Death of a Marriage

Shelley spent the rest of the day lying on the settee while I cleaned and prepared an evening meal to make amends. That night, unusually we did not make love. Sunday was a day of icy silence and that night she turned her back to me as soon as I got in bed. On Monday morning, Shelley told me that she was keeping Sarah off school even though there seemed little wrong with the child and that night when I returned home from work, both of them had gone.

The note said simply, 'Sorry, Frank, I just can't stand it any more. I need some time away from you to get sorted out so I have taken Sarah to my mother's. Please don't come after me.' I rang her mother's number but the number was engaged all night.

The next day I booked myself in for counselling and also something that dealt with anger management. I did not ring again for three days and when I did Shelley spoke to me briefly. "I have been completely innocent since we married and yet all I get is constant suspicion from you. I don't know what else to do. Frank, I need time. Please don't start ringing me all the time. It won't help."

I suggested I ring once a week if only to speak to Sarah and this she reluctantly agreed to. After three weeks, Sarah started ringing me on other than the agreed night and her mother generally also came on the line afterwards. I promised to change, told her about the corrective courses I was on and mentioned some of the techniques I was being taught. By the end of six weeks separation, we were chatting more easily and I could detect warmth back in her voice. At the end of a call early one evening, we both hung on without speaking after having said goodbye. In a rush, she suddenly said, "I do still love you," and then quickly broke the connection.

About an hour later the phone rang again. I assumed that it was Shelley following up on the last words but I found a strange female on the phone. "Can I speak to Frank Miller," she asked in a very pleasing feminine voice. "That's me," I told her.

"Frankie Miller from Bedford?"

This is a confession of double standards because my mind was racing. I could only think that this had to be some old flame eager to re-establish contact. I had rather let the place go since my wife left so quickly I calculated how I could tidy up, especially the bedroom, ready to entertain. "Yeees - I'm the man you want?" I said as seductively as I could.

"Do you know that your wife is shagging Mark Hyland?" the caller asked and then immediately hung up.

I think that if the telephone handset had been of slightly softer plastic, my hand would have crushed it to a pulp. Mark Hyland - bloody Mark Hyland - I remembered him well. Flash git rich kid but a bloody good looking one - his dad bought him a new sports car for his seventeenth birthday. It was a pulling machine - they said that Mark had to wear three belts because he had far too many notches to fit on one. My brain pounded with rage but there was a secret satisfaction at having been proved right after all that time.

I rang my wife. Shelley answered the phone saying expectantly, "Frank?"

"You fucking whore," I said.

"Frank, what's wrong?" she asked, startled by the vehemence.

"Deny that you've been screwing Mark Hyland."

"How did...?" she started to say and then stopped.

Those two words confirmed that my anonymous caller's information had been the truth and not a vicious slander. "If you ever come back to this house I will kill you," I said and slammed the phone down.

For three months I made no contact at all. The first of these I spent in an alcoholic blur but then I got a grip on myself and managed to get re-instated on both of the self-help programs. It was a letter written in childish writing that started 'Dear Daddy', which broke the ice. I rang that night and again the next week, both times speaking only to Sarah but the third week Shelley came on the line when we had finished talking. "Frank, you have to know that I'm divorcing you," she said speaking slowly and deliberately. "I thought that you deserved to be told personally - you won't hear officially through the post for another two weeks."

She paused and when I did not speak went on, "I'm claiming 'Unreasonable behaviour' - I'm telling you early so that you can cross petition - you know, for what I did." Still I couldn't speak. There was a long long silence and then Shelley said, "I'm sorry," before quietly replacing the phone.

I told my legal representative that I would not contest the divorce. I didn't want to announce to the world that my wife had opened her legs for another man. Better to let everybody think I was a complete shit. I sent what I thought was the outstanding amount of child maintenance and arranged to have future payments deducted from my salary. I continued to speak to my daughter regularly and sent birthday and Xmas presents. In return I received photographs of her. From time to time I spoke to Shelley but always in a formal way about things connected with the divorce.

