Julianna

By two I was home.

By three, I'd filled in and filed the divorce papers. I printed off a copy for Julianna. They would need her signature. If she refused I would have to employ someone to serve her and go to court. If she signed, we could be divorced in as little as sixty days.

I'd paid off and cancelled our joint credit cards. Opened a bank account in my own name and transferred exactly half the balance in our joint account into it.

I'd created a statement of our finances showing all our assets including the house, our retirement accounts and our savings. Of which I also took half.

Everything down to the last cent was accounted for.

I could have left, could have moved my stuff out, but this was my home too. I wasn't going to leave until I had to. I couldn't afford to move into a motel or hotel long term. I still needed somewhere to live until everything went through. I did move all my stuff into the guest room though, emptying my wardrobe and drawers.

I downloaded the video file and pictures to my laptop, and printed stills from both the video, and the pictures. I also scanned in all the credit card receipts. I wrote an email to Mary, outlining what I had found, and attaching all my evidence.

I set it to send at six PM. I wanted to make sure that I had had a chance to speak to Julianna before Mary found out. She would obviously tackle Ben, and he would obviously call Julianna.

I was ready.

Unfortunately, it was still only four p.m. and Julianna wouldn't be home for another hour.

I wondered what Ben would do when Mary tackled him. The thought that he might come storming over and attack me occurred to me. I went into the garage and searched until I found what I was looking for. I'd had this baseball bat since I was a teen. It had been a present from my father, along with a ball, long lost, and a mit, which appeared to be home to a family of spiders just now.

I took the bat, brushed it off, and took it into the house, propping it up against the wall behind the sofa. Near enough to hand, but not immediately visible. I hoped I wouldn't need it.

For once Julianna was actually early. She came into the house, smiling.

"Hi honey," she said. "How are you feeling?"

She looked at my face, and at the stack of papers in front of me. None of which were visible to her.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

"You could say that," I said. "Take a seat I've got something to show you."

She dropped her purse on the floor and sat on the chair opposite where I was sitting on the sofa.

I handed her the divorce paperwork. She looked puzzled at first but then her eyes widened.

"What's this?" she asked.

"It says right there at the top," I said.

"I don't understand," she said. "Divorce? Why would you...

"Don't you?" I said. "Where were you today Julianna?"

"I was at work," she said. "You know that."

"All day?" I asked.

"Of course," she said.

"So you haven't been out at all today?"

"Steve," she said. "What's this about?"

"I handed her the credit card statements."

"So, was today different than the last four Mondays and Thursdays then, when you went to the motel?"

"Where did you get these?" she asked. A mixture of fear and anger entering her expression.

"Does it matter?" I asked.

"You've been snooping?" she accused. "How could you?"

"Really?" I asked a little scorn in my voice. "You're going there? How could I? You're sneaking off to a motel twice a week for the last month and I'm in the wrong?"

"Steve," she said taking a breath. "I know what this looks like, but I promise you, it's not. I had meetings with clients. That motel..."

"Doesn't have meeting rooms," I said. "I checked."

"But they do let their rooms out for meetings," she said. "Its far cheaper than using a conference centre."

"So, what goes on at these meetings?" I asked. "In the motel? Is that how you get business? On your back?"

She jumped to her feet. "How DARE you," she all but screamed at me. "You think I'm whoring myself out to clients for business?"

"No," I said, quietly. "I think you're fucking Ben, is what I think." That stopped her in her tracks. She sat down again.

"Steve," she said. "No. I would never do that. I love you. I don't know what you think you know, but you've got it all wrong. I have client meetings, and at those meetings we do nothing other than professional business."

"In a motel?" I asked.

"yes," she said.

"That you pay for on a credit card, that I know nothing about?"

"I keep it separate because it's easier," she explained. "The company pays the bill. Otherwise we'd end up paying tax on the at as well."

That wasn't true, but I wasn't going to explain the tax laws to her at this point.

I shook my head.

"So today," I said. "When your car was in that motel car park, you were there with clients, in a business meeting?"

"My car?" she said.

"I drove past the motel," I said. "and saw your car."

"Yes," she said. "It was a business meeting."

"And I take it Ben was there too," I said, "Because his car was in the parking lot also."

