Then finally, "You helped your mother cheat on your father for months. Dad, I'm really sorry. I swear I knew nothing about this and if I did, you would have heard about it as soon as I knew. I assume you're going to get a lawyer. Please send me his number. Maybe we can get a group discount."
After getting off the phone, I finished my packing and found Jan's wedding and engagement rings on the nightstand. I don't know why, or maybe I do, but it sent me into a fresh rage. Watching Jen with her lover had started the fire, learning from Sue how long it had been going on and her betrayal added more fuel to the fire.
I grabbed the shredder from my office and set it up on the kitchen table and started shredding our photo album. After that I went through the house and shredded every other picture of our wedding. I wasn't being gentle with the frames and there was a pile of broken glass building up on the floor. I realized it was making me feel calmer. Then I went and got every other picture in the house, whether it was by myself, with Jen, with Sue and especially with the three of us together. The pile of shredded pictures had long overflowed onto the floor.
In between shredding, I cancelled all our joint credit cards and locked our accounts.
One of the other things I found was one of the wedding candles we saved. I placed Jen's rings and mine on the candle and lit the wick. I watched the wax melt and began covering the rings. I was afraid to leave with the candle burning, especially with all the shredded paper laying around and I still needed to clean my office. I loaded my office shit in the car.
With the car fully loaded, I took one more walk through the house. The bottle of scotch was still on the table. I was going to bring it with me and then thought it would be dangerous to start drinking. This next year was going to be tough. So, I took the bottle and poured half of it over our bed and the other half on the bed in the guest room. Then I smashed the bottle in the master bathroom.
The rings were fully encased in wax when I blew out the candle. All you could really see was the tip of the diamond on her engagement ring. Maybe she wouldn't notice it when she went to clean up the mess she caused. I remembered to turn "phone tracker" off before I left.
As I was heading out the door, I saw both sets of keys to her car on the rack. That fucking BMW. She had a good car that was only a year old, but she had to have that fucking BMW. We took such a beating. The dealer sensed how much she wanted the car and screwed us over. I made sure I left the front door unlocked and slightly ajar.
I grabbed both sets of keys and tossed them in the river on my way to the hotel. She had those "find my keys" tags on both sets because she was always misplacing them. I wonder if they worked underwater.
After checking in to my hotel, I turned off the phone. I swore to myself that I wasn't going to cry over this. I took a couple of doses of prescription sleep medicine and then another dose when I woke up at two in the morning. The rest of the bottle looked very inviting. Jen had a weird philosophy on people who committed suicide. She considered them weak for quitting. I was not going to be weak.
The sleep meds left me groggy in the morning, but I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower. The hot water felt good and as it flowed over me, so did the memories of last night. Fucking months! How could I be so blind? And she dragged Sue into it and Sue knew the guy. My stomach started growling and I realized I hadn't eaten in almost a day. It was pouring out, so I ran over to a local breakfast joint. While waiting for my omelet, I turned my phone on. At least a dozed missed calls came through and almost as many voice mails. And there were a bunch of
text messages.
The first ones I read were from Jack, seems Jen was pounding on his door, screaming and yelling around noon. She wanted to know where I was. Jack said he told her he didn't know and even if he knew he wouldn't tell. He said the best part was he had told his wife all about what happened. She pushed Jack out of the way and told Jen she better get her slut ass off her porch before she called the police.
The second one from Jack was his lawyer friend's contact info. Jack had already spoken to him and since it was pouring, I should expect a phone call this morning.
While eating my omelet, I read a couple of texts from Aiden. The first was another apology. Sue was still sobbing uncontrollably, and he was getting worried. The third was about the fight Sue got into with her mother when she called. He said Sue told her mother she ruined her life; her father had disowned her, and her husband was divorcing her for her role in the cheating scandal.
I sent hm a text back saying whatever happens between him and Sue, I will always want him in my life. He texted back, "thanks dad."
There was a message from Jack's lawyer friend a Mr. Levis. I gave him a call and we set up a meeting for that afternoon. The rain had cancelled all his plans.
There were several texts from numbers I did not recognize. Some were normal spam, there were three from different numbers I did not recognize. The first was 'where the fuck are you? Did you cancel my credit and debit cards?' The second number I assume was from one of her friends I think, 'I hope you enjoyed your little temper tantrum. God you're such a fucking baby. You better get home and clean this mess.' The third made me spit my coffee across the table, 'where the fuck are my keys?'
When I got back to my hotel, I started up my computer and did a reverse phone search on the first number she was using. It belonged to Daniel Fleming, another accountant that lived two states over. There were tons of pictures of his beautiful family, his beautiful wife and their children.
I sent pictures to his wife of where my wife and his husband were smooching in front of the restaurant. I regretted it right after I hit send but got over it. While I was at it, I started to post the pictures to my Facebook page with the caption, "months of infidelity." I changed my mind, I sent them to Jen with the same caption.
Lover boy started calling me, and I let them go to voice mail. Listening to the voice mails made me wonder if maybe I took too many sleeping pills. The dickhead was blaming me for ruining his marriage and this was my slut wife's problem. I forwarded that to Jen, assuming she hadn't blocked me.
The other two numbers were friends of Jen. I blocked both of them.
The meeting with the lawyer went as expected. We lived in a no-fault divorce state and the divorce was going to cost me and I shouldn't do anything stupid like trying to hide assets. I told him as a forensic accountant, I was very familiar with hiding assets.
