This is a tale of cheating, corporate mischief and a revenge of sorts. A man whose wife took advantage of her husband's absence but paid a price. My thanks to blackrandl1958 for her editing skills, which have made this story a much better read.
*****
That damn jacket! If I had not left my jacket at home, things might have been completely different. My eighteen-wheeler was loaded and ready to roll on its 600-mile delivery, but my jacket was at home in my wardrobe. The foreman was not happy about it, but allowed me a few minutes extra to drive past my home to collect it.
Cursing as the trailer wheels clipped the kerb rounding the last bend into my narrow street, the brakes sneezed as I drew to a standstill in front of my home. Strange, I thought. That looks like the boss's car in my driveway. Leaving the truck motor idling, I bounded through my front door and down the passage to the bedroom I shared with my wife.
The room was fully lit when I opened the door, finding my loving wife on her hands and knees, with my boss pounding away happily. She was unaware of my presence, but he noticed me straight away. For a moment he looked guilty and paused his thrusting for a split second, then he just grinned and kept boring away.
I reached into the wardrobe, trembling with rage, grabbed my forgotten jacket and yelled at the pair of them, "I'll see you two later." Storming out and trembling with rage, I slammed the bedroom door hard, slammed the front even harder and clambered into the cabin of the big Kenworth. The big truck barrelled through our narrow suburban street until it gave way to the freeway, where it stretched its legs and charged through the night to our destination.
My anger was a strong as ever, though I regained control of the tremors that racked my body when I stumbled out of my home. Home? Hell, I wasn't sure I even had a home anymore. I was trying to get my head straight when the front wheels hit a bump in the road, the truck veered wildly off to the left and my last memory was a huge tree trunk looming in front of the windscreen.
*****
"I think he's waking up," said a female voice in the distance.
I tried in vain to open my eyes. My arms would not move and I couldn't feel my legs. Another voice, closer to me, whispered: "Thank God." It was a voice I recognised immediately: my wife Dianne.
Other voices joined in and I could feel hands touching my face.
"Good morning, Mr. Hammond. Nice to have you with us again. How are you feeling?" an authoritative male voice boomed out.
I tried to speak but could not form any words. With intense effort, I was finally able to open my eyes. My surroundings were brightly lit. I made out several shapes moving around the room without being able to identify them.
"Mr Hammond," the male voice boomed out again. "Blink your eyes if you can hear me."
I blinked.
"Good. Good. Mr Hammond you have had an accident and you are in a hospital. Do not try to move. You have several broken bones and we've had you in an induced coma for fourteen days while we tried to get you stabilised. Do you understand?"
Yeah, I get it, I thought. I blinked again.
"Okay, now we have to get to work to get you on your feet again. It will take some time, but we will get you better."
I felt very tired and groggy, closed my eyes and nodded off into dream world again.
When I opened my eyes again, who knows how much later, I was able to see clearly. I surveyed my surroundings. Various tubes penetrated my anatomy, but I found I could turn my head a little to the side, which allowed me to see that I had company. My wife sat in a chair in the corner of the room, reading a book. She sensed rather than saw my movement and immediately dropped the book and hurried to my bedside.
"Oh Steve," she started. "I'm so glad you're awake again. I thought we'd lost you. How do you feel?"
What a dumb question, I thought. How on earth was I expected to feel after weeks in a coma and unable to get up and walk? I was spared a reply, though. I tried but still couldn't speak. She gently touched my forehead and returned to her seat, wearing an expression I could not understand. Compassion? Anger? Sympathy? Guilt? I steadily returned her gaze until finally she broke eye contact and looked away. Yes, no doubt about it. It was a guilty face that had me under surveillance. I struggled to clear my mind. The tree my truck slammed into flashed through my consciousness. Did I slam the front door and run from the house? Why?
The concentration was too much and I let myself drift away again, no doubt helped by morphine, or whatever they were using to control my pain.
