Neither of us spoke at first; I was too stunned, and she too ashamed. Finally, I asked in a raspy voice, “Why?”

Her gaze remained steadfastly away from mine. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Luke. I… He was dying. And I was so… the depression, it was crushing me. I couldn’t be home with Julie. I couldn’t be home with you. And every time I was there, I felt… disconnected. I felt guilty for not being home, and then when I was home, I felt guilty for not feeling– not feeling the connection that you and I had before she was born. And then, and then not feeling the connection with Julie.

“And Jake… I loved him. I’d always loved him. He was my first love, I–”

“What?!”

She glanced at me for just a moment, the fear back in her eyes, then looked away again. “Jake was handsome and kind. He saved me when Mom died. I was a teenage girl when we first met; I was fourteen, and he was seventeen, a quarterback headed for what everyone was sure would be a college and then pro career. And he was so sweet to me, not in a romantic way, but just as a good person. I was… well, I was just a girl, and I developed a crush on him, and then when our parents died, he was all I had left. I fell in love with him.”

I was going to be sick. “And you and he…?”

“No!” Alli’s gaze snapped instantly back to me, alarm on her face. “No, not at all. I told him, and he responded like… well, like a grownup would. He was flattered, but he encouraged me to find someone else. Someone more appropriate. It hurt, but I knew, later on, that he was right. There was never… he and I were just brother and sister. Nothing more than that. Not until… until later.”

She sighed. “He gave up so much for me, Luke. He always supported me, financially and emotionally.” Her hand started to reach out for me, but then stopped and withdrew; my disgusted expression made it clear that her touch was the last thing I wanted. Quietly, Alli said, “He introduced me to you. That… More than anything, that was the best thing he ever did for me. He was my first love, but you are the love of my life.”

There was nothing but rancor in my voice. “Funny fucking way to show it.”

Tears dripped onto her skirt as she looked down. “I know. I’m so sorry. I can’t… There are no words that can tell you how sorry I am for hurting you.”

I scoffed, “Whatever. So you fucking loved him, but you married me, the–” My voice turned mocking and sing-song. “–‘love of your life,’ and then what? Decided, what, you’d get one fuck in with the first guy that got your panties moist before he shuffled off this mortal coil? Had to find out what you missed out on by marrying your stupid loving nerd husband?”

Her shoulders were drawn in as she sobbed, “No! It wasn’t like. That wasn’t what happened. He…” She looked up at me, experimentally, as if gauging my anger. “You remember how disappointed he was when he didn’t make the NFL. Jake didn’t take it as badly as Evan did, but it still hurt. But he picked himself up and went on. Started his business, got engaged to Jennifer, and, well, you remember.”

Alli swallowed. “Then the cancer came, and his business failed because he wasn’t able to take care of it. And then that fucking bitch left him because she couldn’t deal; that was what really killed him, I think. 

“He was so… just destroyed by that. Evan had moved away, we had moved away, he had no other close relatives, and then she just walked out the door. He was so alone. And, and you remember how Jake was. How he had wanted so badly to leave some kind of a legacy, even at that age. And he was going to have nothing to show except…”

She looked away. “I was in an especially bad place that visit. You and I had been fighting, and Julie acted like I was some stranger whenever I came home, and I was deep in my depression, and work was…” Alli shook her head. “When Jake started to cry one night after he’d had something to drink–too much to drink–and talked about how he’d never have kids of his own, how he’d never leave anything behind… Well, I’d been drinking a lot, too. And I just…”

Her voice sounded tight, like she was only barely able to speak like she had to force herself to. “It made perfect sense to my drunken, depressed mind. I couldn’t save him like he had done for me. He had given me everything: a home, an education…” 

Alli completely faltered for a moment, before quietly, mournfully saying, “... My husband.” Then she pushed on again as if she needed to finally be free of her secret. “And I’d been able to do almost nothing for him but sit and watch as he died. But I could give him a legacy, a child of his own.”

I shouted, “You did this on purpose!?”

Alli flinched away but looked straight at me. “That’s how it started, yes. I’m so sorry, Luke; it made sense at the time, if only for that night. But then I woke up the next morning, sober and hungover, and by the light of day, I realized how insane the idea was. And Jake was ashamed, too, that he’d betrayed you like that. You two were never as close as him and Evan, but I know he loved you, and–”

“Oh, fucking clearly! He fucked my wife, and he never said anything about it, and–“

In almost a whisper, Allison said, “I told him you were okay with it.” 

“WHAT?!”

She closed her eyes, whether because she couldn’t stand the pain she was inflicting by saying that or because she couldn’t bear the shame of looking at me; I’ve never been certain. “I told him that, after he slept, I called you and confessed. Told him that you were so, so angry, but that you ultimately understood it was just a drunken mistake, and that if I got pregnant, you’d still take care of his child.”

