I answered without hesitation. His eyes grew wider. I spent years adjusting my life to match his moods, rationalizing his actions and hoping. But when I was lying in that hospital bed hearing my child’s heartbeat, something changed. Many of my dreams were stripped from me and I was abandoned by him.
“No.” I repeated so he would understand. “Say all you have to say here.”
His eyes hardened.
“Are you seriously doing this now?”
Megan laughed bitterly.
“Doing what? Surviving?”
“Mind your business,” he shot back.
My mother’s voice became very cold.
“You stay away from my daughter!”
The room became quiet. Eric was staring at me.
“Push me and you’re going to wish you hadn’t.”
My body felt a chill, not just because he was making a threat but because he didn’t seem to know it was a threat. To him, intimidation had become just another part of his life.
My mother retrieved her phone.
“You heard him too, right?” she asked Megan.
Megan nodded.
“Every word.”
For the first time in my life, I saw real fear in Eric’s eyes.He was gone a few minutes after that, not because he wanted to be but because nobody in the room had any desire to protect him anymore.
When I woke up the next morning, my father was sitting beside me in my hospital room. My father was not a person who raised his voice or created drama; he seldom interfered with me. Still, it was apparent simply by looking at him that he had something important to convey before he ever said a word.
“Claire,” he said softly.
He handed me a folder containing property records, bank statements, insurance papers, and one other document sitting on top of everything else.
“What is this?” I asked.
The muscles of his jaw tightened as he spoke.
“Something I discovered as I was changing the locks to the house last night.”
Instantly the air in the room seemed to drop several degrees in temperature.
“Changing the Locks?”
He nodded as a sign of affirmation.
“You aren’t going to go back there.”
Once again, I looked down at the front of the folder. This time I saw an unfamiliar woman’s name. To her I saw a small house located at a street address. The date of purchase recorded three years ago – the same year Eric started staying late at work, the same year that Eric’s excuses began.
Slowly, I looked back at my father.
“Dad.”
The eyes of my father were full of an anger that I had never witnessed before.
“There was more than just the house. I found more than just that,” he said slowly.
“What else?”
He slid a photograph over the edge of the blanket toward my open hands. As soon as I laid my eyes on it I found it difficult to breathe. There stood my spouse, Eric, with his arm wrapped around another woman while she was smiling brightly. Beside Eric was a young child holding the hand of the woman, who looked almost exactly like Eric.
The photo in my hands began to tremble. The small child’s eyes were the same shade as Eric, and he had Eric’s smile along with the same dimple. My father watched me intently.”You deserved to find out in a better way than this, but it has to be said.”
A small part of me wished I could find another explanation, an explanation like this was a nephew or a close family friend. Then all the pieces began to match up in my mind: all the business trips; the long weekends away; the unknown credit card charges; the defensive attitude when I asked simple questions.