Happenstance Ch. 04

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

This fictional, novel-length story tells the tale of a man who finds out just how complicated life can be and how chance and coincidence - happenstance, if you like - can turn that life into something that Alice of 'Through The Looking Glass' fame might understand.

While reading this tale of love, deception and betrayal, those who persevere will come to understand that love can hide a multitude of sins. They might also come to understand that perception is not reality. This is particularly true about subjects many consider to be taboo.

I have published all five chapters of this story under the 'Loving Wives' category because that's the general theme. It should be noted, however, that there are references to subjects some readers might consider should be published under other categories. But please don't go getting your tits in a tangle about it. As I hinted at earlier, all is not what it seems.

Please note that the right of Black Jack Steele to be identified as the author of this work - Happenstance - is asserted under worldwide copyright laws. All rights are reserved.

HAPPENSTANCE

Copyright © Black Jack Steele 2022

CHAPTER FOUR

Discoveries and Consequences

Matt begins a painful voyage of discovery.

The 2019 rodeo was Selley's last scheduled away trip that year. As was usually the case after Mount Isa, she returned home exhausted. But her exhaustion was offset by the Rodeo Queen award, which she placed on the shelf in her home office alongside those she'd won for her television journalism achievements. I noted that she placed her new award next to the one she'd been presented with for a story we'd worked on together, the twin of which sat in pride of place on a shelf in my own office.

With no trips planned until March of the following year, we settled into a regular family routine, the likes of which we hadn't had since she had started accepting away-from-home assignments. And we revelled in it. Ethan and Hailey, in particular, loved having their mother available to share in their sporting and academic activities. I also loved the idea that - barring emergencies or natural disasters - we could make plans to do things together that, in the past, had either been put on hold or cancelled because they conflicted with her schedule.

Plans are subject to change, however. Despite the promise of a period of uninterrupted home-based work between the rodeo and her March assignment the following year, Shelley was handed an unscheduled trip to the north of the state in the closing weeks of October. Because of her growing interest in the political scene, she had been asked to cover a flag-waving trip made by the Queensland premier. That trip ended in Cairns, where the state government's leader opened a new tourism resort.

Accepting an offer to stay on and sample the resort's facilities after the premier returned to Brisbane, Shelley and her crew spent an extra two days putting together an advertorial piece that would be aired as a story about the confidence tourism developers had in the region.

Of course, none of us - including those who were pouring millions of dollars into the Cairns tourism market - knew of the storm that was brewing in China. And none of us knew of the impact it would have - both directly and indirectly - on our lives.

While the Covid-19 pandemic was catastrophic in so many ways when it hit in early 2020, it was good to us. The closure of international and state borders and the on-again, off-again lockdowns meant the cancellation of Shelley's scheduled March trip to Papua New Guinea. In fact, if the predictions about the severity of the pandemic were accurate, it meant there would be no travel for Shelley during the whole of the year; if not longer.

As a television news reporter, however, Shelley was seen as an essential service worker and was counted among those who weren't subject to the lockdown laws when they were in place. But that brought with it a few complications. Every time she left home during a lockdown, there was the possibility that we wouldn't see her again for a week or more. If there was even the slightest chance that she had come into contact with an infected person, she and her crew members - usually only Harry when working on local stories - would have to undergo a period of quarantine before returning home.

Of the four of us, Ethan and Hailey were probably the most affected. They were in their final year of high school and didn't know how remote schooling would impact on their final marks. Until they knew that, they couldn't further their plans to apply for positions at James Cook, their preferred university, where Ethan wanted to study Marine Biology, and Hailey planned on enrolling in a Bachelor of Business degree course.

Of course, Hailey could have undertaken her studies in Brisbane, but the pair of them had been inseparable all their lives, so they weren't going to be split up during the most important part of their educational journey. They were soulmates and would remain so for the whole of their lives.

Being the older by fifteen minutes, Ethan always took the lead and adopted the role of his younger sister's guide and protector. That is not to say that Hailey needed much protection, though. We'd enrolled both of them in martial arts classes at an early age, which gave each of them the ability to look after themselves. As their mother and I had done, they also spent time at the boxing gym where, like her mother, Hailey had worked out on the bags while Ethan spent time in the ring. And he was good. By the time they finished high school, they had both reached black belt levels in their martial arts discipline, and Ethan had a state schoolboy boxing championship cup on his shelf.

Despite having misgivings about them being so far away from home when they first started talking about heading off to Townsville for their tertiary studies, neither Shelley nor I tried to dissuade them. We knew they'd watch out for each other and have each other's backs.

I was the one member of the family least affected by the pandemic. Already accustomed to working from home, I continued to produce my regular blogs, columns and Op-Ed articles and worked on translating my novels for the US market. With modern technology, that last task wasn't all that hard; merely tedious.

The one hard job I did have during that period, however, was keeping the twins focused on their studies. And that paid off in spades when they both learned they'd passed the Higher School Certificate exams with flying colours. Those results meant they would be accepted into their chosen courses the following year; Covid restrictions permitting.

