The man I love is gone replaced by a stranger.
I hide my swollen eyes behind sunglasses and give Camille a half-hearted wave as I walk in. She’s busy typing so she barely acknowledges my lack of manners.
Brynn’s seated at her desk, a gray suit today with a pinstriped blouse and sensible heels. She looks up as I pass. I manage a small smile and make my way past her. I don’t like employees seeing me like this. I scan my memory. I’ve only cried one other time at work when my mother died over ten years ago.
Sinking into my chair, I don’t bother opening the blinds, the room dark. I sit, unmoving, until there’s a knock at my door. It’s Brynn.
“Hi, Mrs. Adams.” She gives me a small smile. “I’m running downstairs for tea. You need anything?” I’m catatonic, staring at the picture of my family on my desk, wanting nothing more than to slam it against the wall and break it into a thousand pieces, the smiles now a reminder that we weren’t as happy as we thought. At least he wasn’t.
“Thanks, Brynn, maybe just a small iced coffee.” I give a slight nod. “You can just let them know to expense mine for me.” I’m in a trance, head in my hands when she comes back, iced coffee and tea in hand. She sets mine on my desk and stares at me, her blue eyes kind. “Mrs. Adams…” she says. “I don’t mean to pry…”
“Alastair.” I shudder. “No need for formalities, Brynn.”
“Alastair.” She inhales. “I don’t want to pry… you seem off today. You haven’t even taken off your sunglasses. Are you okay?” She’s young, probably never had a broken heart, shattered marriage, cheating ex. She’s just starting out in life. I reach my hand up to the frames of my shades. “Oh, man, I guess I’m just avoiding the sun today.” I don’t want to take them off in front of her, my red-rimmed eyes a dead giveaway of my tears but leaving them on will seem out of character.
“I’ll leave,” Brynn says hurriedly. “Should I hold your calls for a while?”
I appreciate her subtlety and nod. “Thanks, and yes, if you could for an hour.”
She sets the coffee down on a coaster and strides out shutting my door firmly behind her. I reach up to pull off my shades, smoothing my hair back into a tight bun in the process, trying to pull myself together. If I can’t pull a marriage together, my appearance certainly isn’t going to do the trick.
My cell’s buzzing, it’s him. I don’t answer.
The work phone starts beeping, the red light signaling a call. It’s his number on the screen. I don’t bother picking up. There’s nothing to say, and to bother me at my place of work is uncouth. Fucking asshole, I seethe, the ‘f’ word the only word on the tip of my tongue today when it comes to him. Steven keeps calling throughout the day, intermittently trying both my cell and work line. I turn my personal phone on vibrate, not bothering to check my messages.
He can play daddy for the day. Maybe he can tell his work slut that he’s ready to leave me.
They can leave our daughter with me and run off together. See if I care, the life I gave him, the labor I put into building a comfortable life for us up in smoke. My hands ball into fists. The fucking nerve of him.
A knock on my door around 1:00 p.m. brings Brynn back in. She saunters over to my desk with a small salad and a side of chicken. She gives me a small nod and sets down a bottled water.
I’m on the phone fielding a call about the questionable business practices of my new client. One media outlet brings up the daycare. I cringe, mentioning the prior statement that is now memorized about our saddened community. I explain as a fellow parent that at the end of the day, we still have to trust our daycare providers. Brynn pauses as she listens to my response. When I put the phone down, she’s standing near my desk, staring at my family photo, the perfect threesome, two adults with a well-adjusted child in the middle, all holding hands, the American dream. The desire to throw the frame at the wall and shatter it into a million pieces crosses my mind, a gut reaction to the fact that my husband of seventeen years didn’t seem to mind breaking our family in half. It’s not Liv’s fault, though, that her dad is a sham.
“Wow,” she murmurs. “You really know how to handle the media.”
I sigh. “Thanks for bringing me lunch, I appreciate it. Half the time I forget to eat.” She fingers the edge of the gold frame.
“You have such a beautiful family. It makes you think…”
“What does?”
“Just how awful some of these tragedies are that you have to handle as a PR firm. Defending people you know are bad.”
