Why?! Why the hell did I look at that phone? Why did I look in his bag? Why did I go into his damn closet? Why?!
The stupor of my ignorant pre-secret-phone bliss taunts me like some just-out-of-reach nirvana. I want to go back in time and stop myself from opening the door into this new reality—the reality where the husband that I worship, and that I thought loved me more than anything else in his world, has been screwing two other women, that I know of.
I wasn’t supposed to see the damn phone. If it hadn’t been for the leave of absence I decided to take because of the stupid operation to remove the pins in my leg two weeks ago, I wouldn’t have been at home and bored, trying to make myself useful by rifling around Jack’s closet for things that needed washing. In a series of flashes, I recall seeing the strap of Jack’s black gym bag hanging over the top shelf of his closet, reaching up to grab it and pulling it down to see if there were any dirty clothes inside. It was empty so I started to zip it back up but stopped as I felt something solid in a side pocket. Then, inexplicable trepidation as I unzipped the bag again and reached for whatever was in that pocket. The memory of my fingers skimming the metal frame of the phone makes me shudder. I have no idea why I even tried to switch the thing on. I’d always been proud that we aren’t one of those dysfunctional couples who have to snoop through each other’s belongings on a daily basis just to be sure the other isn’t cheating. I’d never, ever checked Jack’s phone before, so why did I do it?
I was shocked that the third password I tried—an old PIN number of Jack’s that he used when we first starting dating—worked. I saw the home page and the silent mode symbol. I remember feeling that I should put it back. Some sage voice within me was telling me not to open Pandora’s box, but I had to check… just in case. As the memory of reading that first text message and the accompanying punch to the stomach propels me to my feet, a voice, deep and calm, addresses me as clearly as if someone were in the room talking to me.
You need to get out of here.
Within an instant, I’m running downstairs to the kitchen where I grab my phone from the counter before stumbling back upstairs and using it to snap pictures of every message and picture on Jack’s phone. I’m not even entirely sure why, but I suspect that I need proof that the messages are real so that I don’t wake up tomorrow and convince myself that it was all just some grim nightmare I conjured up in my sleep.
I know plenty of women who’d do just that. I’ve seen it with my own eyes—smart, sane, otherwise fully functioning women who choose to ignore the truth about their cheating husbands so that their lives don’t implode spectacularly. Or they try to in any case, really try, until it slowly eats away at their insides like maggots feasting on a carcass to the point that there’s nothing left of the carefree girls they once were.
With my phone now filled with snapshots of the grotesque reality of my marriage, I grab a suitcase out of my closet. As I fling the case onto the bed, the shrill ring of my phone leaves me jumping and the goofy ringtone that my friend Kevin downloaded for me ricochets around the room.
JACK
I forget to breathe as I watch my husband’s name flash before me until the ear-piercing jingle ceases, taking his name along with it. He calls back instantly and once again I don’t answer, suddenly terrified at the idea of having to converse with the man I have spent every day of the last three years of my life with. I don’t know why I’m nervous. I should be furious, should be catatonic with rage, ready to scream blue murder at him. So why am I trembling?
A message pops up:
Home in five baby.
Panic careens through my body as my eyes dart to the alarm clock next to our bed: 6.12 p.m. Strange. This is the earliest Jack has been home in weeks. The thought of bumping into him on my way out makes me shudder and I make a split-second decision to stay, flying into full-blown, stress-fueled action mode, barely aware of what I’m doing or why. I throw my suitcase back into my closet, then hold down the Off button on Jack’s secret phone in a maneuver that feels interminable, before sliding it back into the inside pocket of the gym bag like some thief that doesn’t want to be caught red-handed holding someone else’s belongings.
“Fuck!” I curse. In my uncoordinated state, I’m not totally sure which pocket I found the phone in. I slide my hand into the three inside pockets of his bag. All of them are empty but for a small golden broach pinned to the lining of one of them. I invert the pocket to take a closer look. It looks like some sort of abstract interpretation of a tree, but with the threat of Jack’s arrival bearing down on me, I don’t have time to inspect it further. I hesitate for a second before pushing the phone into the smallest pocket, zipping the bag up and throwing it back up onto the high shelf above a rack of crisply ironed designer shirts and suits.
Glancing at the clock, I see that two whole minutes have evaporated in what felt like a second and I stand, paralyzed and ridiculously ineffectual, not knowing what to do. Should I just grab my purse and run out? Should I get one of my friends to come and pick me up? Or should I stay, get the phone back out and confront him with it the second he walks through the door?
In some lonely, vulnerable place in the dark recesses of my soul where pride no longer matters, I secretly pray that if I do, he will see my anguish and fall to his knees, begging for forgiveness as he insists that he’d lost his mind and will never do anything like this again. That way everything can go back to the way it was this morning, and all this will be just a bad dream that I can stuff away somewhere. Surely it’s not too late for that to happen, right?
The neon numbers next to the bed burn into me. 6.18 p.m.
Once I hear the familiar sound of the lock turning, nothing will ever be the same again.
My heart pounds in my chest with the force of stampeding wildebeest.
A click.
Another click.
The unmistakable sound of the door opening.
And a stranger enters our home.
2
“BABY? HELLO?”
The rich, deep rasp of Jack’s gravelly voice pummels my eardrums like an inconsiderate car horn sounding off right beside me. I wince at the clatter of keys in a bowl and the thump of a bag being dropped onto the floor, such banal sounds now vibrating through me roughly, shaking me to my core.
Footsteps on the stairs.
My body quivers as I summon up the strength to confront my husband in a move that will surely signal the end of my marriage.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Shit.
As he takes the final step on the hardwood stairs of our apartment, I do something that I can’t fully comprehend and couldn’t possibly explain if I tried: I climb into our bed, pull the covers over me and lie as still as I possibly can, as if some cloaked assassin is about to enter the room and if I just stay quiet enough, he may pass through and not see me.
The bedroom door creaks open and a dark presence fills the doorway. I sense eyes gazing in my direction. Inside I’m screaming, yet there are no words.
Why am I even lying here, for God’s sake? Why aren’t I shouting at him, crying, demanding to know why the pig I married is screwing other women?
What’s wrong with me?
I flinch as a weight depresses the side of the bed next to me and my skin crawls as Jack’s strong fingers brush the skin on my face and tuck loose strands of my long brown hair behind my ears. His unwanted touch injects a surge of rage-induced adrenalin into me and I picture myself sinking my teeth into his fingers until I hit bloody bone.