by B. L. Berry
A loud shrill fills my small apartment and I stuff the bookmark inside my paperback and toss it on the table. I cross the room and push the button on the wall to speak to my unanticipated guest.
“Hello?”
“Hi, is… um, is Elyse home?” I don’t recognize the voice of the woman on the other end of the receiver, but it’s shaky and feeble.
“Yes, this is Elyse. Can I help you with something?”
“I hope so. You don’t know me, but we have someone in common.” She pauses and I can hear rustling.
Okay? That’s vague.
“Do you mind if we talk? It should only take a few moments, but I’d rather not do this over the speaker.”
I’m not about to let a strange woman up here. With my luck I’d be kidnapped the moment I fall in love again. “Um, who do we have in common?”
“Simon. Simon St. John.”
Simon? What does this random woman know about Simon? Oh my god. What if something happened to him? Maybe there was an accident and someone from his work is here to tell me? Surely she wouldn’t be so cryptic, would she?
“I’m ... I’m sorry. What did you say your name was again?” I ask with my finger hesitating over the buzzer.
“I didn’t.” The woman sighs deeply through the speaker. “My name is Sharna. I’m … I’m Simon’s wife.”
The woman’s words sucker punch me right in the gut and all of the air is sucked from my lungs. I pull my hand off of the talk button quickly as if I was electrocuted at the sheer mention of the word wife. That name. I know that name. The ground beneath me shakes, but there is no earthquake.
His wife? His wife is dead. His wife’s name is—was Carolyn. Carrie.
What the …?
He’s still married?
What the fuck is going on right now?
The box on the wall shrills again, pulling me from my thoughts but I don’t respond. Instead, I brace myself for the tidal wave that is about to take out my entire life. Drown my sense of reality. I barely recognize my own hand as it trembles and pushes the black button to open the door.
I step back and wait.
When she knocks, I quietly approach the peephole and look at the woman on the other side. The woman whose life I have completely destroyed without any knowledge. The woman who is here to kill me, no doubt.
Sharna is a beautiful woman. Her long chestnut hair is pulled back in a messy ponytail and her eyes are splotchy, like she hasn’t slept in weeks. Then again, she probably hasn’t. Her eyes shift restlessly, looking everywhere but straight at the door. I swallow the overwhelming sensation of guilt, slowly turn the knob and step back to allow her in.
But she doesn’t move. She just stands there cautiously in the doorway, unsure if she actually wants to come inside. Because crossing the threshold of my home makes everything more real. She knows she’ll be the intruder in the space that Simon and I have shared so often. When our eyes finally lock, she curiously studies my face. My heart falls into the pit of my stomach and I know that she shares the same disbelief that I’m incapable of hiding.
“I didn’t mean to just show up. But I didn’t know what else to do,” she mutters in a hushed tone and I hate that she sounds so apologetic. She has no reason to apologize to me.
I softly whisper, “He’s really married?” But it isn’t a question. It’s an atomic bomb, instantly obliterating everything I’ve come to know and love over the past few months. In a matter of seconds, the important things in life have all turned to dust.
The woman before me nods subtly then shows me the screen of her phone. It’s a photo of Simon with his arms wrapped around her. She’s grabbing him with her left hand and it’s impossible not to notice the size of the diamond ring she’s wearing.
Panic sets in and I can hear my heartbeat in my ears.
I half expect her to charge like a running bull and bitch slap me. But she’s too late. Reality has given me the most painful bitch slap of all. And a bitch slap always seems to say the right thing.
“I had no idea.” I say the words under my breath and more to myself than to her, but she no doubt hears me. “I think we should talk.” My voice is soft, small even. Sharna lowers her eyes and bites her bottom lip and tentatively steps inside. As soon as she moves her hands out from in front of her, I gasp.
She’s pregnant.
My hand shoots up to my mouth and tears pool in my eyes. I’m left speechless. Instinctively, I turn away. If I can’t see it, it isn’t true.
Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.
I never would have gotten involved with a married man had I actually known he was married. Who does this? Who cheats on their pregnant wife? How the hell am I the other woman in this whole mess? The mistress.
Oh, God! Mistress. I am going to vomit.
Sharna walks around my humble living room and picks up the silver picture frame holding a black and white photo of Simon and I having a picnic along the lake last month. I want to rip it from her hands to avoid bringing her any more pain. But she’s here in my home, and she obviously knows, or at least suspects, that we are—no, were together.
The silence is as comfortable as a thick splinter in the arch of your foot. And finally Sharna speaks. “I’m sorry to intrude like this. Obviously this was not a visit you were expecting.”
I scoff in horror. “No.” I turn back around and reach out for the picture, but she pulls away and I quickly reel my arm back to my body. “You don’t owe me any apologies. But I ... I had no idea he was married. And that is the God’s honest truth,” I blurt out, confused. My fingers are in my hair. My stomach is in my throat. My heart is on the floor.
Everything was a lie.
Sharna says nothing, but her shoulders quake and tears begin to flood her eyes as well. I slowly sit down on the couch and she follows suit, sitting on the edge of the love seat, the very same love seat we made love on just last week.