I consider her comment. “Everyone deserves to have their side told.”
She tilts her head. “I wish I could be approach PR that way.” She gives a small chuckle. “Maybe you’ll teach me the ropes, and I can learn how you do it.”
“It definitely takes some finagling. There’s truth to that.” I look down as my phone vibrates, the name Mara flashes on the screen.
“This is Alastair.” Brynn glances at me as I pick it up, mouthing ‘thank you’ for the lunch.
“Hey, lady, it’s Mara.”
“Hi, Mara, how’s it going?” I put a hand to my forehead, realizing I didn’t RSVP to a networking event she had a week ago.
“Hi, Alastair, you got a sec?” I can tell by the no-nonsense tone she has something on her mind, a ballsy businesswoman I met years ago when she was fairly new to the valley. Now her old boss retired, and she’s the one in charge. We became fast friends when we sat together at a charity event, our jokes about the dogs dressed in designer outfits and no shortage of her one-liners spewing out of her mouth.
“Sorry to bother you at work.” She’s contrite as if reading my mind. “I wanted to see if you had time to grab a drink this week.” I start to examine every excuse I can use to avoid my current state of affairs. I don’t want to discuss it. I’m worried I’ll lose my steel trap when I down a Cosmo and maybe subsequent ones.
I hesitate, twirling the phone cord, “I’d love to but...”
Mara interrupts me. “This is important. I could you tell you over the phone, but I’d rather see you in person.” There’s a sense of urgency in her voice. I involuntarily shudder. I’d never had her call my work number nor ask to see me with time being limited. “What night works?”
“How about tonight?” The last thing I want to do is go home to my husband, start the role of acting in front of our daughter, pretending he didn’t stab me in the back… and the heart.
5
I walk into the bar. She’s insisted we sit on the patio, the temperature now in the high sixties, the perfect outdoor weather. I typically love a cold glass of Chardonnay outside, my preferred method to relax after a long day of work and the summer heat has evaporated into a cool down.
Except on a day like today. I shouldn’t feel cold, my arms covered in goosebumps, my legs shaky and unsure. My stomach’s turning, adrenaline rushing through my veins, the five cups of coffee I gulped down to make it through this never-ending day. I’m on edge, and it’s a perfect storm. I don’t want to sit, don’t want to stay, thoughts keep floating to the surface racing through my mind.
Mara’s sitting at a table, always chic in a black sheath dress and bright blue pumps. Her tan legs muscular and long, her complexion always the same like she just returned from a tropical vacation. Her brown hair is pulled into a chignon, not a strand out of place. She has an affinity for jewelry—silver—and multiple chains and bracelets accessorize her outfit. She prefers black, the slimming color, not that there’s anything she needs to minimize. I always feel frumpy around her. She can make sweatpants and a messy bun look sexy.
She gives me a wave and a smile, standing up to greet me. Her tan arms envelop me for a second longer than usual. She smells like Mara—Chanel perfume and cigarettes, a bad habit she just can’t kick. She kisses my cheek. “Hi, love, it’s been too long.” She holds me at a distance and looks at my face, searching my eyes. I give her my best fake smile, one that shows my teeth but isn’t as heartfelt as it normally is.
“Thanks.” Usually, she beams when I compliment her, but today it seems forced. She motions across from her, and we sit. “I took the liberty to order us both margaritas.” I nod, internally wondering if my body can handle the sugar and salt without heaving, the flip-flops of my stomach and nausea going hand in hand today.
“I miss you,” she says, reaching across the table and grabbing my hand, the silver on her wrist clanking. “We don’t get together nearly enough.” Her touch feels strange, the warmth against my clammy palms like she’s searing me.
“I know,” I sigh. “I feel I’m like running a mile a minute always tying up loose ends.” I sit back in my chair. “Not an excuse, though. And I’m sorry about your event. I spaced it.”
Mara stares at me inquisitively, squeezing my hand. “I just feel like you would’ve told me the news already. I feel like an asshole not knowing.” She rolls her eyes, “… and this is stupid, but like it’s like I’m not in your inner circle, and you don’t trust me.”
