Page 59 of Chasing the Other Woman

“Yes.”

She goes still.

“I didn’t have proof,” I say. “I knew that. There were times I told myself I was being an idiot. That Tony was young and friendly and you were kind to him because you’re kind to everybody unless they give you a reason not to be.”

Her mouth trembles once and then she schools it.

“But I believed there might be something,” I say. “Enough that I watched you differently. Enough that I got jealous. Enough that I let it change the way I treated you.”

Sam’s eyes lift to mine.

There’s no yelling. No thrown glass. No dramatic step back.

Just my wife standing in front of me with the last of something leaving her face.

“Tony said something else,” I force out. “He said nothing ever happened. You never flirted with him. Never encouraged him. Never crossed a line. He said most of the time you barely noticed what he was doing because you were working.”

"You're telling me things I already know," she bites out.

"Yeah. I am."

"It took him telling you though for you to believe it. You couldn't even be bothered to come to me and ask."

I flinch. She's not saying anything that isn't true, but damned if the truth doesn't hurt when it's put right in front of you.

“You’re right,” I say. “I should have known because I know you. I should have talked to you. I should have trusted you before some guilty man had to confess it to me.”

Her eyes shine, but no tears fall.

“I punished you for something you never did,” I say.

Sam looks toward the door. Out in the bar, someone laughs too loudly, then stops. A generator hums somewhere beyond the wall. The whole town keeps breathing while my world caves in.

“When I gave you my ring,” she says, “I told you what I'd spent the last two years believing. That you blamed me for losing the baby."

Every time she says it, it hurts that much more knowing she believed it.

"Sammy Girl."

Her jaw tightens.

"I never blamed you," I say, my voice breaking. I want to pull her to me. Want to do exactly what I should have been doing all along and am only now seeing how damned foolish it was to have waited until now. "God, baby, I wish I'd known you thought that, but it's my fault I didn't. I never blamed you. You were the last person I blamed for any of that."

She looks back at me then.

I keep my hands at my sides.

“I blamed myself,” I say. “You told me to go east. I said we were fine. I made the call. The road went slick. We crashed. You were bleeding and drifting in and out in my arms while Hershel drove like hell.”

Her face pales.

“I thought you were going to die,” I say. “Then we got to the hospital, and they told us the baby was gone. In my head, it was simple. I made the call. You were hurt. We lost our child. I almost lost you too.”

Sam presses her fingers to her lips. Her bare left hand shakes.

“For two years, every time someone announced a pregnancy and you went quiet, I saw that room again. Every time you looked at a baby too long and then looked away, I saw what my decision took from you. And I got scared.” I swallow. “So I tried to control every damn thing that scared me.”

“You took me out of the field.”