Revelation Blues Pt. 02

Scott went through the diary day by day. He colored the day's cell in the appropriate column in black indicating that he was on a business trip. He progressively inserted, their vacations, her visits to friends, doctors appointments, school or PTA meetings, and other various activities identified in the diary. He noticed with some satisfaction that the days Mary indicated as having done some shopping, filled the car with gas, or withdrew cash corresponded nicely to what he had already identified on the spreadsheet when capturing her credit card data. There were three minor exceptions, shopping he suspected Mary did and paid for in cash. He took special care to mark Mary's visits to Fiona, when they went out together, and times where Fiona came over or stayed overnight, with an 'F' in the appropriate cells and colored them in red. There were days where Mary had written 'lunch with D' or 'shopping with D' which he assumed meant Don, not Dean. He marked these cells with a 'D' and colored them also in red.

Around midday, Scott was nearly done, he pulled his chair back and looked at the spreadsheet from a distance. It did tell a story indeed. He hadn't decided yet how he was going to mark those tiny dots he noticed in Mary's diary in the spreadsheet, so he left those to the end, but what he saw so far was dominated by blue and red. He suspected that many, if not most, of the blank spots would be filled by the calls from Don.

Scott heard Dean arguing with his mother in the kitchen and decided to spend some time with his son this afternoon. He called the marina and asked if a boat was available that afternoon. It was. He walked over to the kitchen and asked Dean if he wanted to go out sailing. Dean was ecstatic by the prospects of going sailing with his father and rushed to his room to change.

Mary was taken by surprise by Scott's sudden decision and observed him for a while.

"I was about to prepare some lunch, would you like me to get you and Dean something to eat before you head off?" She asked hesitantly.

"No, we will grab something to eat on the way to the marina."

"When will you be back?"

Scott just shook his shoulders and replied "In about three, maybe four hours."

"What would you like for dinner tonight?"

"Don't prepare anything, I'll have something delivered when we get back."

They often had meals delivered on the weekend but somehow Mary felt that today was different. Scott was distancing himself, becoming less reliant on her.

As he left his driveway, Scott made a mental note to check the telephone log when they returned home and see who Mary might have called.

On the way to the marina, Scott stopped at the Panini Grill and bought them a couple of Mediterranean style panini sandwiches. They headed to the pier where the boat Scott used from time to time was tied, boarded the boat and prepared it, then sailed out into the bay. There was a light breeze, they deployed the main sail and just sat back and relaxed. Scott left the tiller to Dean from time to time, letting him practice his steering skills.

Sitting there watching Dean steering the boat, Scott was feeling pride and sadness. The life of this child was going to be affected both by his mother's behavior and by the decisions his father would have to make. How much could he accept, how much could he compromise, for the wellbeing of his son. Damn you Mary, have you ever considered the damage you were causing.

Scott's thoughts drifted again and remembered the first time they went out to dinner with Don and Carla at that Texan-Brazilian restaurant in Miami Beach. After leaving the restaurant they stopped a few minutes in the car park exchanging their impressions of the evening. Don, who seemed to be in a very cheerful mood, invited them to their home in Coral Gables for a drink. Scott noticed that Carla was surprised and somewhat appeared less enthusiastic than Don. He was about to gently decline the invitation when Mary startled him by saying in a beaming tone 'Oh that would be wonderful!'. Too late! On one hand he felt sorry for Carla but on the other hand he was happy to give his loving wife an opportunity to socialize and have a good evening. He told them that he was fine with that but it would really be just for one drink then they had to leave. Even Carla smiled at him, he remembered.

When they arrived at Don and Carla's house, Mary and Scott sat on a couch while Carla sat on another. Don asked them what they would like to drink then proceeded to prepare the various concoctions and bring them over. Scott expected Don to sit on the opposite couch, next to his wife, but he surprised him when he crouched on the floor next to Mary, his eyes literally inches from her knees. The discussion was light and unremarkable, Scott wasn't listening much anyway, he hoped they would quickly finish their drink and head home. He caught Don several times staring at Mary's legs and hoping for a view of what's between them. Mary was wearing a short dress but not overly short by any means, however, sitting on the couch the dress lifted to just above mid thigh and Don had the best seat in the house. Scott saw him on a couple of occasions turning towards Mary and talking with her but his eyes we riveted between her knees. On their way home, Scott mentioned what he observed to Mary but she dismissed it and told him something like 'No way, that was surely your imagination.'