One of her first bits of news was to provide me with a new telephone number and address because they had left her mother's house and taken a small flat. Shelley said that she was making no claim on me for our house or for any kind of alimony but suggested that if I felt there was money owing to her, I might like to invest in a trust fund for our daughter. For that whole year I lived like a monk and went through the motions while my marriage drifted inexorably away from me. What little hope I had died. At the start of these telephone conversations, I could detect hurt in my wife's voice but by the end there was only detachment.

It was to be an amicable divorce and because of this I was given leeway on access to my daughter. I was to have her with me for part of the school holidays to include a fortnight during the midsummer break. So although there were still two weeks before the divorce became final, I was allowed to have her immediately rather than miss the current year's big holiday.

By the time the day came for her to arrive, the house shone like a new pin, as they say. All morning I was on tenterhooks, constantly wandering outside expectantly to look for them. On the last of these scouting trips a large car appeared slowly at the end of the street and then backed out of sight. Intuitively I knew that it contained my wife and daughter. I stepped back into the doorway, positioned so that I could still see most of the street and sure enough Shelley and Sarah appeared walking side by side. My wife was carrying a heavy suitcase and Sarah a much smaller hold-all. I continued to watch from concealment until they were nearer and then stepped into the street to stand facing their approach.

Shelley continued to advance until she was about twenty paces away but then halted. She looked straight into my face but did not smile. There was a moment's pause and then Sarah began moving towards me, hesitantly at first but ending almost at a run. A detached part of my brain was reminded of the border exchanges so popular in spy films. I crouched to embrace my daughter, held her until she wanted to break free and then stood to walk forward to get the big suitcase.

Close to Shelley, I looked into her beautiful blue eyes and, trying to make my voice noncommittal, asked, "Are you coming in for a few minutes?"

My wife looked uneasy. "I can't Frank, my...lift is waiting," she said, indicating the end of the street where the bonnet of the big car could just be seen.

"Please, Mum - I don't want to say goodbye in the street," Sarah adding her plea to mine was enough to persuade her mother to follow us into the house, however, she advanced no further than the doorway.

I watched her eyes flick round the room, pausing briefly on items holding special memories. "You've kept the place nice, Frank," she said.

"It has not been as nice as this since the day that you left," I admitted modestly.

That was the sum of our conversation because Shelley quickly grabbed her daughter, kissed her, told her to be a good girl and then she was gone. My little girl immediately started to demand my attention in an excited manner but I managed a quick glance out of the window. The large powerful car was moving past the house but in the brief glimpse I had of the driver, only heavy horn-rimmed spectacles and short greying hair registered on my mind. Sarah spent the most of the rest of the day in her bedroom, renewing acquaintance with all the toys that she had been forced to leave behind.

During the next four days I gave my daughter the time of her life as I tried to make up for over a year of separation - and all the other trauma that I had forced into her life. At the end of the fourth day we arrived back at the house with Sarah happy but tired and with a headache. I put this down to the third roller coaster ride that I had agreed to against my better judgement. My daughter was too poorly to eat so I gave her a junior aspirin and put her to bed. Very soon after that she was crying out in pain and growing significantly worse - so in a panic I got the emergency doctor. Within the hour she had been rushed into hospital with meningitis.

Leaving my little girl with a team of doctors fighting for her life, I returned home and rang my wife, telling her the bad news without any frills. Shelley was equally brief. "I'll come," she said.

I left the door off the latch then stood smoking and thinking as I waited. The door opened just under two hours later which was not bad going for 100 miles with no motorway. I held out my hands as she approached, she put her hands in mine and we both squeezed very hard. I think that we stood like that without speaking for a very long time. Eventually I said, "You are in our...my room. I've moved my things into Sarah's."

Shelley tried to say that there was no need but I said," It's done now," putting an end to the argument. I made her a cup of tea and started doing her beans on toast then, as an afterthought made some for myself having only just realised how very hungry I was.

