Revelation Blues Pt. 03

Don was not done yet, he told Mary that she could meet up with him in town the next day to see the jeweler. Again, Mary readily agreed. Scott made herculean efforts to control his temper and decided to sort this out with Mary when they returned home.

The rest of the evening went by without any further incidents. Almost without incident, Scott suddenly recalled! He had noticed that while they were having dessert Don's left hand was lingering under the table and so was Mary's right hand. He looked at Mary, her eyes were fixed on her plate, as if she was trying to x-ray her desert. Scott pretended to drop his napkin and bent over to pick it up, in his attempt to be inconspicuous he wasn't fast enough, all he managed to see was Don's hand returning to the table and Mary's hand reaching for her napkin. The Weldon's dog was sleeping under Don's chair. Anything was possible.

* * *

Scott recalled the events of that Saturday morning. He had an argument with Mary about the previous night but he didn't want to put the blame on Mary, he was angry with Don and she tried to defuse the situation, at least that's how he interpreted her reactions. He asked her to call Don and cancel the jeweler appointment, but Mary told him not to make a big issue of it, it would be good to have the ring insured anyway. Scott thought about this for a minute, he did have a receipt for the purchase of the ring but it reflected only a fraction of it's true value, definitely not what Simon's father had told him the ring would be worth nowadays. Getting some photos and a proper appraisal for the insurance made sense, and should Mary lose the ring or have it stolen she would be able to replace it with another one of equivalent beauty. He reluctantly agreed, the only thing that irritated him was the fact that Don was in the picture.

Mary was supposed to meet Don at 2:00pm. She was ready to go at 1:30pm and seemed in a hurry to leave the house. Scott told her as she was leaving that he would take Dean sailing for a few hours and he will see her back home, but he didn't catch her answer, she was in such a hurry that she almost slammed the door. Scott and Dean went to the Marina and sailed in Biscayne Bay for a couple of hours. They were back home around 5:30pm but Mary wasn't home yet. She came back at 6:30pm and had a radiant smile on her face. She apologized for being late and told Scott that she left the ring with the jeweler as he needed time to do a proper valuation, she then did some shopping not knowing when Scott and Dean would be back. She stopped at the local liquor store and bought two bottles of their preferred red wine.

Mary's cheerful mood was contagious and Scott recalled that he was hoping that this evening would be a special one. It was, but not the way he had hoped. It all started with a trivial event. After a nice dinner and a relaxed family time, Scott and Mary went up to their bedroom. As he often did, Scott emptied his pockets and put what was in them on the nightstand. He had a few coins and one of them slid and fell on the carpet then rolled under the bed. Scott bent down and slid his hand under the bed trying to retrieve the coin. As he couldn't feel it, he knelt and looked under the bed. He saw the coin and another, bigger object; it was an empty bottle. Scott pulled it out; it was an embossed glass bottle of Coca Cola, the vintage type. First he wondered what would a bottle of Coke do under their bed, neither Mary nor him brought up food or drinks to their bedroom. He then wondered why was the bottle on his side of the bed. The bottle was empty, in fact there was no trace or smell of Coke, as if it had been washed. Still, the bottle's neck and panel were dirty on the outside, as if someone with sweaty and dirty hands held the bottle. Scott was certain that the bottle wasn't there last weekend because he had helped Mary turn the mattress and spray it along with the carpet with anti-allergen spray.

Scott recalled the events of that night. Mary was in the bathroom and had just walked back into their bedroom when Scott showed her the bottle. The ensuing discussion was very tense. Mary first denied knowing anything about the bottle, then suggested that it may be Dean who brought it up to their bedroom. Scott reminded her that they always buy cans, never bottles, and even if by chance Dean had brought in a bottle, why would he slide it under their bed. Mary then suggested that it may have been Steve when he came up to see his mother. Scott wondered what would Fiona be doing up in their bedroom. After a long and stressed discussion, Mary finally admitted that Fiona stayed over at their house for two nights and that she shared the bed with Mary as they chatted till late into the night. He remembered vividly Mary's words that night.

"Scott, please don't make a big issue about this. Look, Fiona slept in the guest bedroom the first night. The second night we had all gone to sleep and I was laying in bed reading when I heard Fiona get up and go to the bathroom. She saw the light on and asked me if I was asleep, I told her that I wasn't and that she could come in. She came in and we chatted for a while then she sat on the bed and we chatted some more and eventually she was so upset about how her life was going that she started crying and I comforted her, we chatted some more and she ended up sleeping here that night. I didn't want to say it earlier because I know that this would upset you but I just couldn't kick her out when she was feeling so miserable and needed to be comforted."

