Tainted Sanctuary

Chapter Four

A series of images and videos appeared, each more intimate than the last, and the tears just fell, seeing my husband with the same woman, their love plastered in front of me. "How could you… how could you do this to our f*****g family?" I gulped. Each moment feels like a razor blade carving through my heart. Then came the emails. It wasn't just the infidelity that hurt; it was the date of one of the emails. It was the hours before Marco's accident. "We didn’t f*****g deserve this God," I cried.

The overwhelming realization that the man I loved, the father of my son, was capable of such profound deceitfulness and heartlessness made my vision blurry with tears as I clicked through more letters. I wished he knew how badly this was killing me. Part of me wishes I could hurt him the same way.

I was horrified, disgusted, angry, yet like a moth to a flame I was drawn in. I had to know. There were photos of them, laughing together, looking happy. In the middle of everything was a picture of Marco, the same one that had been on his computer's background. My son's smiling face, a symbol of innocence in a sea of deceit, seemed to mock me from the screen and my heart plummeted.

"Maria please, you don’t have to watch this."

"You don’t have to put yourself through this pain" but all I could muster "How could he do this to our family? To our son? To everything we fought so f*****g hard for!" I muttered through a clenched jaw.

Her eyes glistened with tears, "You don’t have to go through this alone" as she placed a comforting hand on my back. Tears streamed down my face as I shut my eyes, trying to block out the images, but they lingered like ghosts. I click on another file within the file. I hesitated, but the need for answers consumed me. The videos that followed were gut-wrenching, but one caught my eye. It shows my husband laughing with the same woman, their chemistry palpable. My heart sinks further as I watched them share kisses before she calls for Marco, who looks visibly angry, upset before he calls for me, his mummy.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I slammed the laptop shut, tears gushing down my face. "He f*****g took him to see her, that bastard!"

"Everything was a lie!" I sniveled as Elena kneeled beside me, wrapping her arms around me.

"I’m here." "You’re not alone." I couldn’t help but cry. The pain is overwhelming, it's unbearable.

"I am alone, he took my son from me."

"I never wanted to find this, but he left me with this", my voice muffled as I pointed to the mess of letters, photos, jewelry and the USB stick in front of me.

"I can’t imagine the pain you’re in" she tearfully whispered as I sobbed harder, "I thought we were happy?!"

"I thought he loved me?!"

"I thought after the sacrifices we made we could trust one another?!" my misery evident.

"I don’t know what’s worse: him not loving me and Marco or him loving her?!"

"You are grieving, Maria, this is normal." "It’s okay to feel the way you do, but I’m here for you" she gently rocks me, trying to soothe me, but it was no use.

"This isn’t normal, I shouldn’t have to feel this way!"

"I shouldn’t have to burry my f*****g angel, my little boy, my flesh and blood?!"

"I didn’t ask for this, I didn’t want this, how do I f*****g move on from this?!"

"How do I live with the fact my own husband killed our son for another woman who he brought Marco to see?!"

"Did he allow him to die on purpose as Marco wouldn’t accept her?!"

Elena wiped the tears from my cheeks. "I know Maurilio wouldn’t purposely harm him, we both know that" she softly smiled.

"Now stop making yourself miserable."

"We’ll take this one step at a time, one day, one hour."

"We will take each day as it comes, and you’ll find your way, you’ll eventually find peace whilst honoring Marco," she softly whispered.

"I’ll never have peace."

"My peace was stolen from me, it was ripped from my life, from our lives!"

"I need to f*****g find her, I need to confront her". Elena looked apprehensive but nodded, "I’ll help you, we’ll figure this out and do what needs to be done!" her voice firm.

"Thank you" I managed to muster a smile.

That night, as the moonlight streamed through the window, casting eerily shadows, I held on to Marco’s favorite stuffy, although it was matted, tatty, it smelt like him. I could feel him. I sat alone in his room and my mind wondered, why did he stay with me and Marco if he was having an affair? What made him choose her? What had the affair been about? Why did he feel so much guilt that he couldn’t face his own actions? Lots of whys with no explanations, "Why, Marco?" "Why you?" I breathed into the silent room. "Why my baby God, why my f*****g baby!?" The answer, of course, was that there was no answer.

There was only a void, a deepening hole in my life that would never be filled.

You were my sunshine, my laughter, my comfort. You were me, and I was you. My existence was only for you, my blue-eyed boy. Three years. Three years of pure, complete happiness in a tiny human being named Marco. And now… nothing but love never dies, yet this doesn’t feel real, like it never happened, that this wasn’t my life. Then it dawns on me that heaven and earth separate us, but I’ll always be a mummy, Marcos mummy.

Surrounded by his toys and his drawings, I finally understood. I couldn’t stay. Not in this house, not with the ghost of him. The pain was too great, the betrayal too overwhelming. He had taken him from me, not directly, but deviously. He had created the circumstances, the chaos, that led to this.

I wasn’t a grieving widow, a grieving mother but a force to be reckoned with.