Revelation Blues Pt. 02

But the sex part wasn't what was hurting him most. Knowing that she had sex with others, after they were married, hurt him a great deal but not as much as the things she told Don, and which he was now inclined to believe she did. What pained him most and which he considered as 'the real cheating' was the break of trust and the blatant lack of respect Mary was demonstrating.

The rest is a consequence, not the cause.

After the dust settles this is what he really has to live with, or not. What they had that was truly unique to them when they married, and that was pure and unadulterated, was their love, their trust, and the respect they had for each other. No one could have had it before, no one can have it after. It was unique and specific to the two of them. Now that was broken, maybe lost forever. Mary never gave him a choice in the matter, it was a unilateral decision on her part. She cheated by breaking the links that held their marriage together, sex was a consequence. How severely she broke them remained to be seen.

He once heard one of his colleagues, someone more righteous than God, say that his ex-wife gave her lover what was 'his' referring to her pussy, that he 'owned' his wife and could not forgive her for 'giving what was his' to another, that she broke her wedding vows not to cheat on him. Scott never understood that guy. The truth is that one never owns their life partner, they are not slaves, they are always free to do what they want, what's right as well as what's wrong. It is also one's free choice to accept it or not.

Scott had a very doctrinal understanding of wedding vows. He felt that wedding vows, vows in general as a matter of fact, made sense in earlier times. To people like his parents and Mary's parents. To him as well, of course. Nothing wrong with vows, he thought. But now, in this day of age, they seemed to have an implicit 'use by date'. Wedding vows have become a formality. Most people just do the routine without understanding the meaning. Even 'the law', the legal system more specifically, doesn't recognize them as a binding contract. He smiled sadly to himself when he thought that even if the vows included a sentence as explicit as 'I shall not have sex with another or others as the case may be' the law wouldn't recognize this as a binding and valid agreement. If one borrows a small amount of money from someone else and said in front of one witness that they will repay it, the law considers this a binding agreement, a debt, and will punish the borrower if they defaulted. A wife, or a husband for that matter, can vow in front of an entire congregation that they will be faithful and the law will not hold her, nor him, to that pledge. Go figure!

Maybe it was the fact that he let all those thoughts run though his mind, or maybe it was the fact that he was in his office, Scott felt himself relax and regain control of his thoughts. He needed to do some research, to get the facts that would help him get to the truth. When he gets those facts he will be in a position to ask Mary the right questions. He needed to know why that trust they had was broken, how badly, and when over the last fifteen years has she lost her respect for him. The facts he was looking for would help him know if she was telling him the truth or if he was being duped and lied to. That's how he worked and that is how he will deal with this matter.

There were other things he needed to think about. The extent of what he would end up doing depended on what he would find out. He figured that Mary probably still loved him, in her own way, but that was no longer enough. What of her acts would he consider as human weakness or errors that he can tolerate, that is live with, and what would represent serious and irreversible damage that he could not accept and could only end in separation and divorce. Once that is determined, he needed to think of the implications, what their life together, or not, would be like after that. Dean was his priority; he needed to understand how all this would affect him. There were other legal, financial, and practical things that all had to be dealt with in good time. He may have to face that wonderful but oh so blind legal system after all.

It was just past midday and he was still in his office. He felt hungry all of a sudden and was just about to leave to get something to eat when his cell phone rang. It was his home number, so this could only be Mary. He really didn't want to talk to her but old habits die hard. He always took Mary's calls no matter where he was or what he was doing. If there was a serious issue or an emergency and he didn't pick up the phone he would have never forgiven himself. It was bad enough that he had to be away on business so frequently. He answered.

"Carla called me this morning," Mary said after a brief hesitant greeting, "We had a long talk, she was nice and sounded sad, she pleaded and begged me to tell her if I was having an affair with her husband. She told me that she needed to know and that she would forgive me if we did. So I felt sorry for her and told her that we had sex once. Then she suddenly switched attitude and started yelling at me, she was furious and enraged, she threatened me with all sort of things, from serious bodily harm, to calling my friends and telling them what a slut I am, and even calling my parents and letting them know what a whore their daughter is. She became very abusive verbally and after a while I also lost control and told her all sorts of nasty things as well."

What a trade of niceties that must have been! Scott thought. Reminder to Scott: never get into a nasty verbal exchange with a woman. Who could imagine that those two were really good friends just a few days ago!

"Well Mary, that was to be expected. Not the exchange of niceties between you, but Carla wanting to know and her reaction once she knew."

"Have you spoken with her this morning?"

"No Mary, I have not and have no reason to at this stage."

"Look Scott, I had to call you and tell you what happened. She is crazy enough to call my parents and upset them. Can you please call her and ask her not to call my parents."

"Does she or Don have your parents phone number?" Scott was puzzled.

"No, but they know that they live near Oakland."

"Do they know your maiden name?"

Mary hesitated, "No..."

"Then how could she call your parents?"

"This bitch is capable of anything, you should have heard her on the phone." Mary was panicked.