I blanche at the thought.
“You’re married?”
“Yeah.”
Neither of us says anything for a long time, but the weight of the words hang heavily in the air. And so we sit. And cry. And look at each other in complete confusion and anger. Two women, wrecked.
She should be interrogating me. This woman should be here slitting my throat. Gutting me slowly ... painfully. And the fact she isn’t makes this much worse.
Maybe the revelation of Simon and me brings her a small sense of relief? Maybe this woman has been the victim of her marriage long before I was ever brought into the equation?
“I have so many questions, I don’t even know where to begin,” I confess, feeling awkward that I’m the one with the need to ask questions.
“Me, too.”
There is obviously no easy way to do this. We’re going to inadvertently hurt each other more. But who the hell am I to feel any hurt in this situation? I am— apparently —the other woman. I should be cast aside to rot in hell.
How did this happen? Or rather, how did I let this happen to me, especially after everything I went through with Jason?
My eyes are incapable of focusing on any one thing, so instead, they focus on everything.
His pregnant wife is sitting before me in shambles.
The collection of dust bunnies in the corner of the room.
The flashing light of unheard voicemails on my landline.
The rhythmic thrumming of the ceiling fan slicing through the air.
The ice machine growling from the kitchen freezer.
And then I focus on the only thing in the room that can’t be seen—their child. I can’t pull my eyes away from her swollen belly. She is beautiful and glowing in spite of what Simon has done to her. To us.
And I have to know …
“I know it’s none of my business, but how far along are you?”
Sharna shifts uncomfortably on the love seat and wrings her hands. “Nearly seven months. I’m due November eleventh,” she whispers.
I’m doing the math in my head and
by my calculations, Simon and I began this illicit affair shortly after they would have discovered they were expecting.
“How long …?” Sharna asks, practically reading my current trying of thought. But she doesn’t finish her question. She doesn’t need to.
I look up at Sharna and her chest rises slowly as she steels herself for an answer. I want to bring her comfort. I want to lie and tell her it was just one time. That none of it mattered to him or to me. I want to salvage something out of this head-on collision and I feel like it should be her sanity.
But I can’t lie.
I don’t know exactly what she already knows, if anything at all, and the least I can do is give her honesty because clearly she’s not getting that at home. And she deserves to know the truth. I know that’s all I want right now.
I hang my head in shame and chip the mint green nail polish off of my thumb. “Since June,” I say softly.
I am horrifically ashamed of what I’ve done. The wail that escapes her mouth shatters every fiber of my being and I hate myself for all of the agony I’ve brought to this woman. Everything with Simon ends right now.
“But it’s over. I’m through with him. I had no idea ... please, believe me.” I don’t care that I’m begging, but I don’t think she can hear me over the sobs ripping through her body.
I want to reach out to comfort her, but I know better. She doesn’t want comfort from me. She doesn’t want to be touched by the woman who touched her husband intimately. So I quietly excuse myself and get both of us a glass of water and place a box of tissues on the coffee table between us, hoping that the tiny gesture at least brings a hint of comfort to her.
“Thanks.” Sharna grabs a tissue and wipes her streaky cheeks. “I don’t mean to be a mess. This is just a lot to take in.”
I say nothing but nod. It’s a lot for both of us, but I don’t want to diminish her emotions right now.
Our silence is sobering.
After a while, she picks up my copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, flips through the pages.
“This book,” she says with a hint of sarcastic recognition. “I hear this book is as hot as it is miserable.” She snorts and tosses it back onto the table.
She just repeated the very same words I told Simon when I suggested the book. I’m not sure why she’s talking about literature at a time like this, and I fail to see the humor in her actions, but who am I to question anything this woman does right now?
“You don’t have to answer, but how did you two meet?”
I tuck my legs underneath my body and hug the throw pillow protectively to my middle. “I was out celebrating a friend’s birthday. He approached me at the bar, gave me a ridiculous pickup line, and after talking for a while, I invited him back to my place. We connected because we’re both writers. I only intended it to be a one night thing.” I know that could never make her feel better about the situation, but I want her to know I didn’t bring him home that night with the intent of a long-standing relationship.
“He told you he was a writer?” A flash of dark hair flips as she starts to laugh maniacally. There is something seriously off with her. Is this woman going crazy?
“Yeah, a travel reporter. I’m a copywriter at an ad agency. I guess you could say we bonded over words.” I raise my eyebrows.
Sharna shakes her head in humored disbelief. “Honey, Simon isn’t a reporter. He’s a partner at one of the most successful financial consulting companies in the city. When we got married, my uncle took him on as his protégé and gave him the company a little over a year ago. He’s worth a few million. Not that he needed it. His family comes from old money.”
I choke on my water and my words and the air in my lungs and I can no longer breathe. “What?” Holy shit.
Sharna nods and suddenly the room feels entirely way too small. This woman is in my space taking up way too much room and I want out. My head gets lighter and I need to put some distance between me and this new reality.
“You really had no idea, did you?”
The last thing I want is for her to start thinking I slept with her husband in the hopes of getting hush money. I wipe my sweaty palms against my shaky legs and force myself to stand up.