A few weeks later, on a Sunday, Don and Carla showed up at their house just after lunch. Mary had told Scott that morning that the Weldon would be stopping over for a drink. As they were sitting in their lounge room, Don said that they were on their way to a spa that had some sort of thermal baths in Miami Beach and asked them if they would like to join them. Mary, yes Mary again, jumped on the opportunity and said that they would love to go. Carla winced and informed her that the spa was adults only and that children were not allowed. They deliberated for a few minutes, a sitter for Dean was difficult to arrange on such short notice, and there was no other alternative. Scott saw the anticipation mixed with disappointment on Mary's face. She really wanted to go. There was no way he would ever leave Dean alone at home, so he volunteered to look after Dean while Mary went with them and explored that haven of peace and relaxation.

Sometimes, in hindsight, one remembers the things they do with all the good intentions in the world and realize that these well intended actions may have created the opportunities for the disaster that ensued.

Scott went on several business trips the following months and remembered that during each trip he tried calling Mary at home and more often than not she was not home. He called at times when she would usually be home, including times when Dean should normally be in bed asleep. Mary would give him all sort of explanations, such as 'I was alone and Fiona invited me and I ended up staying over at her place instead of being alone at home' or 'Wanda and Aldo invited me over for dinner and I came back home very late' or 'I went to the mall and spent the whole afternoon there'. All plausible and innocent explanations of course, but all that was new, it started in the last few months and seemed to increase in frequency when he was on business trips.

Scott remembered another event that was dismissed at the time and attributed to Don's very drunken state. They had met with some friends, including Don and Carla, for dinner one Friday night then they all headed to that club in Coconut Grove. Don approached Scott while he was queuing at the bar getting their drinks and pointed to a really good looking waitress. He told Scott how sexy she was and that she had the greatest tits on earth, enhancing what he just said with a wink indicating that he knew what he was talking about. Seeing no reaction, Don suggested that it would be easy for him to set Scott up with her if he wanted. Scott declined firmly with a tone that left Don in no doubt about how serious he was. Later that evening, Mary and Carla were standing in a corner near Phil's booth, Phil had some of his friends sitting there. Carla was chatting with a person she knew and Mary was engaged in what seemed to be a pleasant conversation with a guy that was standing next to her. Don became angry and serious all of a sudden, as serious as a drunken man can get that is, and told Scott to wave to Mary and ask her to come over and join them. Scott told him that they will be back soon, as soon their conversation was over. Don insisted heavily, and Scott couldn't make sense of his behavior. If Scott didn't know any better, Don's tone sounded like that of a jealous man seeing his woman talking to another man. He couldn't understand why Don was more concerned than he was with Mary talking to that guy and not concerned at all with what his own wife was doing. On their way back home, Scott mentioned that incident to Mary, she just laughed. Mary then said that Don told her that he had a secret he wanted to share with her but that he didn't say what that secret was or explain the nature of that secret. Scott figured that nothing Don did or said that night made any sense and dismissed it as the rantings of a drunken moron.

Just over a couple of hours later, Scott and Dean returned the boat to its mooring. When they arrived home, Mary wasn't there. He saw Mary's diary on the kitchen bench. Scott went over and looked up the date of that club outing and noticed that Mary had penciled in a capital 'D', twice underlined. It actually confused him earlier because Mary had also written 'Dinner with' followed by the initials of their friends, including Don and Carla. Now he wondered whether something special happened and whether Don had actually shared his secret with Mary.

On impulse, he also looked at what Mary had written in her diary since Friday. He was surprised to see that Mary had written 'S meet with C' then a twice underlined 'Bingo!!' on Thursday's date. She must have added that on Friday. Scott took the diary to his office and rescanned the two pages.

