Helen slammed her palm onto the little kitchen table. “Enough silence! Ten years I’ve put up with your nonsense, and now this!” Tension hung thick as London fog.
Emily sat opposite, eyes downcast. Her hands trembled, sloshing tea as she raised the cup. Between them lay a crumpled medical report on the Formica.
“What do you want from me?” Emily whispered.
“The truth!” Helen shot up, pacing the cramped kitchenette. “I want the truth! Why didn’t you speak up? Why didn’t you tell me back then?”
Emily set her cup down hard. Tea splashed, a puddle pooling. “Because I was frightened,” she confessed. “Frightened you’d hate me.”
“Not frightened now?” Helen’s voice shook with fury. “Now that I found out myself?”
A neighbour thumped on the radiator. Helen slumped back onto the chair, trying to steady herself, but her hands still quivered.
“Tell me everything. From the start.”
Emily wiped her eyes with a tissue.
“I couldn’t find the words. You were so blissful then, newly married…”
“Don’t dodge! Spit it out!”
“I saw Simon. With her. In that café off Oxford Street. They were by the window, holding hands. She was pregnant.” Helen felt the ground fall away. She knew about the affair, but not that it went back so far. “When?”
“Six months after your wedding,” Emily mumbled. “Coming home from work, I spotted them. Didn’t believe it was Simon at first. Then they came outside… no mistake.”
“And then?”
“I meant to approach, but…” Emily faltered. “He kissed her. So tenderly. Then he… put his hand on her bump.”
Helen shut her eyes. Painful memories crashed over her – that time she’d longed for a baby, while Simon kept putting it off.
“So he already had a child with someone else?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Helen, I truly wanted to tell you, but…”
“You decided to button it. Ten years!” Emily flinched at the sharpness in her friend’s tone.
“I thought it would blow over. That he’d see sense, come back. You were smitten, planning a family, buying little outfits…”
“Little outfits,” Helen echoed bitterly. “While he was raising someone else’s child.”
She walked to the window. Kids played below, laughing carefree on the swings. Helen had dreamed of such scenes. Now she was forty-three, time seemed frighteningly short.
“Helen, forgive me,” Emily pleaded, approaching her. “I know it was wrong. But I couldn’t shatter your happiness.”
“What happiness?” Helen spun around. “Happiness living with a liar and cheat? Spending my best years on a man who didn’t love me?”
“He did love you! I saw how he looked at you!”
“Did you? When? While cheating with his pregnant mistress?”
Emily bowed her head. The words stung like nettles, but she deserved it.
“I thought I was doing right,” she whispered.
“Right?” Helen laughed, a raw, painful sound. “Right would have been telling me the truth back then. Maybe I wouldn’t have wasted ten years on that man.”
The phone jangled in the hallway. Helen went to answer, leaving Emily by the window.
“Hello?” Helen said wearily into the receiver.
“Hi, Simon here. Working late. Don’t wait up for dinner.”
Helen glanced at the clock. Seven PM. Offices shut hours ago.
“Righto,” she clipped. “Goodbye.”
She hung up and returned to the kitchen. Emily sat twisting a tissue.
“Was that him?”
“Yes. Working late. Again.”
“Helen, perhaps… perhaps it’s different now? Maybe he’s changed?”
Helen pulled photos from her handbag, scattering them on the table. “See for yourself.”
Emily leaned over. Simon, the same woman, older now, and beside them, a boy of about nine.
“His son,” Helen stated. “I hired a private detective yesterday. Turns out Simon’s been living a double life for ten years. Officially with me, actually with another family.”
Emily gasped, hand flying to her mouth. “Good heavens, Helen! I didn’t know…”
“Course you didn’t. Because you stayed quiet for ten years. Ten years!”
“But if I’d told you back then, would you have believed me?”
Helen paused. Would she? Or would she have thought Emily jealous?
“Dunno,” she admitted. “Maybe not. But I’d have had the chance to check. Instead, I lived in ignorance for a decade.”
Emily stood abruptly, flicking the kettle on despite the fresh pot brewing. “What will you do now?”
“Divorce. What choice is there?”
“Does he know you know?”
“Not yet. He soon will.”
Helen gathered the photos, stashing them back in her bag. Her hands trembled less now, but the storm inside still raged.
“Know what really rankles?” she said. “Not the cheating. It’s the time I lost. Ten years, gone forever.”
“You’re still young. You’ll meet someone else.”
“At forty-three? With my catalogue of health woes?” Helen gave a wry chuckle. “Doubt it.”
Emily sloshed boiling water into fresh mugs. The tea was stewed, but neither cared.
“Helen, I know you’re angry. Rightly so. I truly meant well.”
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” Helen quoted flatly. “You wanted to preserve my bubble of happiness. Instead, you helped him deceive me.”
“I didn’t help! I just stayed quiet.”
“Silence can be its own sort of betrayal.”
Emily stared at her tea. They went way back – university, first loves, heartbreaks, joys. Helen, the firebrand; Emily, the cautious one, preferring not to interfere.
“Remember how we met our husbands?” Emily ventured unexpectedly.
“At Olivia’s party.”
“You declared right then you’d marry Simon. I laughed, told you it was too soon.”
“So?”
“So… you were always braver than me. More decisive. Maybe if I’d been like you, I’d have blurted the truth.”
Helen was quiet, chewing this over.
“Em… I don’t want this to end us. But I need time. Time to digest this whole rotten mess.”
“I understand.”
“Ten years,” Helen repeated. “Ten years living a lie. Planning our future, dreaming of kids, scrimping for holidays. And all the while, he’s building another life.”
Emily nodded. She remembered the baby clothes, Helen’s joy over Simon’s trinkets, her faith in their shared future.
“What now, then?” Emily asked. “When will you tell him?”
“Tonight. When he gets back from his *other* family.”
“Maybe sleep on it? Think things through?”
“No. Enough sleeping. Enough waiting. I’ve squandered enough time.”
Helen stood, gathering her things. Emily saw her to the door.
“Helen, call me? After… after it’s done?” Emily asked.
“We’ll see.”
Helen left her friend’s flat and slowly climbed to her fourth-floor place. The flat was quiet, empty. Simon, as usual, was busy at his second home.
She went to the bedroom, pulling old photo albums from the wardrobe. Their wedding, honeymoon, early years. She looked so happy, so painfully infatuated.
And Simon? Helen peered at his pictures. Was that smile real? Or was he already thinking of the other woman?
The phone shrilled again. Helen didn’t rush. On the fourth ring, she picked up.
“Yes?”
“Helen, it’s me. Be home
Lena heard footsteps on the stairwell, the jingle of keys, and the scrape of the lock turning; her fingers curled around the edge of the armchair as Sergei finally stepped into the hallway, his face pale, bracing for the long-awaited confrontation.
A Decade of Silence