“Excuse me just a moment.” I retreat back into the kitchen in search of solitude. Or vodka. Yes, vodka. Vodka always helps.
I yank open the freezer door and grab the half empty bottle of Belvedere, rip open the top and take a long sip. When I pull the bottle away from my lips, Sharna is watching me from the doorway then approaches me carefully, like I’m holding a revolver rather than a fifth of vodka. She takes the bottle from my hand and instead of putting it away, she too takes a hearty swig.
“What do you think you’re doing? You’re pregnant!” I snatch the bottle from her hands defensively.
“My life is fucked. It doesn’t even matter,” she says in nonchalant hopelessness.
Does she not even care?
“Stop that!”
This whole afternoon is fucked up. We should be having some knockdown, drag out fight. But instead, I’m watching a pregnant woman drink while commiserating together.
Nothing makes sense now. Then again, maybe nothing ever did?
“How did you, you know, figure it out?”
She shifts her weight back and forth and gnaws her thumbnail while avoiding my gaze. Then I watch her chest rise and fall as she exhales, then she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a folded envelope. I instantly recognize the script of his name as my own penmanship.
It’s the letter I wrote Simon.
The letter where I professed my love for him and desire to be with him every waking, breathing moment. The letter that, had I known who he really was, I never would have written.
I hate myself for having written it.
Sharna places the envelope on the counter and slides it across toward me. “I’d apologize for reading it, but I can’t say that I’m sorry. I was making sure his pockets were empty before doing laundry a few days ago. It was still folded when I found it. I don’t think he read it.”
I pick up the folded piece of paper, remembering how liberating it was to put those words on paper just last week. How quickly life turns without warning. “Then a few nights ago after he fell asleep I, um, I matched up your first name with the mysterious letter ‘E’ contact on his phone. When I did a reverse search on the phone number, this address pulled up.”
Well, fuck me.
“Oh ...” I hold the letter tightly in my hands, unsure of what else to say. I gave him my heart. I poured my heart out onto the page and assumed that with our history, he would return the sentiment. But instead, his wife is the one returning it to me.
“I’ve had suspicions for a while. I don’t think he’s ever been truly happy. Not that that justifies adultery.” She practically spits the word. Then she tightens the elastic in her hair and leans against the kitchen counter. “But a while ago my brother hired a private investigator to trail him for a few days. He pulled all the information I needed, but I was never brave enough to look at it and accept my reality, the doomed fate of our marriage. I shredded everything my brother gave me without ever looking at it. Stupid me.”
Sharna looks at her hands and shakes her head. I think I hear her curse herself under her breath, saying something how could she be so foolish.
We’ve both been played the fool here.
“I swear I had no idea.”
She nods. “I believe you.”
“You do?”
She nods silently then exhales slowly. It reminds me of the kind of steeling breath you take because you’re about to confess your deepest sins aloud for the first time.
“It’s not the first time he’s pulled a stunt like this. He’s cheated on me before.” And just like that, my broken heart shatters into a million tiny fragments. “Back when we were dating, he had a brief stint with his secretary Carrie.” Sharna gives me a pointed look when he says the name.
I gasp softly, trying to make s
ense of everything. And my stupid mouth speaks before I even have a chance to think. “He told me that was his wife’s name. That he was a widower.”
Sharna doesn’t look surprised. “It feels like I’ve been dead to him for years.”
I’m not sure exactly what to say to that comment, so I take another sip of Belvedere.
“He never admitted it to me, but he loved Carrie. I know he did. I should have ended the engagement, but I was a fool and tightened my reins on him instead. It’s part of the reason why he abandoned his startup company and started working for my uncle.
“I liked the fact that he would be under my uncle’s watchful eye. If he ever stepped out of line, I’d be the first to know. Or at least I thought I’d be.”
I can’t help but feel sorry for this woman. She’s succumbed to a life of second-guessing herself, paranoia and the underlying feeling that she’s never enough. That’s no way to approach a marriage.
I look down at the near empty bottle in my hand and seal it back up before returning it to my freezer. Sharna is clearly fucked up in the head on some level, and for me to adequately deal with all of this new information, I can’t be fucked up as well.
“Do you guys live in the city? I’ve been to his condo before. I don’t understand.”
“He doesn’t live in a condo. We have a townhouse in Lincoln Park.”
“Then who has the condo that overlooks Millennium Park? The one across from The Bean on Michigan Avenue?”
Sharna cringes and laughs in disbelief. “That place? The one with the doorman and the large balcony? That’s his brother Nathan’s home. They lived there together before we got married. But Nathan is practically never around. He’s a pilot.”
At least there is one truth in everything he’s ever told me. He actually does have a brother named Nathan.
Sharna has been here for nearly an hour and it feels like she’s said too much without doing an excessive amount of talking. I know too much. And it’s all too much to process.
“Look. I don’t blame you,” Sharna informs me nonchalantly as she stares me down with icy, hard eyes. “It’s obvious you had no idea who or what you were getting involved with when you … when you decided to fuck my husband.” Her bluntness makes me uneasy and I’m half-tempted to rip the freezer back open and toss back whatever’s left of the vodka.