The phone rang. A voice on the other end said, Your husbands been in an accident. And theres more The tone was flat, bureaucratic, as if the speaker were reciting a rehearsed line. I felt a chill seize my blood. Before I could ask what more meant, the voice continued, You need to get to the hospital. Hes conscious, but there was someone else with him.
I bolted out of our flat in Leeds, no coat, sandals on my feet, keys clenched in one hand, the phone in the other. On the high street I snatched the first cab I could find. The driver stared at me as if Id gone mad. All I could think was: who was that other person? Who could it have been? Mark had just returned from a business trip, or so hed told me.
At Leeds General Hospital they whisked me to the reception ward. The nurse gave me a look Id only ever seen in movies pity, bewilderment, and a desperate wish to end the conversation. Hes been in a car crash. No broken bones, but hes badly bruised and suffered a concussion. Hes in observation. The woman she was in the car with him. She died on impact.
I was stunned. What woman? I asked. A colleague? A hitchhiker? Mark never stopped for strangers, never talked to anyone he didnt know. It made no sense.
I entered the observation room. He lay there under a drip, a bandage across his forehead, his face scratched. As soon as he saw me, his eyes flicked away. Hi, he whispered. And something inside me shattered. Who was she? I demanded. A work colleague? He stayed silent. After a beat he said, Now isnt the time. But I already knew.
The following morning, when they were discharging him, he finally told me the truth. Her name was Tamsin. Wed been seeing each other for a year. She was supposed to go back to her husband, but she wanted a proper goodbye with me. I drove her home, was going too fast, and we went off the road. He said it as calmly as if he were talking about the weather. Then added, I didnt want you to find out like this.
I walked back to the flat feeling hollow. The kitchen still had a coffee mug on the table, his slippers under the radiator, everything looking the same yet utterly changed. Mark tried to act as if life would simply fall back into place, that everything would right itself. I couldnt sleep in that bed, couldnt breathe the same stale air.
Tamsin was thirtynine, a mother of two, I learned from an online article. Her husband appeared on the regional news, baffled, saying he didnt understand what had happened, that Tamsin had been happy, that they had planned a holiday. I stared at the screen and felt the crushing weight of being the one left out of that story.
I shut myself away. I stopped eating. I ignored every call. My daughter, Emily, arrived and said, Mum, you have to do something about this. But what? Hed cheated. Hed fallen in love, and in the wreck hed killed the woman he loved. What now?
Two weeks later Mark started talking again about saving our marriage. It wasnt a conversation any more; it was a soliloquy from a man with nowhere to run. He never wept for Tamsin. He never mentioned her name, as if trying to erase her from memory. It felt as though a part of me had died the part that trusted him.
Finally I packed a suitcase and drove to my sister Lucys house. I said only, I dont know how long this will last, but I wont be a background for his lies any longer. Mark stayed behind, calling, texting, even once showing up with a bouquet. I was no longer the woman he thought he knew.
