Their Secret Wife (Shadows Between Lies Book 2)

by Nicky Webber

When they returned home, she looked up Do-it-Yourself Divorce. It was easy enough to print off the forms, and thankfully there were no longer children involved. The more she researched, the more distressed she became. She wanted an uncomplicated divorce. The best way to achieve this was to let Fred keep everything, and she would take her clothes, laptop, and toothbrush. She spent the next couple of months picturing herself living in a compact apartment with a bed, desk, and chair. Not ideal, but far less annoying housework. Could she live like that for the rest of her life? It was now her turn to question her sanity.

  After a few months, Fred and Maddy’s life fell back into the same rhythm as before, two isolated house-mates sharing meals and a roof. One took care of cooking and domestic needs while the other paid the mortgage and mowed the lawns once a fortnight. In some ways, it was the very lifestyle she craved, easy. Their roles were unintentionally conventional. Life just fell into place that way. So why rock the boat? She blamed herself, as her compliance allowed him the power to control the TV remote and ignore all domestic demands. She noted many marriages seemed void of genuine love and, so far, no one had died from living in similar circumstances. Fred and Maddy still shared laughter at the madness of humanity and thought in similar ways about politics and economics. Everything was very predictable and expectations, on both their parts, were mediocre to low. In this way, life would disappoint neither.

  One Saturday afternoon, when Fred returned from his bike ride, she begged him to come and see her new crop of acid-free tomatoes. It was her turn to walk ahead of him, as he rarely set foot in the garden. She thought she heard him speak and fleetingly turned around. But he didn’t look up. She continued along the backyard pathway, convinced she heard him ask: Are you bored with me? This question was so out of character that she held her silence. She didn’t hesitate. It was a loaded question, and she pretended not to hear him. She mulled it over, wondering what she should answer, and resolved to maintain the pretense of not having heard his words.

  When they first married, he made her promise never to ask him anything emotional. ‘Never ask me how I feel,’ he said, and twice he had to remind her. Since then, she stuck to her promise. But it was getting harder to comply as the years accumulated between them. Now she spent more time alone with him. None of the historical distractions of children, work demands or friends calling were available to soak up her energy and occupy her mind. Once a year he would text her cell phone with those three brief words and Maddy would forgive and forget minor transgressions. While he rarely voiced his love for her, she knew he loved her in his way. It was as much as he could muster, and all he could give was what she received. She understood now and would assuage her frustration with the thought that this was as good as it would ever get.

  They both stood looking at the plump tomatoes weighing down the plants in the garden. Fred made the noises and walked back into the house. But his unanswered question stayed with her. Maddy lay awake that night and woke up before dawn repeating his words, considering boredom and its place in marriage and its motivation for divorce. Her father had said after her engagement to Fred that the hard work in marriage begins when the lust wears off, as it always does.

  Two days later, Maddy considered that maybe the issue was merely boredom. They were just bored with each other. Life continued to play out in a predictable pattern. She tried to rationalize and find excuses to pin some meaning to their flat-earth marriage. All you had to do was look around. In almost every café, bored couples reading newspapers or their cell phones without exchanging a single word to one another during an entire meal.

  Simple, really. Over twenty-eight years of sharing one another’s company is enough to make anyone bored. Maybe that was all it was. Life was no longer electrifying and death-defying. They were both trapped in a repetitive domestic cycle, each knowing what the other was about to say or do. Fred fired up the bacon and eggs for his breakfast every second morning. At 7.10am, he would curse out loud as the second egg he cracked into the frying pan often resulted in a broken yoke. Maddy sat at the kitchen table waiting for his first word, that F-expletive, and then she knew he would eat his cooked breakfast 3.5 minutes later.

  ‘Remember when you asked me if you bore me?’ she mentioned over dinner when he had muted the television ads during one of his favorite programs.

  ‘No,’ he replied, frowning.

  ‘You know, you walked over to see the tomatoes, and you were behind me and asked if I was bored with you?’

  ‘No. I didn’t say that!’ He sounded almost angry.

