The diary landed with a solid 'thunk' on the table in front of me, it even had a pretty red ribbon tied around it to keep it tied shut, and to discourage prying eyes. "Did you really think that I wouldn't find out?" I looked up at her, and replied "no, not really, but what took you so long? It has been 12 years after all." She snorted a laugh, "Two things I guess. One, I thought that I would be able to let it go, but that just isn't true. Two, I thought maybe you'd change, but that certainly isn't true. So, here we are." I picked up the diary and rifled the pages. "How long have you had this?" She smiled back and said "just about 10 years, you really should find a better hiding place for your sins, or perhaps a different place to commit them."
I shrugged, "well I guess sin begins at home doesn't it sweetheart? It's not like you were interested in anything but the money the business brought into the house. You certainly stopped being interested in me a long time ago." Another snort of derision "you fucking bastard, fucking the maid? How much more of a godsdamn cliche can you be?" I sighed "I am guessing that question doesn't really require an answer, but for the sake of being clear, it wasn't some master plan, and in retrospect it wasn't a particularly good idea." She frowned, and replied "not a good idea Shakespeare? That is the best you can do? With all those pretty little words at your disposal, pretty words that I am sure you employed to talk that little hussy into bed with you."
She continued, "you realize when the little bitch 'disappeared' I could have told the gendarmes about your little tryst, and they would have probably had a lot of very awkward questions for you to answer? But no, I decided that while you are, in fact, perhaps the biggest bastard I've ever met, that not even you would stoop to murder. I am beginning to think that perhaps I was mistaken." I looked up at her "she left a note, it wasn't the most obvious suicide note, but I think it made her intentions clear enough, and those gendarmes you wanted to feed me to thought so as well." She barked a laugh, "I am sure they did especially after you 'donated' to their Xmas fund, like the loving husband and gods fearing Christian that you pretend to be"
I pointed at the diary on the table, "you've had this for years, I assume you've read it all?' She sighed "jesus is that what you are worried about? Not worried about me? Not worried about how the lines in that little book ripped my heart into pieces? Not worried about lines sad enough to make me not just cry, but sob so hard I thought my ribs would break. These aren't white lies, you son of a bitch, these are the blackest of black lies. I fucking loved you. You had me believing in the fairy tale that you convinced me we were living, and now I have to cope with the idea that not only is this fairy tale not coming true, but that it was a lie from the beginning. And just for fun, I get to attempt to wrap my head around the idea that you are a murderer."
That got my full attention, after all being accused of murder by the woman you promised some sort of happily ever after to, does tend to get one's attention. Regardless of the truth of the accusation, it would make for some unpleasant chats with the gendarmes. People who are not known for their sympathy or understanding. I tend to avoid unpleasant conversations, which is a pity, since I was currently trapped in one with no real way out. I stood up, and considered going to her, wrapping my arms around her and telling her how much I loved her (which, in my own fashion, is true), and that we would get through this together. But, I knew her, I knew that moment had passed, if it ever existed, and that my "pretty, little words" weren't going to get me out of this. At least not unscathed.
She backed up a step, held up a hand, and said "no stay the blue fuck away from me. This isn't something your words can fix Shakespeare. This isn't just you getting drunk, and wandering off, this is...." she stopped there and began to cry. Great racking sobs, not the quiet crying one does at a funeral of a somewhat close friend, but sobs that I thought would break her apart. Ever been there when the nuclear bomb that is you and your actions finally fall? Ever saw someone come all the way apart in front of you and you know it's your fault? I hope, for your sake, that you haven't. It is not pleasant. Not something to tell your mates about over a pint at the local on a Friday night.
She sat down slowly, and said "tell me the truth if you can manage it, tell me why I wasn't enough." That hit me like a proverbial ton of bricks. Ever had someone ask you why they weren't enough? I hope not, it breaks every little bit of you. "I wanted the best for you always, and when I realized that isn't me, I began to drift apart from you. When I realized that I couldn't be the man you needed me to be something inside me sort of broke." She gave me a very, very furious look, and say "broke? something in you broke? you son of a bitch. You're blaming me for what you did?" I raised a hand in protest, "not blaming you, just trying to explain why you just became the voice inside my head, and not exactly real anymore."
She let out a small gasp, "you self-centered son of whore, I am real, I was always real, right here in front of you all this time. I didn't go anywhere, I didn't "fade into the mists of your complicated history" I have fucking been here, right in front of you, all this time. And what do you do? You try to rewrite the 'boy meets girl' story with some tramp almost half your age. I must be as mad as March hare to ever believe any of those pretty lies you told me. You son of a bitch, you even used universal gravitation to explain the attraction we felt for one another. And like a fucking moron, I fell for it, I began to need you like a man dying of thirst needs water. You became my drug, and then you...."