He quickly checked the house phone and noticed one outgoing call to Fiona that afternoon, just after he and Dean left. Mary was probably with her friend. He checked his cell and noticed a missed call from his land-line and a message in his voice mail. Mary tried to call him but he missed her call. Mary's message informed him that she was going out to see Fiona but that she would be home by 6pm.

Scott remembered that he needed to find Mary's diary for the previous year. They had a his and hers walk in closets between their master bedroom and the master bathroom. He went to her walk in closet and opened the bottom drawer of the dresser where Mary usually stored her personal papers, old diaries, letters, and various administrative documents. He had never opened it before but saw Mary store things there on several occasions. He found the diary easily, it was on top of a pile, and took it down to his office and hid it in a drawer. It was getting close to 6pm, he still had to shower, and he didn't have time to scan it now.

As Scott stepped into the shower, he had a flashback, something he saw that just registered in his mind. He remembered noticing, tucked away in the back of Mary's dresser drawer and covered by several manila envelopes, the front part of a wooden box. It had a small lock on it. He had never seen it before or even knew that Mary had such a box. He wondered what Mary would keep in it. Probably some valuable objects. If the contents of that box were really valuable, he wondered why Mary didn't store them in their safe. It bothered him to do it but he knew that he had to have a look inside that box.

He was just out of the shower when Mary returned. Scott simply told her that he got her message. He then ordered pizzas for dinner. They had a quiet dinner and went through their evening rituals.

Scott went back to his office. He was now ready to tackle those little dots in Mary's diary. He didn't know their significance nor how he could fit them in his spreadsheet. He looked at the first date where he noticed a dot and saw that the spreadsheet cells for that day were mostly blank. He then looked at the second one and noticed that he was on travel that day and that the cells were also mostly blank in the afternoon. The third date with a dot confirmed his previous findings. The fact that there were hardly any call to Don or to Fiona on those days led him to consider that Mary was busy doing something else. He hadn't accounted yet for the calls Mary received, so it was normal that so many cells remained blank. But the coincidence and consistency of the dots and the blank cells was troubling. These were probably the dates that Mary met with Don. She couldn't of course pen down her clandestine meetings with Don the same way she penned down other activities. He couldn't determine a precise time for each of those dots, so he started with some basic assumptions, it had to be after Mary dropped Dean at school and before she had to pick him up, it couldn't be in the evenings or at night because Don had to be home with his wife, and finally, it couldn't overlap with any other event already identified for a given day. There could be exceptions of course, for example Mary could ask Fiona to pick up Dean, but he had to work with these assumptions and see how it goes. With these in mind, he started marking in black the half-hour time-frame in each of the available cells for each day marked with a tiny dot. To his surprise, for each day with a tiny dot, he could color several cells in black that, when added together, would represent a time-frame varying between four and seven hours.

Scott planned on scanning the pages of last year's diary, but this would take time and it was getting pretty late. So he pulled out the diary from his drawer and working from the back, he looked for tiny dots. It didn't take him long to notice the first one. He repeated what he did earlier, knowing that he may have to revisit these dates and reduce the number of blackened cells. However, based on what he already did, he knew that this would not change the fundamentals.

When he looked at the final result, several things became obvious. The majority of the black marks occurred when he was on travel, but not all of them. On the days there was black marks there was hardly any calls to Don or Fiona. Occasionally a short one in the morning or another later in the evening, but none that overlapped. The density of black marks on each occurrence gave Mary plenty of time to meet Don and do their business. He was now certain that these were the days Mary and Don were intimate.

Assuming his work and conclusions were correct, even allowing for a small margin of error, Scott had two new pieces of information. Mary and Don have been having an affair at least since last October. That was when the tiny dots started. The second one was that they have been together 38 times since October. That is at least six times per month, or more than once a week, on average. Although the dots were spaced out in the early days and interrupted over the Christmas holidays, when they went to California, they resumed and accelerated in frequency since February.

"Indeed," he said to himself in a soft voice, "Only once!"

He now knew the start date and the extent of their relationship. He had now some data to confront Mary with. As he went up the stairs towards the bedroom he wondered if any of those 38 times were in the bed he was about to sleep in.