A taxi took us to the hospital but we were not allowed to see our daughter and just sat around. A doctor did speak us to but after some kind euphemisms, when pressed admitted that it was touch and go. At ten p.m. we left and returned to the house. With both of us mentally and physically exhausted, we had a hot drink and retired to our separate rooms. Next morning we returned to the hospital at 10 a.m. During a long day of waiting we took it in turns to go outside for a cigarette or to fetch foul tasting coffee from the machine. The reward for this vigil was to get a glimpse of Sarah through a glass screen, connected to a range of machines and with people still working on her.

During the next three days the routine was the same although we were allowed short periods sitting by our daughter's bedside holding her hand. The most that we were told was that she seemed to be holding her own. We gathered that even if she survived there was no guarantee that there would not be brain damage or even paralysis. Shelley and I talked endlessly about Sarah but absolutely nothing else. We went through the years, remembering everything that she had done and said from being very tiny, and exchanged the different little endearing mannerisms that made her the Sarah that we both loved.

On the fourth day a smiling doctor told us that she was going to make it and, as far as they could tell, was not going to be impaired in any way. Shortly after that Sarah opened her eyes and the slight smile on her mouth told that she had recognised us. In the taxi both Shelley and I were too relieved and exhilarated to speak.

The moment the house door was closed behind us we fell into each other's arms. At first we just hugged tightly but then our mouths found each other. Her lips parted and the next moment we were kissing passionately with her tongue probing as hungrily as mine. That kiss seemed endless. It might have gone on even longer but inappropriately, I got very aroused and almost automatically my hand sought out a breast through her clothes. Shelley submitted to my caress for a couple of seconds but then froze, pushed my hand away and stepped back. "I'm sorry, Frank," she said. "I've met someone else."

I was not surprised. Just because I had spent the past year as a celibate recluse did not mean that she needed to do the same. We made coffee as a joint effort but with an awkward silence. I could not bring myself to ask the obvious questions following her announcement and she volunteered no further information. As we sat drinking and eating biscuits conversation did start again but it was exclusively about Sarah, the length of her recovery and prospects in the future. Afterwards we separated to our individual beds.

It was impossible to sleep. The memory of that kiss would not leave me, I could still feel the pressure of Shelley's lips on mine and my memory overflowed with other remembered embraces from the past. I had not had an erection for a matter of weeks but I now found myself sporting a lulu. The damn thing was so painful that I could not bear the pressure of bedclothes resting upon it and had to lie on my side, but this was only marginally better. As a last resort, I got out of bed to pace the room and I can honestly say that it was not planned intention that shortly afterwards found me standing naked outside my wife's door.

I pushed it open quietly and stepped inside. The room was very dark but I could just make out her outline on the bed from the faint light coming in the window. I stood not moving and hardly breathing, remembering the countless other occasions when I could have strode across and got in beside her by right. It was at that moment that I fully realised for the first time exactly what I had lost.

She stirred, and then I saw a white arm throw back a portion of the bedclothes in unmistakable invitation. I don't remember crossing the room. We fucked ferociously, mindlessly, with total desperation. We fucked as if our lives depended upon it and must have fallen asleep through sheer exhaustion because my memory has no record of it drawing to a close.

I awoke to find Shelley lying on her elbow studying me. She was exposed to the waist and those exquisite breasts hung only inches from my face. My hand reached out to touch one of her dark pointing nipples, a spark passed between us and the next moment we were at it again. If there had been elements of love the night before there were none now - this was pure, beautiful glorious sex complete with the accompaniment of crude verbal passion. Nor were we content to just fuck for I tasted again the nectar from her cunt and my cock renewed acquaintance with her throat. It seemed impossible that she could have ever cum so much or so loudly.

Later, fully satiated, I lay back and said complacently, "So the old magic is still there."

"We never did have any problems in bed, Frank," Shelley told me sadly, "It was the rest of life with you that got intolerable."