They argued some more but eventually he gave up. Scott was conflicted; on one hand he knew how manipulative Fiona could be and on the other he understood Mary's compassion and saw the goodness in her act. He just threw his arms in the air and sighed. Fiona managed to spoil their evening one more time. The bitch even managed to take his place in bed when he was away. Sleep didn't come easy that night. Scott felt that something was still missing or unresolved. He still couldn't figure out how that bottle of Coke ended up under their bed and the explanations he was given simply didn't make any sense.

A few days later Mary returned to the jeweler and got back the ring and the appraisal. She was astounded when she saw the appraised value, which was slightly above what Simon's father had indicated the ring would be worth nowadays. She told Scott that night that he was crazy spending that sort of money on a ring no matter how beautiful it was. He had to tell her how much he paid for it but also told her that nothing was too much for her. They made passionate love that night and all else was forgotten.

Scott realized now that the signs were there but he was blind. He was in love and love is blind. He thought Don was the court jester, the king's fool, the one that occasionally entertained Mary and made her laugh with his stupidity. He never imagined Mary being attracted to Don, she even considered him ugly physically, let alone having an affair with him. Fuck, he never imagined her having an affair with anyone!

That raised a new set of questions. For how long has he been blind? Could it be as far back as when he first met Mary and fell in love with her? Should he have found out more about Mary and her past before they got married? If that was a business deal, he would have dissected it and researched every aspect before making a decision. But that wasn't business, it was LOVE. Scott wondered why people made such important decisions in their lives on the basis of a ephemeral emotion called love. He remembered an article he read a while back published by the University College London about the effect of love on people's brain that explained the colloquial term 'love is blind'. The two researchers found out that among other areas, parts of the brain, towards the front, that are implicated in social judgment, seems to get switched off when people are in love. They concluded that strong emotional ties to another person inhibit not only negative emotions but also affect the brain circuits involved in making social judgments about that person. Bloody chemistry! He enjoyed reading the article at the time but he didn't realize that he will be having a first hand experience to prove it.

Scott made a mental note to check the days preceding and following their wedding anniversary in Mary's diary once they reached their destination.

Chapter 13 -- Damning Documents

The remainder of the flight and the stop over in Hong Kong were mostly spent catching up on some sleep and chatting with colleagues. They landed in Kuala Lumpur around 1:00pm on Sunday.

They were greeted by their hosts at the Kuala Lumpur airport and whisked in three cars for the short drive to their hotel. The hotel was about 3 miles from the company's offices and that suited them just fine.

During the days, he concentrated on his meetings, visiting the facilities, listening to presentations, and going over the material they were being handed. Occasionally, Scott and his colleagues would have informal business dinners with the executives of the company they were visiting, the other evenings he had casual dinners with his colleagues to go over the day's events and findings.

Due to the 13 hours difference, Scott would call home daily around 7:30am his time, 6:30pm the previous day in Florida. He would speak for a few minutes with Mary then have a somewhat longer conversation with Dean before he had to head off to breakfast with his colleagues then his meetings. Mary expected Scott to call at that time, so she made sure to be home when he called. She wouldn't say much, not as much as she would have said on Scott's previous trips.

When he was alone in his room, Scott did not indulge in his usual activities, his mind could focus on nothing but Mary, what she did, what she may be doing, his own findings, and his own recollection of events.

The first night, Sunday, Scott checked the dates of the events he remembered during his flight against the calendar of events he had laid out in his spreadsheet and against Mary's diary.

He noticed that Mary had two small dots during the week he was away in London and Brussels. The first was on Tuesday and the second on Thursday, which meant that she had sex with Don just before they went out to celebrate their fifteenth wedding anniversary. Scott felt absolutely disgusted knowing that Mary had slept with Don that day, that afternoon probably, then again with him after their anniversary dinner. She knew that he was taking her out that night, that very special night, and that they would end up making love, yet she purposefully went ahead and fucked Don. The moral implications hurt Scott much more than the sexual act.