While nominally Christians, none of us was tied to any particular religion. But the one blessing we thanked God for during that period was that none of us contracted Covid. That was partly down to good management - we'd all had our vaccinations when they became available and had obeyed the mask and distancing rules - and good luck. And I believe the good luck had a great deal to do with it. There were many who had done everything right, who hadn't been so lucky.

---oooBJSooo---

Along with their other presents, Shelley and I gave the twins a car that Christmas, figuring they'd need it to get about while in Townsville and to travel between the two cities if the airlines - which had been badly affected by the pandemic - didn't get back into the air as quickly as everyone hoped. That turned out to be a wise decision because when it came time to leave for Townsville in February of 2021, flights were both unreliable and expensive.

Because this would be their first long trip in their own car, Shelley and I decided to take time off and make the fifteen-hundred-kilometre drive with them. Knowing it might also be the last time we saw them for almost twelve months, we made a holiday of our trek, stopping in at a few out-of-the-way places and taking five days to cover a trip that could easily be done in two or three. After getting them settled into their accommodations - we'd taken a long lease over a two-bedroom apartment not far from their campus - we said our goodbyes and began our return journey.

We took our time on our homeward travels, diverting into places like Airlie Beach, where we boarded a sailing schooner for a two-night cruise around the Whitsunday Islands. It dropped us off at Hamilton Island, where we spent another couple of nights before returning to port to resume our trip. Despite being unplanned, it was like a second honeymoon. While we used every opportunity to express our love for each other, the highlight was making love on a sailboat while anchored in a secluded cove adjacent to one of the islands.

Upon our return after almost two weeks on the road, we promised to do the cruise thing again. But next time, we agreed, we'd think about a bare-boat hire. Giving free rein to your passions is difficult when there's a crew on board.

With the house to ourselves and with our home being on acreage, we had no reason to be so constrained in our lovemaking, and our home rang out with her screams and my roars during the two days we had to ourselves before Shelley returned to work after our Townsville trip.

While we missed having the twins at home with us, their absence drew us closer than we had been for a long time. I knew that whatever else happened in our lives, we'd always have each other. The celebration of the major events in our lives somehow became more important. The day she turned up on my doorstep. The day we'd first made love. The day - or night - I'd asked her to marry me. The day of our wedding. And the day our children were born. Those dates were all commemorated. The only date we didn't memorialise was the blackest day in our lives; the day her mother stole her from me.

---oooBJSooo---

It was beginning to look like 2021 would be a good year for both Shelley and me. My publisher had told me that the US office of his publishing house had accepted my rewrites and was preparing them for a staged release into that lucrative market.

I also received word from my American agent that he had a film producer on the line who was interested in turning my first book into a film. The downside, he said, was that it would probably be centred around a US location. If he could set the hook, however, it would mean I'd be invited to participate in rewriting the adaptation.

But while both pieces of information were exciting, they had a negative side to them. Despite wanting to shout about my achievements and share my good fortune with Shelley, I couldn't. Having made the decision to keep my novel writing success from her, I couldn't share either piece of news.

'That's the problem with keeping secrets,' I mused silently, recognising that I'd shot myself in the foot. 'It's not just the negative things you can't share. The positive things must also remain hidden. Bugger!'

It wasn't just me who was pleased about the recognition I was receiving, though. Shelley was also receiving recognition for her own work. Her immediate boss and one or two others higher up the food chain were considering her for greater things.

That was possibly why, in late May, with the pandemic still in full swing, she was asked to fly to Fiji to cover a visit by the Australian Prime Minister to that country to participate in an extraordinary gathering of Pacific Islands Nation leaders. That meeting was scheduled for the second week in June. If she agreed to accept the assignment, she said, she would fly out on Sunday, June sixth, returning on the following Friday.

I had no idea why, but my sphincter clenched tight when she told me about the offer and that she was seriously considering accepting it. I had no idea what my reaction meant except that it didn't bode well.

The only other time I'd experienced a feeling like that was ten or more years earlier. I had been sitting behind a car full of people at a notorious highway intersection when I saw it start moving forward into the path of a semi pulling a fuel tanker. It was as if the driver hadn't even seen the truck. He drove right under the trailer, which exploded into a ball of flame.

I'll never know whether my sphincter-tightening happened because I knew I could do nothing to stop the catastrophe unfolding in front of me or as a reaction to what I saw. I suspect that, as on this occasion, it was the former.

The look of excitement in Shelley's eyes told me the 'thinking about it' part of her news had long passed and that she had already accepted the offer. Her foot was on the accelerator, and her car was already rolling. Even though I knew anything I said would have little chance of changing her mind, I had to try.

The trouble was that I doubted that telling her about my reaction to her news would carry any weight. Despite my having advised her many times over the years that she should always listen to her instincts, she was a complete sceptic when it came to things like gut feelings.

I opened my argument by acknowledging the benefits to her career that she might derive from such a trip but followed it up by pointing out that the cost of accepting the offer might outweigh any benefits she might receive from it.

