by Shayne Ford
“Fish or steak?”
I flick my gaze up.
“Huh?”
“What would you like to eat?”
“Um... Fish is good.”
“Is everything okay?” he asks, noticing my repeat glances at his hand.
“Yes, yes... Everything is fine.”
“Wine?”
“Yeah... Sure.”
He pours wine before he takes a seat. Furtively, I watch his fingers, anxious to come up with an explanation.
We eat while making banal conversation, our interaction smooth without the slightest animosity. I almost expect him to propose me to go to bed with him when he excuses himself and heads to the shower.
I peel off my clothes as well, and spend a few minutes in the second bathroom, taking a shower.
I walk out a few minutes later. A robe goes over my pajama before I step into my slippers.
The water is still running in the other bathroom when I enter the bedroom. I turn the lights on and search the room. His clothes are tossed on a chair. I pat his pockets looking for his phone.
I can’t find it.
My gaze sweeps the nightstands before I run downstairs and check the hallway.
No trace of it.
Silently, I rush back.
He must’ve taken it to the bathroom.
I take a few steps toward the door. I freeze and hold my breath, listening in silence. The water still runs and it sounds as if no one is under the stream. I glue my ear to the door.
A soft hum wafts through the air. It’s almost imperceptible. And then I hear his voice, barely audible, peppered with fragments of words here and there.
A soft laughter comes from his phone. I hear his chuckle too.
A step back takes me away from the door. I look at it for a few long seconds before I spin around, grab a book from a shelf and roll onto the bed.
There’s no way I’ll spend the night with him here. That doesn’t mean that I don’t want confirmation.
Twenty minutes later, he walks out of the shower. Based on the surprise washing over his face, he wasn’t expected me to wait.
His gaze slips away from me, while mine flicks down to his hands.
The phone is nowhere in sight. He peels off his robe and sets it next to his clothes before he slides onto the bed.
“Do you mind turning on the reading lamp on your nightstand?” he asks courteously. “I would like to catch some sleep.”
His voice strikes me as tired. His grin as well.
“Sure. No problem. Actually, I’ll go downstairs,” I say, slipping off the bed.
“Thanks,” he mutters, his eyes already closed.
Quietly, I turn the ceiling light off and slip outside before I close the door behind me.
I wait in the kitchen for about ten minutes or so, and when I hear him snoring, I fish a small flashlight from a drawer and make the trip back.
Tiptoeing I enter the bedroom again. I leave the door open as I run the narrow beam of light over the furniture. His phone poses no interest to me. I can’t guess his password anyway. I near his nightstand and inspect the surface.
I wonder if he has taken his ring off.
I move a couple of books around before I see it. A small scrap of expensive metal that no longer holds any magic.
With one smooth motion, I sweep it off the nightstand and slither outside. It takes me minutes to make my bed on the sofa in my office.
I sink into the couch, my laptop next to me. I check the call logs on the phone company first to confirm my suspicion. No surprise there. The person he was talking to a few moments ago is none other than that woman.
Just to make it official, I grab my phone and call the number.
It rings three times before the sensual voice of a woman slithers into my ear. Her timbre is lined with a smile, making me wonder what I have caught her doing.
To erase any suspicion, I don’t hang up on her but make up a person and ask if she’s there, then I expect her to dismiss me. She does just that, and with this, I rest my case.
I let the phone slide onto my desk, and sling my gaze up to the ceiling.
What have we become?
There’s not a trace of rage in me, only sadness when I realize that we’ve been walking different paths for some time now.
Why didn’t he tell me?
Why didn’t I?
For a moment, I muse over my options.
There are things I need to know before we end all this charade.
I scoop out his wedding ring from my pocket and also fish out the ring that Sebastien sent to me.
I place them on the table, side by side, making sure I know which one is which. They look the same. I pick the one that he was wearing and check the inside of the band. I find my name engraved and our wedding date.
I go back to the one I pulled out of the jewelry pouch and study it as well. The font is identical, as is the polish. I don’t need to be an expert to figure out that they came from the hands of the same jeweler.
I carefully check the entire band. And then I spot it. A small scratch on the ring that Sebastien has found. On the exterior, right across from my name.
I even remember the moment Allan put a dent in it. It was way back after we got married. We were drunk on love and perhaps we had one too many glasses of wine that evening. We kissed in front of the main door, and his hand slid against the brick wall as I briefly lost my balance.
But why would he replace it? And why didn’t he tell me?
Although the most baffling question still is, how did Sebastien got his ring?
I call the jewelry shop Monday afternoon after Allan leaves on a business trip for the West Coast.
The owner remembers me, and sure enough, he has a recollection of my husband placing a recent order with him. I praise his work, of course, and tell him that my husband made me a pleasant surprise replacing the lost piece, and then I ask him if he remembers what made him ask for a duplicate?