What I didn't tell him was there were a bunch of assets that were well hidden. Sue had just started high school when Jen and I got into a big fight. I caught her flirting with one of the husbands and said something to her. She called me a jealous baby and I should grow up. We didn't talk civilly for weeks and anything she did say was spoken in a disrespectful manner. I seriously thought about divorce but didn't want to do that to Sue. Stupid me. The storm blew over but not Jen's biting tongue. At the time, I had hidden almost a million dollars in offshore accounts and bitcoins. I had no idea what it was worth now.
Jack and his wife had invited me over for a barbecue on Sunday. The rain had finally cleared. I didn't want Jen to see my car in front of his house, so I took an Uber over. Jacks' wife Mary, gave me a huge hug when I came in, said she was so sorry and please don't believe all women were like Jen. Mary's sister Diane was right behind her, she gave me a long hug and had a tear coming out of her eye when she released me.
I cornered Jack, "How many people know?"
He looked around the patio, "everybody here." Fuck I responded.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't not tell Mary, and she had to tell her sister. Telegraph, telephone, tell a woman..."
I had to laugh at that old joke, I gave him a hug to show that there were no hard feelings. He had tears running down his face. "How does a woman do that to her husband." he said. Eventually, everybody would know anyway. In a way it was just good to get out. And there were a lot of women that paid me a lot of attention. Both Mary and Diane were by my side the whole afternoon. I had known both since probably before high school and had been attracted to Diane for almost as long. She married some idiot who overdosed on fentanyl right after I married Jen.
As I was leaving, Diane corned me in the bathroom, "Bill, I don't want to be your rebound woman. There's always be an attraction between us so after you get past that stage, please give me a call."
I had turned my phone off before I got to Jack's and turned it back on when I was in the uber heading to the hotel. There were too many text messages, voicemails and missed calls to review.
There were also a bunch of emails. One was from Mrs. Fleming: 'I know you didn't send those pictures out of the goodness of your heart, and I think I have a good idea how much you're hurting. But I sincerely thank you. I have suspected something for some time especially with the amount of time he spends near where you live. I kicked him out after I received your message. Danny always keeps a copy of his expense reports and receipts in his home office. I boxed them up and will send them to you. Please give me an address and let me know if you learn anything.'
I sent her my office address, offered my apologies and thanked her. I also told her that according to my daughter, who knew all about the affair, it had been going on for months. Since my wife was lying to me, I wondered was she also lying to her daughter? It would be interesting to see if there was anything in the expense reports that indicated when the affair started.
Going to work on Monday was simply going to suck. I felt obligated to tell my boss. It wouldn't be right to make me the lead on our next project. I left her a voice mail before I left that I needed to see her. Fortunately, since last week's forensic audit was cancelled at the last minute, my calendar was pretty empty.
As soon as Donna, my secretary, saw me, she grabbed me a cup of coffee, and pushed me into my office. After shutting the door she said, "what the fuck happened Bill?"
Words wouldn't come out of my mouth, there were groans and other weird noises but no words. Donna was an excellent secretary, probably 15 years older than me. The only reason she hadn't retired is, in her words, I was the best boss she ever had.
She grabbed me in a hug and the proverbial dam burst. So much for being the tough guy and not crying. Donna held me like that, and I was finally able to get the story out including Sue's involvement.
"If you keep holding me like this Donna, we're going to be in trouble with HR."
"Fuck HR, what are they going to do? Fire me?"
But she guided me to my seat and handed me my coffee. We sat there in silence which was interrupted by my boss knocking and entering my office.
She looked at our eyes, apologized and said she would come back later. Donna took charge and asked her to come back in.
"May I," Donna asked me. I nodded my head in response.
Donna proceeded to relay the story as I had told her. It sounded worse hearing somebody else tell it. I could see the look of horror on her face.
My boss said, "I'm so sorry Bill. You don't deserve that kind of treatment.
Unfortunately, divorce is common in our line of work. Do you have plans? Do you want to take time off? Don't worry, I'll cover for you as long as you need."
"Actually" I said, "I want to work. I don't want to sit around and feel sorry for myself. But I also don't feel confident leading a project. I would be more than happy to be a chooch and cross foot invoices all day."
"You'll be the highest paid chooch in the building. Linda is starting a review on the west coast next week. It'll get you out of town and she's one of my best, behind you of course. I'll have to give her some explanation why someone senior to her will be reporting to her. I'll just tell her you're having some struggles at home. Shit, half the building has had struggles at home, and I think Linda did two years ago."
My boss exited my office and was back seconds later. She handed Donna her sweater and said she needed to cover her wet blouse before we have a visit from HR. Then she asked for my jacket. When I handed it to her, I realized between my tears and Donna's it was a mess.
"I'm going to send it to the dry cleaners. You'll have it back before you leave."
Maybe it was the cry I had with Donna, but I began to feel good. My boss was taking care of my laundry, I cried all over my secretary and I had a really great group of friends who were going to get me through this.
Donna and I sat around discussing logistics, where I was staying and that sort of stuff. I told her I didn't want to speak with my daughter or Jen.
Linda was knocking on my door, I invited her in, and she sat down.
"Our boss just told me you'll be working for me next week, which is pretty funny since my first audits were working for you. I think I have your stellar reviews to thank for my promotions."
Linda got serious, "she didn't tell me much, simply struggles at home, which in these days usually means marital problems. I had my own a couple of years ago. I would have sworn my marriage was over. Somehow, we worked things out. Is it better than before? No way, it's like an old car, lots of dents and occasionally won't start. Are they better than when the shit hits the fan, definitely. I don't want to preach, but if you ever looking to talk, please don't hesitate."