"You do realise, don't you," I pointed out, "that you will have to spend two weeks in quarantine when you get back. Is a five-day trip to paradise worth a fourteen-day stay in purgatory? Besides, you'll be so busy while you're there that you probably won't even get time to do any sightseeing. It seems to me it's a heavy price to pay to advance your career."

No matter what I threw into the discussion, however, she wouldn't listen. I eventually stopped trying when she started accusing me of not wanting her to receive the recognition she was due and that I was jealous of her success.

Little did I know how prescient my reaction had been as I watched her car disappear down our driveway on the morning she left to meet up with her crew before flying off to Fiji.

---oooBJSooo---

With Shelley away and our kids off at university, I threw myself into my work. I had been out conducting an interview for a story I was working on and had arrived home later than usual and had heated a bowl of leftover chilli to eat while catching up on the day's events. Having missed the news on Shelley's network, I switched to the national broadcaster. It had been a slow day, and the lead story was about the Pacific Islands Leaders' Forum that Shelley was covering.

The vision showed the reporter talking to our nation's prime minister in what was obviously an after-meeting, one-on-one interview conducted on the lawns of the meeting venue. As I imagined would have been the case with many viewers, however, it wasn't the interview that grabbed my attention. What drew my eye was the two people locked in a passionate embrace in the background.

It took me a few seconds to realise that I was watching my wife of nineteen years tongue wrestling with a casually-dressed man. And it was apparent from the way they were holding each other - she with her arms around his neck, her hands pulling his head to hers, and he with his arms encircling her body, with his hands tightly gripping her still very firm buttocks, pulling her groin into his - that what they were doing wasn't new to either of them. As they unlocked their lips, they both glanced toward the camera, and their mouths fell open.

Realising they'd been caught on candid camera, Shelley grabbed her lover's hand, and - as my law enforcement friends would say - they decamped. But it was too late. I had recognised her partner-in-lust as Geoff Lyons.

Lyons was a member of the crew that accompanied Shelley on all her away trips and had done so since taking over from Dan Smith, her previous producer, a little over two years earlier. He was a good-looking bloke who stood about one hundred and seventy-five centimetres tall with an athletic build and was somewhere around Shelley's age.

'They make an attractive couple,' I thought as I pressed the power button on the remote. 'I hope they have an emotional connection, and it's more than 'only sex'. I wonder if he's the marrying kind? I hope so. Because her marriage to me appears to have run its course.'

I knew Lyons was available because he always turned up at the network functions with a different woman on his arm. In fact, he had sat at our table several times before being appointed as Shelley's producer; he and his partner sitting in the seats Dan and Charlie had previously occupied before they had opted to be seated elsewhere after the fiasco of 2015. His presence at our table became a permanent arrangement after he took on the role of Shelley's producer.

I didn't know how long their affair had been going on, but neither he nor Shelley gave any indication that they were in anything other than a working relationship while attending those functions. That made me wonder whether her infidelity was limited to her current producer.

'Had she also been having it off with Dan Smith?' I asked myself as I sat, trying to work out how her affair with Lyons might have started and how long it had been in play. I also wondered whether this was what my premonitive sphincter clenching had been all about when she'd told me about this trip or whether there was worse to come.

I spent hours that night agonising over what I was going to do about the situation I now faced. Strangely, I wasn't so much angry at Shelley's betrayal as I was grief-stricken. I knew the anger would come later, but in the meantime, I was struggling to figure out why she would do such a thing. I also couldn't work out why I hadn't seen any signs of her infidelity.

'What have I been missing?' I asked myself. 'And for how long have I been missing it?'

As I reheated my chilli and poured myself an extra-large glass of eighteen-year-old Glenfiddich, I reviewed her behaviour, looking for anything that might have told me about her affair. But I came up blank. There wasn't a single thing I could put a finger on that should have had my warning alarms ringing. Nothing!

So far as I could see, the only crack in the veneer of our relationship had been six years earlier; back in 2015. And, according to Shelley, Dan Smith had spent the rodeo shacked up with Charlie, an arrangement that had continued until he'd been transferred to Sydney. But that was according to Shelley. Her lies then, and her duplicitous behaviour now, had me questioning everything she'd said during the intervening years.

What irked me most was that I would still be in the dark if it hadn't been for happenstance.

We both worked odd hours and travelled extensively to fulfil our work obligations. And the frequency or extent of her trips hadn't changed appreciably. In fact, with the Covid restrictions in place, there had been no away assignments during the past eighteen months or so. The only times she stayed away from home during that period was when she was quarantining herself to avoid bringing a Covid infection back into the house that might infect the twins or me. Or, once again, so she said.

'Was she using those absences as an excuse to spend time with her lover?' I queried.

The next thing I thought about was our home life. But, once again, there had been nothing out of the ordinary. When she was home, she was at home completely. She was as committed to her family life as she'd ever been. There were no sudden bursts of anger. There were no cases of her disappearing to take or make phone calls. None of her usual responsibilities was ignored. And she was always as attentive to the kids and me as she'd ever been.