“You. Fucking. BITCH!”

Eyes screwed tighter than ever, Alli responded, “Yes. I am. I know I am. I’m so sorry.” She swallowed again and continued. “I told him that you only requested that he never mention it to anyone, including you. And then I told him that I was going to go home and make it up to you; he understood what I meant by that, that if I did get pregnant, it could be either his or yours. He understood why I needed to do that.”

“I sure as shit don’t.”

Allison picked her words carefully, eying me as she did so. “It was, for him, a respect thing. He respected that you’d given him one more chance at his legacy. For me, it was a panicked, desperate hope that I wasn’t already pregnant and that I could give you another child instead. 

“I was so completely despondent, out of my mind with PPD and guilt over what I’d done and panic at what could happen if you found out. The idea of taking Plan B didn’t even occur to me until after you and I had our three-day weekend. And then… and then I hoped that you had gotten me pregnant. But if you had—and I hoped so much that you had—I couldn’t take Plan B. There was no way I could take a chance that I’d get rid of your child. I was stuck.”

My head was killing me, and I began to rub my temples. Alli continued softly, “When I went back to see Jake again, I had a nervous breakdown in the hallway of his treatment center. His doctor– do you remember Dr. Bates?”

I let out a short, sharp laugh. “Yeah. He was one of my suspects.”

There was the ghost of a smile on her face after I said that, the kind that one has when they know they shouldn’t smile because of the gravity of a situation, but can’t help anyways. “Eric was gay.”

So much for the great detective. “Anyways. Breakdown?”

She nodded, smile gone again. “I… honestly, I was so despondent over what I’d done that I considered killing myself. I was a terrible wife and mother and sister and…” Alli sighed, ”Eric saw me crying and took me into his office. 

“Dr. Bates was… he was always very kind. Great bedside manner. And I told him about… well, about everything except what I’d done that night, and he referred me to a specialist in postpartum depression. She referred me to one in our city, and that’s how I started meeting with Dr. Brandt.”

I vaguely remembered her therapist. We’d met a couple of times to talk about how I could support Alli through her PPD. ”Support her.” What a joke. What support did I get? I’d supported her as best I could, and this is how she… Wait. 

I felt a sudden shiver. “Did she know what you did?”

Alli turned her face away once more and nodded. “She did. We talked about how to handle it, about how you’d respond, how it would affect my recovery, about… about a lot of things. She advised me to tell you, but I knew…” A quick glance at me, then away. “I knew you’d never forgive me. If I told you, it would have destroyed you and our marriage and our family. And at that point, I didn’t know that Travis was Jake’s biological son. I still wanted to believe he was yours.”

My eyes narrowed. “Wanted to believe, or did believe?”

Her shoulders rose and fell in a tired shrug. “I don’t know. Believed for a while. Until after I stopped seeing Anne– Dr. Brandt. The odds were in my favor, you know? That weekend we got back together, you came in me like a dozen times, remember?”

I did. It had been a great weekend. But now I knew that it was driven by her guilt and that it hadn’t been the occasion of Travis’s conception. Instead, those three days were a desperate and failed attempt to paper over her infidelity. That fact made me look back at our time together during that “great” weekend in a new and entirely unfavorable light. 

“When did you know that he wasn’t my son?”

Alli’s brows knit together, and that fucking oh-so-reasonable, we-can-find-a-solution mediator voice returned. “He is your son, Luke. He’s– “

“Stop! Stop trying to make this better, Alli! You can’t. He’s not my son. I raised him, but he’s your son, not mine.”

“Of course he is!”

“Bullshit. He’s my stepson.”

She gasped, “You can’t mean that!”

My lip curled. “Yes, I do! Biologically, he’s my wife’s son but not mine. That, by definition, makes him my stepson. I didn’t adopt him; you just tricked me into believing I was his father. Travis. Is. Not. My. Son. I’ve treated him that way because I believed he was, but that doesn’t make it true. And, yeah, maybe my name is on the birth certificate, but I can have that changed.”

Alli started to cry again. “Please, Luke. Please don’t do that. Please, I’m begging you.”

I just rolled my eyes. “He’s going to find out eventually.”

“Why?” It came out as a strangled cry.

“For fuck’s sake, Alli! Why do you think? I’m not just going to… God, did you think I’d find out and go, ‘Welp, guess I’m just a cuck, gonna keep on cuckin’ on. Herp derp, guess I’ll just keep raising someone else’s son! Yup, I should just keep the bitch’s secret and hope she appreciates it! Maybe she won’t fuck anyone else if I’m nice about it!’”

She shouted, “I’ve never fucked anyone else! I messed up! I know that! But don’t take it out on him just because I hurt you!”

