This is where he should have stopped. Any sane person would have. He’d gone to the casino on a whim and in two nights walked away with enough money to eliminate the need for a second job. There was no reason to put any of that money at risk.
But the rush of throwing down chips and waiting for fate to render judgment could not easily be given up. Neither could the attention of spectators, those casino-dwellers who were too chicken (or well-reasoned) to risk their own money and instead lived vicariously through Seth’s brazenness. They cheered his wins and groaned at his losses, and sometimes a sexy young woman would rest her hand on his shoulder and squeeze when the dealer busted. In these moments Seth felt as though the darkness was banished forever. Sometimes it seemed he’d never known darkness in the first place.
Despite all this, he missed his wife. And one night, riding high after another great run, he wondered if he might purchase Natalie’s happiness with two infinity diamond bands to wear on either side of her wedding ring. He presented the gift to her over an expensive steak dinner. She could have swallowed the rings and he wouldn’t have been surprised. Instead, she cried. She hugged him and played footsie under the table, and on the way home performed sexual acts on him while he drove.
A few days later, when Natalie asked how he had paid for the gift, Seth smoothly invented a surprise bonus for all the extra hours he’d put in at the office. This answer induced a new bout of tears, during which Natalie apologized for being unsupportive and admitted insecurities of her own: She no longer felt sexy since bearing children and refused to believe Seth could, either. It was only a matter of time, she feared, before he would leave her for someone else. The way Seth responded was to push Natalie to the bed and make love to her, to breathe sweet words into her ear until she fell asleep in his arms.
The next day, when he should have gone to work at the bottling company, Seth was inspired to visit the casino instead. He bet modestly and intelligently and managed to earn back a quarter of what he’d spent on the diamond bands. A few days later he quit the part-time job. What was the point of backbreaking labor when he could earn a lot more money and have a lot more fun at the casino? Sure, he would suffer losing streaks, every gambler did, but by then all Seth had to do was break even until the big promotion came through. Then he could stop forever.
But that wasn’t what happened. Losing nights began to outnumber winners and so began the long descent. By the time he finally landed the promotion, this additional income was only a fraction of what he was betting weekly at various casinos. By then he was also making regular trips to New Orleans, where the bets grew bigger, and where the losses proved even more staggering.
“My girlfriend,” he said to Natalie, the blood in his face rising. “You think I have a girlfriend.”
“I know you have a girlfriend. And now you can’t even call to ask how she’s doing.”
“How do you know this, Nat? Where did you come by your scandalous gossip?”
The moral certainty in her eyes, that dark light, seemed to dim a little. The magnitude of her wrongness calmed him.
“Yes, I looked through your phone!” she barked. “What did you expect after all your goddamned sneaking around? And I’m glad I did, because now at least I know the truth!”
“You don’t know anything. You have no idea what I’ve done for this family.”
“Don’t try to weasel out of this. I saw all the calls she made to you. Did you break up with her? Are there two girls nagging you now instead of just one?”
“JJ isn’t a woman, for God’s sake.”
“So you do know who I’m talking about!”
“Yes. And by the way, I also snooped. Thanks for sharing your feelings with a high school boyfriend instead of talking to me.”
By now the certainty in her eyes was gone, but the anger was not. Natalie considered her answer a long time before she replied.
“Thomas is an old friend. At the reunion I was so distraught I finally broke down and told him everything. I had to talk to someone, Seth, since you weren’t talking to me.”
“But everything you told him is bullshit, Natalie. I’ve never cheated on you.”
“How can you stand there and lie to me? We’ve been married for eleven years!”
“I am not lying to you!” he bellowed.
“All right, then. Where do you go? Because I know it’s not just work.”
His hands were squeezing themselves involuntarily and Seth forced himself to stop.
“Some of it was work. I took a part time job when we found out you were having twins.”
“A second job? Doing what?”
“Delivering soft drinks.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I have the pay stubs to prove it.”
“But that was so long ago. Didn’t you get a raise when the boys were born?”
“I did. But not in time.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to worry,” he explained. “I wanted you to feel secure.”
“So you thought it was better to lie to me?”
“I didn’t want you to think I wasn’t good enough for you.”
“But you can’t still be working the second job. Not when you travel all the time.”
She paused here, and the look on her face softened as she waited for Seth to explain himself.
“Please talk to me,” Natalie said. “Help me understand. Because living with you has been hell the past few years. It wasn’t just the hours you were gone, Seth. Even at home you were a ghost of yourself, moping around with this empty look in your eyes, like you didn’t want to be a part of the family anymore. If you were working two jobs for me—for us—I can only assume you resented me for it. We should have sent the boys to daycare. I should have gone back to work.”
He couldn’t know if Natalie was performing or if her description of his behavior was accurate. What he did know was he’d been living with the burden of his failures for so long that now, as he prepared to tell his story, Seth could already anticipate the freedom of no longer carrying the secret alone. Of no longer being stooped by the burden of his insurmountable debt. Of being granted the second chance at life he’d wished for so many times. His heart thundered in his chest. His fingers tingled. His mouth tasted like pennies.
“Let me tell you why I was really home from work this morning.”
By the time Seth was done, the two of them were sitting next to each other on the sofa, staring at the dark television, drained by the exposure of so much heartache. Natalie grabbed a bottle of caramel vodka from the freezer, and when she returned with it, he was shaken by the hollow look in her eyes.
“Honey,” she said after a swallow of vodka. “What is this darkness? Where does it come from?”
“It’s been there since I was a kid. I’m always afraid the worst is going to happen, so why not just get on with it?”
“But you—”
She began to cry again. Seth tried to put his arm around her shoulder, but she shrank away from him.
“I can’t get this image out of my head where you’re sitting in the car, looking at pictures of us, waiting to die.”
How good it felt to hear her say this! For someone to express empathy for his pain!
“How could you do that? Just skip out and leave us all alone?”
“Nat—”