What shocked him even more was the small dot on Saturday, the day Mary went to the jeweler. She had noted 'jeweler' in her diary but that small dot was so damning. She did more than go to the jeweler and do some shopping. How could a person be so cunning, he wondered. Sleep with her lover in the afternoon then come back home smiling and bringing her husband his preferred bottle of wine. He wondered if there was some subliminal message in her action, some mischievous way of diverting his attention, or just good old plain stupidity.

Scott also noticed that Mary called Fiona on Monday and then again on Thursday the week he was away. He suspected that Fiona must have been with Mary from Monday evening to Thursday morning. He was certain about Tuesday and Wednesday evening since Mary had already admitted to those. He also suspected that Fiona must have been aware of Mary's affair by then. What caught his attention was what Mary had noted in her diary on Wednesday. It was the name Fiona with a circle drawn around it. He had never noticed that before anywhere else in Mary's diaries. That day must have been special for Mary and she wanted to remember it. He knew that Mary lied to him about that night, at least she didn't tell him the full truth.

Scott reconstructed gradually the sequence of events as best he could based on the evidence he gathered. The flirting with Don must have started when they went to the spa, either the first or second time. It must have taken a new dimension after that night at the club where Don told Mary that he had a secret to share with her. Two weeks later Mary started her affair with Don. She hadn't informed Fiona initially, as the calls to Fiona became less frequent. She must have informed Fiona in late November as the calls had increased and became almost daily. Mary must have used Fiona from then on as an excuse to meet with Don. His travels gave Mary and Don perfect opportunities to meet, although they weren't content with just that as the dot on the day they went to collect the ring indicated. He suspected that Fiona was playing a bigger role than he initially suspected and that her relationship with Mary extended beyond platonic friendship.

Scott was enraged. He was pacing his hotel room like a lion in a cage. A week ago he thought his wife loved him and cared deeply about him, and now he finds out that she was acting like the best, or worst, of sluts. He thought he was an intelligent man that can detect problems, even before they occur when they were just potential problems, and now he felt like the village idiot. He thought his world was perfect, and now he realized that it was nothing but an illusion. The foundation of his private life was shaken to the core and for the first time in his life he had no idea what to do to fix it. He collapsed on his bed realizing that there was nothing to be fixed. The patient is dead, surgery can only be in the form of an autopsy, followed by a funeral and a burial.

The following night saw Scott going over the scans of the various documents he found in Mary's box. He had already read the divorce papers, some of Don's notes, and Brad Blunt's letter. He reviewed them again in case he missed something then he focused his attention of the other documents.

Three scanned documents caught his attention.

There was a note from a guy called Frank. It was a brief note but quite explicit. It read 'How could you fucking do this to me? I thought we had something special until I saw you with Jimmy at the Cafe Art. You fucking ignored me. How could you do that? I saw you kissing him. Are you doing him as well? Call me. Frank'. The writing was that of a 6 years old and it took Scott a few seconds to decipher the writing.

Scott vaguely recalled a Frank among those who constituted Mary's artistic circles in California. He was an artist, a sculptor, one of those non-conformists living on the edge of society. Scott met him only once but remembered him quite vividly. It was a couple of years after they married, he went with Mary to San Francisco to see an art exhibition and Frank happened to be there. He distinctly recalled that guy hovering around them almost the whole time they were there, he wasn't particularly discreet, and he noticed that Mary seemed to be doing her best to avoid that guy until he came over and said hello to Mary. She then introduced him as Frank, a sculptor she met a year ago at an art workshop, then introduced Scott as her husband. Scott remembered the surprised look on Frank's face. He looked at Scott as if he was an alien just landed from a far away planet. Frank mumbled a few words then started ranting about all sort of things, none of which made sense to Scott. He thought Frank was on a high, maybe had a bit to drink, maybe both. Mary was uncomfortable and did her best to end that awkward situation. They left the exhibition shortly afterward. Mary told him that she met Frank last year, he used to hang around some of her artist friends, but she never really liked him.

Indeed, Scott thought, the same way she didn't like Don. He didn't know who Jimmy was but it was obvious that something happened between him and Mary. The 'are you doing him as well?' is not the sort of question you ask a casual acquaintance, they must have known each other well, maybe done each other as well.

The second item wasn't really a document. It was a leaflet for a hotel in Miami Beach describing the hotel and it's services. It was the kind of leaflets one finds at hotel receptions, or in guest folders in the rooms. Scott was surprised when he scanned that leaflet as it didn't seem at the time to be of interest and wondered why Mary would keep such junk in her secret box. He scanned it anyway, just to be thorough. Scott noticed Mary's handwriting on one of the internal pages. There was a number, 352, the parking instructions were circled, and the words 'enter from beach side door' written in the margin.

