The phone rang. A voice on the other end announced, Your husband has had an accident. But that isnt all The tone was icy and bureaucratic, as if reciting a script. I felt the blood in my veins turn to ice. Before I could ask what it meant, the voice continued, You must come to the hospital. Hes conscious, but someone else was with him.
I fled the house in my slippers, clutching the keys in one hand and the phone in the other. On the street I grabbed the first cab I could find. The driver stared at me as if I were mad. All I could think was: what does someone else mean? Who was it? Mark had just returned from a business trip, or so he had told me.
At StThomas they ushered me into the admissions ward. The nurse gave me a look I recognised from the moviessympathy, bewilderment, and a desperate wish to end the conversation. He was involved in a road collision. No broken bones, but hes badly bruised and suffered a concussion. Hes in the observation room. The woman she was in the car with him. She died on impact.
I couldnt process it. Which woman? A colleague? A hitchhiker? Mark never stopped for strangers. He never talked to people he didnt know. He never did anything without reason.
I entered the observation room. He lay there with a bandage across his forehead, his face scratched, an IV dripping into his arm. 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 stayed silent. After a moment he said, Now isnt the time. But I already knew.
The next day, when they were preparing to discharge him, he finally told me the truth. She was Poppy. Wed been seeing each other for a year. She was supposed to go back to her husband, but she wanted to say goodbye to me. I drove her home. I was going too fast. We left the road. He said it as calmly as if describing the weather. Then he added, I didnt want you to find out like this.
I returned to the flat with a hollow inside. The flat looked the same: a coffee mug on the table, his slippers by the radiator. Yet everything felt altered. Mark tried to pretend life would snap back into place, that everything would settle down. I could not sleep in the same bed, could not breathe the same air.
Poppy was thirtynine, mother of two. I read about her online. Her husband appeared on the local news, saying he didnt understand what had happened, that Poppy had been happy and they had been planning a holiday. I stared at the screen and felt it should have been me sitting thereme, who knew nothing.
I shut myself away. I stopped eating. I stopped answering calls. My daughter arrived and said, Mum, you have to do something about this. But what? He had cheated. He had fallen in love, and by accident 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. It was a monologue from a man with nowhere to go. He never wept for Poppy. He never mentioned her, as if trying to erase her from existence. I felt as though a part of me had diedthe part that had trusted him.
At last I packed a suitcase and drove to my sisters house. I said only, I dont know how long this will last, but I cant be a backdrop for his lies any longer. Mark was left alone. He called, he texted, he even showed up once with a bouquet. But I was no longer that same woman.