I shouted right back. “And when we get divorced, Alli, what are you going to tell him? What about the rest of the kids? Am I going to be the bad guy? Are we getting divorced because we drifted apart, and I wouldn’t try to keep us together? Will that be your story?”

“Luke, please! I don’t want to get divorced! I want to be with you for the rest of my life!”

“And I wanted to have a faithful wife and a son, and now I have neither.”

“But you do! I’m sorry, Luke, I made a mistake, but I’ve never–”

“I don’t know that! I CAN’T know that!” I was on my feet, roaring at her as she cowered. “You fucked another man! Even if you’ve been faithful since then, so what? If I had gone out and fucked another woman when you were so depressed that you barely let me touch you for a year, would you consider me faithful? Huh? We both know you wouldn’t!

“And I don’t know that you haven’t cheated since! You’ve been lying to me about one thing for sixteen years; how do I know you haven’t had a string of lovers since then? How do I know you haven’t picked a guy up in a hotel bar every time you’ve traveled and fucked him while laughing about your poor, stupid, loyal cuck husband back at home? I don’t!”

She sobbed, “I would never do that to you!”

“But I. Can’t. Know. THAT!” My body shook with fury and sorrow. “I can’t even believe that you wouldn’t! Belief requires trust, and I don’t trust you anymore! So, no, I don’t have a faithful wife. And I don’t have a son, either! Just a stepson. Just this…” 

I balled up my fists and hissed through gritted teeth, “Just this goddamned living, breathing monument to your infidelity! Every time I look at him, there’s this… this thing that used to be my son, but now he isn’t, and he can’t ever be. And it’s not his fucking fault, or mine, so that only leaves you! You fucking took him from me, and I hate you! 

“You stole my son, even my chance at having a son from me, Alli! YOU did that! I wanted a son and a daughter, and you’ve given me a stepson and two daugh–”

A puzzle piece slammed into place with a sickening thud, and I suddenly felt cold and sick as I whispered, “Megan was supposed to be my son.”

My darling wife, the woman who’d invited another man to cuckold me, was once more unable to meet my gaze. I continued, my voice sounding as dead as I felt inside. “Travis was three. You realized then, didn’t you? That he wasn’t mine. You didn’t just want one more child like you’d said; you realized you’d stolen my chance at having a son, and you couldn’t stand the guilt.” 

Another unhappy nod from her–such a worthless gesture of remorse–made me seethe, “And so you thought, what, you’d give me one more shot? Maybe the cuck would win the coin flip this time? Did you give me even that much of a chance, or did you go find some other poor doomed loser to fuck first? Maybe Evan?”

“How dare you!” She was on her feet now, too, shouting as I had been. “I love you! Fucking Jake is the biggest regret of my life. I never cheated on you before that, and I have never, ever cheated on you since then! I will never cheat on you again! And even if you were dead and gone, I’d never have a damned thing to do with your brother!”

Another puzzle piece clicked, and a new, painful fragment of knowledge revealed itself to me. “Except share a secret with him. Right?”

Her face fell, and her body soon followed, slumping back down onto the edge of the couch. “I didn’t tell him. I promise.” She saw me start to speak and glumly headed me off. “Jake told him, I think. I don’t know for sure; he’s never come right out and said it, but he’s given hints, I guess, that he knew. ‘Do you think he’ll be as athletic as his dad?’ ‘I wonder where he got that throwing arm from?’ Never… never an outright accusation. Just a little bit of cruelty. I don’t know why, just…” She chuckled humorlessly. “Evan’s always been a dick. I don’t know why Jake thought I’d like him.”

“Maybe he thought you deserved each other.” Alli didn’t rise to the insult; I think she’d lost any will to defend herself. Perhaps she even agreed, now that it was all in the open.

My adrenaline ran out. Not my rage; there was still plenty to be angry about and plenty to be decided, but I suddenly couldn’t sustain the necessary energy. The magnitude of what had been done to me finally hit, and it was just too much. I flopped down on the couch even as my mind kept reeling at everything I’d learned. What Alli had done, of course, and Jake, and that whole fucking mess. But my brother, yeah, he was an asshole, but to know and not say anything? Why? 

And, God, I’d planned for so many eventualities, but not this one. Travis was going to have to know eventually, but how was I supposed to tell him? “Oh, your dad is actually your uncle, but don’t worry. He’s really your step-uncle, so you’re only morally the product of incest, not legally. Lucky you, champ!” 

If I divorced Allison, it was all going to come out eventually, and probably in the worst way possible. We could try to hide it, but “we just grew apart” is something parents with kids in college can get away with, not ones that have a kid just barely out of grade school. Especially not ones that, until a week previous, had been so happy with each other that their kids pointed at their marriage as better than any of their friends’ parents.

