Was it my imagination or was my therapist hitting on me? Maybe it had just been too long since I had gotten any. I was taken over to the parallel bars, and we worked on walking back and forth for a bit. After that, she had me lay on the mat and do some leg lifts and crunches. Let me tell you, those hurt, no matter what shape you are in.
She had me roll over onto my front, and was doing some leg lifts in reverse. If I didn’t know any better, I would say her hands were a little lower on my thighs than they needed to be. Of course, my damn traitor of a dick started getting really hard. In this position, it wasn’t too hard to hide, but when I eventually turned over, it would be.
I finished the leg lifts, and told her I needed a minute before I got up. She gave me a minute, and then had me roll over and sit up. Thankfully I was down to just a half hard-on. She might have looked at it, but never said anything about it. She smiled a little, got up and walked away for a minute. She came back to help me up, and handed me a card. It had a phone number and an address on it.
“We are about done here. I will expect to see you back in another month for a check-up. This is my home number and address, should you need anything until then. Please, call me anytime, for anything.”
She had a very curious smile on her face, and I really did feel she was trying to hit on me. Honestly, she was gorgeous, and a very nice person. I could see falling for a woman like her under different circumstances, or given time. As I was going into the lobby, there sat my mom. Seeing her made me snap out of it. She got up and we walked out to her car, not really saying anything to each other.
When we got in, she let me have it. “You aren’t even divorced yet, and you are already putting the moves on another woman. Your therapist, Matthew, REALLY?”
I was stunned. “Mom what are you talking about? I haven’t done anything with that woman. She is very good looking, but I have never cheated on Jennifer. What would give you the idea that I have something going on with her?”
“I can tell. I saw it in her eyes when you were walking towards me. That woman WANTS you.”
“Mom, trust me. Nothing has, or will happen with that woman.”
She didn’t say much more, and just drove me home. When I got out, she said goodbye, and I went in the house. I felt really bad now, thinking about another woman while I was still married. What kind of man did that make me? We weren’t divorced yet. I mean, every guy checks out other women, but I still felt guilty. My mom knew me too well.
I needed to get my mind off of self-destruct mode for a bit, so fired up my laptop. I got connected to the office network, and checked email. They had de-activated my account after a few weeks in the coma, but had reconnected it again. I had a few emails from the last few days, and several from before my account was locked out.
I decided to read the email from before my coma first, to see if anything important had happened. As I went through them, there were a few from co-workers hoping I would get better soon. There were a few from some vendors that we worked with occasionally, and a few more from some of our clients.
I saw one that shocked me some, and made me wonder why I hadn’t thought about it already. It was from a lawyer, stating they wanted to talk to me or my family about a settlement offer. Why had my wife or family not talked to me about the truck driver that caused my accident yet? Were they even contacted during my coma? I would have to ask my mom and dad about that.
I read all the most recent, and found that there were a few new possible clients that needed our consulting services. Two were from larger corporations that needed an “honest opinion of our network”, or so they said. Apparently we came highly recommended from some former clients. There was one from a small business that need our help setting up a new POS (Point of Sale) system, and the last one was from an accountant that we helped out from time to time. He, in turn, did our books for us at a reduced fee.
I replied to a few of the email messages, and sent a few to my co-workers about working on a few of these cases from home over the next week or two. I got one response from my boss that he sent to everyone, stating that he was thrilled that I was back on the job and feeling better.
I logged off, and got up to go do my daily workout routine. I really pushed myself, and felt very sore afterwards. I got in the bath and laid there in the hot water, soaking up the lavender I had added. As I lay there, I thought about my situation, and my family.
In a few short years, all my kids would probably be out of the house. My sons were both talking about their college plans, and my daughter was getting married AND going to college next year. I thought about Jennifer, and the plans we had made for after the kids moved out.
We were going to travel more, and visit all of our “bucket list” places we wanted to see. Most everyone has a list, but we were serious about ours. We had actually a written list, still hanging on the side of the fridge. We were going to stay in this house until we both retired, then move out to the country in a little cottage style house. We had even gone online a few times to see what some looked like, picking our favorites.
She used to laugh at me, always picking ones that had big windows, and a pond or lake nearby. She used to say, “You know, with windows that large we can’t hide our love-making as well right?”
My joking response had always been, “But honey, who will see us out in the middle of nowhere?”
I noticed that the water was getting a little cold, so figured I should get up. My muscles felt a lot better, but I still didn’t want to get out. I got up, dried off, and got into some sweats. About that time, my kids came in the door from school, excited to tell me about their day. Jennifer called a few minutes later. I almost didn’t answer it, but I wasn’t going to deny her a chance to talk to the kids, so decided to deal with the awkwardness.
“I just wanted to let you know I will be there in about an hour. I was wondering if I could stay for a bit longer than normal, and we could try to have a family dinner together?” she asked. She never mentioned the divorce papers. I was a bit conflicted, but figured it would do the kids some good to have her around for the meal.
“Sure, I guess that would be ok. I will let the kids know you are on the way, bye.”
“Bye, Matt.”
With that, I hung up, wondering what the hell I was getting myself into. Hadn’t I just served her with divorce papers, and yet was letting her come over for dinner? It felt really odd, talking to her on the phone and NOT saying “I love you,” as we had done ever since we started dating seriously. Deep down, I missed it. I felt more confused now than ever before.