The Woman At The Door

by Daniel Hurst

  Better days are ahead, at least weather-wise anyway.

  It remains to be seen if better days are ahead in my personal life.

  I spot Ally walking towards me along the path that runs beside the lake, and I set off in her direction, shortening the time that it will take her to get to me. It’s nice to be out here in the fresh air beside the water, and the lake is typically busy with a few sailing boats out there as well as a couple of canoeists who look like they’re having fun as they paddle around and get some exercise. But I’ll stick to the footpath today. I find it much more enjoyable to watch people sailing and canoeing than to actually do those things myself.

  ‘Hey,’ I say as I reach Ally, and she gives me a smile and a warm hug before asking if I’m okay.

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ I tell her before pointing towards the path that leads up the hill, suggesting that we give that route a go today.

  ‘So, what’s the latest?’ my friend asks me as we begin climbing the hill, wasting no time in cutting to the chase. But I don’t mind that. The whole reason I wanted to see her today is because I needed somebody to talk about my problems with.

  ‘Sam stayed at the hotel again last night,’ I tell her, feeling a little embarrassed to be admitting that my marriage is on the ropes right now, but I shouldn’t be because Ally won’t be judging me. It’ll be my husband who is being judged, and that’s the beauty of a best friend.

  ‘I can’t believe he won’t just tell you what’s been going on. Surely he knows you aren’t going to let him back home until he gives you a reason for that woman and that lipstick.’

  ‘He’s still adamant that he hasn’t done anything wrong and that he doesn’t know who the woman is or why the lipstick got there,’ I confirm as we continue to climb the hill.

  ‘So what are you thinking?’ Ally asks as we pass a young boy on a skateboard. ‘About letting him come home, I mean.’

  ‘I’m still not sure. I was up most of the night thinking about it, but I have no idea what to do. I never thought I’d have to make a decision like this.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. You don’t deserve it.’

  ‘It’s not your fault.’

  ‘I know. I just feel so bad. I thought you and Sam were the perfect couple, you know? Never argued. Never fought. Certainly never had anything serious happen like this.’

  ‘Nobody’s perfect,’ I tell my friend as if I’m a wise woman who has lived a hundred years and seen it all. But I’m not a wise woman, and I haven’t seen it all. I’m learning all of this for the first time. I’m figuring it out as I go. That’s why I’m not sure if I’m doing the right thing.

  ‘What would you do if you were in my situation?’ I ask Ally as we reach a bench near the top of the hill and take a seat to enjoy the view over the lake.

  ‘I think I’d do the same thing,’ Ally confirms and that makes me feel a little bit better.

  ‘But what if I’m wrong and he really hasn’t done anything?’

  ‘What if you’re right and he has?’

  That’s a good point and I think about it for a second as I stare out across the water. One of the canoeists has gone away from the main group and seems to be going it alone out there. I guess they don’t mind being by themselves. I wish I felt the same way.

  ‘I don’t know what I’ll do if things don’t get better,’ I confess, feeling my eyes watering slightly but wiping them quickly because I don’t want Ally to think I’m going to start blubbing in front of her. ‘I don’t want to be on my own, but I don’t know if I can trust him.’

  ‘It’s up to him to prove to you that he can be trusted,’ Ally tells me, seemingly much surer about things than I am. ‘I know you might not want to hear it, but I really don’t think a woman would come to somebody’s house and say those things unless there was substance to it.’

  I know my friend is just giving it to me straight because she is trying to help me and the best way to do that is with brutal honesty, but it still seems harsh to hear it in those terms. Ally must think Sam has cheated on me. But that’s easy for her to think. She isn’t the one who is married to him, so she doesn’t have as much to lose as I do.

  ‘I had an idea,’ I say, figuring it might be good to run it past her before I take action on it.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I was thinking about getting somebody to follow Sam to see if he is meeting any other women. Like a private investigator.’

  ‘You think they would find something?’

  ‘I don’t know. But if he is going behind my back then I can find out.’

  Ally’s silence makes me a little nervous that I might be going too far with that idea, so I decide to change the subject quickly.

  ‘Anyway, enough about me. What about you and Phil? I’m sorry about the meal the other night. It wasn’t the best time for us to meet him.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. He’s fine. He’s gone fishing today with one of his friends.’

  ‘Fishing. How exciting.’

  I roll my eyes and Ally laughs. That’s one boring hobby that Sam never had. But maybe it would have been better if he did. Better than getting another woman’s lipstick on his collar anyway.

  ‘Yeah, he asked me if I wanted to go with him last week, but I politely declined.’

  ‘I can’t imagine you fishing.’

  ‘I know, right? I’d be asleep after five minutes.’

  I laugh as I look back towards the lake and see the solitary canoe joining up again with the other members of the group. Maybe that canoeist decided it’s better to be together than alone. Maybe I’m realising the same thing.

