The Wife He Killed Returns

Phoebe A woman's red heel lay on its side at the foot of my stairs. I stopped in the hallway, a pastry box balanced on one palm and my work lanyard still hanging around my neck. For several seconds, I stared at the shoe, trying to make sense of it. It wasn't mine. Beside it lay my husband's leather shoes, carelessly discarded, one resting on top of the other. I glanced at the clock on the wall. Four in the afternoon. Tristan's car was in the driveway, which was strange. He rarely came home before seven, and whenever he did, it was usually because he had forgotten something important or needed me to bring documents to the factory. I placed my keys in the ceramic bowl beside the door. "Tristan?" No answer. I looked toward the staircase. A floorboard creaked upstairs, followed by a soft laugh that made me pause. The sound was unfamiliar, but the warmth in it wasn't. It was the kind of laugh people shared when they believed they were alone, when nothing outside their little world mattered. I climbed the stairs slowly. The air grew warmer as I approached our bedroom. Then I caught the scent of jasmine. My stomach tightened. I knew that perfume. I had smelled it in the elevator at work, in the conference room after Lydia had visited my husband's office, and once on the collar of Tristan's shirt when he came home late and claimed he'd spent the evening with investors. I'd asked him about it. He'd kissed my forehead and told me I was imagining things. I reached the landing. A quiet murmur drifted from behind our bedroom door, followed by another laugh. My fingers tightened around the pastry box. I pushed the door open. For a moment, my mind refused to understand what my eyes were seeing. Lydia's blouse hung over the back of my chair. Her handbag sat beside my dressing table, and her phone lay on my nightstand, right next to the framed photograph of Tristan and me on our wedding day. And in the middle of my bed, beneath the cream sheets I'd spent an entire Saturday choosing, lay my husband with another woman. Tristan looked up first. His expression changed so quickly that I might have missed it if I hadn't spent four years learning every little movement of his face. Surprise. Fear. Then something that looked remarkably like guilt. "Phoebe." The pastry box slipped from my hand. It hit the floor, the lid flew open, and one of the custard tarts rolled across the wooden boards before stopping against Lydia's handbag. Neither of them moved. I stared at Tristan. He stared back. My husband. The man who kissed me goodbye every morning, who called me whenever his meetings ran late, who held my hand at his mother's birthday dinner and told everyone I was the best thing that had ever happened to him. The man who had promised, before God and our families, that I would never have to question my place in his life. He was in my bed with another woman. "Phoebe, please." Lydia pulled the sheets to her chest. For someone who had just been caught sleeping with a married man, she looked remarkably composed. She glanced at me, then at Tristan, as though she expected him to explain why his wife had interrupted them. I couldn't bear to look at her anymore. "Get dressed," I said. My voice sounded strangely calm. Tristan reached for his trousers. "Phoebe, let me explain." "Did I ask you to explain?" He stopped. I turned to Lydia. "Get dressed and get out of my bedroom." She opened her mouth, perhaps to offer an apology, but whatever she saw in my face made her think better of it. She climbed out of bed, gathered her clothes, and disappeared into the adjoining bathroom. The door clicked shut. I remained where I stood, looking at the man who had once been my safest place in the world. "How long?" I asked. Tristan rubbed a hand over his face. "Phoebe…" "How long have you been sleeping with her?" He looked toward the bathroom. That tiny movement told me more than any confession could have. "Tristan." "A year." I blinked. "A year?" "It wasn't supposed to happen like this." I almost smiled at the absurdity of it. A year. Three hundred and sixty-five days of lies. A year of coming home to me, eating the meals I prepared, sleeping beside me, and kissing me as though his mouth hadn't been on another woman's. A year of watching me trust him. "How did it happen, Tristan? Did you trip and fall into her bed every night?" "That's enough." The sharpness in his voice startled me. I looked at him. He looked back, his jaw tightening as though he had every right to be angry. Then, almost immediately, his expression softened. "I'm sorry," he whispered. He climbed out of bed and reached for his shirt. He buttoned it incorrectly, but he didn't seem to notice. "Phoebe, look at me." I didn't. "I know I have hurt you. I know there's no excuse for what I've done, but I need you to understand that things haven't been easy for me either." Something inside my chest went very still. "Things haven't been easy for you?" He sighed. "The factory has been under enormous pressure. I've been working constantly, dealing with investors, managing the