The inevitable “why” reaction to a sudden divorce would be followed by either another blatant lie to cover up for Alli or the awful truth. And that would have killed Travis. Maybe literally; he was so sensitive. God, I couldn’t stand it if he hurt himself–or worse–because of this.

There was no way that we could tell him, “We’re splitting up because your mom cheated on me, and you’re not my biological son, and I can’t trust her anymore,” without him hearing it as, “We’re getting divorced because of you,” no matter how good a headshrinker we got him. Not at fifteen years old. And that was without “Oh, and you’re the product of pseudo-incest with your dead step-uncle.” Maybe, maybe he’d be able to handle learning this when he was old enough for college. Maybe.

Megan was just old enough to kind of understand divorce, but she’d want to know who was to blame. At that age, that’s just how they think. Tweens have no real capacity for nuance, and she’d want to pick a side. It would almost certainly be mine, but when she found out the truth about Travis? She definitely wouldn’t be on his side, at all. Eventually, she’d “forgive” him, but the fact that she’d see it as something she needed to forgive him for… yeah, that was going to turn nasty. Maybe enough to irrevocably damage their relationship. 

Julie, well, she was old enough that she’d be in college soon and old enough to get pretty much everything. Probably wouldn’t even be mad at Travis, just try to comfort him and assure him that none of it was his fault. That was about the only bright spot out of all of it; I was sure she’d be able to handle it. Her age and maturity meant that… meant that…

Damn it.

Damn it, damn it, damn it–

“DAMN IT!” Alli jumped at my sudden shout. I stood, furious again, realizing that I’d stumbled onto what I was going to have to do for my family and hated it. I guess there was a little adrenaline left after all because I was shaking with rage once more.

As I stalked to the door and grabbed my keys and wallet from the tray next to it, Alli trailed behind, asking all sorts of stupid questions. I finally wheeled around and growled, “I’m going out. We’ll talk tomorrow. Don’t be in my fucking bed when I get home.” And then I was gone.

She texted me, of course. Ping after ping after goddamned ping chimed on my phone. She tried to call, and I let it go to voicemail over and over. I almost threw the damned thing out the window, but instead simply silenced it and drove. Thank God I’d only had the one glass of wine, and that it had burned off by then; my driving was already impaired enough by the tears blurring my vision. 

I didn’t drive anywhere specific, just making circuits around town and out into the surrounding countryside. I was reminded of Travis when he was a baby, how he couldn’t sleep, and how I’d drive him around for hours while singing lullabies. That way, Alli could get some rest in between the nightly cluster feedings when he was, God when he was so tiny. I had loved him so much. Still loved him. Loved all of my kids.

That was when I couldn’t drive anymore, when I had to pull into a parking lot to break down and cry. It wasn’t fucking fair. I’d been a good husband and father. I’d done everything I was supposed to, I’d seen her through her fucking depression and her brother’s death, and I raised our kids while she traveled, and it just wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t goddamned fair!

Of course, it wasn’t. Life’s not fair. For a while, though, it had been good, and now all of that was tainted by what she’d done and how she’d hidden it from me. 

But I loved my kids, and I was going to do what was best for them.

I let myself cry for a good, long time. I mourned my marriage and the notion of my son. I mourned the happy times that had been built on lies and the future that I wouldn’t have. I mourned a family that would split–that had split–but which, for now, I’d pretend was still as happy and healthy as ever for the sake of my children. For Megan and for Julie. And, yes, for Travis. 

And when the tears were gone, at least for the moment, I pulled back onto the road and headed home.

The house was dark when I got there, but only superficially quiet. From the outside, I heard nothing, but as I opened the door and headed for my bedroom, there were soft sobs coming from Julie’s room. At least Alli had fucking listened to me enough to let me sleep by myself.

And sleep, I did. For the first time in a week, I was out almost as soon as my head hit the pillow. Part of it was exhaustion from the expended adrenaline and shed tears, some of it was finally getting to vent at someone, but mostly it was that I now had a real path forward, even if it wasn’t one I was happy about.

The next morning, Alli was up before me. By the look of her, the puffy red eyes and disheveled hair, I’m not sure she actually slept. I told myself that I didn’t give a fuck one way or another, but secretly I was happy. Shoe’s on the other foot now, bitch. How does it feel to have someone else decide your fate? Petty thoughts, but I felt entitled to them.

There was coffee and breakfast. I didn’t trust Alli as far as I could throw her, but I trusted her enough to not poison me, so I pulled up a chair to drink and eat in silence. She picked at her food; it was clear that this was for me more than her. Or maybe it was for her, in that it was an olive branch to me, which… No. Stop, I told myself. It doesn’t matter why she did it anymore. Her motives don’t matter, just her actions.

After I’d eaten and drunk enough, I said, matter-of-factly, “Here’s what’s going to happen.” Allison looked startled; our marriage had always been a partnership, one where we had a dialogue and decided on important matters together. That was over, and she was going to have to get used to it. This was the fucking “Luke Takes Care Of His Family Show” now.

