Could he deliver faithfulness, that thing he promised me?

When you live with someone, you know who they are.  You know their fears and their weakness.  You  know what buttons to push to make them happy or cut their heart out.  I knew that Chappy appeared to be self confident on the outside, but on the inside, he feared rejection and failure. I believe he worked hard to prove a point, he was worthy.  He wanted his mom to be proud of him.   

When we got married, the house we lived in was referred to as "Cindy's house" by Min.  When we moved to Fishers, the house became known as "Chappy's house."  It was never our house.  She would bring her friends down and brag about Chappy's house as if I were the hired help that lived there.

I worked.  I held responsible, well paying jobs, but once Chappy started climbing that ladder, you would have thought I bagged groceries and didn't make enough money to rub two nickles together.  It bothered me that she would never contribute any of our success to the two of us, it was always Chappy.

I never wanted to remind her that when we got married, I owned a fully furnished house, had a  new car and a very lucrative career. Chappy lived in an apartment, had hand me down furniture that they let him borrow and an older car. He had debt from college and he was making half of what I earned. I think I contributed something to this relationship besides my charm.

Chappy had many business acquaintances. Mostly women but men as well, he just chose to be friendly with the women.  He always had one that he talked about a little more than others. When he worked in Indianapolis, it was Pauly and he golfed with her every chance that he had.

When he worked out of Chicago, it was Diane. Diane had started in Indianapolis, that is where he met her, but she moved to Dallas and then took a job in Chicago about a year after he had been promoted up there. He talked about her constantly, but this was who I married. I am sure he talked about me constantly with Vicki, claiming I was a customer only and that he bowled with me as it was part of his marketing plan and I'm sure that is how she figured out we were in Saugatauk that one Sunday afternoon.  Don't forget, she'd been the other woman at one time in her life as well.

But I trusted Chappy.  After our conversation just prior to getting married about Vicki, I honestly believed he wouldn't cheat on me.  But there are many ways to cheat, physical contact is just one, there is emotional cheating as well.

He often spoke of going to dinner with Diane and meeting her for lunch.  I had never met her nor ran into her, at all the work comp functions I attended, but one day, I did. I was in Little Rock Arkansas attending the annual conference there.  I attended every year.  It was a wonderful event but the best part was going to the bath houses for a bit of pampering.

One afternoon, I visited the booth where Crawford was set up as a vendor.  I was joking around with the sales person, one I had known years before I knew Chappy.  He excused himself to talk to a customer and a woman walked up to talk to another representative.  She was chatting on and on about Chappy.  I had no idea who this woman was, but she knew my husband very well.  Had I not known that I was married to him, I might have thought she was his bride.

She did not know who I was.  She did not know I was standing there listening to this animated conversation about my husband.  She asked the representative if she knew me.  This woman who worked for Crawford was local, she did not know who I was.  I had been talking to the representative who was national.  Diane was just praising Chappy up one side and down the other. "Do you know his wife is here?  I haven't seen her yet, but I've been told I look just like her!"  

Now, I swear if I looked in a mirror, that person who stood before me, would not be my reflection.  Not even on a bad day.  I will give her this, we were both females. We both had brown hair, it  wasn't even cut the same.  We were similar in  height, but beyond that, we might have put our underwear on the same, one leg at a time, but nothing and I repeat nothing about her would lead  me to believe someone would think we were twins.  Think of the movie with Arnold and Danny DeVito, Twins, that is how different we looked.

I had to know who this woman was, so I turned about the same time she did and I saw her name tag, Diane.  Well, I'll be damned.  I have just got to introduce myself to this womn!  I walked up to her and extended my hand, "Diane, I have heard so much about you!"

I refuse to wear name tags at these conferences so she had no idea who I was.  I went on about how she liked living in Dallas and then Chicago and you could tell she had no idea who she was speaking to. "How do you know so much about me? Have we met before?"

"No, we've never met, but I overheard your conversation and you appear to be very intimate with my husband, Chappy, I'm his wife, Cindy." She said it was a pleasure to meet me, but within seconds, she turned and scurried away.  She avoided me the entire week we were there.  Odd, some one who is so close to my husband and was giddy that she looked just like his wife, was going out of her way to ignore me. I made it a point to go out of my way to say hello.  Just wanted to be sure since we looked so much alike, we weren't wearing the same suit that day.  I wouldn't want someone to approach her thinking they were meeting me!

Within a short period of time after that, I started selling Pampered Chef and I had booked a party in Michigan at Tina's home.  I was going away for the weekend.  Chappy came in at his usual time on Friday, my parents weren't going to be there so there was no need to work late that weekend.

I wanted to see him before I took off so I hung around for him to get home.  I followed my routine, I took his coat, emptied his pockets and hung it up.  As I reached in his pocket, I discovered a key fob with one key hanging from it.  The fob had a picture of a apartment complex on it.  One key.  Apartment complex.  My heart dropped to my stomach. I went in to the closet and I stared at Chappy's wallet setting there on the shelf.  I never had snooped in his wallet, I had no reason to.  I opened it up and in the sleeve was a business card, Diane's business card and on the back, she had printed her home address and phone number.  The address matched the key fob's.  My world just came tumbling down around me.  I walked into the family room.  I am sure I was as white as a ghost as I sat down next to him on the couch.  My hand gripping that key fob with all my life.  What was I going to say? I didn't think words could even form on my lips at this moment.