My head tilts, dumbfounded. News? Is this about a client she’d seen on the news or read about? I start to open my mouth shutting it when the waitress comes back with a tray. Mara picked a happy hour spot that has five-dollar margaritas and six-dollar chips and guacamole. The waitress sets both drinks and a basket of tortilla chips and homemade guacamole on the table. “Anything else I can get for you, ladies?” She’ looks at both of us, and we nod our heads ‘no’ in succession.
I grab for the margarita, inhaling a large sip, the tequila and lime juice burning so good. Mara’s looking at me, waiting for me to say something, to acknowledge what she said. I look at her, “Mara, you lost me.” I twirl the stem of my glass. “What did I not tell you?”
She’s doing her best not to look annoyed, also imbibing just a little too fast in her first drink. “Looks like we’re going to have a few rounds of these.” She holds up the glass and shakes her head at me.
“I’m not trying to hide anything, out with it.” I shrug. “What did I keep from you?” She couldn’t possibly know about his affair. I just found out. I hadn’t told anyone yet. I’m ashamed. Scared people will judge me harshly, criticize my every move, my every fault. I can hear it now… She’s a shitty mom and wife, never home, doesn’t attend to her family, barely spends time with them, what did she expect? I’m no martyr, but I also work hard to provide for my family. Someone has to, I think bitterly, taking another gulp.
“I’m just,” Mara’s look of disgust is palpable, her cheeks flushed. “I’m just upset that you didn’t think it was worth telling me you and Steven were getting a divorce.” With that, she leans back in her chair and crosses her arms.
My mouth drops open, eyes wide, as I roll the words around on my tongue. A divorce?
“A… divorce?” I can barely spit the words out. Now it’s my turn to be angry. “What in the hell are you talking about, Mara?”
She glares at me. “Don’t act like I’m stupid, we’ve been friends too long for that.”
“Who said we were getting a divorce?” I tap my foot on the metal table, my heel connecting with the metal, a loud banging as I try to calm myself. “Did a mutual friend tell you that?” Did Steven want a divorce? He had never communicated that to me. Is that why he cheated? Because he wanted me to pull the trigger on leaving? What a piece of shit.
“Aly.” Mara reaches into her tote bag and pulls out her phone. “Mum’s the word. He didn’t have to, I saw his profile on a dating site and figured it out.” She rolls her eyes. “Actually, multiple dating sites.”
“Steven’s on dating sites?” I’m flabbergasted as the air leaves my body. I think I’m going to go into a comatose state, right then, right there. I’m frozen, the muscles in my face stuck, my arms and legs in an uncomfortable position, my foot twisted around the metal chair leg for support.
She scrunches her face. “Yeah, I’ve seen his profile.”
“Do you have proof?” I can barely whisper.
“I took a couple of screenshots.” She picks up her phone and scrolls through her photos. “Here they are. Just go to the right. Should be a couple.”
Tentatively, I take her phone like it might burn me. The screen in front of me shows my husband of seventeen years smiling, just another happy, single guy, his name Steven at the bottom of his picture. The picture he used as a profile is, in reality, a picture of us, I’m just cut out. It was New Year’s Eve last year. He’s dressed in a suit, a rarity for him. We had tickets to the symphony. It was his choice, not mine, and I went because he loves listening to classical music.
My hands start to tremble as I pause on each picture, my finger swiping through the screenshots. Him in a plaid button-down, having a beer, very casual as he leans back in his chair, one leg across the other knee. Him attempting a funny picture where he makes a face at the camera, grinning as he makes a face. Showing depth, I smirk. Him at his parents’ house running on a trail. The love of outdoors. Him on the hammock in our backyard in his swim trunks, his chest bare and tan. A picture I had taken.
Thank God there wasn’t one of him and Livvie. I would’ve really lost it.
I’m shaking, my body heaving.
The next picture is a screenshot of his profile. Don’t let this middle-aged man fool you. I’ve got a lot to offer besides sitting in my easy chair waiting for the nursing home.