“We’re not getting divorced–” Her shoulders sagged with relief. “–yet.” The tension returned, and Alli opened her mouth to speak, but I stepped on the words. “We are going to get divorced eventually, but I’m not going to have your infidelity, and your lies hurt the kids. When they’re old enough, when Megan is in college, we’re going to split up.”

“But I don’t want that!”

I banged the table with my fist. “I don’t give a FUCK what you want! I didn’t want any of this, but I’ve got to deal with it, and now you do, too. Actually deal with it! Not just fucking lie to everyone and hope you get away with it!”

Alli frowned but stayed silent, so I continued. “We’re going to pretend that we’re still the happy couple. You’ve pulled it off for long enough–”

“I wasn’t pretending! I love you!”

“–long enough that you should be able to handle it. I’m going to have to work at it, though, because lying to my family hasn’t been an every-fucking-day thing for me. So you get to cover for me, too. Get used to phrases like, ‘Dad’s just stressed from work.’ You’re going to need them.”

After another sip of coffee, I said, “We’re going to share the same bedroom until Julie goes to school, and then we’ll reevaluate. If I can’t stand being around you, you’ll move to her bedroom because… whatever fucking reason. Come up with something that makes neither of us look bad. You snore, or you’ve got restless legs now or something. Not ‘Dad wants to throw up every time he looks at Mom.’ You know, a lie. You’re the expert there.”

Alli flinched at that, but so what? She deserved it. “There are going to be some other changes, too. You don’t need to know what, exactly, or why, but I expect you to roll with them. I’m going to be spending more time out of the house; that’s all you need to know for now. And I’m opening my own bank account. My paychecks will go there, and I’ll deposit the appropriate amounts to our joint one.”

“Why?”

I sighed. “See point fucking one: ‘You don’t need to know.’ I want to separate our finances, and this is the first step. I want to do it because I want to fucking do it, and that’s all you get until I decide otherwise. You’ve kept your fucking secrets for long enough; mine are at least out in the open. You know they exist.”

Alli looked at her hands. “It doesn’t need to be like this. I love you. I’ll do anything to make this up to you, Luke.”

I snorted, “There is no making this up to me, Alli. You lied to me for sixteen years; you fucked your step-brother, you had his kid, and…” The anger was building again, but I needed to get through this. It was good practice for when the kids were back. 

With a deep sigh, I continued. “...and, Jesus, Alli. I got a vasectomy after Megan. You encouraged me to after I brought it up! Even though you knew I didn’t have a son of my own. You made sure I couldn’t ever have one, whether that was your intent or not. How fucking evil is that? 

“There’s part of me that says I should divorce you right now and sue you for fraud. But what would be the point? I ruin the kids’ lives like you ruined mine? They don’t deserve that any more than I did.

“No, there’s no making it up, Alli. I mean, even if we divorced right now, and you gave me 100% of what we own and full custody of the kids, I’d still have to hold Travis together when he learned what you did, and –”

“Why? Why do we need to tell him? He could go his whole life and never learn that…” She sighed. “He loves you so much. You say that he’s not your son, but you are absolutely his father. Why would you take that away from him?”

My fists clenched and unclenched. “I didn’t take a goddamned thing away from him, Alli. You did, just like you took him from me.”

Alli looked at me imploringly. “I know that, and I’m so sorry that I hurt you like that. But why hurt him?”

“Are you serious? Do you think that’s why I’d tell him? To hurt him, or even to hurt you?” I shook my head in disgust. “God, if you do… just, honestly, I don’t know what to say.”

“Then why?”

“Because he needs to know, Alli. Not because of my pride or ego or whatever, but because…” God, I’d only known he wasn’t my son for a week, and who his father was for two days. How could she possibly have not thought this through? But maybe that’s how she did manage to lie to me, by thinking about the consequences of what she’d done as little as possible. 

Closing my eyes and rubbing my forehead with one hand, I said, “Think, Alli. Think. His father died of cancer in his twenties. Who knows what else is in his family tree, in terms of his medical history? Parkinson's? MS? What else? At the very least, he needs to get genetic testing to find out what he’s at risk for, and what he might put his kids at risk for.” 

She started to raise an objection, but I ignored her. “Yes, we could do that anyway, without the need for a paternity check. Did do it, actually; I had all three of the kids tested to see if they were mine. Oh, spare me the hurt look.” 

“But even with that, every time I look, it turns out something new has a genetic component. He needs to be able to give a family history, which he can’t right now. Or, rather, he can, but it’s going to be wrong. So for health reasons alone, he needs to know eventually.

“And then beyond that, there’s Jake’s mom. She abandoned him, right? When he was pretty young?”

“Yeah. Five.”

