AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Mark looks up, frowning. “Oh, yeah?”
I nod. “I want you to be able to ask me anything, too. Even about Jason if you want.”
He glances at his empty glass, which shimmers under the soft light of the chandelier. “You don’t need to do that. You don’t have nearly as many sins.”
“I think it’s sort of cathartic if we both divulge secrets. We were never open with each other in our marriage, even during the good years.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “Do you think we had good years?”
I jerk back. “Of course we did. Don’t you think so?”
“Oh, I was in heaven in the early years.” He licks his bottom lip. “But I thought you were always thinking about Jason. Even during our good times, you were thinking about him.”
The words send a prickle over my skin, and a familiar sickness fills my gut. I know those words. How do I know those words?
Oh God. I wrote them.
“My email,” I say breathlessly.
Mark’s eyes grow unfocused. “Jason, I’ve thought about you every day for the last six years. Even in the moments when I’ve been happiest with Mark, I couldn’t help but wonder how it would have been with you.”
I shut my eyes, and my stomach fills with cold, twisting shame. Oh God, how could I have written that? How could I have been so heartless and stupid?
I don’t even know the woman who had that affair.
“I’m sorry,” Mark says. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I paid you back a hundredfold for what you did. But I have that whole damn thing memorized. I can’t seem to forget about it.”
“Oh, Mark.” I swallow. “It must have been so hurtful to read that for the first time.”
“It was agony.”
The expression in his eyes is like a knife in my chest. He looks so young, like a sad, lost little boy.
“What did I do wrong?” he asks, startling me.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean… I thought you were happy. I tried my best to give you what you needed. I tried to be attentive and show you how much I loved you, but you still… You still thought about him.”
The brokenness in his voice clamps around my chest, making it hard to take a breath. Maybe it wasn’t the right decision to have this little confessional. My heart is breaking, and I thought I didn’t have a heart for this man anymore.
“I didn’t think about him every day,” I say. “My postpartum depression clouded my memories. I was insecure. It was as simple as that. I thought you would get bored and leave me eventually. Having Jason fawn over me soothed the fear that I was unlovable. It was selfish and despicable.”
He purses his lips as he stares down at his glass. “I knew that was part of it, but still… There were times in our marriage when… When you felt sort of far away. It made me wonder if maybe you were thinking about him.”
“I did think about him sometimes. I won’t lie, but certainly not every day. And I wasn’t unhappy. It took losing you for me to realize how warped my thinking was. You were a wonderful husband before…”
He smiles deprecatingly. “Before I became the worst husband who ever lived.”
I smile. “Yes.”
Silence descends over the table. Now is my chance to ask him a question I’ve always wanted to ask. Had we had this talk even a few months ago, he wouldn’t have given me a real answer. But something tells me that he will tonight.
I lift my chin and meet his eyes squarely. “Why did you do it for so long?”
His eyes widen minutely before settling on the table. “I’ve never been good at dealing with my feelings, and the affair broke me. There were times…I wanted to reconcile, but I didn’t know how.”
I nod jerkily, clenching my jaw to fight the hovering tears. “You came to me…that one time, and you told me you chose not to sleep with that woman.”