I love hiking, running, cycling, CrossFit, having a beer, especially craft beer, and cooking for my other half (which could be you, wink wink).
My love of science means I can figure out and explain to you how stars collide and burn off and die. Looking for my partner in crime as I start this new chapter of my life.
Looking at the screen, the words swim in front of me, tears blurring my vision. Those are the same words he used to whisper in my ear, “let me explain to you how stars collide and burn off and die,” he’d say as he rubbed the back of my neck tucking a tendril of hair behind my ear.
Slamming the phone down isn’t an option, so I push it back in Mara’s hand. I look down at the table, the uneaten food, the bright yellow tablecloth, a cactus perched in the middle of the table, a small one blooming with pink flowers. When I look up, her face is etched with concern. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Mara’s puzzled. “I thought you knew he was on sites.”
The color’s drained out of my face, “I didn’t know we were getting a divorce, let alone he’d moved on to internet dating,” I say coldly. There’s a long pause. My ears are ringing. Mara says something, but I don’t hear. I feel her warm hand on my icy one.
“What’s going on?” Mara’s concerned. “You look blindsided.”
“That’s because I am blindsided,” I snap. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on. My whole life just exploded into a million fucking pieces.” Tilting my head back, I swallow the rest of my drink. Before the waitress can approach the table, Mara holds up two fingers and mouths, “Another round.”
Jerking my leg back from the table, I cross and uncross my legs. Steven’s pictures and attempt at humor to seem like a regular guy without a wife and child make me want to dump a drink on his head and shatter a glass on his forehead. He might as well have just slammed every shard of glass into my body like I was a voodoo doll. I put my head in my hands, nausea threatening to overcome me.
Mara leans in and whispers, “What’s going on, Aly?”
“I don’t know.” My voice is muffled behind my hands. “I just found out last night he had an affair.”
“An affair? Did you catch him?” She’s trying to keep her voice even, but I hear surprise beneath the façade.
“No, he came clean. Told me himself.” I pull my head up and wave toward her phone. “I didn’t know he was dating.”
“If you don’t mind me asking…” she pauses. “Did he tell you who?”
I let out a loud sigh wanting to bury my head in the sand. “No, maybe it’s one of the w
omen he’s been meeting on the dating sites. I thought it was only one, but maybe he’s stepped out multiple times.” The idea Steven had been intimate with not one, but multiple women starts to enter my mind. I shake my head abhorring the images of him and other women fucking their way through every Game of Thrones episode. Rage engulfs me. I ball my hands into fists. What if he gave me something? The STD rate keeps rising. What I didn’t think I had to worry about anymore, you know, since I’m in a committed marriage, makes me chuckle with irony. The lying, cheating bastard.
Mara for once is quiet, her body motionless, overcome with shock. She’s always the life of the party, a force that doesn’t stop, full throttle ahead—what I love about her and why I wanted to work with her, to begin with. Now she has no voice. She’s floored. I can tell by the way she keeps glancing at the table, her eyes darting back and forth between me, the uneaten chips, and her phone.
“Why did he tell you?” Mara’s curious. “Out of guilt or was she threatening to tell you?”
“I don’t have a clue, especially if he’s still operating under the guise of being single.” I chew my lip. “Wait, can you match with him on there?”
“He knows me so doubt he would.” Mara’s quick to add, “Not that he would, to begin with.” The waitress comes back and notices the tension in the air, hurriedly setting our margaritas on the table, noticing the uneaten food. She quickly steps away without a backward glance.
“I wonder if there’s a way to communicate with him, see what he tells these women.” I tap the table with my foot again. “Do they know he has a wife? A child?” A horrible thought crosses my mind. I involuntarily gasp, “Oh my God.”
‘What is it?” Mara reaches for a strand of my hair that’s gotten tangled on my lip.
I clasp a hand over my mouth, the image vile, one I don’t even want to say out loud, especially if it’s true. “What if he had sex with them in our bed? Our house?” I slam the second margarita, the sweet and sour hitting me, the ice cubes clinking against my teeth.
The Ruined Wife: Psychological Thriller Page 4