The man acts a little surprised at first, and then he wants me to promise him that I won’t divulge their secret. I assure him that I won’t, and he gets ready to spill it out.
“It’s quite common,” he says, and I’m all ears. “He lost it one of the business trips, and he didn’t want to upset you.”
“Why would he think such a thing?” I mutter, trying to alleviate the man’s concerns as well.
“Husbands know that wives becomes suspicious in circumstances like this,” he says.
“I see.”
I thank him and hang up the phone.
Then I call Viola.
One hour later, I sit on the couch in her living room, a cup of coffee and a glass of water on the table in front of me.
I’m wrestling with my scarf, trying to remove it from my neck when I start to speak.
“Please don’t tell mom.”
“Tell what?” she asks as she takes a seat in one of the armchairs.
“Allan is having an affair,” I say, irritation flowing through my voice.
The corners of her mouth lift slowly.
“Allan?” she asks incredulously. “Your Allan?”
“He’s not mine.”
Her hands flick up.
“Sorry, wrong choice of words. Who is she?”
“I have no idea.”
“How did you find out?”
“Well... It’s a long story,” I say and take a long breath. “I started to have a suspicion a while back… He was traveling too much, and he had no preoccupation with our life as a couple. Lack of sex was part of it. You know…The works.”
“Oh...”
“Yeah... And then someone tipped me off that he lost his wedding band.”
“Lost it?”
“Yeah. Something like that. Allan didn’t say anything to me. Not that he lost it, and sure enough not that he had it replaced. I spoke to our jeweler this afternoon, and the man confirmed that Allan had placed an order for a duplicate. It wasn’t cheap either. The jeweler thought that Al
lan kept it a secret because he didn’t want to upset me. I think he might have lost it in a situation that could’ve incriminated him, so he wanted to cover his tracks.”
“At least, he went to great length to keep it secret.”
I can’t tell for sure if I detect a smile in her voice or not.
“You don’t seem to be too affected,” she says.
“I’m not.” My voice is frosted. “Whatever he had for me a while back is no longer there. And I feel the same when it comes to him,” I say, moving my eyes to the cup of coffee.
I lift it to my lips but ponder for a moment before I take a sip.
“What do you plan on doing?” she asks, noticing my hesitation.
“To be honest, I have no idea,” I mutter, setting the cup back on the table.
“Why don’t you talk to mom? You have to tell her eventually.”
“I know what she’d say to me.”
She tips her head to the side, tossing me a questioning look.
“She’d be offering me an example from her life. She’d be praising the way she’s been living since she’s gotten the divorce. Living life on your own is the way to go.”
“I don’t think there’s another choice.”
“No, no. I know. I’m all for it. That’s not my problem. The only thing I want is to learn something from it. I want to know how we got here. And I want to know if it had anything to do with me or not.”
“These things, Tess...”
She slowly shakes her head.
“You know they have a life of their own. You can’t stop someone if they set their mind on doing something, no matter what. Mom couldn’t stop dad.”
“I know. The thing is, I wasn’t faithful either,” I say, expecting a reaction.
Nothing reads on her face.
“Perhaps, this thing between the two of you was doomed from the start.”
“That’s a possibility,” I say.
“Did he say anything to you?”
“No. And that’s curious to me. He doesn’t seem to rush to get his freedom back, although I can tell that he has fallen for that woman.”
“You don’t know that.”
I flick my gaze at her.
“Yes, I do.”
“Maybe she’s not free as well,” she tosses at me.
“You think?”
I take another swig of coffee.
“Yeah... That could explain why he’s not in a hurry.”
“You mean... He’s playing the field, waiting to see which way things go?” I ask, setting the cup on the table.
“Mmm-hmm. Something like that.”
“Even if he does, I don’t think he does it conscientiously.”
“Probably not...”
She pauses, letting a moment of silence to slip between us.
“Do you know anything about her?” she asks.
“No. I tried to find out her name, but her phone seems to be registered to someone else.”
“Have you tried to follow him?”
My eyebrows flick up as I look at her incredulously.
“Allan?”
“Yeah...”
“No, no. I wouldn’t do that. Besides, I don’t think they meet locally. He’s almost never home.”
“Do you think she lives somewhere else?”
“I can’t tell for sure, but I suspect she does. I think they get together when he travels for business.”
“Which supports my theory that she is not free.”
“If she isn’t how can she justify her long trips to her significant other?”
“Perhaps she is someone he met through his work, and she travels as well.”
I shrug.
“I don’t know. It could be... They talked on the phone last Friday at the party. And then he left and came home the next day. He said it was work. I say it was her.”
“Perhaps she was in town, visiting.”
“Maybe... I don’t really care.”
We both go quiet again.
“I’m sorry,” she says after a while.
“No, no. Don’t be. Maybe it’s all for the better.”