  It was her turn to be perplexed, and she ran through the incident in her mind again. Had she dreamed it? Had it not really happened that way? ‘Are you sure?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah. I said nothing,’ Fred replied, mildly irritated.

  Maddy considered a question like that was way out of her husband’s natural realm of operation, never mind personal communication. She shook her head and had to accept his word for it. The last thing she wanted was to aggravate him again when his expected normal state is depressed and grumpy.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I must’ve imagined it.’ Maybe it’s just the male Y-Chromosome thing, she thought. Conversations with other females often seemed to replicate her own experience of living with a man.

  Fred clicked on the television remote to watch the rest of the World Series, leaving Maddy to draw her own conclusions. Was she finally going completely insane? It’s no wonder she was alone for much of her life and developing recurrent cabin fever. A wry grin flittered across her face. How weird, I need to take action and stop treading water. ‘Focus, Maddy,’ she told herself out loud, but no one was listening.

  CHAPTER 26

  Confession

  Fred carefully poured a Red Road Pinot Noir into two large glasses and handed one to Maddy. He had met the winemaker, Joe Freeman, on tour with Logan several years earlier, traveling through the Californian wine region. Maddy thought marketers would love Fred for his dedicated brand loyalty. She sat silently in the lounge, almost hugged by the over-stuffed leather couch. She looked pale and distracted. He could tell she was finally going to explain. The thought had heightened his unease over the previous weeks, as he imagined all kinds of strange scenarios. He used avoidance and silence to maintain more restraint, but she now looked determined. She glanced up suddenly and caught him looking directly at her.

  ‘We need to talk,’ she said in a harsh whisper. The implications of her few words were raw and loud, ringing in his ears.

  He walked over to the patterned armchair facing her, and sat down. Her words were his worst nightmare. Fred knew this conversation would never end well. Finally, Maddy attempted to appease him, he thought, waiting for any spark or clue to lead him away from marital confrontation.

  She paused, taking a breath, and glanced down into her half-empty glass.

  ‘Well? What is it?’ He asked, controlling his facial expression, maintaining a look of passive indifference. This moment would be the proverbial calm before the tumultuous storm.

  ‘I’ve thought of many ways I can say this to you and how I can slowly unpack the story to mitigate the shock and pain you may feel.’

  He kept still. At her suggestion, the shock and pain started leaching into his face. This was more serious than Fred expected. He held his tongue and tried to slow his breathing. He sat forward, entirely focused on Maddy’s next sentence.

  ‘But there’s no simple way to explain after all the years we have shared.’ She sucked in a deep breath and blurted out. ‘I’ve been sleeping with Logan.’

  Fred made a noise, a cross between a gasp and a groan in utter disbelief followed by a kind of nervous laugh. ‘What? Who? You mean our Logan?’ he said.

  Maddy realized he didn’t quite get what she was saying. Her anxious words said out loud had not hit their target, and he apparently wanted to misunderstand. She had no choice, and so made a split-second decision to spell things out with exacting magnitude.

  ‘Yeah, I’ve been having
an affair with Logan. Our Logan, as you say.’ She stopped, taking the temperature of the room. Was he rising to anger or still flaying on the hook of disbelief, suspending reality in the cold light of her savage words. The direction of this conversation wasn’t unfolding, as she had imagined so many times over the previous weeks.

  Fred swallowed hard, clasping his hands together, waiting to hold on to something for security. Who better than himself. His own hands stabilizing the storm, the waves of emotion that rushed into his heart and seared his mind. He opened his mouth, gasping once or twice, and she waited in horror, thinking he was going into cardiac arrest. All color had drained from his face, and his pale eyes widened in fear. Was it fear or shock? It was hard to tell. Maybe an unholy combination of both. She felt sick. Sick to her core. She had to say something, explain somehow. Explain? What was there to tell? The insane powers of attraction, lust, and love had never faded between Logan and herself during all the years they had been together.

  She reached out and gently touched his shoulder, and he immediately shrugged her hand off, as if tasered by contact with her fingers.

  ‘Fred. Please, Fred.’ She spoke, but her voice was quieter than normal and seemed detached from her body. Her mouth was talking on her behalf and spoke as if from a long distance. ‘I can’t explain,’ she said.

