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

There is only one way I can see that is possible, and it is that he can do it because he is the kind of man who is able to put his own selfish desires ahead of thoughts for anybody else. Seeing him with his colleague looking like he didn’t have a care in the world has made me realise that he really doesn’t have a care in the world. He doesn’t care that he cheated on me, nor does he care that I found out about it. For him, it looks like life goes on, and I have to wonder now how many times he has been going for drinks with this woman in the past when I thought that he was just working late. Where else have they gone together? Have they ever gone back to a hotel? Have they ever gone back to her place?

And have they ever gone back to ours?

As I stood outside that bar glaring at the entrance knowing that my husband was inside there enjoying a drink with another woman, I thought about how it could have easily been this person who came to my doorstep and told me that Sam had cheated. Why not? I feel like Sam could have been seeing all sorts of women behind my back. He sure looks like he is a hit with the ladies. It makes me mad that he protested so angrily when I accused him of cheating, but it was clearly just a defence mechanism because he had been caught out. What a guy he turned out to be.

And what an idiot I turned out to be.

I decided to walk away from that bar and not go inside to see if he was even closer with that woman than their walk into it had suggested because there had simply been no point. I’m done. I’m done with him, and I’m done with this marriage. Forget what he has done with that bloody woman who came to our door and wrote me a letter, although that is bad enough. The thing that has hurt me the most is actually seeing him smiling as he left the office because here I am dying on the inside. Who knows, but maybe if I had seen him looking all glum and moody then it might have at least given me a sign that he was missing me and couldn’t go on without me. But no. Not Sammy boy. He’s perfectly fine, and now he’s probably getting perfectly drunk with that perfectly good-looking woman he is out with tonight.

I’m back home now, the letter is back in the bin, and I’m thinking about going back to my parents. But then I decide to do something else. I head upstairs into the bedroom, the one I spent so many years sleeping in beside the man I loved, and I take out a couple of suitcases. Then I open up the wardrobe doors and all the drawers in here and start taking out Sam’s stuff.

His shirts. His trousers. His shoes. His socks. His gym gear.

Everything of his that I can find is going into these suitcases.

By the time I am finished, the room is looking a little bare, although not too bare because I always did have more clothes than him, so there’s still plenty of things hanging in the wardrobe and filling up the drawers. But at least his stuff is no longer clogging up my space.

After zipping up the suitcases, I carry them out of the bedroom and down the stairs, feeling the strain in both my arms, but my determination overpowers my muscle fatigue, and I make it to the front door. Unlocking it, I step outside and dump the suitcases on the driveway, ready for Sam to pick them up when I tell him where they are. Then I go back inside and close the door, leaning against it and breathing heavily.

As I get my breath back after my excursion down the stairs with the luggage, I feel better for what I’ve just done. I’ve begun the process of moving on. At least superficially, anyway. But the real moving on won’t happen unless I make my separation from my husband official.

That means getting a divorce.

And that means everybody knowing about it.

36

SAM

I’m glad I went for a drink with Maria. It helped to take my mind off things for a short while, and it felt good to have a reminder that not every woman in the world hates me at the moment. Alexandra hates me, although I still don’t know why. Rebecca hates me because of what Alexandra has done. And I’m sure that Rebecca’s mum hates me after I have upset her daughter.

But at least Maria doesn’t hate me. She’s a good colleague and a good friend, and she is also a good drinker. She had plenty of wine while we were in the bar after work, and that is why I can excuse what she did at the end of the night when it came time to say goodbye.

She made a pass at me.

Of all the shocking things that have happened to me recently, my colleague moving in to give me a kiss is perhaps the winner. I had no idea that Maria even liked me in that way. To be fair to her, she had apologised immediately and told me that she had made a mistake before saying that she knew I was married and she had simply had too much wine that night. While I had been stunned at the unpredictable turn of events, I had told her that it was okay and that I didn’t think any less of her for what she had done. She seemed relieved about that but no less embarrassed, and she had made a hasty exit then, hailing a taxi and fleeing the scene as if I was the police and she was a criminal with a bag full of stolen