I laughed. “You mean my soon to be ex-wife. I’d wager a million dollars — if I had it — that she doesn’t. She is about as anti-violent as you get and would get hives if someone ever placed a gun in her hands.”
As soon as they left I sent Sharon a Snap Chat message that I told two detectives that I owned no antique gun and that she is non-violent and would get hives if anyone ever placed a gun in her hands; and to get her grandfather’s Colt Dragoon Revolver out of the safety deposit box and into a hiding place far away before the cops came to see her. I used Snap Chat since those messages automatically delete. She sent me a message back but since it started out trying to get me to meet her I didn’t bother to read it and manually deleted it.
While I was cool and calm while the detectives were talking to me I have to say that knowing almost for certain that Sharon blew away four thugs knocked my socks off. Why would she cheat with one of them and then waste them? I could think of a number of scenarios, but it was very complex and confusing, and I had never known Sharon to be violet before. My most reasonable assumption was that she was pissed that they had almost killed me.
*************
I recovered almost completely within the next two months after my last interview with the detectives. They tried to talk to me two more times but I shot them down completely. I could tell that their investigation wasn’t going anywhere and that they didn’t really seem to care about that. I got the impression that the deaths of four thugs was a positive for society and that they weren’t going to be busting their balls trying to find the perpetrator. I just hoped that no one in Sharon’s family would be interviewed, or if interviewed would ever say anything about the Colt Dragoon.
As I healed my divorce was also proceeding. I had destroyed the soiled sheets because now I wasn’t interested in it being proven that Antonella was the one having an affair with my wife, and I was proceeding on irreconcilable differences so it made no difference in the divorce.
Despite numerous attempts by Sharon to contact me both by herself or through her attorney I resisted. I still had feelings for her, and was actually grateful that she had offed Antonella and his thugs (which I assumed that she had), but the treachery and disrespect were too much for me to overcome. That is I refused to see her until my attorney called me one day, about five months after I had filed, and said “Sharon is refusing to cooperate and maintains that her attorney will definitely be able to get the judge to order counselling if you refuse to meet with her.”
“That’s bullshit, isn’t it?” I replied.
“Her attorney is a straight-shooter and she is not yet at liberty to tell me why she is certain that she’ll get counselling ordered but I believe her. There’s something fishy going on,” my attorney responded.
After I thought for a while I asked “How long would I have to meet with her?”
“She says for an hour — but not a second less; no walking out.”
I sighed. My feelings were complex; I wanted to get the divorce over with and restart my life; but yet I had feelings for Sharon; and I was bummed from the conversations I had had with her parents Bill and Debby and my parents; and I never wanted to see her again, but yet desperately wanted to see her. Finally I groaned “OK; noon this coming Saturday at our house; no attorneys or anyone else present; one hour, timed.”
************
It was with trepidation that I walked up to the front door of what was still my house, co-owned with Sharon, Saturday at 11:58 a. m. I almost chickened out but then took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
I was happy that she didn’t hit me with the trite expression “You know it’s still your house, you could have just come in.” Instead she simply opened the door and said “I’m glad to you see you punctual as usual” as she waved me in.
At first I didn’t get a good look at her as I entered because she was standing behind the door. When she closed the door and I did get a good look I almost fainted.
I didn’t almost faint because she looked bad, or because she looked absolutely no different than the last time that I saw her and I expected her to have changed.
Well, I guess she did look different but not in the way I expected.
She was in maternity clothes.
She tried humor as I stood there startled with my mouth agape. “You don’t look so good — and with your mouth wide open a bug is sure to fly down your throat — so why don’t you sit and I get you a club soda; that’s what I’m having.”
I sat down, my mind swirling. I didn’t know what would be worse, if she told me that the kid was mine, or someone else’s; and I wasn’t sure that I wouldn’t bolt either way. While still in a stupor she brought me a can of Canada Dry and sat down across from me.
“I wanted this face-to-face for a very obvious reason,” she started out as she sipped her own can of club soda. “I don’t expect you to forgive and forget, but I want you to have no doubt that you are the father of the little girl growing in my belly.” With that she got up and plucked a couple of sheets of paper off of the coffee table in front of her, walked over to me, and handed them off.
I perused the sheets carefully; if she had really used my DNA for the test I was the father. “I’ll have to have my own test done,” I casually replied; “at the same time I’d like you to have an STD test,” I continued.
Sharon flinched slightly, but then quietly said “OK.”
“I don’t see this changing the divorce,” I continued although in a less harsh voice than I would have if she hadn’t been pregnant, “it just means that I’ll have to pay child support.”
That caused her to burst into tears. I didn’t offer her any comfort. After she regained her composure I asked “Do you have anything else to say? You have thirty three minutes left in your one hour.”
Sharon sighed deeply and then with regained composure said “My unexpected pregnancy really screwed my hormones up. I didn’t even know that I was pregnant; all I knew was that I was screwed up. If you will recall I went about a month where I wanted to fuck you every day; well at the same time this horndog bad boy client at work suddenly looked appealing to me so I fucked him three times, the third one was when you caught me.”
I was skeptical but didn’t say anything.
After another deep sigh Sharon continued. “After you caught me, and when I started throwing up in the morning, I went to my OB/GYN. Not only did she do a pregnancy test but she tested all of my hormone levels. She was blown away by the results.”
“Are you trying to say that pregnancy made you promiscuous?” I snapped.
“My OB/GYN said that there are several reported — albeit very rare — cases in the literature where pregnancy has made a faithful woman promiscuous. Since the cases are so rare she couldn’t really compare my hormone levels with those in actual suspected cases, but she said that it was possible. She thinks that my past bad boy phase combined with the hormonal changes could have been the reason. I’m not trying to make excuses, but I want you to know that hormones could have been a real contributing factor.”