Turning onto our street, my breath caught at the sight of my mother standing on the porch, her face pale. She stood there, her fists clenching and unclenching every few seconds.
An older woman standing outside | Source: Pexels
“What on earth is going on?” I asked. “Is Laura okay?”
“I’m so sorry, Steve,” she said, her voice faltering, and the ground giving in beneath my feet.
“What? No! What happened? Is it the baby? Tell me, Mom!”
My mother looked confused for a moment, and then her next words struck a different, unforeseen chord. Her eyes met mine, filled with a sorrow that immediately told me whatever news came next, it wouldn’t be good.
A shocked man | Source: Pexels
“No, darling,” she said. “She is fine!”
“Then why did you apologize?” I asked, wondering why I was still standing on the porch instead of rushing in to my wife.
But there was something about my mother’s overall energy that made me feel uneasy. I put my briefcase down at my feet, waiting for her to say something.
A man holding a briefcase | Source: Unsplash
“I apologized because I didn’t want to be the one to tell you,” she said. “But Laura has been cheating on you.”
The world stopped spinning. The betrayal sliced through the shock.
It turned out that my mother had come home because she wanted to use our bathroom.
A white ceramic bathtub | Source: Unsplash
“My building doesn’t have any water, and I just wanted to come over and shower,” she said. “I came in, and there she was with him.”
It turns out that when my mom walked in, Laura had been on the couch with the man she was having an affair with. My mother couldn’t let him leave; she wanted him to be there when I got home.
A couple sleeping on a couch | Source: Pexels
A mix of anger and agony surged through my veins as I pushed past her into the house. The scene before me — a man, disheveled and awkward, trying to avoid my gaze — was like a surreal nightmare.
“Who are you?” my voice was a low growl, directed at the stranger in my living room. He started to speak, but I couldn’t hear him over the blood roaring in my ears.
An angry man sitting down | Source: Pexels
Then, she appeared. Laura. My wife. Her face ashen, eyes brimming with tears. She reached out to me, a gesture which was once so familiar, yet felt so alien now.
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