"OK Mary, I will call Carla and do my best to calm her down, at least talk her out of hypothetically calling your parents. But let me tell you that this is not the best approach." He didn't think it would achieve much anyway, but he was willing to try it.

"Why not?"

"Because the best thing to do at this stage is for you to call Carla back and apologize."

Mary didn't answer or comment. Apologizing wasn't something she knew how to do apparently.

"Are you prepared to do that?" Scott prompted.

"I guess I don't have much choice. If you think that's the best approach then I will do it."

Despite Mary's response, Scott felt that he needed to add something to what he told her.

"Mary, when you call her, be sincere. None of that crap you gave me last night. Be honest with her and even if you are not capable of doing it naturally, because that's the impression I had last night, make your apologies sound sincere. If you gave her the slightest hint that this affair isn't over, I am sure Carla will do more than just call your parents, no matter what either of us may tell her. She is desperate and a lot is at stake."

Scott was in damage control mode. He didn't want the situation to get out of control and take the initiative away from him. He wanted to do it his way, in his own time. Any spread of the news can only bring in external influences that would not be welcome at this stage. He couldn't see any good coming out from Carla calling Mary's parents, or anyone else for that matter. Assuming of course she took the time to find out where Mary's parents lived and got their phone number. He suspected Carla would be capable of calling them if she was mad enough. Mary's parents were decent people and the last thing Scott wanted was to see them hurt and saddened by their daughter's behavior. The shock would be hard, harder at their age. They would look for explanations and he had nothing to offer them and Mary would certainly lie to them, he truly believed that now. Other people finding out meant pressure and questions he could do without for now. He didn't want to deal with them before he had time to understand what happened and decide where to go from there. He shouldn't allow external interference to distract him with calls for forgiveness and reconciliation before he had the time to find out how seriously Mary damaged their relationship. He had to explain that to Carla. He also had to give her a few moments to calm down before he called her.

These thoughts crossed his mind on his way to get a sandwich and a bottle of water from the staff cafeteria. Distractedly, he returned to his office and started nibbling at his sandwich, thinking about the situation. An hour later, he was about to pick up his phone and call Carla when his cell rang.

It was Mary again. She told him that she called Carla and apologized and promised her that all this was a stupid mistake and it was well and truly over. The only thing she got out from Carla before she hung up is a promise that she will not call Mary's parents or friends. Scott seemed somewhat relieved and disturbed at the same time. Why couldn't Mary tell him these things last night?

Scott saw no point in calling Carla now. He had nothing more to tell her. She knew as much as he did, at least as far as Don was concerned, and that was the only thing that mattered to her.

Mary called him again as he was leaving his office later that day. She told him that she spoke with Carla several times that afternoon. Carla wanted explanation and commitments and Mary gave them to her. That was more than she did for him, Scott thought. Mary assured Carla that her 'fling' with Don was well and truly over and finally they agreed that the matter is now closed. If Carla believed that then she is not as smart as Scott thought she was.

When Scott got home that evening, dinner was ready, Dean was happy to see him and came running to give him a big hug and tell him all about his day and his previous afternoon at Fiona's. Dinner was quiet, hardly any unnecessary words were exchanged. After dinner, Scott spent some time bonding with his son, then helped tuck him in bed and kiss him goodnight.

Scott didn't want to discuss the matter with Mary that evening. He remembered telling her last night that he wanted to do so, but he knew that he wasn't ready for what could end up being a confrontation. He also knew that Mary will be lying to him and he had no way of determining which part was true and which part was a lie. He had a few things on his tasks list that needed to be done first. The next time they talked he should have some solid facts in hand. It will be one and final conversation. What will happen after will depend on what he found and on Mary's reaction during that conversation.

Mary was somewhat relieved and misinterpreted the fact that Scott didn't bring up the matter with her that night. She naively assumed that it was water under the bridge now that things have been resolved with Carla. In a way, no one could really blame her for making such assumption. Not even Scott. They were both in uncharted waters and were never confronted with a similar situation before. Neither had any reference to go by. Mary had no idea how Scott would react nor what he would do. She never saw Scott at work, dealing with thorny business and personal issues. She just thought of what happened the previous night as 'just another argument' and that Scott has taken her word for whatever she told him or explanation she gave him, as he always did before. She didn't consider for a second that this will seriously affect their relationship and their marriage. He loved her after all, and she loved him. Didn't she?

Mary saw Scott sitting in his office going over some paper. She bid him goodnight from a distance. Scott responded goodnight without even raising his head from his papers. That was not typical but then nothing happening since yesterday was 'typical'. She went up to their room planning on an early sleep and eliminating any remaining possibility of discussing the matter again that night. Time would play in her favor, she thought.

Chapter 8 – Research

Scott spent the night in his office doing his research. He started by looking up their telephone bills for the last year. He then did the same with the credit card statements. He was saving everything on a secure and encrypted flash drive. Nothing of what he was doing thrilled him, he thought, but it had to be done.

Scott challenge was not finding out what Mary was going to do but what she already did, and he knew he didn't have much to go on with.