  ‘I want to tell him to come home,’ I say, nodding my head as if to convince myself. ‘I don’t want to get an investigator and behave like a paranoid wife who doesn’t trust her husband. I just don’t want to get hurt. Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ Ally tells me, and she puts a reassuring hand on my arm. ‘Just take your time and do whatever feels right for you. The ball is in your court. You don’t know if Sam has done anything wrong, but you know that you definitely haven’t, so you’re entitled to take things slowly.’

  I smile at my friend and feel reassured by her advice. I’m glad I messaged her about coming to the park today. The sun has really broken through the clouds now, and there’s more blue sky visible than there was when I arrived here. It’s shaping up to be a sunny Sunday, and everything always looks better in the sunshine.

  That’s when I decide that I’m going to go and see Sam after this.

  Just like that canoeist went off alone but came back in the end, I’m going to do the same. I feel like there is still enough doubt in my mind to give Sam another chance. I’ll tell him he can come home, but only on one condition.

  It’s the condition that nothing else happens to make me doubt him and his commitment to me.

  If it does then that is it. We are finished. I’m not going to be a woman who is walked all over. Like Ally said, I have done nothing wrong. He’s the one that has some making up to do, not me.

  He’s the one that’s got it all to do to earn back my trust.

  24

  SAM

  It was shaping up to be a very sorry Sunday until I got the phone call from Rebecca telling me that she wanted to see me. I’d thought that the only thing I had to look forward to all day was the Formula 1 race coming on the TV in my hotel room at 5 o’clock, but fortunately, it seems there might be something even brighter on the horizon.

  I might get to go home.

  Rebecca has asked to meet me in the same pub where we enjoy our regular Sunday Roasts, but I’m not sure if beef and gravy is going to be on the menu today. The most important thing to do is talk, whether that’s over good food, good wine or a glass of tap water. I just want things to go back to normal, and I’m hoping that her call to me today is the beginning of that.

  I see her sitting at the table in the corner as I enter the pub, so I hurry over and take a seat opposite her, giving her a
nervous smile and noticing the glass of white wine sitting in front of her.

  ‘Starting already?’ I say, hoping that a light joke might be the best way to break the ice between us.

  ‘Yeah. Are you having anything?’

  ‘I might get a pint,’ I say, glancing back at the bar. But it looks busy and I’d rather just get to the bottom of why I’m here without delaying things any longer.

  When I turn to look back at Rebecca, it seems like she wants the same thing. Her hand has reached out across the table and is in search of my own.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I ask, taking her hand and wondering what this might mean.

  ‘Not really. I miss you.’

  ‘I miss you too,’ I say, and I feel the relief flooding through me because it seems like everything is going to be okay.

  ‘Do you understand why I needed this time?’ Rebecca asks me, and I nod to show her that I do.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘It’s just the woman and then the lipstick. I don’t know what to think.’

  ‘I understand, and it’s not your fault. You’ve done nothing wrong here.’

  ‘And neither have you?’

  I know Rebecca still feels unsure about everything, but all I can do is keep doing what I’ve always done and that is tell the truth.

  ‘I haven’t done anything,’ I say as I squeeze her hand. ‘I promise.’

  Rebecca gives me a faint smile before picking up her wine glass and taking a sip. As she does, I rack my brains for something else to say that can make her feel better.

  ‘Look, the PI is doing her best to try and find out who that woman was, and I’m hopeful she’ll be able to get us some answers there. As for the lipstick, I genuinely have no idea how it came to be on there, but I swear on my life that I have not been seeing another woman.’

  Rebecca studies me, and she seems to believe me because she nods her head.

  ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘I want you to come home.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘But if anything else happens then that’s it,’ she warns me. ‘I can’t keep giving you a pass if you don’t give me answers. Do you understand?’

  ‘I do,’ I say, and while I’m relieved about the fact that I get to go home, I do feel anxious about the condition that it comes with. That’s because I can’t guarantee that there won’t be anymore troubling events in the future. I had not expected a woman to come to our door and tell Rebecca that I had slept with her, nor had I been expecting there to be lipstick on my shirt, but both those things have happened. The fact that I don’t know how or why those things happened means that I can’t be sure that they won’t happen again, and that is going to lead to a few sleepless nights even when I am back in my own bed. But what can I do? I just have to hope that nothing else happens as well as hoping that the PI finds that woman so I can get to the bottom of all of this. But that remains to be seen. For now, I just have to take things one step at a time.

  ‘The bar looks quieter,’ Rebecca says, and I turn around to see that she is right. The queue has died down now, so I stand up to go and order a drink.

  ‘Do you want another one?’ I ask her, referring to the almost empty glass of wine on the table.

  ‘Go on then. And get a menu while you’re up there. I’m starving.’

  I smile as I make my way to the bar, and I place my order with the barmaid before picking up one of the food menus lying nearby. As I flick through it and peruse the appetising options, I feel relieved that I’m now spending my Sunday afternoon doing something a little more normal than what would have been happening if Rebecca hadn’t called me. A takeaway for one in a hotel room with F1 on the TV is hardly my idea of fun because I’m not the biggest fan of the sport or eating alone, so it’s much better to be in this busy pub preparing to order a meal with my wife.