"Of course," she said. "Look, I know what it kind of looks like, but we were just there having a business meeting. I promise you nothing is going on between Ben and I. I love you. I would never cheat on you."

I handed her the sheaf of photographs.

She went white. Her hand coming to her mouth. I then played the ten minutes of video I had recorded on my phone. I'd set it up to stream to the television. Even thought the camera was a little shaky there could be no mistake who was there, and what was happening.

"Where exactly were the clients at this juncture?" I asked.

Tears started to leak from her eyes. And she started to shake her head.

"No NO NO NO NO" she said. "This can't be happening. He promised IT CAN'T"

"It's over Julianna," I said tiredly. "WE are over. Sign the papers, we'll put the house on the market and we can be all done in two months. Then you can go and to whoever you want. Me, I'll go crawl into a corner and try and reclaim some of my dignity."

"But he promised," she said. "He said we'd be fine."

I looked at her, puzzled.

"Who promised?" I asked.

"Ben," she said. "He said you would never find out, and if you did, you loved me so we'd be fine."

"Why would he think that?" I asked. "Why would YOU think that. I thought you loved me as much as I loved you. Why would you do this to me and even more why would you expect anything other than what is happening if and when I found out?"

Julianna sat and put her face in her hands and began to weep. My heart was breaking seeing her like this, but I had nothing to offer her. I wasn't able to comfort the woman who had taken my heart and stomped all over it. In some ways I was revelling in her pain, that she was feeling even some of the heart rending pain that I had suffered, but in the same instant it was breaking my heart even more to see her suffering.

I heard a ding from my laptop. My email had been sent.

"Why?" I asked. "Why did you do it Julianna. What did I do to deserve that. Was I no good in bed? did I ignore you? what?"

She shook her head, still sobbing.

"It was only meant to be once," she said. "He promised me just the once. But..."

"Why even once?" I asked.

"I screwed up," she said, continuing to sob, "at work. I almost lost the company a major client. Ben managed to smooth things out, but if my bosses found out, they'd fire me. We get by, sure, but we couldn't afford the house, if I lost my job. We were saving so we could afford to have children, we would have lost all that. There was even a potential I could have been sued by the client."

"The price of Ben's help," she said. "Was that I slept with him. It was supposed to be just once. One afternoon and done. I didn't want to, but I had no choice. If he showed my bosses what I did, I'd be fired, and we'd lose everything."

"Why didn't you come to me?" I asked. "Even if it meant selling the house, we'd have done okay."

"I couldn't," she said. "There was no time. I had no time. I had to make a decision, give him an answer there and then. I was so confused, and upset and... and I saw a possible way out. I convinced myself that once wouldn't hurt - you'd never find out and we'd be back on an even keel."

"Even if I believed you," I said. "you've been meeting with him twice a week for a month. Why keep going back?"

"He was blackmailing me," she said. "He took video the first time. I didn't know that there were cameras set up in the room. He told me that if I didn't keep on meeting with him, he'd show you the videos."

"And what about Mary?" I asked. "Did she know?"

She shook her head.

"So he had as much to lose as you, if it came out," I said. "You expect me to believe that he would risk his own marriage to blackmail you? It makes no sense. I'm sorry Julianna. I don't believe you. You went willingly into that motel room, and from what I saw on that screen you were having a good time in there. Now you're telling me that he was blackmailing you? No, I don't believe it."

"But it's true," she said. "I had no choice."

"There's always a choice," I said. "If you loved me, you would have trusted me, and come to me. Even if I accept the first time as a forced instant decision, you could have come to me afterward and told me. I would have been hurt, been mad, but I might have understood. I would have done anything for you Julianna, anything. You've destroyed me, destroyed my trust, destroyed my love."

"No please," she said, sobbing harder now. "Give me a chance. Let me prove to you, show you how much I love you."

"It's too late," I said. "There is nothing that you could do or say, that would make me believe that you love me, that you ever loved me."

There was a crash, and our front door almost flew off it's hinges.

Ben stood in the doorway glaring at me.

"You little shit," he growled. "You had to get in the way, didn't you?"

"Ben what?" asked Julianna.

