The Slightly Mad Cuckquean: Chapter Eleven

There are lines that should never be crossed, and most of us know where those lines lie.

Sometimes, there are mere threads standing between love and hate, sanity and insanity, right and wrong. Gossamer wings of conscience and faith barely beating us back from the edge, keeping us from doing the unthinkable thing, the wrong and irrevocable thing, the unforgiveable.

Occasionally, one of those fragile threads gives way and we fall over the line, anyway. It’s really only then that we begin to understand why there are lines at all.

A line crossed can never be uncrossed. There is no turning back. There is no rewind.

Once you know, there is no way to un-know.

A friendship had developed between Brunhilda and the former CIA assassin she had met at her old schoolmate’s party. CIA was in the middle of getting his second book ready for publishing, but he had been unhappy with the editing, so he offered to pay her to clean his book up.

Brunhilda needed the money. She had become disabled 8 years before, in the midst of a successful career as a newspaper editor back in Dallas. She had some sort of condition that I never fully understood, something to do with a fusing of the spine, which brought chronic pain and limited her ability to move comfortably. The slow and careful way she had to move to avoid pain was oddly graceful, elegant even. She had learned to live with her disability and make it work for her.

She and her husband had moved to Florida when he got a job offer to work as the golf pro at a country club. During the course of a few years, he would become a drunk and a womanizer, and would soon leave her for another woman, unable to face a future in the trailer park with a disabled wife.

Still able to do a little work from home on her computer, Brunhilda took on some desktop publishing jobs for a few country clubs that needed monthly newsletters produced, things like that. She would never make enough money to earn her way out of the trailer park, but, between the freelance work and her disability check, it kept her head above water, and only just. Suffice it to say, she knew her way around computers, had a lot of time to work with them sitting alone all those long hours at home.

Over time, I have come to realize that her affair with my husband was probably one of the few bright spots in her sad and lonely life. I can understand why she betrayed me. Her motives are easier for me to understand than his. Although I was a good friend, Hub must have meant so much more. He represented hope. Hope for a better future, hope for a way out of her miserable situation, hope for a perfect love. Not only that, but it appeared that Hub loved her despite her disability, which even her husband couldn’t do.

What she meant to Hub, I can never really know. I have tried to figure it out, tried to see what the attraction could have been. What was he missing in his life with me that could make it so easy for him to break his word and betray me? There can be no understanding. There can be no reason compelling enough for destroying our marriage and shattering our lives, for gutting me.

Maybe, once they became secret friends, her helpless situation brought out the protector in him, made him feel more like a man, made him feel needed. Maybe he pitied her. Maybe he was impossibly selfish and just wanted her, lusting without a thought for the consequences. Maybe he simply loved her.

Maybe he didn’t really love me and just didn’t care about our life together. I think we have a winner, folks.

Brunhilda might have known a lot about computers, but she was about to learn more. CIA had been an expert at Psy Ops, which came in handy during his career as an assassin. One of the first in his field to adopt new technology, he knew how to use it to his advantage, knew how to use what he had learned about human psychology and our trust in technology to get what he wanted. What he wanted was control. Control the situation, move the target into position, go in for the kill.

CIA had spent a lifetime manipulating other people, only to realize in the end that he had been the one who had been manipulated. Manipulated into believing that what he was doing was necessary, essential even, for making the world a better place. He had come to believe that his job was making the world a worse place, an evil place. He had come to believe that innocence and trust were precious things, things that should be protected, rather than abused. CIA had many regrets, deep regrets. He seeks redemption.

Brunhilda smoked pot. It made her pain more bearable and no one could begrudge her this petty crime. She would offer it to CIA whenever she lit up around him, and when he finally tried it, he was both amazed and appalled. He was amazed that it made him feel so good and so at peace with the world; appalled that he could look back on a career that had seen him personally destroy nearly 400,000 tons of the stuff. Another reason to feel betrayed by his government.

After a session spent pouring over the book, Brun could sometimes talk CIA into doing a few things around the house, painting a bit here and there, moving furniture around, that kind of thing. There were times when I wondered if Brunhilda was genuine in her disability. She seemed fairly able to do the things she wanted to do, just incapable of doing the things we all hate to do. I would hate to think anyone would fake something like that, but who can know the truth when you’re dealing with a consummate liar, a first rate fabricator? Her bulging eye appeared to be stress-related, so maybe her disability was, too. When you are a liar, everything about you becomes suspect. Deceit can be stressful.

Eventually, CIA would stop coming around much. He had begun to see the real Brunhilda, the Brunhilda that I had only begun to know in the weeks before her departure. Her graceful, ladylike helplessness and charm was the shroud she hid her ruthless, grasping nature behind. Like most people, Brun wanted it all. Unlike most people, she didn't care what she had to do to get it all, or who she had to hurt.

In the end, CIA left town owing Brun money for the editing job, and I thought I had heard the last of that particularly entertaining fellow. It turns out that the two of them had butted heads more than once over the editing, and in the end, CIA wasn’t happy with the job Brunhilda had done.

Had Brunhilda offered to negate the debt, if only CIA would do her a little favor? Was that why I was hearing this new voice in my phone? I had been walking around for weeks now, looking over my shoulder, fearing that Brunhilda had gone mad and was watching me, trying to hurt me, get rid of me. Had she hired someone to do the job, instead?

Every day now, my phone held more confusing messages, the voices of many rather than two. My mobile browser has told me alternately that it is my stepdaughter doing this, because she resents me and wants her father to herself, it is my husband doing this to me, because he wants me to leave him, it is Brunhilda doing this to me, because she wants me to leave my husband. Finally, it is someone else entirely, a stranger to me, who tells me he loves me, has to kill me.

Shortly after I found out about the affair, I wrote poetry to ease the pain, to purge the rage and fear and doubts. I wrote of my love for my husband and my broken heart. I poured everything inside me out on those pages that I thought would never see the light of day. CIA has read them.

“I read your love poems

I think you’re a good writer

I guess you really love the guy

I can’t believe you’re going to forgive him

I think he’s lucky, lucky

I wonder if you might be an angel

I might be falling in love with you

I think you should leave now

I think you should let her have what she wants

I don’t really want you to meet Jesus yet

I think maybe he should be the one to meet Jesus”

Maybe Brunhilda didn’t know me as well as she thought she did. CIA definitely doesn’t know me. Within this vulnerable, foolish, feminine exterior beats the heart of a warrior. Threaten my family or loved ones and I will fight you tooth and nail, to the death.

You don’t scare me anymore. Now you’ve made me mad. I will not let you hurt my family, hurt my husband. I will not leave my home, leave my happiness, leave the only man I’ve ever really loved and needed. I will not give up my life to make someone else happy.

I might not have a choice.

Stay tuned for Chapter Twelve: Don't Call Me, I'll Call You