She again broke off into sobs, and I began to detect an awful pattern, one in which I was the monster that was the cause of the problem. I opened my mouth to reply, but before I could form some limp dick excuse for my behavior, she held up a forestalling hand, and said "resolve yourself to telling me, for once in your godsforsaken life, the actual truth. I can't seem to bear the way you can not love me, and for reasons passing understanding, I need you to make yourself unlovely to me." I sat back down, the heaviness of the guilt she was piling on me was becoming more than I could bear.
"It wasn't like that, it wasn't me trying to do some number on you. I didn't plan to make her into some new, younger version of you. But there she was, a lovely young creature seeking adventure, and ready to see the world. She just didn't realize the world wasn't so sweet or tender. I didn't intend to break her, I wasn't even trying bend her, but well we made the simplest mistake two people in that position can make." Here I stopped and looked at her. She was, even in her grief, beautiful, and here I was admitting that to quote her "she wasn't enough." Not enough for a self absorbed son of a bitch like me. No wonder it didn't register with her, why would it? She was all that anyone with any sense would want. Smart, funny, gorgeous, and even more importantly, convinced that I was what she wanted in a life partner.
"Your betrayal is not something that I can forgive. You have to pay the price for it. All you had to do was tell me. But no, you chose to lie to my face. We can't be together. "This", she waved a hand vaguely around, "can't exist anymore." I nodded, "I had figured as much. I don't have the pretty words that will make this unhappen. I am sure that you hate me." She laughed at that, and replied "You stupid bastard, I really wished I hated you, I wish I had given up on you, I know I am better off without you, but I can't seem to numb the pain of realizing that. So here we are" she pointed at the diary, "stuck with that. Her words aren't as pretty as yours Shakespeare, but they have the advantage of being the simple, raw truth."
She picked up the diary, and opened it to a random page and began to read "June 15th, today SHE had a doctor's appointment in _____ a lovely hour and a half away, giving me and ____ the entire afternoon to explore each other. I have never felt this way before and he tells me that he has to struggle to block out thoughts of me when he is around her." She closed the book with a snap, "I could go on and on and on but you don't need me to, after all you were fucking there weren't you? Then with a small sigh, she whispered "how could you do this to me?"
How do you answer that? How do you explain to someone you professed to love, that at some point things started to go south? How to tell someone who trusted you, that you're hopelessly afflicted with a wandering eye? That is just the appetizer in this confessional feast, then you have to try to explain why/how the 'other woman' made you feel alive again. Or do you? Do you tell her those hard to swallow facts? Do you tell her that, despite being many, many miles out of your league, she wasn't enough? That you might just be the dumbest man in the history of mankind?
"You got her with child, you careless bastard. It's all in her diary, she talks about how excited she was to be with child, and how you promised to leave me for her, and raise the child together." She began to shake again, but quickly regained her composure. "She had no idea the lies you were telling her just to keep her silent did she?" I nodded "no she wasn't as clever as you, she believed my lies without fail." I saw the storm begin to brew in her eyes, I waved a conciliatory hand before the storm broke over me. "She gave herself away, and I was there to take advantage, and I understand that was in more ways than one. I am duly ashamed, but...."
"All the promises you made to her were lies weren't they? Tell me they were, tell me you promised her treasure to look upon just to get in her bed, tell me the river in the time of dryness you promised her was a lie? Tell me that the eyes in the time of blindness you promised were not real." The familiar tone in her voice, made me feel even worse. She was telling me about her hell, the hell that I put her into and through with my stupid choice(s). She continued "all these years, I made you a daughter and a son. I watched you leave for work, and come home at 5 on the dot, and here you are fucking the help. Don't rub it in how wrong I have been about you all these years. We were married, and I am still here with your children, the children you can't deny. The children you can't abort. The ones that bear your fucking name." She stopped, out of breath, anger making her chest heave.
The mention of the kids broke whatever resistance I had left. I threw up my hands and said "what do you want me to do?" A very small smile came to her lips "I am glad you asked Shakespeare. I have exactly the answer to your question right here." She pulled out a sheaf of papers and handed them to me. "Read that Shakespeare, and let me know what, if anything, you think?" I took the papers, opened them and read her terms. They weren't overly complicated. I was to 'disappear' presumed a suicide (a neat trick, since "she" was eventually adjudged one too), and never darken the Republics door again. "I don't care where you go, just as long as it is anywhere but here." She was, in her opinion, generous with her terms. I was to write a note, get on a train to _____, and never come back. She allowed me enough money from the sale of the business to make my fall from her grace, non lethal. But it still hurt, a lot. I'd like to say I left a better man, but I doubt that is true.
So here I am, a thousand miles from nowhere wondering where I should actually be. But then, as I look around, and realize that time no longer matters to me, and that the bruises on my memory are beginning to heal, and the bloodstains on my hand are beginning to fade, I understand there is no place I'd rather be.