She pauses for another moment while I take a sip of water.
“What about the other man?”
A bitter smile comes to my lips. It tastes like tears.
I fight the emotion back.
“Is he, um...?”
She does a little suggestive gesture.
“Yeah. That’s him.”
“What happened?”
She picks a cookie from a colorful plate.
“Nothing. He’s sort of gone.”
“Sort of?”
I nod.
“He just stopped following me around.”
A grin creases her lips.
“That sounds like a fourth grade story.”
I breathe out chuckle.
“Yeah, something like that. Seemingly, I have a good hand when I pick them.”
“So did you talk to him after all? Did you get any answers?”
“I tried, but we’re not in that kind of relationship.”
Her lips form a perfect O as her fingers fly to her mouth.
“Oh, excuse me... How old is he again?”
“Old enough to know better. He’s just not that kind of guy.”
She gives me a thumbs up.
“Way to go, Tess.”
“That’s what I said,” I mutter, smiling bitterly again.
She studies my face for a few moments.
“So what do you plan to do?”
I slowly shake my head.
“I don’t know. Wait.. I guess? What would you do in my place?”
She takes another cookie and munches on it as she ponders over the answer.
“I don’t know... Throw Allan’s stuff out of the window and burn it in front of my house,” she says, smiling.
We share a chuckle.
“Sounds like a great plan.”
“It does, doesn’t it?”
My grin withers away.
“I’ll have to find more work,” I say seriously. “And move out perhaps.”
“Move? Why would you want to move? It’s your house. He needs to move out.”
“I’m sure he will. It’s just that I don’t think I want to live there for a while. Plus, I can rent it and get some extra cash.”
She tips her chin down in agreement.
“Yeah... That sounds good.”
“Anyway. I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I just need to consider all my options.”
“I think you should talk to mom as well.”
She pauses.
“At least, give her a heads up...” she says as she senses my hesitation.
“I will.”
17
TESS
“I think you should wait, and see where this thing is going,” my mom says, taking us both by surprise.
“Mom?? How can you say that to her?” Viola tosses at her.
Come to think of it my mom always had a soft spot for Allan.
“You didn’t even wait for our father,” my sister argues.
My mom dismisses her with a flick of a hand.
“It was different.”
“How?”
“It just was,” mom says before she sinks her spoon in a cup of fruit yogurt. “Your dad found a woman much younger than me. I couldn’t compete with that, nor did I want to. Besides, I had enough of his grumbling and moodiness. I always felt he had taken me for granted, and it was time for me to try something else.”
Viola pushes off the kitchen counter and comes to the table, a cup of fresh fruit in her hand.
“Want some?” my mom asks, looking at me.
“No, I’m good.”
I pick up Luna from the floor. She quickly curls up in my lap.
My mom sets her spoon down.
“But that’s not the case with you, Tess. He’s never treated you badly.”
“Aside from the fact that he’s in love with another woman,” Viola throw
s at her, annoyed.
Mom dismisses her with a pointed look.
“We all are at one point or another. And it’s mainly in our head,” mom says, sharing her pearls of wisdom.
“Is it, now?” I ask.
“Uh-huh,” she says, pointing with her index finger in my sister direction. “And she is exhibit number one. How many time have you been in love, Viola?”
I see the frustration on my sister’s face.
“This is not about me. I wasn’t married to any of those men.”
“And that’s exactly my point. He is still Tess’ husband.”
“The husband of the year,” my sister mumbles, irritated.
“Listen... I am not saying to look the other way. Concessions have a bitter taste. I know all that. And in the end, you will do what you have to do, but don’t rush it. That’s all I’m saying. Talk it out. Try to figure out if there’s anything worth saving.”
Silent grows at the table, both looking at me.
My eyes dart back and forth as I slowly shake my head.
“I don’t think there’s anything left to be saved,” I say.
My sister’s eyes widen as she senses me so close to confessing.
I stop right there.
“I’ll think about it,” I mutter, moving my eyes away from them, signaling that I’m done with this conversation.
An hour later, I arrive home, a quiet house waiting for me.
A text message flickers on my phone screen as I enter the hallway.
Allan: I’m at the office. I’ll be late. Don’t wait for me.
I turn the lights on, kick off my shoes off and saunter into my office.
I freeze in the doorway.
What. The. Fuck.
Several bouquets of camellias fill colorful vases. One sits on my desk, the other two on the coffee table and the window sill, respectively.
A gasp falls from my lips.
How...?
How did he get in?
I take a few steps toward the middle of the room, suspiciously glancing around.
This man knows no boundaries. Perhaps, he knows it but doesn’t give a shit.
I keep searching the room. My desk, the sofa. The computer.
Has he left anything else? Some piece of information, or a message, something to turn my life upside down?
How come he’s back?
What made him change his mind all of a sudden?
And more importantly...
What does he want from me?
