Double Deceit

by Julienne Brouwers

  There was a long silence, until I heard the door swing open. “Mrs Smits,” a voice behind me said. “I’m sorry, but we really have to go now.”

  I answered without looking back. “I’ll be right there.”

  The door closed again.

  It was agonising leaving Oliver behind in this cold, heartless room, but I had no choice. I leaned over and gently kissed my husband on the cheek. “Goodbye my love. I will see you soon.”

  I carefully pulled the sheet to cover him and left the room.

  6

  “Lindsey, I’m so grateful you came over to help me. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” A dull tiredness was lingering behind my eyes. In the past few days I’d probably slept no more than ten hours in total. It reminded me of the months following Tim’s birth when he was suffering from colic.

  “No problem,” Lindsey responded, waving my gratitude away with her hand. A whiff of perfume flew by and I wondered when I’d actually showered for the last time. She had a faint smile on her lips. “A friend in need is a friend indeed.”

  After breaking the tragic news to Oliver’s parents, they were – to put it mildly – not happy that I declined their offer to arrange the funeral. I desperately wanted to keep matters in my own hands. It bothered me insanely that they wanted to take over, although actually this wasn’t any different to their behaviour when Oliver was alive. It sometimes seemed as if any opinion differing from theirs didn’t count.

  “Come on, we need to go to the study, we have to find these insurance details,” I said in a half-hearted attempt at decisiveness. My parents had picked up Tim yesterday so that I could take care of things. He didn’t seem to comprehend any of what was going on yet, the poor child.

  Lindsey glanced at the grey sweatpants fitted loosely around my legs. “Babe, have you eaten anything today?”

  I trudged up the first steps towards the upper floor with Lindsey in my wake. “Sure,” I replied, although I couldn’t recall what exactly.

  “What did you have?” I heard persistently behind me.

  I reached the landing and found myself gasping from the effort. A feeling of exhaustion overwhelmed me. “I really can’t get anything down my throat at the moment.”

  “You have to eat something. C’mon, I’ll prepare a sandwich for you,” Lindsey insisted with a concerned smile, and started descending again.

  I put my hand on her arm. “No, really, thanks.” My voice sounded listless. “I don’t want anything.”

  “I won’t take no for an answer,” she said in a perky tone. “Why don’t you head to the study. I’ll be right back.”

  I didn’t have the energy to protest anymore so gave in. I entered the study, my eyes straying to the robust mahogany desk, an heirloom from Oliver’s family, and could almost picture Oliver working his socks off on a lawsuit late into the night. Since he’d made the dream move last year to become a senior lawyer at the international firm in Amsterdam’s financial district, where he’d been working for years, the workload had only intensified.

  I felt my heart sink. Why had I always left the administration to Oliver? If only I’d been a wee bit more involved, I wouldn’t be in such trouble now. I didn’t have the faintest clue whether Oliver had arranged funeral insurance for us or if he’d even prepared a will.

  I sank down on the black leather office chair, lowered my face into my hands and promptly burst into tears. There were just a few days to arrange his funeral – I’d never be able to get it done, there wasn’t enough time. What kind of a hopeless wife was I?

  I heard Lindsey come into the room. She put a plate of sandwiches on the desk and knelt beside me. “Oh, you poor thing.” She wrapped her arms around me and gently rocked me back and forth. “Hush. Look at me. You’re not alone. We’re going to do this together, you and me. I’m here for you. You know that right?”

  I usually took pride in being an independent woman and didn’t like to lean on my friend like this, but I had to acknowledge that her aid was a necessity at the moment and nodded gratefully.

  She released me and wiped the tears from my face. “Alright. Enough of that. We have to go through all the papers to find the insurance policy.”

  I pulled myself together and tapped on the desk. “It will undoubtedly be in one of these drawers. We’ll need to go through all the documents one by one.”

  “Okay, let’s get to it.” Lindsey opened the top drawer, took out a stack of papers and handed them to me. “Why don’t you start with this pile, while I work my way through the second drawer.”