“So, she was pretty young, too. What do you think the odds are that she remarried? That she has kids out there? Grandkids? Ever heard of genetic sexual attraction, how family members can be intensely attracted to each other if they don’t know that they’re related, like, say, if they’re the bastard child of an abandoned son? What happens when he runs into a girl at college that–”

Alli scoffed, “Oh, come on! How likely is that?”

With a shrug, I admitted, “Not very. But possible. And I’ll tell you what is likely: a few years down the road, he gets curious, or his wife does, or one of our other kids does, and he decides to get one of those genetic ancestry kits. Hey, maybe he gets one for Julie and Megan, too. What then? Do you want him to be surprised like I was? To feel betrayed and lied to by both of us?

“Or what if it doesn’t happen in a couple of years? What if it’s in forty years, after you and I are dead, and he wants to learn more about his family? Maybe find out about his dead grandpa and grandma that he never got to meet, and he learns that I’m not his father then? So he’s left wondering–”

“I get it! I get it!” She sighed, “I just didn’t… I hoped it would never come up. I don’t know. It’s not… I did my best to not think about this. To me… to me, he was your son, even if… regardless of what I had done.”

I sighed again, already exhausted at nine in the morning. I didn’t want to explain all of this to her. I shouldn’t have to clean up a mess she’d made. Because of her irresponsibility, I had to not just get through my pain but prevent her son’s, too. 

“But he’s not my son. And that’s got repercussions beyond what happens to you and me when the kids are in college. Even beyond the heartbreak, the kids are going to have at us splitting up.”

Alli sat quietly for a while, head bowed. When she looked back up, her eyes were wet. Quietly, she said, “I know you think there’s no hope for us, Luke. But I’m going to do everything I can to show you that I love you and that you can trust me. I will do anything to find a way back to us. I made a horrible mistake, and I lied about it because I didn’t see another way out. But you know everything now, and I’m going to–”

“Save it.” I stood up. “I know exactly three things right now: I have two daughters that are mine, I love my kids, and there’s not a chance in hell things will ever be the same between us. I have to assume anything else I thought I knew is a lie.” And with that, I left for the rest of the day. 

I drove again for a while, but eventually, my thoughts were too much of a distraction. For lunch, I stopped at a diner and ended up staying there for hours; the waitress got a very, very nice tip. Plans for my future twisted in amongst recollections of the past, now newly illuminated in the sickly light of Alli’s confession. 

My brother’s actions and attitudes towards me over the last decade and a half suddenly made a lot more sense. Evan wasn’t just being a dick: he was laughing at me behind my back. I needed to have an in-person chat with that asshole, but it would have to wait. He was three states away, I had to work, and he was still such a testosterone-addled manchild that the chance of us, two grown-ass men, coming to blows was pretty damn near one hundred percent. Either he’d take a swing at me, or he’d needle me until I took one at him, and I needed to be ready for that. But there would be a reckoning, one way or another.

My last meeting with Jake pushed its way to the fore next. To be more specific, something he said finally made sense. I remembered him affectionately patting my hand and saying, “Thank you for taking care of her. Of them.” At the time, I thought it was merely odd phrasing, possibly due to the pain meds, but knowing what I knew now– or at least what Alli had told me, assuming it was true– he didn’t mean “Alli and your family,” or at least not primarily. He meant “Alli and my unborn child.” 

But there was no malice in his eyes, no air of either superiority or of guilt. He really thought that we were okay. On one level, that pissed me off; we most definitely were not. On another, he was a dying man who thought I’d let him have a chance at his last wish. Part of me hated him, but not as much as I thought, and it was relatively easy for me to push that anger aside. He was dead and gone, beyond any judgment I could mete out.

No, my rancor was reserved for my loving wife. “Loving.” That’s what hurt worst of all: I still loved her, or at least the person I had believed she was. I wanted to believe that she loved me, that she had made a horrible mistake that she kept compounding with lies until it finally blew up in her face. But I didn’t know if that was true, and I could never know. No matter what happened in our future, for however long we were together before Megan left home, I would never know. And that made me doubt everything she had ever told me, up to and including her confession.

“Trust but verify,” goes the adage. But I didn’t trust. I couldn’t verify. Jake was dead, and he had no living relatives that I could contact for a DNA sample. Maybe the story about Jake was bullshit, and Alli had fucked some stranger; what she told me made a perverse sort of sense, and all of the pieces fit, but she’d had sixteen years to come up with a convincing lie. Even if she was telling the truth, I couldn’t really know. I’d never know.

I could talk to Alli’s psychologist, but I had no idea what the ethics were on lying for a former patient, or even if Dr. Brandt would stick to those ethics; they were just guidelines, after all. I knew that her first loyalty would be, or at least should be, to the health and safety of her patient. Evan probably knew at least part of the truth, but he was enough of a dick to lie just because he thought it would be fun to tie me up in knots.

