Matters of Gravity

Episode #31

Holiday festivities had come and gone as the joyous occasion they are supposed to be – even for atheists. The girls and Johnny were back in school. Julie had gone down to the bay area to help resolve some issues in the department.

"Is Ben in trouble again?" Roger asked Maria, assuming her relationship with Julie would have precipitated such information.

"I don't think so. I think it's just some paperwork they'd like her to help them out with for funding." Then she asked, "Did you see Jeanie yesterday on your run?"

"Yeah."

"'Yeah'?" she mimicked. "Well, how has she survived the holidays with Robert keeping Johnny longer than they had agreed? She said he just got him back in time for school today."

"Oh. I didn't know that; she told you that?"

"Don't you talk when you run together? Or weren't you running?"

It was an awkward moment – that indeterminant amount of time again – during which Roger was in the unfamiliar territory of 'what does she know?' and 'what should I say?' Finally he just blurted that out. "What do you know? And what should I say?"

Maria virtually doubled over laughing at his awkwardness. "What would you have done if she had collapsed with a heart attack while she was still naked and sweaty, you had to call 911, and get to work on CPR while you were pulling clothes onto a limp body?" She could barely get it all said, she was laughing so hard.

Roger scowled with anger, not seeing the slightest amount of humor in what she had said. Finally a vindictive retort came out as, "I probably would have called you and asked how you did it with Eddy." All of a sudden, he too was convulsed with laughter

Still laughing her hardest, Maria said, "Roger, I swear to God you are an emotional cripple."

"Of course I am," he said trying his damnedest to maintain a scowl.

"So have you wanted to tell me ever since we got back from our Seattle experience, or were you waiting for me to ask?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know? Now since you are Roger Bonn, clone of Raymond

Bonn, I believe you because you have never learned a clever way to lie."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that if you can't figure out what in hell you want to happen, how do you expect what you want to happen to, in fact, happen?" she virtually yelled.

"I suppose 'I don't know' is the wrong answer to that, so my only correction is what I asked you in the first place: 'What do YOU know?' Then I'll have a better idea of 'What I should say?' isn't that the proper way that people lie?" He was able to laugh a little bit at this point before adding, "And... just to be clear, there is nothing I will not tell you and I told Jeanie that as far as I am concerned, she could tell you anything and everything about our relationship because I don't want to destroy your and my relationship... because I love you. Still... I have to say, I do love Jeanie as well. So go figure."

"I have," she said. "I did ask Jeanie by the way because it was easier to ask her than you, my own husband, so that's what I know, and me having to ask her about you is something we should fix, don't you think?"

"I do think so, yes."

"I love you too and I don't want our relationship to be compromised either. And, I guess you could say I love Jeanie too – in a different way, of course. But I'm a little pissed at her to tell you the truth. And you. I don't imagine any of this is transference even if she is your therapist – recused or not. I also know that we've all been through an awful lot, much of it together so that whether Jeanie or either of us recuse ourselves from a therapeutic role, we all have responsibility to each other. I know that your relationship with Jeanie intensified quite innocently and that once out of the tube, toothpaste won't go back in – I know that – especially after you've already brushed your teeth with it." She laughed at Roger again. "I think she told me everything including that you told her the cloning secret and that she could tell me anything about the two of you, so I know it all except for how exhilarating it must have felt for you to be with another woman intimately... for what, only the second time in your life?" She hesitated. "But I can imagine in detail that it had to have felt great. So if you want to go over to be with Jeanie in the evening or any other time, or to spend the entire night sometimes, it's fine. But when you're here and in my arms and in our bed, be here, really here, not there or anywhere else. Okay? I don't want to play a role I'm not aware of playing. Got it?"