  I offered her the office chair and nestled myself on the floor in a cross-legged position, on the thick, cream-coloured carpet.

  We went through our piles in silence. Telephone bills, education certificates, concert tickets – these papers showed glimpses of the life I’d shared with Oliver. Yet so far, there were no signs of a funeral insurance policy.

  Lindsey handed me a folder. “Here, this might be something.”

  With hope I glanced at the paper, but soon realised that it was a travel insurance policy I didn’t even know we had.

  I shook my head despondently.

  “Too bad. No problemo,” Lindsey said upbeat. “We’ll just carry on. I’m sure we’ll find what we need. How about I put on some music?” She seemed uncomfortable bearing the silence.

  “I’m sorry, I’d rather you didn’t,” I said, my head bowed. Every stimulus seemed one too many. I was aware of the fact that I was terrible company at the present time, but I couldn’t help myself.

  We continued to plough on, silence filling the air, and not much later, Lindsey started working on drawer number three.

  “Ah, how cute,” Lindsey said all of a sudden, holding something up in the air. “A postcard from way back. It appears to be a love letter from an ex-girlfriend, sent to Oliver.”

  It was against my principles to snoop through my husband’s private items, but I was curious. “Is it really? From who?”

  Lindsey quickly read on. “Girl named Sandra.”

  Sandra? The name didn’t ring any bells. Oliver had told me that before we’d met, he’d had just one serious relationship with a girl named Miranda, which he’d broken off after a year. There had been a few flings here and there afterwards, yet never anything too significant.

  “May I see?” I asked.

  Lindsey handed me the card. On the front was a corny picture of a couple on a beach at sunset. I turned it over and read out loud.

  “Dear Oliver. Thank you for your wonderful gift and the great night together. I can’t wait to see you again! Love, Sandra.”

  Love, Sandra? I felt queasy. This didn’t sound like a fling at all. I stared ahead, at the blank wall with the classic embossed-pattern wallpaper. Oliver’s mother had, without being asked, interfered in the decorating of our house, which we’d never have been able to afford without the financial aid of my in-laws, despite our two healthy incomes. The prices here in Amsterdam, especially in the southern part of the city, were outrageous. To accommodate Bernadette, we’d allowed her to design Oliver’s study. “I find it odd that he never shared this with me. I thought I knew all about his former love life,” I mumbled. It stung a bit.

  Lindsey seemed to sense my uneasiness. “Ah, well you can’t share everything with each other, can you? I also never confess to how many guys I’ve been with,” she giggled.

  “You’re comparing chalk and cheese. This is my husband we’re talking about. Not just another boyfriend,” I lashed out.

  Lindsey didn’t seem to be affected by my verbal swing and shrugged her shoulders.

  I drew in a long breath and calmed down. After all, what difference did it make who this girl was? I’d never get Oliver back anyway. Would it matter that much if he hadn’t confided in me about all of his exes? Perhaps the relationship with this girl had turned sour, which made him decide to keep it to himself. I laid my hand on Lindsey’s arm. “I’m sorry. I’m so sensitive right now.”

  “Don’t worry a
bout it,” Lindsey responded, patting my hand.

  It wasn’t until I threw the card on top of the pile that Lindsey had already gone through that I laid eyes on it – the stamp on the card.

  I gasped. “Oh my goodness.” All the blood seemed to drain from my head.

  Lindsey looked at me puzzled. “What’s up?” Her gaze moved to the stack of papers. “Forget about that card, will you. It doesn’t mean anything,” she said, waving her hand casually.

  I felt completely frozen. “He cheated on me.”

  “What are you talking about?” Lindsey laughed. “Of course he didn’t cheat on you. You’re letting your imagination run away with you. It’s just an ex from the past. Don’t start thinking such crazy things.”

  I shook my head in horror. “Look,” I cried and pointed to the stamp, on which our monarch looked majestically back at me. “Oliver and I have been together for more than ten years. Well before King Willem-Alexander ascended the throne. It would be Queen Beatrix on the stamp if it was a girlfriend from the past.”