  ‘Try for God’s sake!’ he shouted. Her words were like hot steel thrust into his chest.

  ‘I’m sorry, so sorry. I didn’t mean… you know I love you.’ She hesitated, knowing how ridiculous this sounded, given her confession.

  ‘Do you?’ he sneered. ‘Do you? You’ve got a hell of an unusual way of showing it!’

  ‘Please, please forgive me. I’ve always loved you…’

  He cut her off at the pass. ‘You’re unbelievable…’ His voice trailed off as the implications of their affair suddenly struck him. His best friend banging his wife! His voice grew louder as bitter anger infiltrated his entire being. ‘How long?’ he demanded, cold with fury. He was grasping the repercussions and the ongoing humiliation he would face from family, friends, work colleagues, and his children.

  ‘What does it matter?’ she replied, holding her voice steady, wanting to shove the bolted horse’s back behind the gate. What was she thinking? Silence and secrecy, as it had always been, now seemed the best option. But it was way too late for hindsight.

  ‘How long?’ He shouted. ‘I have a damn right to know after the years I’ve put into this marriage! You’ve made a mockery of most of my life.’ He fell silent, struggling to catch his breath and slow his panicked heart. ‘Of course, I knew you were both involved way back in our student days. I’m not an idiot! But now, this time? What are you saying, Maddy?’ He was cold, his eyes brutal, but his heart feared the worst. ‘How far back does this go?’ He suddenly looked stricken, fearful of her response.

  She gazed down at her lap. Tears filling her eyes. She faced the challenge of being honest and destroying him or manufacturing more lies to minimize the impact of her adulterous past. She was scrambling to think of ways to reduce the full implosion and failure of their marriage. Her miserable, helpless, needy, secretive, fake life made her sick. She covered her face with both hands and sobbed.

  ‘What about Mila? What do you think she would’ve made of this? She probably knew too.’ As if another sharper thought entered his head, he raised his eyebrows in alarm. ‘Were you sleeping with Logan while Mila was alive? God! Maddy, is that why she killed herself?’

  She shook her head and silently wept. She thought of Mila’s handwritten letter. Mila had forgiven her and Logan, but that made little difference now. She decided not to mention Mila’s letter, but allow him the space to vent. She deserved all his anger and humiliation by offering no excuses.

  ‘Through your selfish actions, I’ve lost the three people closest to me. Are we all going to crash and burn in your stupid paltry affair with him? The people closest to me, the friends I love, and you? What possessed you… and Logan? What a son of a bitch!’

  Maddy remained speechless. Being silent allowed him time to come to terms with her revelation. She didn’t have to wait very long.

  ‘Oh, my God. I lose the two most important people in my life because of your lack of restraint? Your absence of loyalty? Your damn inability to consider consequences? Is that it in a damn nutshell?’ He spat the last words at her, razor sharp, to meet their target. She sobbed in silence.

  ‘Well? How long have you been screwing my best friend this time? So how many other times were there over the years? What about the lies did you have to tell your girlfriend then?’ His voice was venomous and hot with rage.

  She took a deep breath and lied. ‘Not long. Maybe almost a year. I think.’

  ‘What? Are you telling me you’ve been screwing Logan for twelve months? Truly?’ He seemed to need a few moments for this to settle in his mind. ‘For God’s sake, Maddy! What the hell were you thinking?’

  ‘That’s just it, Fred. I wasn’t thinking and didn’t mean it to go so far. I’ve wanted to tell you many times.’

  ‘Didn’t mean it?’ He was shouting again, the full force of the pain and anger soaked into every muscle, every heart-broken cell in his aching body. His initial nausea transformed into a rage. ‘Give me a fucking break!’ He spluttered. ‘Didn’t mean to? So, you accidentally had his cock in your mouth for twelve long months while I was oblivious, on holiday, sharing meals, laughing and talking to you both?’ His contorted red face was close to hers, and tears welled in his eyes. She knew things had gone too far.