expansion. I made a terrible decision, and I regret it." "You made a decision that lasted a year." "I know." "You brought her into our home." "I know, Phoebe." "You put her in our bed." "I know." He stepped closer, reaching for my hands. I pulled them away before he could touch me. For a moment, he simply stared at me. Then his shoulders slumped, and he lowered himself onto the edge of the bed. "I am ashamed of myself," he said quietly. "I don't expect you to forgive me immediately. I don't even know if I deserve your forgiveness. But I love you, Phoebe. I've always loved you." I looked at him then. Really looked at him. His eyes were red. His hair was dishevelled, and his shirt was still buttoned incorrectly. He looked like a man who had lost something precious. But I was the one standing there with my heart breaking. "What about her?" He frowned. "What about her?" "Do you love her?" "No." The answer came too quickly. "Then why?" He opened his mouth, but no words came. For the first time since I'd entered the room, I saw something other than guilt on his face. I saw irritation. It lasted barely a second before he replaced it with another wounded expression. "Phoebe, I made a mistake. A terrible one. I won't defend it, and I won't ask you to pretend it didn't happen. Just please, don't let this destroy what we have." "What we have?" My voice cracked. I hated that it did. He reached for me again. "Four years," he whispered. "We've been married for four years. We've built a life together. I know I have no right to ask anything of you, but please give me a chance to make this right." I looked past him at our wedding photograph. We looked so happy in that picture. I remembered the way he'd held my face before kissing me, how he'd promised to spend the rest of his life making me happy. I remembered my mother's tears, my late father's proud smile, and the way Tristan had squeezed my hand beneath the table during our reception. I had believed every word he said that day. Perhaps that was what hurt most. Not that he'd betrayed me, but that he'd allowed me to build my entire understanding of our marriage around a lie. The bathroom door opened. Lydia emerged fully dressed, carrying her handbag. She avoided my eyes as she walked toward the bedroom door. "Don't," Tristan said suddenly. She stopped. He looked at her, then at me. "Not another word," he added. "Just go." Lydia's lips pressed together. For a moment, I thought she might argue. Instead, she walked past me, her perfume trailing behind her. At the door, she paused. "I'm sorry, Phoebe." I said nothing. She left. A few seconds later, I heard her heels clicking down the stairs, followed by the opening and closing of the front door. Then the house fell silent. Tristan stood in front of me. "She's gone." I looked at him in disbelief. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?" "No. I just…" He exhaled shakily. "I need you to know that it's over." I turned toward the window. The afternoon sunlight spilled across the garden, illuminating the flowers I'd planted the previous spring. Everything outside looked exactly as it had when I'd left for work that morning. The world hadn't changed. Yet nothing in my life felt familiar anymore. Behind me, Tristan moved closer. "I'll do whatever it takes, Phoebe. I'll prove that you can trust me again. I'll cut off all contact with her. I'll change my schedule. Whatever you need, I'll do it." I folded my arms across my chest. "And if I never trust you again?" He was quiet for a moment. "Then I'll spend the rest of my life trying to earn it." I wanted to believe him. That was the humiliating part. Even after everything I'd witnessed, even after hearing the truth from his own mouth, some foolish part of me still wanted to believe that the man I married was somewhere beneath the stranger standing in front of me. I wanted him to tell me this was a nightmare. I wanted to wake up in our bed, with his arm around my waist and the morning sunlight slipping through the curtains. I wanted my marriage back. But I couldn't look at him without seeing Lydia's red heel at the foot of my stairs. "Please leave me alone for a while," I said. Tristan hesitated. "Phoebe…." "Please." Something in my voice must have reached him because he finally nodded. "All right." He picked up his jacket and walked toward the door. Before leaving, he turned back. "I love you." I didn't answer. He stood there for another moment, perhaps waiting for me to say it back. I couldn't. Eventually, he left the room. The moment the door closed, my knees weakened. I sat on the edge of the bed and pressed my hands against my face. I didn't cry immediately. I simply sat there, listening to the familiar sounds of my home: the refrigerator humming downstairs, the distant rumble of a passing car, the ticking clock in the hallway. Then I looked at the photograph on my nightstand. Tristan and me. Four years of marriage captured in a single frame. I picked it up, ran my thumb over the glass, and wondered when the man smiling beside me had stopped being the person I thought I knew.