"He sent pictures and videos to Mary. She threw me out. She's divorcing me, and it's all this snivelling little shit's fault.

"No Ben," said Julianna, "the fault is all yours. You forced me, you blackmailed me. Now your chickens have come home to roost. If you want to blame anyone - then look in the mirror."

He reached behind his back, and pulled out a pistol, pointing it at me.

"YOU LITTLE FUCKER," he screamed and pulled the trigger.

I'm still not sure what happened next. I heard Julianna scream and saw her jump upward. She wasn't going toward him, trying to get the gun, her whole purpose was to put herself between Ben and me.

I heard the shot, and saw the spray of blood as the bullet hit her in the chest. She went down like a sack of shit. Ben's eyes widened as he saw her fall and he went to his knees beside her.

He barely had time to look up before the baseball bat I retrieved from behind the sofa hit him in the head.

I rode to the hospital with Julianna. She was unconscious the bullet had hit her just right of center. She'd lost a lot of blood. I sat in the back of the ambulance, holding her blood soaked hand. When we got to the ER they took her out, and things moved so fast. They took me to the reception desk, where I had to give our insurance details. By the time the paperwork was done, she had already been taken into the OR.

I sat in the waiting room, staring at the floor, at my hands, at the bloodstains and at the my wedding ring, stained with Julianna's blood.

"I would have taken a bullet for her" the thought ran through my mind. I remembered thinking that when I first suspected her of cheating. It was a measure of how much I loved her. That I would take a bullet, instead of her. And she had done that very thing, for me.

The scene replayed in my mind. She'd known that there was no way to reach Ben, to get the gun away. Her entire motive had been to put herself between him and me, we all knew he was going to shoot.

She'd been willing to sacrifice her own life, to save mine.

++++++

"Unca Ste!" Tabatha shouted as I walked into what had been Ben's house three months later.

Ben was in jail, awaiting trial. My blow to his head had put him in hospital for a week, but he was released into the custody of the police. He was looking at a lengthy prison sentence.

Mary looked up as I went into the kitchen. She smiled at me, then came over and gave me a hug.

"How was it?" she asked.

"Harrowing," I said. I'd spent the afternoon giving a deposition to the prosecutors who were going to be prosecuting Steve. They had been vicious. Their reasoning was that the defence would be vicious and try and make me say something that would benefit their client. I was determined not to do so.

"Was that the last time?" the voice came from behind me.

I turned and smiled at Julianna.

"I think so," I said. "They said they have it all. They're going for attempted murder, rather than just assault with a deadly weapon."

I walked over to her, where she sat at the kitchen table. She tilted her head up and I kissed her.

It had been a hard road for Juliana. A month in the intensive care unit, and another on the respiratory ward of the hospital. Even now, she wasn't fully able to look after herself. That was why I'd dropped her at Mary's while I went to see the lawyers.

Mary had been a godsend. She'd looked after Julianna while Id had to run errands or work. Id managed to convince my boss to let me work from home most of the time, so I was there for her. But there were times I needed to go in and on those days Mary and Tabatha would come to our house, or I would drop Julianna in here.

It had taken me nearly the full month, while Julianna had been unconscious on a breathing machine to decide what to do. Mary had found footage on Ben's phone, of his and Julianna's first 'encounter' When she showed it to me, I wanted to go and beat Ben's head in with the baseball bat again.

There were two files on his phone. One about ten minutes long, showing Ben and Julianna having sex. But another, much longer, unedited version, showing her crying and pleading with her not to do this. It was as clear from the second file that she was being coerced as it appeared to be from the first that she was there willingly. It had been cleverly edited.

So what Julianna had said, at least about the first time, had been true. And considering the edited file it appeared that she may have been telling the truth about the rest.

But when it came down to it, the proof had been that instant. The instant that Julianna had thrown herself into the path of a bullet for me. The very measure I had, myself, used to illustrate how much I loved her. I couldn't ignore that.

I like to think that it was that night, when I whispered into her ear, that I believed her, and I loved her, and that if she would only wake up, we could be together again. I like to think that that was the turning point. Up until then the doctors were not sure if she would pull through or not. I like to think I gave her something to live for, that just as she saved my life, I saved hers.