So Much and Yet, Nothing at All

Two years. She has copped to it. The story doesn't matter. She says two years. Her fuzzy memory finding great clarity. Then, with even greater specificity. July 28, 2018. It doesn't fit her narrative that this all started because we were so miserable.  We had, as she pointed out when she decided to give me a precise date,  just gotten back from a lovely trip across Europe.  It was so lovely.  I don't remember even bickering. We had, what i thought was a blissful vacation.  All of it. So, I am certain she is still lying about the date-especially given the proof I have found that this stretches back to at least the beginning of 2018. 

Leiney found out on Saturday morning around 10:45.  Sitting next to Jenny on the couch as Jenny scrolled through texts, Leiney saw conversations Jenny and I were having about the affair. Jenny didn't think to hide it from Leiney. Leiney told Jenny she'd seen the texts, apparently. Chemo brain or she just doesn't give a fuck, I don't know why she was so careless about the texts. The crazy thing is that I was out all morning with Abby at acting on Mercer Island, and  when I got home Jenny said nothing about Leiney learning of the affair.  Zilch. Zip. Nada.  Leiney smiled at us and told us she was going downstairs to do homework, when we walked in the door. Abby went to her room, and I sat with Jenny on the couch for hours. Jenny said nothing about it as I pampered her and rubbed her leg trying to soothe her suffering. In the evening, I set the table and made dinner, summoning Leiney upstairs around 7, calling her name from the top of the stairs, that is. She didn't answer, which she normally would do.  I cursed her noise-cancelling headphones, assuming she could not hear me because of them, and went to fetch her.  

I found Leiney prone on her bed, laying on her belly sobbing uncontrollably sans headphones. It was clear she had been crying for hours.  As I walked over to comfort her, she said, half-crying/ half-yelling, "I know everything!"  I wasn't sure what everything was, so I asked.  She said she knows mom has been having  an affair with Eric the pinché motherfucker for over 2 years. I held her, rubbing her back.  She cried for a very long time. I was numb. She told me she'd seen moms phone when we were texting.

I called Jenny down to the basement. I told her that her daughter had been alone downstairs crying for over 6.5 hours about the affair.  We went to Leiney. She said she needed to tell Abby.  Jenny, immediately turned to her and said sternly, "We can't tell Abby. She still has friends at TOPS, and this could impact peoples' careers."  Which people? Hmmm.  .  .I immediately sent Leiney upstairs and told Jenny that she had her priorities all wrong, and that we couldn't expect Leiney to keep such a secret from her sister.  She disagreed, because, well, she only sees things through the eyes of protecting the affair.  Not even the kids are important enough to merit her consideration, let alone being placed before all others.

Later that night, when she had composed herself, we once again went to her room to talk. Leiney asked me, out of nowhere,whether Jenny had an affair with Jason.  She told me that every week they would go to Jason's that first fall I was gone in California. The kids would be fed spaghetti and taken to the TV room, shown the same Disney movie, while Jenny and Jason disappeared. Leiney was in 6th grade, and suspected.

I told my therapist at the next session what Jenny said to Leiney about telling Abby, and my response to Jenny.  My therapist agreed, the affair cannot be something Leiney keeps from Abby.  I told Jenny this.  I told her we needed to tell Abby. She said her "therapist" (her cancer coach, not a real therapist) disagreed.  I gave Jenny until Thursday to tell Abby (it was Monday).  Jenny said, she would so it only if we talk about my affair with Sonia.  Exasperated, I agreed. On Thursday, we sit Abby down. Jenny immediately starts talking about my affair from 10 years ago.  I sigh. I own it.  I don't bring up the fact that we had been separated after she had been involved with Jason, and in fact weren't even back together when I started seeing Sonia for a few months 10 years ago, and stopped seeing her when Jenny and the kids came down to California. I didn't want to defend what I believe is indefensible, because in my heart I know I was wrong. Then Jenny starts telling Abby that our relationship has been broken for a long time, (an after the fact justification for bad behavior, btw) untrue (as far as I had known) and irrelevant to the disclosure she agreed to make.  Then she tells Abby about the affair, and circles back to Sonia. Abby starts to get angry and begins yelling at Jenny to knock it off, asJenny starts talking about the fact Sonia and I, had sex. It was wild.  Abby already knew about Jenny and el pinche , and had since September.  She tells us, "I hear everything you guys talk about, the upstairs is small." She is visibly angry with Jenny. With that, Abby ended the conversation and returned to her room.

I never raised the fact that Jenny and I were separated when I saw Sonia. I never explained that we were separated because Jenny had been cheating. I didn't think it appropriate to discuss any of this with Abby.