The Reinvention of Love

the grass with such relief atbeing both stopped and free, and just lay there, face down, until Julie turned back to look for me.
    This is how it feels with Charles. My family, my life with Victor, all the demands and expectations of family life feel like those branches tearing at my body, and though I move as quickly as I can, I am always trapped inside them. But Charles – Charles is the secret meadow, fragrant with sweet grass, where I lie for as long as I dare, and when I rise, I am renewed enough to enter my life again.
    It is not a friendship. That lie was the first to go.
    He keeps me alive. I fear myself without him.
    Charles, like Victor, likes talk. He constantly wants to recite poetry, to compare me to a flower or fruit, or a hillside at dusk. I couldn’t care less about the words or the romance. I’ve had enough of fancy language. I don’t want language at all, in fact. I want the slap of bodies in the act of love. I want the salt muscle of a kiss.
    Charles likes to talk, but with Charlotte I can have my way. She is not so interested in words. Often she seems bewildered by being Charlotte, and has to concentrate on the business of a woman – holding her skirts, walking with dainty steps – all of which, thankfully, takes away her desire to compare me to a rose bush.
    Charlotte yields to me, and the pleasure in this is exquisite, addictive. I have never felt such power and I am greedy for it. The moment she leaves my side, I long for her return.
    But I wish that I believed my lies, because I cannot reconcile my desire for my lover with the fact that I have become an adultress.
    When Charlotte and I meet in the church, we arrive and depart separately. I always ask her to leave first, and I sit there in the pew until I can no longer hear her tentative footsteps on the stone. Then I get down on my knees and pray for a forgiveness I don’t deserve.

    My husband and I were childhood sweethearts. This was back when I believed that the love poems he wrote me were about me, rather than about his need to write them.
    I believed the poetry. I believed the kisses. I believed the sloppy eagerness of my own heart. We married, and for a while I was the happiest I’ve ever been. But when the children came and I, necessarily, turned my attentions to them, Victor felt rebuffed and disappeared into his work – a work that could absorb all of him if he let it.
    That’s the simple explanation. But really, it’s another lie.
    I lost my desire for Victor. I found his kisses repulsive, and his constant need to be in my bed was not my need.
    But I am married to him. I have a duty and a contract, and nothing justifies the betrayal of my wedding vows. It doesn’t matter that I have lost my desire for my husband. This is the natural state of any marriage and I should just accept it. Why can’t I just accept it?
    When I’m down on my knees in the church, worrying a line of prayer from my lips, I feel disgust for my actions, and a desperation to remedy them. But I never feel that God hears me or understands. I never know what to do to absolve my sins. I just rise and go back to my family.
    Each time I meet with Charles, my situation becomes more intolerable, and I become more miserable because of it.
    As a girl I ran after my sister through the woods. I climbed trees. I made a lance out of a sapling and speared a grouse. I was as tall and strong as any boy. This is what Victor and I had in common when we were young, a longing to express ourselves physically, a need to be active and in the world.
    I am still that same being, and it is clear to me that I mustdo something about my situation. God is not going to help me. Charles cannot do anything. He has asked me to leave my marriage. That is the most he can do. The choice is mine to make. I must leave Charles, or I must leave Victor.
    There is no point in lying to myself any more.
    But to leave Victor, I will probably have to leave my children, because how could I afford to support them? My sister is sympathetic, and she might take us in for a while, but I have four children. She will not be able to house us for long. And really, how can I leave my children? How will God forgive that sin? Demanding as they sometimes are, I love them absolutely.
    Most nights, after my little ones are in bed, I walk through each of their rooms, watching them sleep. They are all so beautiful. And when one of them has a dream and twitches or cries out, I run to comfort him without thinking, as