  Lindsey looked at the stamp, then at me, and then back again at the stamp. “Shit,” she muttered, visibly blanching.

  We stared at each other in shock for a moment. Until Lindsey’s gaze changed into one of pity and I looked away, humiliated to the core.

  I rested my elbows on my knees and cradled my head in my hands, staring into the deep-pile carpet and feeling baffled. What on earth had been going on here?

  I heard Lindsey get up from the office chair and sit down on the floor next to me. “Babe. I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation for it,” she said and laid her hand gently on my shoulder. But we both knew it was an optimistic assumption.

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” I said resolutely. I had too much on my mind. “We have other issues to resolve.”

  Lindsey let go of my shoulders and spoke softly. “I understand.”

  I grabbed the bundle of papers and started frantically rifling through them. “We need to find that insurance policy.”

  Lindsey got up from the floor and went back to her chair. “It might do you good to blow off a little steam later over a bottle of wine or take a stroll together. Any time, okay?”

  I felt a painful lump in my throat and nodded. Then I picked up the next pile of documents and started flicking through them.

  It was fast becoming clear my life was a complete mess.

  7

  Slowly I awoke from an unsettled sleep. A glance at the alarm clock on my bedside table told me it was almost eight o’clock. I felt completely drained, as if I’d been out partying late into the night. My hand reached to my eyes, which felt swollen and puffy. Then it came back to me how I’d cried myself to sleep last night.

  I had no idea how I’d managed to get through yesterday. The church where we’d celebrated Oliver’s life served as a gesture to his parents rather than being my own or Oliver’s choice. My mother-in-law was a complete wreck and had taken a number of her ‘powdery little friends’, as she called her Xanax pills. She never left the house without a box in her pocket. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t resort to any type of medication unless absolutely necessary, but this time I’d been seriously tempted to self-medicate. I’d held back though, because I didn’t want to go through the funeral like a zombie and consequently remember everything as if in a haze.

  Many people attended the service where Oliver’s cousin had sung beautifully Amazing Grace. Tim had placed a rose on his father’s coffin in a poignant ceremony, skipping through the church in a little grey suit my mother-in-law had bought for him. Throughout the day I’d received condolences and acted as a worthy wife, our family, friends and colleagues giving voice to their sadness in sincere but hollow words. It had been truly special – at least, that’s what everyone assured me. Or perhaps people just said those things for a lack of anything more appropriate – after all, what meaningful comments could be made about a young father dying so suddenly?

  Miraculously, Oliver’s parents had managed to behave, sparing me any dramas. Against all expectations, my mother-in-law had even given a wonderful speech about Oliver as a small child, as photos of him taken during his childhood were projected onto a white screen behind her. Maybe those powdery little friends were good for something after all.

  For nearly a week, I’d pulled out all the stops like a robot to organise a memorable farewell for my husband, deprived of any opportunity whatsoever to reflect or feel anything. Now that this hectic period was behind me, harsh reality hit me in the face like a sharp stick – going forward I’d have to do it all on my own. All that remained for me was a life without Oliver. I had no choice but to raise Tim without his father around.

  I sat up in bed with a jerk. It felt like a plastic bag had been pulled over my head, taking my every breath away. My lungs filled up faster and more superficially, nevertheless I didn’t seem to be getting any air. I felt my heart pounding inside my ribcage. I knew I was hyperventilating, but I wasn’t capable of regaining control.

  With eyes wide open, I stared into the semi-darkness, gasping for air. Don’t lose yourself Jennifer, I said aloud. Two counts in, three counts out, I repeated the police officer’s words I’d heard in the bungalow last week. Come on, you can do it, I encouraged myself. Slowly but surely I felt the panic ebbing away and began to relax.

