What's Done In the Dark(78)

That birthday party speech was cold, calculated, and carefully planned out. My husband had turned into an assassin. But I knew that telling him that would ignite another outburst, so I lowered my head.

“Please, Greg?” I tried to grab his arm. “Don’t leave me. Give me another chance.”

I don’t know why I was begging. I think I couldn’t bear the thought that I had destroyed our family.

Greg pulled out of reach. “Even if I could forgive your betrayal, I could never forgive the elaborate lie you carried afterward. On top of your betrayal, you stole from your child’s college fund to cover it up. I can never trust you again.” He took a deep breath. “Can you go get Liz?”

“You’re not taking my child,” I firmly told him. He could leave the family, but it would be a cold day in hell before he took my child with him.

He stopped and glared at me. “The last thing you want to do is try to fight me over custody of our child. I promise you, you will lose.”

“Dad?” We both turned to see Liz standing in the kitchen doorway. “I want to stay here,” she announced.

He raced over to her and took her hands. “Liz, you’re too young to know what you want.”

“No, I’m not,” she calmly replied. “Mom messed up, yes. But you don’t turn your back on people you love just because they make a mistake.”

Her words made me want to cry.

“You guys didn’t turn your back on me when I broke your iPad.” She paused and looked him dead in the eye. “She didn’t turn her back on you when you left her here crying alone all those nights.”

“I didn’t turn my back on you when you had an affair,” I wanted to add, but I kept my mouth closed.

“This is different,” Greg said, shaking his head. “You don’t understand this.”

“I understand that if you love someone, you give them a second chance. I understand that.”

Thwarted in his plan, Greg glared at her for the longest time, then snapped, “Fine. You want to stay, stay.” He headed toward the door before spinning around to face me. “Liz might be able to forgive your betrayal, but I never will.”

I wanted to break into pieces, but my daughter moved in next to me and slowly intertwined her hand with mine.

“It’s okay, Mom,” she whispered as he stormed out. “Dad’s just mad. He’ll calm down and come around.”

I knew that would never happen, but I was grateful that Liz had stood up for me. She had forgiven me. I still had my daughter by my side.





56


Paula


IN THE PAST, NO MATTER how down I was feeling, no matter how disgusted with my life I was, looking at my wedding pictures brought me joy. Despite the big wedding, despite the baby inside me, despite the mixed emotions, on that day I was in heaven. The day itself had been beautiful, and in the past the pictures had always reminded me of how happy I’d been.

Now they made me sick to my stomach.

Especially when I looked at the picture of Felise as my bridesmaid, standing up for me. I had asked her, over and over and over, whether she had feelings for Steven, and over and over she had told me no. She’d tried to act like they were strictly platonic but all along she’d had feelings for him. Now I felt like a fool.

“Ugh,” I said, taking the picture out of the photo album and ripping it to shreds.

The next picture made me just as mad. It showed Steven, my sister, and Felise. Charlene was grinning from ear to ear. Both Steven and Felise looked uncomfortable. My mind started churning. Had they snuck off somewhere and got in a quickie? Had they cried because they could no longer be together? Is that when their affair began? Felise could say what she wanted. Even if I believed that her sleeping with Steven was a one-time thing, the fact that she would risk everything for that night of passion meant only one thing: she was in love with my husband.

Just the thought felt like a knife being plunged into my heart. I replayed the last six weeks and how she hadn’t been my side. My mind churned as I tried to recall every word she’d said to me in the past six weeks, how she’d tried to get me to move on. How she’d tried to convince me how much Steven had loved me. The memories sent me on a screaming rampage. I cried. I cursed. I yelled as I snatched each photo out of the book and ripped them up.

When I finished, almost every picture in my wedding album was shredded and scattered all over my floor.

“Mom, what did you do?”

My daughter was standing in the doorway to my room, examining the wreckage.

I fought back tears as I fell back against my headboard.

“It’s okay. Sometimes tearing stuff up makes me feel better, too,” she said, coming into the room and sitting down next to me. She leaned over and picked up one of the torn photos. “And a lot of times I end up regretting destroying it.” She gently set the mangled photo down on the coffee table.