  ‘Fred!’ Maddy shouted, clear and direct. Holding his gaze with hers, she shifted her tone from contrite and submissive to hard and self-possessed. ‘I can’t change what’s happened. I am trying to explain. Trying to apologize. You can rant and threaten all you like, but the past won’t change.’

  He slumped back against the sofa, opposite Maddy. He lowered his voice. ‘What did you expect, Maddy? That I’d be the one swallowing hard?’

  She stared at him in shocked silence. A few moments of truce gave them time to draw battle lines and hone their terms of engagement.

  He was first to break the impasse. ‘Fuck off, Maddy. Get out of my sight!’ Her body jerked back, and the shocking jolt of his rejection contorted her tearful face. She stood up, not looking at her husband, and retreated from the room without another word.

  Fred leaned forward, his hands covering his face, and he sobbed uncontrollably.

  Maddy slept in Blake’s bedroom overnight and managed a few hours of broken sleep. She played out many scenarios and worried about Mila and how she would have taken the news if she were still alive. If only Mila were still here, always laughing. Her affair with Logan may never have reignited again. She knew Mila would have hated her for this, but was Mila’s death the cause that both Logan and Maddy uniting in their shared grief?

  Maddy hoped and prayed that Fred would eventually calm down, would see and understand how this situation had come about. Somehow, she needed to explain the context to Fred and tell him she had no intention of hurting him. But she had cowered when confronted with his anger.

  In the early morning she dreaded leaving her eldest son’s single bedroom with its family photos on the walls, smiling and happy at the beach. She feared the reaction of her sons and Logan’s daughters to this emotionally charged series of events. What would they make of this? Would Fred demand a divorce?

  Before speaking to Fred, she felt confident he wouldn’t go down that path, but now his reaction was far worse than she expected. She feared her marriage was now close to over forever. His anger and pride had seared his broken heart.

  Maddy heard Fred’s slippers padding on the timber kitchen floor. The coffee machine switched on and it started the usual morning ritual of spluttering and whining. She must get up, but all she wanted to do was run and hide. Maddy firmly believed she caused this marital mess. She had to front up. Mila’s voice inside her head began chastising her for avoiding marital confrontation. �
�Come on Maddy, Fred would’ve calmed down by now. He’ll get over it. I hope he’ll still be friends with Logan. He’s lost without me and will be more tormented without you both. Logan is going to pay the real price for your adultery.’

  It was true, thought Maddy, Mila had been right. Why throw the love and understanding they all shared out of the domestic window? She hated to think of it as adultery. It sounded so crude, a loaded toxic state no one wants to acknowledge. She loved Logan, and she also loved Fred. Surely there was some way they could heal their relationship and make things work for all three of them?

  Pulling herself out of bed, she looked at herself in Blake’s small-framed mirror above his chest of drawers. ‘What a horror!’ Maddy looked at herself with makeup smeared eyes and a pale face, blotchy and drained of all emotion. A Zombie. After showering and applying a little makeup to cover the disaster of a sleepless night, she gingerly came down the stairs into the kitchen. Fred was sitting at the wooden table, looking at his cell phone.

  ‘Morning,’ she said tentatively. ‘Are you okay?’

  He ignored her. She put a slice of bread in the toaster and waited in silence behind the kitchen island. Eventually, he raised his head and turned to look at her. Pain etched on both their faces as they stared at one another. A single tear formed in her eyes and trickled down one cheek, which she quickly smudged away with the back of her hand.

  ‘Fred, please try to forgive me,’ She said.

  ‘You know,’ he said in a normal, unemotional voice. ‘I’ve hardly slept all night, and I’m just not in the mood to rake over your guilt. Give me some time and space. That’s a luxury you and Logan had. You need to afford me the same advantage. I need to process this whole saga.’

  Maddy knew by his tone, silence was her only option. She looked away, back towards the stainless-steel toaster, taking an interminable amount of time to toast a single slice of whole wheat. Fred stood up, grabbed his keys from the counter, and left the house. He didn’t bang the front-door, but he drove off in a hurry, slamming the brakes in the old black 4WD as he hit the stop sign at the end of the street.