  These last few days have been a glimpse into what my life would look like if I wasn’t married to my beautiful wife. I’d be very bored and very lonely. All my friends have settled down like me, and I’m hardly in the mood for being single again and venturing out onto the dating scene. It’s all online apps these days, isn’t it? Not for me, thank you very much. I’m perfectly happy with Rebecca, and if I ever had any doubts about married life being the right thing for me then they have been put to bed this weekend after spending most of it on my own without Rebecca by my side.

  The barmaid hands me the two drinks and tells me that she will send somebody over to my table in a few minutes to take our food order, so I thank her and carry the beverages back over to where my wife is waiting. She looks much happier now than she did the last time we were out together, which was Friday night at the meal with Ally and Phil that we should definitely have postponed because we were both far too drunk and far too grumpy to be socialising.

  I hope this is the start of things returning to how they used to be between us again.

  Nights in front of the TV. Takeaway. Roast dinners.

  Laughter. Love.

  Happiness.

  But as I reach the table and place the two drinks down onto it, I’m aware that there will always be a cloud hanging over us. It will be there until I can explain to Rebecca who that woman was and why she was lying. But I need the private investigator to come up trumps for me if I am going to be able to do that. As I take my seat and pull my phone from my pocket, I make a quick check on my text messages and emails on the off chance that the PI has contacted me and given me some good news. But there’s nothing from her yet. It’s still early days, and it is a Sunday, I suppose. I wonder if Erica has the day off. Do PI’s take days off? I guess so. They’re still normal people, even if they do a slightly abnormal job.

  Putting my phone away, I smile at Rebecca as she picks up the menu and has a look through the options, and everything seems okay again in the world.

  If only things had stayed like this forever.

  Little did I know it then, but everything was about to change in my marriage, and this time, it would be far worse than anything that had happened before.

  25

  THE WOMAN

  Sundays are always a slow day for me. I guess they are for anybody who is by themselves. But I’m not lonely. This is just the way my life is right now. I could date somebody if I wanted to, but I don’t. I’m happy enough being by myself, and it definitely makes things easier for my work. Having a partner would mean having to keep a secret from them as to what it is that I really do for a living. I doubt there are many men who would feel comfortable being in a relationship with a woman who makes her money by breaking married couples up. Besides, if I was with the man who I wanted to be with right now then I wouldn’t be doing this job and earning such a good wage.

  I only ended up in this life because the man I loved passed away.

  His name was Devon, and he was wonderful. I met him at a time in my life when I was just about giving up on men after a string of failed relationships with guys who were either too clingy, too distant or simply too immature. But he was different to those boys. He was a man, and most importantly, he made me feel like a woman.

  He was my personal trainer at my local gym, and while it might seem like a cliché to be attracted to a hunky guy who I spent an hour a week with, there was far more to him than muscles and a passion for fitness. He was funny and made me laugh as he put me through my paces every Tuesday evening after I had finished in my office admin job in the city. He was educated, and he informed me about many interesting things regarding diet, exercise and even politics during our time together. And he was charming, complimenting me on several occasions whenever I did something well in the gym and even noticing when I was sporting a new hairstyle or had tried out some new makeup. It wasn’t long until I was looking forward to my sessions with Devon and doing my best to impress him with my own brand of wit, knowledge and charm. I had also found myself sneaking a glance at his left hand to make sure that there wasn’t a ring that might indicate that he was a married man and therefore unavailable.

 
But there was no ring, so to me, that meant he was fair game.

  That was why I plucked up the courage to ask him out for a drink at the end of one of our sessions when I was feeling particularly confident with all the adrenaline running through my system after a hard workout alongside him. I had been hopeful that he would accept the invitation and felt that he liked me as much as I liked him. But I was wrong. Not about him liking me. I could tell he found me attractive and interesting.

  Rather, I was wrong about the fact that he wasn’t married.

  Devon told me that he did indeed have a wife and that he just didn’t wear his ring during his personal training sessions because it made it difficult to grip certain weights and he didn’t want to scratch it on any of the equipment. Instead, he kept the ring in his locker and put it back on at the end of every shift. To say I felt stupid was an understatement, and I had apologised to him and tried to make light of it. Fortunately, he took it all in good spirits and didn’t let it affect the way he treated me going forward with our future sessions together. But for me, I wasn’t able to leave it at that.

  I was in love with Devon.

  So I had to have him.

  The problem was that he was taken, and that was how I had first come to be browsing the internet reading the message boards about other people like me who were in love with people they couldn’t have. I saw how I was not alone and that there were so many people out there who felt depressed, lonely and utterly defeated when it came to their love life. It was almost as if we were cursed because we had been fated to fall in love with somebody who could not love us back.

  Why hadn’t we fallen in love with a single person? Because life didn’t work that way. You can’t plan love. It just happens. You don’t choose who you fall for. You just fall, and it remains to be seen if it’s going to be a good thing or a bad thing. For me, it was a bad thing. I fell, and I had no one there to catch me and pick me back up again.