I could make no excuses so I said nothing. In fact neither of us said anything for some time but the silence was intimate rather than oppressive. Eventually Shelley said, "I've got to tell you about Mark Hyland."

There was nothing that I wanted to hear less but I said, "Only if you want to."

She gave a nod and started, "I had been at my mothers a week when she answered the door and said that there was someone to see me. It was Mark. He was always after me when I was a teenager but I thought he was a creep - he still is. He asked me to go out with him. At first I refused but Mum said, 'Go on, Shell, you're very depressed and you need something to take you out of yourself'.

"He took me to a restaurant and we talked about schooldays. Nothing happened; in fact he didn't even try to kiss me when he took me home but I did agree to see him again. The next time I let him have me. I thought why not when you were convinced that I had been doing that sort of thing for years. I did it more out of defiance than desire. He wasn't very good at all but I went to bed with him another six times."

Meanwhile you and I were talking on the telephone. You sounded so reasonable and I was missing you terribly. I stopped seeing Mark and started looking forward to speaking to you. The last time you rang I was ready and would have said 'Yes' if you had asked me to come home. Going with Mark helped. You see, it was your constant accusations when I was innocent that hurt so much, I thought that having something to be guilty about would let me put up with you better. Then you found out about it. I don't know how, but that was the end of us."

There were no recriminations. I just said, "I've been a bloody fool." For the next four days, Shelley and I could not get enough of each other. For twelve hours out of every twenty-four we sat with our daughter watching her gradually improve and almost all of the remainder we spent in bed. We did little talking, being more concerned with doing what comes naturally.

On the fifth day a doctor told us that Sarah was well enough to be moved. He said there was an air ambulance going to Preston the next day and that the much larger hospital had greater expertise and facilities for mothers to stay overnight with sick children. Shelley glanced at me and then asked if she could let him know.

Back at home while we were eating, my wife remarked how much my counselling and such had helped me, saying that if I had always been so nice then she would never have left me. I think that I built too much on this remark, encouraged by our very obvious compatibility between the sheets. The next morning after another meaty sex session, I picked up on some reference to Sarah to say how nice it would be to get back together as a family. Shelley pulled back and said, "I'm sorry, Frank, I should have told you. I'm getting married in three months."

This news was not completely unexpected. Although since speaking of someone else in her life Shelley had never mentioned her new attachment, despite the sex, I had always been aware of him in the background. Every night Shelley had rung her mother to keep her informed on Sarah's progress but I knew that there had always been a second phone call that she had transacted in a far lower tone of voice. Now, without betraying any emotion I asked as casually as I could, "What is he like?"

"He's nice."

"I would not expect otherwise," I said with a little laugh, trying to pretend that I didn't care.

"He's called William and he is fourteen years older than me."

"What does he do for a living?" I winced at my own stilted language. I had sounded like a Victorian father enquiring about the prospects of a suitor for his daughter's hand.

"He's a solicitor, in fact," Shelley paused, seeming slightly abashed, "He's the solicitor I went to, to handle the divorce. Of course, when something started between us he handed the case over to a colleague. The important thing is that he is very fond of Sarah and I know that he will be kind to her."

"What is he like in bed," I asked crudely, my equanimity starting to falter.

"There are no fireworks like with you but he's considerate and patient - and he satisfies me, makes me happy.

"How long have you been sleeping with him?"

"The first time was the reason I had to switch solicitors. It was difficult at first until he fixed me up with the flat. I couldn't move in with him without compromising the divorce."

"So that's why you are not asking more from me. I see it all now - he's rich and you are marrying him for his money," I accused.

"I'm marrying him because I love him," Shelley told me proudly. "He's is not suspicious of everything that I do like you were. Will trusts me implicitly.

Despite my months of training the red mist of rage came from nowhere. "Whore!" I exploded, ripping the duvet away to reveal her cum filled body and hand squeezing my flaccid cock back to stiffness. "If he trusts you implicitly, what the fuck are you doing here?"