The Woman At The Door, Daniel Hurst [world best books to read TXT] 📗

this is not what they will be like in the future, but for now, I’m on my lonesome, and I have to get on with it. Ally had offered to come around and have a glass of wine with me tonight, offering me support and giving me a chance to get more things off my chest regarding my problems with Sam. But I politely put her off, telling her that I’ll see her one night in the week for a catch-up. That’s because it might not do me much good to have someone else’s input into my affairs at this time.

I need to figure this out for myself.

The bread pops up looking much crisper than it did a minute ago, so I scoop it out of the toaster onto a plate and carry it out of the room, along with my cup of tea. I’m heading for the bedroom where I will eat my meagre meal before turning off the lights and thinking about things under the cover of darkness. I like to believe that I do my best thinking during the night when everything is quiet and still. Let’s hope so because I need to come to a decision soon on what I am going to do going forward.

Am I going to let Sam back home and, in effect, say that I believe him when he tells me that the woman at the door and the lipstick on the collar had nothing to do with him?

Or am I going to start trusting my gut instinct which tells me that something is wrong and that my husband might not be the perfect man that I thought he was?

Walking into the bedroom, I put my plate and cup down on the bedside table before getting onto the bed and pulling the duvet up over me. It’s not even eight o’clock, and I’m already tucked up for the night, but I don’t care. I’m entitled to do what I want after the week I have had. From the woman at the door to the near-miss on site to the lipstick on Sam’s shirt and the embarrassing argument in front of my best friend, it’s been the week from hell.

If I can’t have an early night now, when can I?

I must be hungrier than I thought because I eat the toast in no time, and the tea is gone quickly as well. I think about getting up and making more, but I decide not to bother. Instead, I just reach over for the lamp on the bedside table and turn it off.

Now the bedroom is dark, and I can close my eyes and try and get some rest.

As I lie there alone in my bed with my husband several miles away in a hotel room, I think back over our relationship all the way from when we met to this present day. All the dates, from the first few when we were nervous to the later ones when we were far more comfortable with each other. All the text messages, from the flirty ones in the beginning to the more mundane ones after that when we chatted less about sex and more about who would be home first to put the dinner on. All the conversations we had, from the light-hearted and insignificant to the more serious ones where we discussed deep feelings and our plans for the future.

Then there were all the happy times, like the holidays, the nights out and the Sunday mornings in bed spent wrapped up in each other’s arms. There were the sadder times, like when Sam’s parents passed away and I had to keep him strong during the funerals as he bravely plodded on with life. And there were the truly magical times, like our wedding day and the honeymoon we went on after when we were both glowing from the occasion and feeling content in the knowledge that we had found our one true partner for life.

But it’s not just the old times I’m missing now that things have changed. I feel sad for the future times that might not happen now. Getting older together. Celebrating the progression of our respective careers together. Going on holiday together. Spending Saturday nights in front of the TV together.

Just being together in general.

I can’t imagine my life without Sam in it.

I thought he felt the same way as I did. I thought he needed me as much as I needed him. But he can’t do. Not if he won’t be honest with me. He has to know how that lipstick came to be on his shirt, just like he has to know what that woman was talking about when she came to our door this time last week. These things that have happened can’t be random or coincidental. They have to mean something, and maybe it’s obvious what that thing is.

They mean that my husband has potentially cheated on me while we have been together.

Sam says it isn’t so.

But that woman said otherwise.

I know my husband is determined to find out who she is. He has even told me that he has hired a private investigator to look into her. I would like to know too. I want to know who she is and why she came to my house.

I want to know if it was her lipstick on his shirt.

Even if it was true and she slept with Sam, why did she tell me? To get back at him? If so, why? Did he tell her that he was going to leave me but went back on that vow, leaving her angry and vengeful? Or was she just trying to do me a favour by giving me a warning and letting me know that the man I love isn’t as innocent as I think he is?

But I don’t know why she would feel like she owes me anything. Perhaps she feels guilty about what she did with a married man. Maybe it was her way of easing her