  I fell backwards onto the bed and my gaze went to the alarm clock, the red neon letters dancing before my eyes. I only wanted for sleep to claim me and never wake up again, but I knew that wasn’t an option. I couldn’t give in to the feeling of fatigue, I had to get up and carry on. Tim needed to be picked up, he’d been staying with my parents for days.

  I threw off the duvet and swung my legs over the side of the bed. It was time for my son to return home.

  8

  Two months later

  On a whim I took the phone out of the study. Oliver had been practically glued to the thing while he was alive, so if any clues about this woman were to be found anywhere, it would be on his phone. I leaned back on our grey sofa in the living room and heard Tim cooing through the baby monitor. It was well beyond his bedtime so he’d presumably fall asleep soon. I looked at the mobile device again and wondered if I’d find the name Sandra on it. Would he really have cheated on me?

  It was now exactly two months since Oliver had passed away. After I’d arranged everything for the funeral, I’d turned my attention to Tim, seeking advice from the psychologist, who treated patients a few days a week in our GP practice, about how to explain Oliver’s death to him. After two weeks I’d started bringing Tim to day-care again, where he was able to play carelessly with his friends. I thought it would be best to try to get on with life as normal – or at least as close to it – as possible. I’d intended to take some time off myself, but at home the walls came closing in on me and after a week I returned to work, where sorrow didn’t consume me.

  I couldn’t say that I’d forgotten the card that I’d inadvertently stumbled upon, sent by the unknown woman. Rather, as the weeks had passed, I’d tucked it away in a small drawer, somewhere deep in my mind and had buried the key. But every now and then, the enigma managed to sneak out, tormenting my thoughts.

  Tim was the one who had pulled me through the recent months. Although he was completely oblivious to the pivotal role he played, the little man made me drag myself out of bed every morning as he tightly clasped his chubby arms around me. I’d gratefully bury my face in his neck, easing my headache. His sleeping bag smelled of the night mixed with a hint of sweat – I had a tendency to cover him too much, because I myself was shivering so often in bed at night.

  Part of me didn’t want to believe that Oliver had been having an affair. Admittedly, things hadn’t been too perky between us in the months leading up to his death. Tim’s strenuous baby days had left a trail of deep wounds in our relationship, which had seemed too delicate and confounding to heal. In the evenings, when he was still toiling away at his desk in the
study with only a table lamp on, I’d plant a kiss on the nape of his neck and he’d give a distant pat on my back in response. At one point, when Oliver had been regularly coming home late while hammering away at an important case, I’d jokingly asked if he had a mistress. He’d insisted nothing was going on and I’d trusted him. Nonetheless, I’d sensed a distance between us for quite some time, as if our lives had turned a corner from which neither of us would ever return, in spite of my efforts to try to rekindle our love.

  I restlessly tossed and turned on the couch, the phone burning in my hands. I missed Oliver terribly. The months since the funeral had been excruciatingly tough. The neighbours who had no clue what to say, the well-intended suggestions from friends and the constant questions fired by Tim wanting to know when daddy was coming home – sometimes it became all too much to bear. Not too long ago, while in the supermarket, I couldn’t stifle the tears as I walked past the croissants Oliver used to buy for us and bring upstairs to bed on Sunday mornings. There was no doubt he’d been a workaholic, but he’d spent the weekends with his family. The worst moment was perhaps the first seconds after waking up, during which I thought for a flash that everything was still all right, until the bitter truth hit me like a hammer to the head. Tim suffered from nightmares, and I sometimes brought him into bed with me. He probably needs it right now, I thought. But in all fairness, I might have needed the comforting more than him.

  My eyes fell on the cardboard box under the kitchen island, which contained three empty wine bottles. Lately, the alcohol was flowing profusely, and as cutting it out altogether was a bridge too far, I set myself a limit of ten glasses a week. It was only Monday evening and I was already at three.

  I clutched the phone between my hands. A sense of guilt came over me. Why did I not trust Oliver? Surely there was a perfectly reasonable, benign explanation for the card. There was no need to browse his phone to check his fidelity, right? Of course he was faithful to me.