It was dark when I awoke again, and the chair in the corner had been replaced by a makeshift cot. Dianne was curled up, sound asleep, with a thin hospital coverlet over her body.
I let my mind wander. Slowly my thoughts crystallised. I remembered collecting my truck from the depot and finding my jacket was still at home. I remembered bursting through the door of my bedroom to see my darling wife on her hands and knees with my company boss pounding into her doggy fashion. Everything started to fall into place.
I tried to speak.
"You bitch!" I wanted to scream. What came out of my mouth was little more than a gurgle, but it was enough to wake Dianne, who scampered out of her cot and rushed to my side. I flinched when she tried to touch my face, trying to turn away. I hoped my eyes conveyed the anger I felt.
For days, the doctors kept me drugged-up to control pain. I found that in addition to breaking both legs, I had sustained a back injury which was not yet fully investigated. The truck I was driving was a complete write-off but I was lucky that a car following me had reported my crash immediately when it happened and an ambulance was on site within moments.
Doctors began explaining the extent of my injuries and detailing my rehabilitation program. Throughout all this the constant in my room was my darling whore wife, Dianne.
My voice returned. What I should say to my wife? One of the nursing staff, during a rare moment when Dianne slipped out to use the bathroom, observed that she had never seen a more loving wife. Dianne had arrived soon after I was admitted and had refused to leave my side since. I did not disillusion her.
When Dianne returned and the nurse had gone, I decided to ask for some answers.
"How long, Dianne?"
She turned to me in surprise.
"They think you fell asleep at the wheel," she ventured cautiously. "Your recovery is expected to take several months."
"That's not what I meant and you know it." I shot back. "I definitely did not fall asleep at the wheel, but something caused my truck to veer off the road. Now, what about you and my boss? How long have you been fucking him behind my back?"
"Steve, I really don't want to talk about him right now. I love you, only you, and I'm devoting myself to helping you recover from this awful accident."
"Well you may think me ungrateful for saying so, but the last time I saw the two of you, it certainly didn't look like you were in love with me. On reflection, it also occurs to me that this time was not the first time you two have been together, right?"
She didn't have to answer. The guilt was plainly visible in her face as she looked down at the floor to avoid my scrutiny.
"So, my faithless Dianne, how long?"
"Steve, I really don't want to talk about it."
"Do you want a divorce then?"
"Oh, God no, Steve. Please believe me when I say I love you and only you. I want to bear your children. I want to grow old with you."
"That is most unlikely now, Dianne. You crapped all over our wedding vows. Remember the ones where we promised to be true to each other? Until death do us part? Well, I'm truly sorry to disappoint you by surviving the crash, but it seems that you couldn't wait until my demise in any case, so the chances of us living together in harmony for the rest of our lives is fairly unlikely, don't you think?"
She flinched from my vitriolic outburst and fell back into her chair, sobbing quietly, hands covering her face.
"I think you should go home, Dianne. You will probably think me ungrateful for not appreciating your dedication, but each time I look at you all I can see is my boss defiling you."
She sobbed louder, grabbed her little overnight case and stumbled from my room into the hospital corridor. I was alone and felt miserable. When a nurse came by, she immediately commented on my wife's absence. I decided not to comment, but asked her to contact my work foreman to tell him I could see visitors. He turned up less than an hour later.
"I've seen the truck Steve. You're a lucky bastard; I can't believe that you got out of there alive!"
"Yeah, well thanks for coming down, Phil. I've been replaying the crash in my head for a few days now. Even though my memory of the event is a bit hazy, something on that truck broke. It was uncontrollable Phil. The wheel got wrenched out of my hands and the whole damn rig just speared off the road after it hit a bit of a bump. Have they checked the rig yet?"
"Nahh. The word is that you fell asleep."
"Phil, go and talk to the workshop foreman, will you please? Ask him to look at the wreck and see what he can find that might have forced me to run off the road."
