Its 7:15am and I hear the thump of a closing suitcase. Halfasleep I slip out of the bedroom, assuming my husband is getting ready for a business trip. Instead I find him in the hallway, coat on, suitcase in hand, his face drawn tight as if he has been rehearsing his words in the mirror for weeks.
Im moving out, he says, not even looking at me. To Poppy.
I freeze. For a few seconds the words make no sense. Then the picture snaps into focus like a photograph: Poppy, his colleague from the office, the woman I shared a table with at several barbecues, the one I once comforted after her divorce, the one whose books I lent her. Poppy, someone I trusted.
It had started months ago, though I hadnt seen the signs. He started coming home later, blaming a mountain of projects. On weekends he suddenly claimed he had client meetings.
Sometimes I heard him slide his phone into his pocket as I entered the room. I told myself I was overreactingweve been together for almost thirty years, I know him like the back of my hand.
The worst part hits when I realise she has been close to us the whole time. She was at our anniversaries, watched us buy a new diningroom table, laughed with our son at Sunday lunch. She knew exactly what I meant to him, and yet
The first weeks after he leaves feel like a waking nightmare. Friends call, asking if its true. I feel a shame that makes it seem as if the betrayal were my fault. The nights are the hardestI wake with the feeling that hell walk into the bedroom, lie down beside me as if nothing had happened. But there is only silence.
One afternoon I go into a highstreet shop and see them together. They arent hiding. Shes wearing the coat I once praised, and he holds her hand the way he used to hold mine. I think that this is the end of my humiliationI have finally seen everything I needed to see.
I start to reclaim myself. Small steps firstI change my haircut. Then bigger onesI take a solo weekend to the coast. Watching the waves crash on the Cornish shore, I realise that although I have lost my husband, I have gained something I havent felt for yearsfreedom to decide only for myself.
A meeting with Poppy arrives unexpectedly, almost three months later. I walk into a café on Oxford Street and she sits at a corner table. Our eyes meet, a brief silence hangs. Im not sure what she expectsshould I rush over, make a scene? Instead I walk up, looking straight into her eyes.
You know whats the worst? I say calmly. Not that you took him from me. Its that for years you were in my house, looking me in the face, planning it all in your head.
She says nothing, turns away. I leave, feeling that this time I am the one walking away. Not from my husbandhes gone alreadybut from everything that bound me: shame, the feeling of defeat, the illusion.
Now I know those twentyseven years were not wastedthey gave me a strength I never appreciated. They taught me that betrayal doesnt end a life; it only closes a chapter. Because now I understand that the greatest revenge is not hatred but happiness, and I am just beginning to write my own anew.
