Bryce and Alexandra Share the Train-- Part 3

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Of course, at that giddy plateau, neither of them seemed conscious of the fact they lived on the same block. Sure, Connie and Bryce were probably going to sell their house. But there would be an interval that could easily set a new standard for awkward. In fact, when Alex mentioned the size of her place being adequate, it was the first concrete mention of any of the logistics regarding them being together.

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Connie did not take it well. When Bryce laid out his plans and desires, thereby confirming all the simmering paranoid anxieties that had been percolating just below the surface since that night he refused sex from herm she accurately accused him of being disingenuous and a cad, and equated his unfaithfulness to her with Judas. Ever the Roman Catholic, she damned him to hell and packed a bag and spent the next four nights in a hotel. Only then could she talk to him without raising her voice or their collective blood pressures.

Bryce spent the four nights shagging Alex.

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As with most extra marital affairs that ‘graduate’ to the next stage, where one or both of the ‘love seekers’ leaves their spouse and they move in together, the transition at first went fabulously. Bryce could not stop grinning as Alex lead him around her flat and showed his closet space, his chest of drawers, where he could commandeer a shelf in the fridge.

He felt freer than he’d felt in years. Part of that came from the obvious age difference and her instinct to defer to him when a disagreement occurred, or even worse, a conundrum where the solutions proposed are at odds. Bryce didn’t need to win these battles, but she seemed to enjoy letting him. Alex had never had a serious relationship before. Nothing that lasted more than a month or two, so obviously this was her first live-with arrangement. Bryce had initial reservations about how she would adapt, but her natural unselfishness and her genuine love and appreciation of him smoothed all potential conflicts into an emotional autobahn. Bryce of course knew of the give and take necessary for any living arrangement, including the special dynamics involved when love was in the air.
He found Alex far more flexible and secure in her womanhood than Connie had ever been. Connie had been, and still was, a hard-headed Italian woman used to being in the driver’s seat. It took a toll on Bryce over the years, as in lieu of compromise, issues that arose with them were usually solved by Connie’s methods and at Connie’s insistence.

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After three months of relatively stress-free life for Bryce and Alex, he heard through a third party two pieces of news that both shocked him, and strangely enough, appalled him.

Connie had moved in with a man and she was pregnant.

This was startling to Bryce based on the fact that before they were married, Connie had told him she was incapable of having children. When he finally got through to Connie on her cell phone, she confirmed the news and gave a rather convincing “That’s what the doctor told me” tale in explanation of her impending child.

Bryce thought back to the moment that she had told him she was barren. His empathy and sympathy had far outweighed any selfish urge he had to procreate and keep his name spit-balling forward through the annals of time. He was an only son and the family name, Brynthewaiteville, was about to die out with far fewer progeny than letters, or syllables for that matter. Bryce had endured a lifetime of grief about his name, including the funniest one he’d heard, that Mick Jagger’s mouth wasn’t big enough for it, and he was ambivalent, at best about it dying out.

But the irony, lost initially on Bryce, of his feeling betrayed that she may have lied to him about her fertility, was so rich as to possibly make Connie’s year. Bryce would never know if she’d deceived him, or why, but he would always wonder why she would start out a marriage with that statement, if it were not true.

Karma may have always lingered on the periphery of that union, and finally pounced, starting with Connie’s deception and ending with Bryce’s infidelity.

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But it was when Alex got pregnant that things became much more of a sticky wicket. She was on the pill, and nonetheless insisted on Bryce wearing a condom, which he did without complaint. So when Alex told him she was knocked up, her words, he suddenly felt a surge of ‘can I trust any woman, ever, again?’

When calmer heads prevailed, i.e. his, he realized Alex would never have lied to trap him. She was far too pragmatic for that type of faulty approach to love and procuring a man.

So the two soon-to-be divorced mates were entertaining the idea of having a child with someone else.

Could life get juicier?

It could.

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