LIMBO

My wife and I were barely getting by with three young children to feed and clothe. I was working construction from sun-up to sun-down, sometimes seven days a week. The foreman would pay us cash every day since we weren't union members. 

A fellow worker would pick me up and take me home each day. We might stop for a beer or two and I would cover his tab in appreciation for both the ride and the fact that he wasn't charging for gas. 

When I arrived home, the kids would have already eaten and she would quickly prepare my dinner. We had an old clunker that I managed to keep running and I left it with her in case she had to go to the store or had an emergency. 

Her younger sister was living with us and she was a great help even though she was often busy with homework. The high school she attended was less than a mile away and the school bus took her back and forth to classes. She slept on an old misshapen couch in the front room and was content watching television. 

I gave my wife most of my daily pay. I kept a few bucks in my pocket. I have to confess that I wouldn't feel like a man if I didn't have a couple of dollars in my wallet. 

I was amazed by the way she could make my wages stretch. She would explain that she would go to the thrift stores and from clothes to furniture there was inevitably something that would catch her eye. She would shop after her sister came home from school. She never returned home empty-handed after a stop at the grocery store or one of the used-clothes stores. 

"How do you do it?" I'd ask her and she'd reply, "You don't have to worry. You make it and I'll manage it." 

But even in my elementary knowledge of arithmetic, something didn't add up. Her expenses exceeded my rough calculations. I began to wonder. I began to have suspicions. 

When I met her when she was 18 and I was 22, she surprised me with her knowledge in the sack. I thought I would be teaching her, but the opposite proved to be true. I would ask her about previous boyfriends, but she would snap that her past was none of my business and she could care less about my past. 

"The past is the past," she would declare with the authority of the pope. "Leave it there!"

I could never clear my mind about the number of men with whom she might have had sex and it often ate at me, but I would swallow my frustrations and accept as best I could that there would never be an answer to my question. 

But now I began to worry. I had no doubts that she was bringing extra money into the household. Where was it coming from since there was no explainable source for this income? I would ask her sister about my wife's routine and she would tell me the same thing. Every couple of days she left for a few hours to shop and she returned in time to fix the evening meals. 

"Oh, god," I thought. "Did she have a lover who was paying her?" 

Nothing has changed over the last year. We struggle from week to week, but there is frequently a little something extra that will allow us to splurge on occasion. I know in my heart of hearts she's fucking someone, but it's a question I don't dare ask her. 

What if I'm wrong? 

She would never forgive me. And she's always there for me. If there is such a place as Limbo, I'm residing in that suspended state. I'm constantly reminding myself that I should leave well enough alone, but as I become more distrustful and her sister slowly matures into a woman, I can feel the flames of purgatory nipping at my feet.