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Michael has been so very distant lately, and I don�t understand why. We�ve always been so close, and now, he barely looks at me. Sometimes I wonder if he really is working. Sometimes I wonder if he was untruthful all those years ago when we found out I couldn�t have children and now he holds it against me. We wanted babies so very much then, �a houseful and then some� he would joke. It�s just been within the last few weeks I�ve really considered what Mariah has suggested. Maybe he is having an affair. I don�t want to think about it. I just couldn�t bear that. I finally called that Devon Matthews on the card Mariah gave me, and he was so kind and gentle I couldn�t help but trust him right away. He answered all my questions and assured me his investigation would be complete in a month or less (or my money back).
I was in no way prepared for the depth of his final report. There were pictures of my husband embracing barely more than a girl, at least twenty years his junior. Little Miss Molly Wheaton worked for an insurance company, and moonlighted as a painter. She went to Yoga three afternoons a week, and jogged every morning. She was young, and pretty. He even had pictures of that slut following my husband into my house. Michael bought her a car, bought her furniture and was paying off student loans and credit card debts for her. He had met her for countless lunches and cozy, expensive dinners, all the while he was telling me he was working. Tears were streaming down my face as I continued to read, and before I knew it, I was crying in Devon�s arms. He comforted me with light touches and softly whispered words of kindness. Devon kissed me, and I let him. His fingers burned a trail over my body so hot, I was sure Michael would see the marks later.
Arriving home, I poured a bottle of scotch down my adulterous throat and ran a bath, after leaving a message for Mariah to come over as soon as possible. Several hours, and bottles of wine later, Mariah arrived. She found me in my bathrobe, with my hair in a towel, lying across the bed in quite a pitiful state. I told her everything about Molly, the Yoga classes, the gifts he bought her, the bills he paid off, the lunches and dinners they shared...and I told her about Devon. Mariah was sympathetic, some of the time, she empathically cried with me, and others she wrapped her willowy arms around me while I cried. When I finished my story, and I had cried so much I didn�t believe I had any tears left, there was a long silence.
Mariah looked at me strangely, and said that Michael and I didn�t have any children, so when he asked for a divorce, it was unlikely I would get anything. Then she said that all the clues I needed were in that report and in my heart I knew what had to be done. She ended by saying sometimes a woman�s best friend was a well planned moment of indiscretion. Then she left. Mariah�s words left me cold. My body was trembling and my mind was going 8 bazillion miles a second. The more I drank, the more sense what she suggested made. So I drank and I planned, my bottle pouring down my throat, and my heart breaking in my chest.
After a sleepless night, I called the Yoga Center Molly attended the next morning and signed up. My plan was to get to know this child-woman my husband was so fond of, find out what she had that I didn�t and then work my way into her life often enough that I couldn�t help but run into them together. Just once was all it would take, then I would have the proof I needed so that Michael couldn�t divorce me and leave me with nothing.
That night was a Yoga night, as it happened, so I left a note for my soon to be estranged husband and set off for my first lesson. I recognized her immediately. She had the same fresh, young look that I once had. Molly was beautiful, and delicate. I soon discovered she had a sweet nature and a way that seemed to draw people to her. That very light that drew everyone else, repelled me like polar opposite magnets. She was nothing but a home wrecker, and a fury welled up in me so fiercely that I could barely breathe.
At the end of class, the instructor said there was going to be a mountain spa get-a-way the following Thursday through Sunday and we were all invited. I waited to see if Molly was going and then signed up just after she did.
After I told Michael I was going, he said he was hoping we could have spent that time together. I bitterly reminded him of all the work he had to do, and stood firm in my decision to go.
Molly was nothing but a star the whole weekend, even winning some stupid reward Saturday night for being the most popular attendee. I don�t know for sure, but that may have been the straw that broke the camel�s back for me. Sunday morning, like all the mornings which preceded, I woke early to jog with Molly. She was babbling about how wonderful her life was, and telling me about a fulfilling relationship she was having, and I saw red. As we rounded a corner, just off a sharp cliff with a long way to the bottom, I both tripped her and gave her a rough shove. Her eyes widened and she reached for me, but I moved back quickly to avoid her. After one thin scream, I heard the satisfying crack of her head on a jutting rock and the faint, dull thump of her body as it landed on the ground below.
Several hours later, after I was home, I was still shaking, terrified, listening to Mariah�s words, �sometimes a woman�s best friend is a well planned moment of indiscretion� reverberating in my head. This wasn�t well planned! It had just happened! It was an accident, wasn�t it? Maybe she just fell, maybe this was all a dream maybemaybemaybe, so many damned maybes. I knew the truth, though. So what if it wasn�t planned, it still wasn�t an accident, I couldn�t even talk myself out of that fact.
Once again, I called Mariah and she came over, finding me drunk, and barely coherent. I told her the whole story. I have not the slightest inkling what she said during my story. I just know that afterwards, she threw back her head and roared with laughter. Her eyes were bright, and alive. Mariah was very pleased. Her reaction would have shaken me to the core of my being, had I not already been shaken so badly.
Three days after Molly�s death, news of her disappearance was all over the media. Michael was obviously distraught, before that, I very nearly went mad with guilt. Somehow, seeing him that way, gave me as much pleasure as it did pain.
On the forth day, Mariah called and said she was coming for dinner at 7. It was imperative that both Michael and I be there, as she had something to tell us. A heart broken looking Michael and a drunken me, greeted her. During the second course, Mariah told her story, even playing the tape she made the night I confessed to killing whom I thought was Michael�s mistress, only to discover long after the fact, it was actually his daughter. She ended her story by telling us the sins of the father�s are indeed visited on the sons.
End