Helena slapped her palm on the kitchen table. “Stop this silence!” she cried. “I’ve endured your antics for ten years, and now this!”
Katie sat opposite, avoiding Helena’s gaze. Her hands trembled as she lifted a chipped teacup. A crumpled NHS letter lay between them.
“What do you want from me?” Katie whispered.
“The truth!” Helena jumped up, pacing the small room. “Why did you keep quiet? Why didn’t you tell me back then?”
Katie set the cup down, tea sloshing over the rim. “I was afraid,” she admitted. “Afraid you’d hate me.”
“And you’re not afraid now?” Helena’s voice shook with anger. “Now that I’ve found out myself?”
A neighbour thumped the ceiling. Helena sank back onto her chair, trying to calm herself, but her hands still trembled.
“Tell me everything,” she demanded. “Start from the beginning.”
Katie wiped tears with her sleeve. “I didn’t know how to tell you. You were so happy then, newly married…”
“No excuses! Tell it straight!”
“I saw Simon with that woman. In the café off High Street. They held hands by the window. She was pregnant.”
Helena felt the ground shift. She knew now about her husband’s affair, but not that someone had witnessed them so long ago.
“When was this?”
“Only half a year after your wedding,” Katie murmured, almost inaudible. “I was walking home from work… saw them by chance. Didn’t believe it at first. Then they came out, and I knew it was him.”
“And then?”
“I wanted to approach, but…” Katie faltered. “He kissed her. Tenderly, like you kiss someone you love. Then he touched her stomach.”
Helena closed her eyes. Painful memories flooded back – that period when she dreamed of a baby while Simon kept putting it off. “So he already had a child with someone else?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Helena, I truly wanted to speak, but…”
“But you chose silence. For ten years!”
Katie flinched at her friend’s sharp tone. “I thought it would pass. That he’d realise and come back. You were so hopeful, planning children, buying baby clothes…”
“Baby clothes,” Helena repeated bitterly. “While he was raising another woman’s child.”
She stood and went to the window. Children played in the courtyard, laughing and chasing a football. Helena had dreamt of children of her own. Now she was forty-three, with little time left.
“Helena, forgive me,” Katie approached her. “I know it was wrong. But I couldn’t shatter your happiness.”
“What happiness?” Helena turned sharply. “Happiness living with a liar? Spending my best years on a man who didn’t love me?”
“He *did* love you! I saw how he looked at you.”
“You saw? When? While he cheated with a pregnant mistress?”
Katie lowered her head. Helena’s words stung, deservedly so.
“I thought I was doing right,” she whispered.
“Right?!” Helena laughed, a harsh, painful sound. “Right would have been telling me then! Maybe I wouldn’t have wasted ten years on him.”
The ringtone echoed from the hall. Helena went to answer, leaving Katie by the window.
“Hello?” Helena said wearily into the phone.
“Helena? Simon. I’ll be late from work tonight. Don’t wait to eat.”
Helena checked her watch. Seven o’clock. Work finished hours ago.
“Fine,” she answered flatly. “Goodbye.”
She hung up and returned. Katie sat crumpling her handkerchief.
“That was him?”
“Again. Working late.”
“Helena, perhaps things are different now? Maybe he’s changed?”
Helena pulled several photos from her handbag, scattering them on the table. “See for yourself.”
Katie leaned over the images. Simon with the same woman, older now, and a boy of about nine beside them.
“His son,” Helena explained. “Hired a private investigator yesterday. Turns out Simon’s lived a double life for ten years. Officially with me, actually with another family.”
Katie covered her mouth. “Good Lord, Helena, I didn’t know…”
“Obviously not. Because you stayed silent for ten years.”
“But if I’d told you then, would you have believed me?”
Helena paused. Would she? Or accused Katie of envying her happiness?
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “Maybe not. But I’d have had the chance to find out. Instead, I lived in ignorance for a decade.”
Katie stood and turned the kettle back on, though the tea was already brewed.
“What will you do now?” she asked.
“Divorce. What else?”
“Does he know you know?”
“Not yet. But he will soon.”
Helena gathered the photos, returning them to her bag. Her hands were steadier, but a storm raged inside.
“Know what hurts the most?” she said. “Not the affair. It’s the time I lost. Ten years I’ll never get back.”
“You’re still young. You could meet someone else.”
“At forty-three? With my health problems?” Helena gave a bitter smile. “Doubt it.”
Katie poured hot water, making the tea far too strong. Neither noticed.
“Helena, I know you’re angry. You have every right. But I genuinely meant well.”
“The road to hell,” Helena quoted quietly, “is paved with good intentions. You wanted to protect my illusion of happiness. Instead, you aided my husband’s deception.”
“I didn’t *aid* him! I just didn’t speak.”
“Silence can be betrayal too.”
Katie looked down. They’d known each other since university, weathered first loves and disappointments together. Helena always said yes; Katie always held back.
“Remember how we met our husbands?” Katie asked unexpectedly. “At Olivia’s party?”
“I remember. You said it was too soon when I said I’d marry Simon.”
“So?”
“You were always braver than me. Maybe if I’d been like you, I’d have told you immediately.”
Helena considered this in silence.
“Katie… I don’t want this to end our friendship. But I need time to process this.”
“I understand.”
“Ten years,” Helena repeated. “Ten years of lies. Planning our future, dreaming of children, saving £300 a month for holidays. And all that time, he built another family.”
Katie nodded. She remembered Helena buying toys, delighting in Simon’s gifts, believing in their happy future.
“What now?” Katie asked. “When will you tell him?”
“Tonight. When he comes home from his mistress.”
“Maybe wait until tomorrow? Think it through?”
“No. Enough waiting. I’ve wasted too much time already.”
Helena stood to leave. Katie saw her to the door.
“Helena, call me when… after it’s done?” she implored.
“Perhaps.”
Helena left Katie’s flat and walked slowly up to her own third-floor flat. It was quiet and empty. Simon, as usual, lingered with his other family.
She went to the bedroom, pulling out old photo albums – their wedding, honeymoon in Cornwall, early life together. In the pictures, she looked so happy, so in love.
Simon? Helena studied his face. Was that smile genuine? Was he already thinking of the other woman?
The phone rang again. Helena let it ring four times before answering.
“Yes?”
“Helena. It’s Simon. I’ll be very late. Don’t wait up.”
“Simon, we need to talk.”
“Not now. Tomorrow
Lena sat perfectly still as Sergei’s key rattled in the lock, the damning photographs arranged like border guards on the table confronting his lies the moment he stepped into the quiet flat, ten years of poisonous silence evaporating at last.