His last thought for the night was that although he had some solid, very solid pointers, and that his gut feelings told him to trust them, he had no proof. He needed proof, even a small one, to confirm his conclusions.

Chapter 10 – The Box

Monday was a crazy day at work for Scott. He had hardly settled in his office when the CEO's executive assistant called him and asked him to come to his boss' office. A couple of his colleagues were already there. The Board of his company had approved that weekend the acquisition of a company in Asia and he was expected to travel in a few days with the CEO and some of his colleagues to perform a due diligence. They were to report back to the Board on the potential effort and costs of integrating this company's organization. Scott had to evaluate their operations and technology divisions in particular, identify synergies, and how their organization fits with that of his company.

At any other time this would have been a fun thing to do, a welcome change from the day to day routine of his job. But this was not the right time for him to disappear for over a week. That's what this business trip would require in travel time, stopovers in California for meetings on the way to and back, and the five days in Asia.

Scott didn't want to bring his private life to work, he never did and wasn't about to start. He tried talking his way out of this trip by telling his boss that this would be a good opportunity to expose his deputy to a high profile international activity. His boss insisted that it was important for him to go, something to do with the importance of the task, the respect for the Asian culture, and the fact that their head of operations would be functionally reporting to him after the acquisition.

Scott had to give in. They were to fly out early Thursday morning to San Francisco, drive down to the Valley and meet with their colleagues, then fly out late that night to Kuala Lumpur.

The next few days were tense at home. Very little was said or exchanged between Scott and Mary. In fact they both seemed to want to avoid the other, but their motives were different.

Scott left early and stayed late at the office, he had good professional reasons to do so with that upcoming trip and the preparations required before they head off. He used to get home just in time to spend some time with Dean before wishing him goodnight. Then he would find refuge in his office to either do some professional work or focus on his thoughts about Mary and her affair. He still wasn't ready to confront her. He was resisting, with difficulty he admitted, all his primal emotions inciting him to confront or take any action against Mary, or against Don for that matter. He knew that, like in his professional life, action before the facts was never a good way to proceed. He also new that any precipitated, emotional action, would take away the advantage he had and show his hand to his opponents, usually giving them time to prepare their response. He had a rough idea what happened and by extension what the end result was likely to be, his gut feelings pointed towards that, but he still had no clear idea how to get there. He had Dean to think about. He wanted Mary to feel the pain of the loss of her family. He wanted Don to just feel pain. Andy has his share of that already, not much to do about this now.

Mary was hoping that the more time goes by the less upset Scott would be and the more willing he would be to get over his discovery. She didn't know how long that would take but she was certain that, at the end, they would resume their normal life as usual. She was focused more on the 'forget' than the 'forgive'. In fact, the idea of Scott's forgiveness hardly ever crossed her mind. She loved Scott, and she knew that he loved her, and she was happy with her life in general, very happy in fact. Surely he could get over those few distractions she indulged in from time-to-time to kill the routine or alleviate her boredom. It wasn't as if she was doing anything to upset him. Well, she knew that he wouldn't approve of what she was doing, but she thought he would eventually understand. After all, wasn't he doing the same anyway. Both Fiona and Don had told her that men like Scott had plenty of opportunities to have affairs, and all of them did. They told her that she would be naive to think that Scott never indulged in extra-marital trysts. Mary was not naive. She saw all those gorgeous women working with Scott, some even traveled as part of his team occasionally. She knew that Bangkok was also known as 'Sin City' and Scott has been there on business trips on a couple of occasions without her. She went with him on one of his longer trips before Dean was born and saw the temptations. Didn't Don tell her that the gifts Scott bought her during each of his trips were his way of compensating for his guilt feelings for what he had done while away from her? Didn't Fiona tell her that most of her lovers were professionally successful or rich men that wanted to get away from the boredom of their marital life? Yes, Mary was certain that Scott would get over it and their life will go back to normal. She saw him once check the phone log when he got home from work, so she figured that she just had to be careful not to give him reasons to get more upset then with time things will settle down.