Love Letters Ch. 01

I'd never been blindly in love with Claire. I knew she had faults, that she wasn't a saint, but I'd loved her quirks and flaws. They were a part of her and what made her unique and so I loved them, just as I'd hoped, no, believed, she loved me in spite of, or maybe even because of, the things that made me less than perfect.

Had you asked me when I woke, I'd have said we complimented each other. She taught me spontaneity. I taught her organizational skills. She learned to set goals. I learned its okay to detour sometimes. I'd thought she was the yin to my yang.

I'd thought she was basically a good person. I'd certainly never known her to say bitchy things about friends, family, or colleagues. Actually, I'd always thought her to be nice to others. She could be a bit of a flirt when she got a wine or two under her belt, but nothing excessive. I'd certainly never doubted her fidelity.

Sure, I often thought her a bit flighty and far too caught up in shallow things that didn't really matter. Things like following the lives of celebrities and the latest fashion trends and hairstyles. I didn't think she needed all that crap—she was just as beautiful sans make-up in jeans and a tee with her hair in a ponytail as she was in some designer dress with her hair styled in some elaborate do and coated in enough hairspray to put a hole in the ozone layer—but she was a sucker for every celebrity endorsement going. She owned enough make-up and cosmetics to start her own pharmacy. And shoes! My God, the woman loved shoes. We'd have been far further along financially if she'd curbed her passion for them and handbags.

It wasn't that I had a problem with spending money, I wasn't tight, but I'd rather spend it on things that had meaning. Things like making shared memories—special dinners, weekends away, travel to foreign countries. Things like learning together how to ski or ride a horse. Hell, I'd even have gone to cooking or pottery classes with her if it would make her happy. As long as it was something we could do or learn together I was on board.

Claire had enjoyed our travels, but, with the wisdom of hindsight, I realized that while I'd gravitated toward visiting some architectural marvel, gallery, or museum she had preferred to spend her time on some fancy shopping street. While I wanted to snorkel with sea turtles, she wanted to sunbathe and celebrity-watch by the pool. The list went on and on. I reluctantly admitted to myself that most of the time we'd done our own thing during the day, the exceptions being when I compromised, and only met up at our hotel in time to get ready for dinner.

I guess she wasn't as far removed from the shallow selfish slut of Zack's letters as I'd first supposed. All I'd needed to do to recognize her was remove my rose-colored glasses.

I closed my eyes, momentarily despising myself for my blindness to her true nature. It was clear to me I'd only ever seen what I wanted to see. I'd focused on the things she said or did that reinforced the image I wanted to have of her and ignored or discarded those that contradicted it. It was a bitter pill to swallow to know my naivety and idealism had aided and abetted her in my betrayal. How she and Zack must have laughed at my gullibility. How they must have giggled over my unquestioning trust in my wife.

Despair hit me, like a bullseye, between my eyes. Our whole relationship, twelve years... twelve bloody years. Right under my nose. Again and again and again. How could I have been so stupid? So blind? How could I have been such an idiot? Christ, maybe I deserved it. Maybe, being dumb earned me the set of horns she'd hung on me. For a time I wallowed in self-pity, my stomach churning, a lump filling my throat, and unshed tears burning my eyes. I didn't want to cry, I didn't want to give her that. She would never know, but I would, and she wasn't worthy of my grief.

And then something happened, some chemical reaction in my brain, and right then and there I made a decision to stop beating myself up. I wasn't the one who had lied and cheated and used. I wasn't the one who had deceived and betrayed. I wasn't the bad guy. Whatever my shortcomings, they didn't warrant the way I'd been treated.

So love had made a fool of me and made me deaf, dumb, and blind to what was going on in my own backyard. That's what love did. Love made you trust, made you want to please and support and nurture. It made you want to believe the best of your partner. It meant it you gave them the benefit of the doubt. After all, what sane, healthy person chooses to love someone cruel and amoral like Claire or Zack? People like them counted on the goodness of people like me, counted on our trust and faith, in our innate belief that most people are basically decent. If it came to a choice between being the asshole without a conscious or the gullible chump, I'd take being the chump. At least the chump can look in the mirror and know the person looking back at him is honorable, stupid maybe, but honorable.

With each minute that passed the host of conflicting emotions coursing through my body slowly coalesced into just two—grief and rage. Grief, I made a conscious effort to box and file away to be dealt with at a later date. After all, I was grieving for a woman, a relationship, that never was. It had been a thing of fairytales, existing only in my mind. Rage, however, was righteous and deserved. Rage had earned the right to rear his ugly head. And ugly it was. Ugly and corrosive and just what I needed. While pain threatened to cripple me, rage put steel in my spine and resolve in my gut.

Be smart, Danny. Be smart about this. Neither Claire, nor Zack, is worth going to jail for. Besides death would be too humane. What would they know of pain or regret if they were in their graves?

Research. I needed to research to find out my rights in a divorce.

