Daughter?
A little ten year old girl gave the game away in a fit of spite.
"You can't do that, you're not my Daddy, I've got the paperwork to prove it," She screamed, yes as a ten year old she could scream alright.
She stomped off to her room I guessed.
I swapped looks with Mar, Mariah, but her look didn't quite match mine, mine was a grin, thinking what a fuss about using the laptop, but Mar's expression had no humour in it, but I only thought about that an hour later.
"SEE," Liz the little girl said thrusting some paper at me. "See for yourself," She stood there as upright as she could, looking for all the world like a small cage fighter, all puffed up and breathing hard.
I took the papers from her and looked at them quickly, and then reread them slowly, taking every word in, every word in.
"How did you get this Liz?" I was lost at just the thought.
"It was easy, I told you it was for a school project, you did the swab for me, remember?"
Yes I remembered, and now it was coming back to me, I looked at Mar who was looking back at me questionably, I passed her the papers.
Mar took her time reading them, like me she reread them to make sure that she understood what they were saying, I'd had to.
"Go to your room Liz," Mar said in a voice that broke no argument.
We both sat at the kitchen table, it was where we had all our serious conversations, we could lay out any plans or papers that we needed to look at, this time it was just two sheets of A4 that were in front of us.
I don't know what Mar was thinking about, but I was trying to get my head around how a ten year old could, and did, send off for that test.
Liz was a very, very precocious girl, way above her years in age, in reading, math and just about anything she wanted to be good at, it was hard for most people to understand that she could tell them they were wrong and point out exactly how and why, her reading ability, well she could read quicker and with more accuracy than I could, children's books had been thrown away aged five, so, the how was pretty easy for her, the money, that took a bit more working out, she'd saved and swapped things with older children at school we found out later, so she just ticked the box that asked if you were over eighteen and sent the swabs off with the money, easy, as she said.
Mar and I had been married for twelve years and a bit, just Liz, no other children came along, we had our ups and downs like any other family, but I'd have said we were fine, solid in our relationship, we had a three bed house that the bank was our joint shareholder of, oldish cars, but happily going along until that evening.
Back to that evening.
"So, do you want to go first?" I asked.
Mar couldn't or didn't look at me, those two sheets of paper were all she could look at.
"It wasn't as you are thinking Dave."
"So what do you think I'm thinking?"
Mar was breathing heavily and had the occasional sob, I saw tears in the corner of her eyes.
"I didn't have an affair, I'm not having an affair ... it shouldn't have happened and," Mar got up and bolted for the bathroom.
I went and made tea, it was better to have a clear head was my guess.
Mar came back just after I had put the mugs on the table.
"So, ... you went to bed with someone else, ten years ago, got pregnant and have let me believe that she was mine, all this time and you knew she wasn't and didn't say anything," I took a long time to think before saying anything else., Mar just looked at those pages.
"Do you still see him? Are you still FUCKING him?" I was angry and getting more angry as it sank in.
"Who the fuck is it Mar."
Mar found her voice.
"It was only the once, I promise, only the once ... we were at a party and ... that's why I only ever have one glass of wine if we are out, I, we were drunk and all of us had been flirting and messing around, you included, and when I went to the bathroom, he was coming out and he pulled me in and I let him watch me pee, ... what started as a laugh ... he took me bent over the bath, it was quick there was no kissing or affection in it, it was just a spur of the moment thing that should never have happened, I regret it every second of the day, you have to believe me on that Dave."
I looked at her, I didn't know what to think or say, but my mouth went on before my brain started.
"Believe you, how can I do that? You've lied to me for over ten years, how can I believe anything anymore."
Liz took that moment to reappear in the doorway.
"Look what I've found," she held the laptop out showing a website.
I thought I was being very rational, but maybe I wasn't.
I took the laptop from her hands, it was the thing that had changed my life, I saw it in my hands and took it out the back door, I beat it, smashed it over and over again, I took my frustration out on this piece of plastic and metal, there wasn't anything in it that would be of any use to anyone when I put it down on the kitchen table.
Liz and Mar had come out to see what I was doing, they were both crying when I got inside, Liz for her website and Mar for the end of her marriage.
I never went to bed that night, my brain couldn't stop.
I packed what I could, there wasn't anything that I wanted anymore, I felt dead inside.
I went to work and somehow got through the day, I slept in the car that night not knowing what else to do
Still not having slept it wasn't until a friend in the office asked what had I been doing, his comments that it looked like I slept in the car and I needed to have a shower did sink in.
A good friend must have had a word with my supervisor, he took me back to his place and made me shave and shower, he never asked and I never said what had caused my problems, I stayed a fortnight in his place, sleeping on the sofa, I found my little room, it was just a room, the bathroom was down the hallway, the kitchen was one electric ring and a kettle.
Mar had tried to get me to go home, not that it was my home anymore, I asked for time and she gave it to me.
I'd sort of got my brain back into something like normal and went to her house, as I saw it now, one evening after work.
Mar opened the door and Liz ran to hug me.
"Daddy, Daddy where have you been?" A ten year old might be a genius, but they had no idea about relationships, and how easy it can be to break them, in her eyes it was all over, she had shown how clever she was, job done, let's get onto the next one.
I looked at Mar and shook my head in anguish, but I didn't say anything to Liz.
We sat at the table again, just looking around I felt like a stranger here now, Mar wanted to talk, she wanted me back, she wanted to make it up to me, we could talk, go to get help, but I only had one question.
"WHO," Mar didn't want to tell me, "so you're still protecting him and not me" Finally got a name, Jamie, he and Debbie were? Not with me he wasn't anymore, good friends, they lived around the corner and we socialised together as families.
"Does he know?" Mar shook her head no.
I got up and walked out the door, Mar must have realised where I was going, but she couldn't leave Liz alone and getting her out would be a problem.