Dear Diary,
The phone rang just after dusk. A voice on the other end said, Your husband has been in an accident. But thats not all. The tone was cold and bureaucratic, as if he were reading from a script. I felt my blood turn to ice in my veins. Before I could ask what it meant, the voice added, You must come to the hospital. Hes conscious, but there was someone else with him.
I bolted out of the flat in flipflops, without my coat, clutching the keys in one hand and the phone in the other. On the street I snatched the first black cab I could find. The driver stared at me as if Id lost my mind. All I could think was: what does someone else mean? Who? Mark had just returned from a business trip, at least thats what hed told me.
At StThomas they ushered me to the admissions ward. The nurse gave me a look I recognise from the movies pity, bewilderment, and a desire to end the conversation as quickly as possible. He was involved in a car crash. No fractures, but badly bruised and he suffered a concussion. Hes in the observation room. And the woman she was in the car with him. She died at the scene.
I couldnt make sense of it. Which woman? A colleague? A hitchhiker? Mark never stopped for anyone, never spoke to strangers, never did anything without a reason.
I entered the observation room. He lay there with a bandage on his forehead, his face scraped, an IV drip attached. When he saw me he turned his gaze away. Hello, he whispered. And then everything inside me shattered. Who was she? I asked. A colleague? He was silent. After a moment he said, This isnt the time. But I already knew.
It wasnt until the next day, when they were discharging him home, that he finally told me the truth. It was Ethel. Wed been seeing each other for a year. She was supposed to go back to her husband but wanted to say goodbye to me. I drove her home, was going too fast, and we left the road. He said it calmly, as if talking about the weather, then added, I didnt want you to find out like this.
I returned to our flat feeling hollow. The kitchen still held the same coffee mug on the table, his slippers were still by the radiator. Yet everything had changed. Mark tried to act as if life would simply fall back into place, as if everything would work out. I couldnt sleep in the same bed, couldnt breathe the same air.
Ethel was thirtynine, left two children. I read about her online. Her husband appeared on the local news, saying he didnt understand what had happened, that Ethel had been happy and they were planning a holiday. I stared at the screen and felt that I should have been the one on that screen me, the one who knew nothing.
I shut myself off. I stopped eating. I ignored calls. My daughter came over and urged, Mum, you have to do something about this. But what? He had cheated on me. He had fallen in love, and in the accident had killed the woman he loved. What now?
Two weeks later Mark began talking again about saving the marriage. It was no longer a dialogue between two people, but a monologue from a man with nowhere to go. He didnt weep for Ethel, didnt speak of her, as if trying to erase her from existence. I felt a part of me die the part that had trusted him.
Finally I packed a suitcase and drove to my sisters house. I said only, I dont know how long, but I cant be the backdrop for his lies any longer. Mark was left alone. He called, texted, even once brought a bouquet, but I was no longer that same woman.