What Mary did in the future would be easy to track. He was alerted and prepared now. He suspected that Mary and Don would tune down their contacts and wait for the storm to pass. He didn't think they would stop completely though. They wouldn't stop calling each other, of that he was sure. The idea of getting a voice activated recorder and connecting it to the phone line crossed his mind. This was so easy for him to do. He may be able to glean some information about the past that would complement the raw data he was about to find and compile. In his mind however that equated to total lack of trust in Mary's ability to come clean, be honest about what actually happened, and try to do her part in saving their marriage, if that was at all possible. If that was the case, the conclusion was already all made up for him. He decided to postpone any action until he completed his research.

What he had to do was to reconstruct the past and try and find evidence of what Mary did with Don and with 'others'. It was not going to be easy with Don but it would certainly be much more difficult with the 'others'. How far back should he go anyway? 15 years?

Despite Scott's frequent suggestions, Mary never wanted him to get her a cell phone. He never really knew if that was because she was averse to technology in general, to technology because it was associated with his business, she didn't want a computer either, or because it made her easily reachable and hence more accessible. He was conscious that Mary could reach him at any time on his cell phone and, in doing so, also keep tabs on him at any time, anywhere. If he didn't answer immediately for whatever reason, such as being in the bathroom, she would become concerned, maybe even suspicious, he imagined. Maybe she didn't want that for herself.

It was very easy to trace her calls. Scott hardly ever used the home phone. If Mary was home, her calls to Don could only be made from their land-line. If she was outside, she could use a public phone but that was not in her nature. She liked her comfort when she was on the phone with someone. The data from the last 12 months of land-line bills provided a wealth of information.

A quick conversion and some elementary sorting led to some pretty interesting results. Mary would call Don at least once a day, sometime up to four or five times a day. Some calls happened on the weekends, which meant that Scott undoubtedly was around when some of these calls were made, probably when he was outside with Dean or working in his home office. Some calls during the week lasted two or three hours, sometimes interrupted for a short while, probably when Mary had to go get Dean from school or had an errand to run or something similar on Don's side.

Scott had in front of him only the calls made by Mary and was wondering what would the calls initiated by Don look like. He made a note to ask Carla to check her land-line and Don's mobile bills. He wondered how that would go. If Don called half as much as Mary did they would have probably broken an all time usage record by two individuals.

Hell, Scott was almost inclined to believe Mary that they did it only once. Considering all the time they spent on the phone he wondered when they had time to fuck!

The credit card statements were also a mine of information. They were the next best thing to a GPS tracker. Mary's habit of withdrawing cash when she needed it made it easy for Scott to pinpoint some of her movements on a given day. The location of the ATM was indicated next to each withdrawal. The time and location of the gas station or the time she did her shopping were also quite informative.

Scott used a spreadsheet to outline Mary's movements over the last 365 days. He drew 365 rows and 50 columns containing the date, whether he was home or on travel, and the 24 hours in 30 minutes increments. He also established his own color codes and legends for various events he wanted identified in his spreadsheet. He realized that this was a daunting task but he had to have a credible time-line to work with.

He started by using his diary to identify the dates he was on travel or away from home. There were several of those. Suddenly he stopped and shook his head. There was a much better reference he could use and that would save him a lot of time. Mary's diary!

Mary made an almost compulsive use of her diary. She used to note absolutely everything in it, the weather of the day, the amount she spent on shopping, when she filled her car with gas and how much she paid for it, who she met and where, her doctor or dentist appointments, the start of her periods, when Scott was on business trips and where he was going, when his flight departed and when his return flight landed, and so on. It was so awesome it became the family's biblical reference any time one of them wondered what happened when. Knowing her compulsiveness, she must have put something in her diary that would help him retrace her contacts and meetings with Don. If that was the case, that could provide him with interesting clues about their relationship.

Mary's diary was always either on the kitchen bench near the phone or in her handbag. Luckily, Mary was using her diary that night and had left it on the kitchen bench when she went to bed. Scott brought it back to his office and scanned every page, up to today's date, on his multipurpose printer and saved the scanned files in another directory on his flash drive. He knew that he didn't have the time to analyze the diary thoroughly in one evening.

The diary had a simple layout; each week spread over two opposing pages. The left page had three columns for the first three days of the week, the right page had three columns as well but the last one was divided into two parts to accommodate Saturday and Sunday. There were four thin lines separating the days, one on each side of the page and one between each day.

He couldn't resist browsing last month's pages before returning the diary where he found it. Something caught his eye. He was intrigued by tiny dots, barely noticeable, that made no sense except that there were a few of them and always in the same location. Someone looking casually at the diary wouldn't have noticed these dots. Scott hardly ever looked at it before, he would always ask Mary and she would find the information. A tiny dot appeared from time to time on the thin separator line just next to the date of the day. The dots seemed more frequent when he was away and less frequent when he was home.

Scott made a mental note to methodically analyze the scanned pages over the weekend. He also decided to find Mary's diary for the previous year and scan it as well.

It was getting very late and he was very tired, mentally more than physically. He decided to call it a day and go to bed.