My Husband's Girlfriend by Cydney Rax

don’t want her to be confused.”
    “So what are you going to do?” Vette says.
    “I don’t plan on doing anything. Let Neil handle it. I don’t feel it’s right to lie to our daughter, or drag her into this situation.”
    “Hmmm, well, I’ll tell her, then.”
    I actually crack a smile.
    “What will you tell her, Vette?”
    “I’ll tell her that her daddy’s been a bad, bad man.”
    “Don’t say that.”
    “It’s true,” she insists.
    “Listen up. One thing that would be wrong is to hurt two little kids in the process. So whether I agree or understand it, I know Neil is going to go over there and bond with his baby. As much as I dislike it, how can I interfere with that relationship?”
    “Well, all righty, then.” Vette sounds done with the subject. But I hope she never gets tired of talking me through things even if it hurts to discuss them.
    I pause.
    “Did I ever tell you the story about Reesy? Have you noticed that I call her Reesy and Neil calls her Reese?”
    “Yeah, I have noticed but didn’t think much about it.”
    “Neil named her Reese—he wanted a boy.”
    Vette stares at me and we exchange a knowing look for a long time.
             
    We’re in the car on our way to pick up Reesy. The day before, she asked to spend the night at my mother’s. My heart was heavy with guilt. In times past, I let her go over to my mother’s frequently, but shortly after what happened with Neil, when she’d beg to go see Grammy, the answer would be a red-faced no. Although both my mother and mother-in-law know about Neil’s child and don’t agree with what he’s done, they try not to constantly nag about it, figuring it’s mainly my job to stay on his case since I’m married to him and they aren’t, but still I’m embarrassed to be around them.
    Out of the blue, while we’re in the car Sharvette scowls and asks, “Why’d you marry my brother? He’s sooo freaky looking.”
    I giggle and respond, “I get what you’re saying. He’s freaky looking to
you
because he’s your brother—he’s supposed to be freaky looking.”
    Vette snickers, then I explain how, when we were engaged, Neil and I attended marriage counseling sessions along with three other couples. In the beginning, all the men and women openly proclaimed how jazzed they were about getting married, and how they were all in love.
    “One couple had been dating since middle school. She was two months pregnant and knew she’d be with Tony for the rest of her life, but she still wanted counseling so she could ‘make my mama happy.’
    “Another couple were staunch Christians, virgins, and there’s no way they’d make that move without clearing marital counseling. The third couple were the children of two prominent Houston families. Harvard Law School, prosecuting attorneys, folks rolling in dough, and everyone expected these two families to merge.
    “Then there was Neil and me. Neither of us wanted to be there, but as you know, Neil is a by-the-book type. He likes acing tests, is a finishing-an-entire-crossword-puzzle kind of guy, so we went.
    “Do you know that by the time the counseling sessions ended six weeks later, Neil and I were the only couple still engaged? The first five weeks were a breeze. We took little quizzes, did role reversals, fun stuff. But the last week, the marriage counselor told all the couples to ‘look closely at the person you’re about to marry. If he got into a car wreck and had twenty pieces of glass lodged in his cheeks, forehead, and lips, would you still want to be married to him? If your husband lost his job and could never regain employment, had to foreclose on your lovely home, and the car got repossessed, could you still love this broken man enough to stay with him? And guys, if your loving wife all of a sudden becomes depressed, stops eating, stops taking showers, refuses to comb her hair, and starts wandering the streets at two A.M. talking to herself, would you love her enough to