No, there was no way to verify, and given that my wife lied to me with a straight face for so long, no reason to trust. I had to plan for a future by and for myself. For my kids, too, of course, but I had no idea how all of that was going to shake out; yeah, the girls were closer to me, and Travis was closer to his mom, but who knew how that would shift over the seven years before Megan turned eighteen? 

As adolescence hit, would Megan suddenly turn to Alli for discussions that only a mother and daughter could have, and would that destroy my bond with my youngest? Would Julie find someone to love and marry, then decide that what Alli had done was wrong but acceptable in the interests of keeping a family together? Hell, would Travis suddenly hate me when he learned the reason we’d always been so different? Or would he hate his mom for lying to all of us? Or would it be both, and he’d turn his back on his family?

No, I couldn’t plan that far out. I would show all of my kids that I loved them, and I would be there for them in every way that I could. But I needed to start separating my life from Alli’s. The bank account would be the first step, but it would be far from the last. With cup after cup of cheap coffee, I added to my to-do list, action items that would bring me closer to a life independent of the one person I’d once promised to devote the rest of my life to. The one who had failed to hold herself to that promise long ago.

When I finally arrived home, Alli had cleaned up. My wife looked less haggard but no less unhappy. When she tried to talk, I just shut her down; I’d need to practice civility and even false warmth with her, but we had another day before we were supposed to pick the kids up. I wanted to wallow a little longer. Let her twist in the wind just a bit more.

When I headed for bed that night, she followed along but then waited in the doorway, like a vampire waiting for an invitation. After regarding her like a particularly bothersome insect for a time, I nodded, then turned to get ready for bed. Her smile was hopeful, but I dashed that hope pretty quickly, turning away from her in bed without a word, much less a kiss. I drifted off to the sounds of my wife quietly crying.

Breakfast the next day was pleasant enough; she had cooked again, and I ate in silence. There was tension, but I was able to get through it without glaring and she without cringing. Baby steps. When it was done, I thanked her, and she acted as though I’d given her the highest praise possible. That was when I put my hand up. “Stop.”

“What?”

I sighed. “I’m going to help you keep your secret for a while longer. We’ll live in this… charade of a marriage for as long as necessary to keep our kids safe and happy.” She frowned but stayed silent. “But that’s not going to work if you can’t keep bullshitting at least as well as you did before I found out your dirty little secret. None of this over-the-top fawning nonsense. Do you understand?”

Alli bowed her head. “I’m sorry. I just… I already miss us. Miss what we were like before you knew, and I just…” She looked up at me, sadness etched on her face. “I just… I meant what I said. I’ll do anything to get us back. Anything.”

With a shrug, I said, “I don’t see how you could. But this? The ‘I’m not worthy’ crap? I don’t believe it, and it pisses me off. And what’s more, the kids are going to realize something is wrong. The only reason I’m willing to even try to stay together is for them, but this bullshit? They’re going to twig to the fact that something is off, and that it’s something that you did, real damned quick. So knock it off.”

Nodding, she said, “Okay. Okay.” Then, quietly, “Thank you.”

“Whatever. I’m not doing it for you.” Then I smiled, as if nothing had ever been wrong at all and said, “What do you have planned for the rest of the day?”

We play-acted for a while. Not in a rehearsed or planned sort of way, but merely me pretending that she hadn’t stabbed me in the heart and her pretending that she didn’t feel deep shame for her actions. Well, I was pretending. Maybe her guilty expressions and crying were the pretense; how the fuck would I know?

By the time we picked the kids up, we didn’t seem normal, but we also didn’t seem wholly abnormal, either. Travis seemed to sense something was up. He was already on edge from how I’d acted during the week previous, so that wasn’t a huge surprise. But when we got home, and I gave Alli a toe-curling kiss to the sounds of gagging by our youngest, I was confident that we could keep up the illusion as much as was necessary.

Practice makes perfect, as they say. By the end of that first month, only the keenest-eyed observer would notice the occasional hateful glare or despondent gaze passing between us. The kids were off in their own worlds, as kids are. A little reinforcement of the love the kids’ mother and I felt for each other in the form of cringe-inducing PDA headed off any doubts with them.

In the bedroom, things were beyond chilly. Alli tried to initiate a few days after the kids came home, and I told her to fuck off, using those exact words. It may have seemed petty and silly, like I was cutting my nose off to spite my face, but I was in the mindset that I didn’t trust her at all. I wasn’t rejecting her because of her one drunken, depressed moment of madness; I was rejecting her for all of the other moments that might have followed, up to and including ones that could have happened that very day while we were separated during working hours. Rational? Maybe not. But not wholly irrational, either.

