The Art of The Affair

1

"Hermione, can you come to the toilet?  I forgot to grab a roll of paper."

I lower my book - the one I've been trying to read, unsuccessfully, for the past few minutes - and push myself out of my comfy chair.  I sigh a heavy sigh because my husband never checks before he sits down.  He relies on me to do all of the little things like that.

"Toilet paper doesn't appear magically," I say cordially as I entered the smelly bathroom.  "You have to check it from time to time.  I can't think of everything."

He apologises and I know he's sincere about it, but nothing changes.  He doesn't get it.  I'll be bringing him paper for the rest of his life, along with doing a million other things around the house that wouldn't get done without me.

I return to my chair and try to read again but it isn't long before I give up and slap the bookmark into the crevice between the pages and toss it aside.  I'm still staring across the room when he emerges a few more minutes later from his 45 minute-long bathroom escape.  He apologises for making me wait and then impatiently waits for me to take a two-minute pee.  By the time I meet him at the door and slip into my shoes, I'm more than biting my tongue: I'm gnawing on it.

We're driving out of the city today for his father's birthday.  I stare out my window at the blurry scenery and my mind wanders to a place that I can't escape from lately.  It's a deep, dark place where I hide the thoughts and feelings I'm ashamed of.  I have no one I can talk to about them since my best friend - Ginny - is Ron's sister, and the rest of my friends are his as well.

We all grew up together, went to school together, became adults together, and only ever spent any real time apart while I was away at university.  Even our families have lived in the same tiny place for several generations.  Ron was my first crush, and we married after I graduated.  Everyone had wanted it to happen, expected it to, even.  His parents and mine had provided the basis for my model of a happy marriage, and I'd thought it was great.  Instead of passion or fights, I'd only ever seen friendship and trust and respect.  I'd thought that was what it was all about.  

And marriage was supposed to be forever.  

There's always been a stigma against wives and mothers wanting to divorce for many reasons.  Aside from religion, I suppose there are unspoken reasons as well.  For one, there's the fear of "if it can happen to them, it can happen to me".  People also feel safer with predictability, and divorce pulls the rug right out from underneath the feet of predictability.  People are also saddened by divorce and don't like to see nice people split up.

But aside from what others think, there are the self-inflicted wounds that fester before anything even happens.  The feeling like a failure, the guilt over broken promises witnessed by family and friends...it's the heaviest burden and the suffering is solitary.

It shouldn't have to be that way.  Sometimes divorce is actually a healthy step instead of staying together and fighting.  But divorce isn't something your friends and family will rally behind you on.  If they would only ask "how can I help" instead of shaming you, but that's not reality.

So taking into consideration just how tightly intertwined our mutual lives are, and how everyone would turn on me, and my strong desire not to hurt my husband, I'm just stuck.  I've been stuck for nearly ten years now.

All afternoon, I feel as if I'm watching everything from outside of my body.  The thought of hurting any of these good people - of being the one person to destroy the perfect alliance and blending of two families and several friendships - is almost unbearable.  

As if this all isn't monumentally enough, there are the pubs.  A couple of years after I graduated with an accounting and business degree, there had been an accident.  I'd been at work but Ron and his older twin brothers - George and Fred - had been hit at high speed.  Fred had been killed instantly, and after the bones and cuts had finished healing, George's mind had not.  It had been Ron's idea to take the settlement money and invest in a pub that was for sale on the east side of the city.  He'd thought it would be good to give his brother something to focus his energy on - a distraction of sorts, which had turned out to be the best thing.  In a couple of years, they'd bought two more.  Ron had asked me to quit my job and take care of the books for all three places.

Of course I'd said yes.  Everyone had assumed I would, even though I was giving up more than just a salary: I was making myself financially dependent on Ron.  

But I'd tried to see the positives, like the freedom of setting my own hours and working mostly from home.  The job itself was easy, at least to me, and I'd quickly grown bored with it.  My brain felt like it was turning to mush and I hated having to spend any time in the places where I didn't fit in.  Anytime I had to pop in for any reason, customers and employees alike would give me that look, like what are you doing in here, or are you lost?

And yet again, if this all wasn't super-monumentally enough, the baby pressuring had been in full swing for several years now.  Though I'm an only child, Ron's parents had had seven children.  My parents were eager for me to get started while Ron and his were downright pushy about it.  There were always smiles and chuckles that had accompanied the comments but there was never anything funny about it.  I felt backed into a corner, and it was the only thing I'd ever stuck to my guns on.

"You're 34, dear.  Did you know the chance of having genetic abnormalities goes up next year from 35% to 45%?  And then to 60% by age 38?" - Molly, Ron's mother.

"63% is your chance of conception right now," my mother would add, proving that they've both done extensive homework on this, and that they've coordinated and pooled their joint efforts.  "Next year it'll be 52%."

Ginny was equally guilty, always mentioning that someone was on baby number three that we'd gone to school with or holding up baby clothes in shops, giving them a little side-to-side shake with a hopeful expression.  

And every three months when I would go in for my shot, Ron would fall silent in the days prior to and after my appointment.  It was like walking on eggshells.

It was hard to be upset with any of them.  Their hearts were in the right place, deep down.  I just wished that they'd care more about what made me happy than themselves.  Wasn't that what love really was supposed to be about?  In my experience, love meant being self-sacrificing, and putting everyone first.  

I, Hermione Weasley, have been putting everyone's expectations and needs and happiness before my own for too long.  No one has been looking out for mine.  No one is putting me first.  It's a lonely place to be in, and I'm there all alone.  There's no one I can talk to - not a single soul.  I lie awake at night thinking about the nearing fork in the road and it really is this simple:

I'm going to have to make a choice soon.  Either seal my fate and give in, or lose everyone I love.