as normal can be. But something caused your missing days. Do you remember if anything stressful happened before the police found you?"

Phil was silent for a long time. He didn't want to think about what happened; he just wanted to get away from there. "I... She... I can't talk about it. I no longer have a wife."

"Did she die? What happened?"

"No, she's still alive but I found out something that destroyed me. I'll never..." He choked up and stopped.

"Sir, I think I understand. Just so you know, we contacted your wife and she's on her way here now. When she arrives I'll have a talk with her because I want you to stay here for a couple days just for observation. We can't find a reason you blanked out. You might be perfectly all right going home but I'd rather be on the safe side and have you stay here with us for a while. So just lay back and rest and we'll see if we can find you a room. As soon as your wife arrives I'll let her know where you are."

The doctor patted Phil on the arm as he left. Phil waited until the doctor was out of sight and walked out the emergency room door.

He started to shake and his mind went blank.

Phil drank the awful tasting cerveza thinking about the oppressive Mexican heat and the empty pit in his soul. It was unbearable. He just sat at the little cantina with his head on his arms, softly crying. His life ended a year ago and now he's alone sitting at a little table pouring some malodorous bile down his throat from a little brown bottle without a label.

A shadow fell over the table covering the tear stained tablecloth and the nasty beer. Phil looked up.

"Hi Phil, can I sit down?" The shadow belonged to Cheryl. He just sat there in his half drunken state and stared up at her. He didn't even have enough energy to be nasty to her. Waving his hand he motioned for her to take the other chair all the while continuing to stare down at the table.

"Phil, I'm sorry. Sue told me you overheard everything. I never meant to hurt you but I know that I did. If it means anything, I'm just as devastated as you are, maybe more. I committed a mortal sin and destroyed something so wonderful, something that meant everything to me. I hurt you and probably destroyed our marriage. No matter how much I wish I could I can't undo what I did. Phil I made the biggest mistake of my life and will live with it on my conscience for the rest of my life. Regardless of what happens now I just want you to know this: I've always loved you and always will. I'll never abandon you. You and I will always be together in spite of my stupidity. I can't lose you, I'd die.

Phil, I'm here to take you home. You've been gone for over a year now and everybody wants you to come back. Kim and Sam miss you something terrible, and so do I. I'm sorry for the things that happened and if you come back I promise to make it all up to you. I love you and only you for now and for always. Please?"

They sat without talking letting the words sink into their pores. His mind wouldn't respond. The empty pit in his soul opened up to swallow him.

He started to shake and his mind went blank.

The sound of seagulls nudged him awake. He sat up to find that he was sitting on a dock looking out over the ocean, which one he didn't know. A seagull was stealing the last bits of whatever he was eating and Phil gave him a quick smack on the beak. The bird complained mightily as he flew off the pier only to land on a piling looking down waiting for the next opportunity to steal his food.

"Dirty, stinking, rotten, bird!" He spit back at he ugly scavenger.

He sat there looking around. Nothing looked familiar. There were fishermen down the way sitting on ice chests with their lines in the water. There were sailboats off shore gliding across the water pushed by gentle winds. Women in bikinis walked on the white sand down below. He was at the shore but had no memory of where he was or how he got there. Looking down at the breadcrumbs and empty wine bottle he tried to remember anything. He couldn't, but something in the back of his mind said that was a good thing. With nothing else to do he got up and walked. The more he walked the more familiar things felt. He saw a liquor store that he recognized because of the giant ludicrous hand painted sign saying 'Discount Liquor.' He passed a park and in his mind's eye saw an old wino sleeping on a bench. The more he looked at the bench the more familiar the character became. He walked by a storefront window and saw a derelict old man staring back at him. He stopped and stared. So did the old derelict. He moved one hand to his chin and rubbed and so did the old derelict. The old derelict in the window was him, his own reflection. He moved closer and reached out to touch his reflection. He was the wino he saw passed out on the park bench. He was the old derelict in the window. He was.... Lost.

As he walked he saw places and things that he recognized, most he didn't. He passed one building that looked familiar and stopped again. The sign over the door said 'Moonlight Mission.' It felt somewhat familiar. For some reason unknown to him he opened the door and went inside.

"Hi, Phil," the man behind the counter said. "Your usual bed?"

He just stared at the man. He didn't know the man but the man seemed to know him. He looked around and bits and pieces of everything seemed familiar, but bits and pieces didn't fit together to make something solid. He stood there confused, not knowing what to do, what to say to the man.

"Phil how'd you like the executive suite tonight?" the man asked. "You can have a shower and we'll wash your clothes. Nobody's in there tonight and you need a bath. Come on, I'll unlock it for you."

He followed the man and found himself in a tiny room with a bed and a bathroom. The man handed him a paper bag with toiletries to clean himself up with. The man said "goodnight" and closed the door as he left. Phil sat on the bed and looked around. Memories were coming back rapidly. He knew he was in Miami. He knew he was in his usual sleeping place, except he wasn't on a cot in the room with forty other homeless men, he had one of the isolation rooms. He remembered finding three half eaten sandwiches in the dumpster behind the Subway last night and feasting on ham and cheese, and salami. That must have been what the seagulls were trying to steal. He remembered Cheryl. He felt pain. He just sat there remembering. Then he took his clothes off, put them in the paper bag, set it outside the door, and took a shower. He shaved too. He couldn't remember when the last time he shaved, but judging by the mess on his face it had been a while.

His onetime wonderful life came alive in his head while he showered. And so did all the mess. When the image of his children flashed he froze under the flowing water. "I have two baby daughters," he said out loud. "I wonder..."

He couldn't complete the sentence. Sobs racked his body rescuing him from the indomitable pain the memories brought with them.

Memories of his previous life came back from time to time but his life now mostly consisted of searching through dumpsters for food or begging people for spare change to get a bottle of wine and sleeping wherever he could find a warm, dry spot. These invading memories haunted him usually just before sleep. Jumbled images of a beautiful brown haired woman and two kids, his kids, and working in a big bright office; images of a home and friends and a man and woman having sex at a cabin by the lake. There was always pain involved in the images but one or two bottles of wine usually washed them away.

When he stumbled out of the bathroom clean again, he crawled in bed and pulled the blanket over his head, shutting out the world full of haunting images and all its pain. Sleep would be his refuge for a while.

He bolted from his sleep at the sound of the alarm. It was morning and the alarm signaled time for everybody to leave the mission. He found his clothes inside the door cleaned and pressed and put them on. They were ragged and contained a lot of holes but at least they smelled better. As he passed by the counter he saw the man who gave him the room with the bath last night. The man smiled and said, "Uh, Phil. You've got a visitor," and pointed to a woman sitting on the bench in the shadows in the corner. She stood and walked toward him. She was tall and beautiful with streaks of grey in her hair and the etched lines of crow's feet at her eyes. Her smile was beautiful, her eyes familiar.

Cheryl.

"Hi, Phil," she said taking his hand in hers. "I found you again. It's taken me ten years but I found you. Would you like to go get something to eat?"

His stomach growled a response that they both understood. The three half eaten sandwiches were all he ate the day before, maybe it was yesterday but then maybe not, it might have been the day before. Today he was hungry again. He didn't want to go back to the dumpster behind the Subway again today so he let her, his wife from another life, lead the way. They ended up walking back down to the dock where they sat outside at a café table. She ordered and they ate in silence. As he finished up his food a shadow came over the table. He looked up and saw two beautiful women standing there, one was very pregnant. They stood there smiling down at him. He didn't know who they were until...