Finally, though, I couldn’t hold out anymore. I had needs, ones which had been unattended for almost a month by the time I broke. But, as with many things in the following months and years, my plans and hers for how to deal with my needs diverged.

One night, Allison tried to spoon against my back and reach around to touch me. I had rebuffed her numerous times, even as her advances had more and more effect on me. But that night, I didn’t stop her. Alli quietly moaned in my ear, “God, you’re so hard,” as she stroked my cock through my shorts. “Please let me take care of you. I just want to make you feel good.”

There was a brief thought of swatting her hand away with the usual acid reply. Instead, I surprised her by wordlessly pushing my shorts down. Allison was thrilled at this, kissing the back of my neck while firmly gripping my dick and sliding her hand up and down the shaft in long strokes. I reached behind me and slid my fingers inside her panties to find her wet and ready, certainly ready enough for what I had planned.

When I moved away, she made a little querulous noise, and then an irked one when she saw why. “A condom? Really?”

As I rolled the latex sheath down, I said, “Take it or leave it. I have no idea where you’ve been.”

Alli tried a seductive little smile and said, “I can suck your dick first if you’d like. I know how you–”

“Nah. STDs can travel through saliva, too. I won’t be going down on you anymore, either.”

She started to object, then thought better of it, instead inviting me into her embrace with a strained smile. I didn’t take her roughly; there was no punishment involved, no spanking her ass or hammering her cunt or anything of the kind. On the contrary: it was simply intercourse. It lacked any passion on my part beyond what was necessary to get off. 

Allison was vocal, as usual; I was not. She tried to kiss me several times, and while I was receptive, I never initiated. Her eyes and her voice became desperate as our coupling went on, begging me to engage with her on some level besides the purely physical; I did not.

Normally, even if I hadn’t gone down on her, I still would have taken the time to make sure she enjoyed herself; Alli was multiorgasmic, something she and I had both enjoyed a number of times. On any previous occasion, if we had the time, I would have gladly expended the effort to make sure she got off at least three or four times before I did. This time, though, she came once, about halfway through, and was close again when I finished filling the condom with useless spend.

When I was done, I was done. As I rolled off of her and stood up, Alli whined, “I was so close!”

My hands busied themselves with the task of removing the condom. It had been over twenty years since I had worn one, and it wasn’t like riding a bike. I ended up spilling just a little. “So use your fingers.”

Alli tried one more time to engage me with a coquettish smile and a playful tone. “I’d love it if you used your fingers, instead.” When I held up a single digit to show her the cum on it, she giggled, “So?”

“You don’t know where I’ve been either.” Her jaw dropped as I walked into the bathroom to dispose of the rubber. When I finally climbed into bed a few minutes later, her back was to me, and I once again fell asleep to the sound of my wife’s weeping. It didn’t take long; I’d gotten off, after all.

The next day was a Saturday, and the kids were already out of the house when we woke up, Julie having been tasked with weekend taxi duties as partial payment for the used car we’d given her. I woke after Alli with a spring in my step; getting laid had put me in a better mood than I’d been in a while.

My wife was sitting at the kitchen table, looking miserable. Breakfast hadn’t been prepared this time, nor was coffee ready, so I grabbed a pop tart and started a cup brewing. Alli stared at me, angry and unhappy, but silent. When I raised an eyebrow, she complained, “I didn’t like that.”

“That?”

“You know!” Alli hugged herself and looked away. “Last night.”

“Seemed like you got off. Unless, of course, you’ve been lying about that for years, too.”

Fury flashed in her eyes as they returned to me. “No, I haven’t! I’ve always enjoyed how you make love to me! But that wasn’t making love!”

The coffee was done brewing, so I pulled out my cup and blew on it, then took a sip. I stared at her the entire time, making her wait for a response until I was ready. “No, it wasn’t.” She watched me expectantly, but a further response wasn’t forthcoming.

Alli’s gaze slipped away again as her discomfort grew, before she quietly said, “I didn’t like it. It made me feel… dirty. Cheap.”

I helpfully offered, “Used?”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t feel great, I agree.” She looked straight at me then, eyes narrowed, and opened her mouth to speak, but I beat her to the punch. “You’ve used me for sixteen years. Used me for free childcare for another man’s kid, to put food in his belly and a roof over his head. 

“Why did we move into this house, Alli? So we’d have more room for three kids; our old house would have been fine if we had two. I’ve driven him around, gone to PTA meetings, coached him through classes and sports, and poured my heart and soul into making him everything he could be. 

“So, yeah. I used you like a whore, Alli. Just like you did with me. The only difference is that I didn’t pretend to love you while I was fucking you.”

My wife burst into tears, but I had no use for them, no interest in the performative grief she displayed for a marriage that she’d killed. There was part of me that still loved her and felt terrible for the things I’d said. But that part was growing smaller by the day.