Scott knew that he'd never been to that hotel, alone or with Mary. It wasn't the kind of hotel where his company would host visiting guests or hold conferences. He couldn't recall Mary ever telling him that she'd been there. The only conclusion that Scott could draw was that Mary had been to that hotel, that the room numbers must have a particular significance, and that the note to enter from the beach side door meant that the person entering wasn't supposed to be seen entering the hotel from its main street entrance. He wasn't stupid, he knew what the room numbers could have meant under the circumstances, but he had no dates and no proof. He spent some time checking Mary's credit card statements but found no reference to any payment to this hotel. He wasn't expecting any really, but he had to check anyway. If that's where Mary met Don, then either Don paid for the room or she paid in cash. If it wasn't related to her affair with Don then a whole new range of possibilities presented themselves. One thing was certain; Mary was always afraid of forgetting things and she instinctively wrote things down when she was given instructions or directions or reminded of things to do.

Despite his mounting anger Scott couldn't stop himself from thinking about Mary's habit of keeping tell tale evidence of her dalliances. Why on earth would someone go to such an amazing level of deception then keep such incriminating evidence? Mary had that compulsion to write everything down in her diary, maybe that was another form of compulsion, he thought.

The third document was a receipt and some documents from a Medical Center in Kendall he had never heard about. The little Scott could make out of the medical jargon and codes indicated that it was related to a D&C procedure related to a miscarriage. This document completely shocked Scott to the point of numbness. Mary had never mentioned a miscarriage. He had no other way of knowing about it as it became apparent that Mary paid the Medical Center in cash and didn't ask for his medical insurance to cover any of the costs associated with this procedure. He checked the date of the procedure and found out that it was carried out on a Tuesday last March, just over three weeks before Carla's call, a week before Mary's birthday.

Scott remembered an incident that happened a couple of days before that Tuesday. It was on a Sunday while they were out shopping at Bal Harbour. He recalled that Mary felt sudden cramps and stomach pains and suggested they return home. He walked her back to his car and she seemed to have difficulty even walking. He suggested he takes her to a hospital emergency but she told him that it was period cramps and she just needed to rest. During the drive home Mary barely said a word, her eyes were closed and she was holding her hand to her stomach. Dean asked her several times if she was OK and Scott had to tell him that everything will be fine and to just let his mom rest.

When they arrived home, Scott helped Mary get out of the car and noticed a small puddle of blood on her seat. Scott told her he was going to call a doctor but she insisted, almost screamed, that he doesn't. She told him it was just bad period cramps and she just needed to go to the bathroom then rest. He carried her to the bathroom near his office, the one he used in the morning. He told Dean to go play in his room while his mother recovered. A few minutes later, Scott knocked on the bathroom door but got no response, he panicked and opened the door to find Mary nearly collapsed on the toilet seat, almost unconscious, and saw a big puddle of blood on the floor. He carried a half dressed Mary to the couch, covered her, then went to make a call. His immediate reaction was to call 911 but as he was about to dial he thought that they would laugh at him if he mentioned period cramps. He had to rely on Mary's explanation and didn't know what else to tell them. He paused for a minute then called their family GP on his cell phone. Scott explained what happened to Mary and that she suspected that it was period cramps but that she was bleeding. He asked the doctor if he could come over and examine her and, if her condition warranted it, have her admitted to a hospital. The doctor asked a few questions, Mary seemed to have recovered but looked very tired. The doctor told him that he will be over as soon as possible, he was out and had to go home to pick up his medical bag then he will be over, half an hour tops he said. He lived on the island as well. Scott checked up on Mary again, he could hear her breathing normally, her eyes closed as if she was asleep. He decided to carry her up to their bedroom where she would rest ,ore comfortably. He thought of the blood in the bathroom and didn't want Dean to see it, so he went over to clean it. He got a bucket and a mop and as he was about to clean the floor he noticed that there were small blood clots and other pinkish looking gooey material. He wondered if he should let the doctor see it as it may help with the diagnostic, then he thought he was being silly and surely the doctor doesn't need to examine the blood to treat a severe period cramps. Scott proceeded with cleaning the bathroom then went to the garage and cleaned the seat in his car.