Galvanized into action, I raced for the spare bedroom where my home office was currently set up. An hour later I knew a whole lot more about divorce Australian style than I had the day before. We'd have to be officially separated for an entire year before I could apply for a divorce, and once the application had been filed with the courts, I'd have to wait about four to six weeks for a hearing date during which time I'd have to make sure she was served. Then, as long as the judge was satisfied our marriage was irretrievably broken down, he'd grant a Decree Nisi. A month and a day after that, unless I'd changed my mind, (no way known that would ever happen) the courts would automatically grant a Decree Absolut. Claire would be able to dispute a settlement of our assets for up to twelve months after the Decree Absolut.

I walked around the cottage and looked at all my hard work. Half-finished the house wouldn't fetch much, and, in truth, we'd probably lose money, but once the renovations were complete a handsome profit could be made, mainly because we wouldn't have had to pay for my labor. The house had been Claire's choice, but I'd be damned if I'd move out and hand it to her in a divorce settlement. In fact, it could be one more way to inflict a bit of pain on the conniving bitch. I'd rather torch the place than see her be rewarded for her perfidy.

I already owned my own apartment when we married, well, the bank had, but the mortgage was in my name and the payments had come out of my earnings. It had been the equity I'd established at the time of sale that provided the bulk of our deposit on the cottage and the balance had come from our savings account to which I could show I added three times as much as Claire. On top of that, it was my pay check covering the mortgage. Come to that, my pay check paid for most of our life—the utilities, both our phones, the repayments on her Mazda 3, our various insurance policies, and even our holidays. About the only things Claire paid for were her clothes, hair and beauty, and some groceries.

If I understood correctly what I'd read it was a godsend we hadn't started our family. Without children to complicate things the split of our assets didn't have to be a straight fifty-fifty. As long as I could show where the deposit and repayments had come from, along with everything else I'd paid for over the course of our marriage, she should only be entitled to approximately 30% to 40% of our assets. So, no more fixing the place up until our divorce and property settlement was finalized. And if I did a little undoing of my handiwork....

I wasn't sure if it was true, but most clichés had a basis in truth so, if possession was nine-tenths of the law, I decided I was going to be the one in possession. That meant changing the locks before she got home on Monday evening. Today being Saturday meant I had plenty of time. Plenty of time to hedge my bet and do a little undoing as well.

No need to separate our bank accounts as we'd never gotten around to setting up a joint checking or saving one. Knowing what I now did, I wondered if that had been intentional on her behalf. Why would she want to while I paid for everything? Much better for her to keep her money separate so I couldn't see how much money she wasted on clothes and the like. Or worse, spent on hotels to hook up with Zack. One thing I did do was pay out and drastically lower the limit of our one joint credit card. Considering that the bulk of transactions on it were hers, it seemed unfair to clear it using my earnings, but I wanted to limit her access to money without alerting her to my nebulous plans. And I sure as hell didn't want to be liable for any debts she rang up from here on in. It now had a $250 limit, so over the next couple of days she'd be able to fuel up or pay for a meal and be none the wiser as to what I'd done.

My one concern was my superannuation. Considering my income was three times that of Claire's, and I was a few years older, I had considerably more put away for retirement. A sympathetic judge could award her up to fifty percent of mine at the time of separation, regardless of the way the rest of our assets were split. Sure, they could also award me half of hers, but I'd still end up the loser and she'd be laughing the whole way to the bank. I made a mental note to find out what I could do to stop her from gaining access.

With the little I could think of to do over the net regarding our finances completed, I hovered, feeling lost. What now? I looked around for an answer, spying the mess of my vomit on the living room floor. Bracing myself, I cleaned it up, its foul stench bringing my simmering rage back to boiling point, and focus back to my actions. Time to pack Claire's things.

As I worked, I contemplated what to do with her belongings. I could put them in storage, or drop them off at her parents' house. I could even take them around to Zack's apartment. At first, I discarded the idea of taking them to a storage facility as I'd have to pay the first month's rent in advance and I resented spending so much as one more cent on the bitch. But as the afternoon wore on the idea grew in appeal. I could change the locks and go away myself for a few days and not tell Claire of my movements. Let her have a few days of wondering and worrying and being frustrated by not knowing where I was or what was going on. Perhaps, investing a few dollars would be worth being able to witness that.

The one thing of Claire's I kept was the letters. I thought about scanning them, but decided keeping the originals was the better option. They obviously meant something to her, even if only to stroke her ego or make herself feel attractive and powerful, or she wouldn't have kept them. Keeping them would be one more pin prick of pain and frustration of the many I intended to inflict on her and her shithead lover. I wondered how Zack would feel about our entire extended family reading his missives. Or his beloved, Claire-Bear's reaction to her family reading how she walked down the aisle with the cum of a man not her husband running down her thighs?

The rhythmic actions of packing organized my thoughts and so once done, I returned to my home office and set up reminders on my Outlook calendar to formally register our separation in a week's time and cancel Claire's phone. Giving her a week meant I'd be married to her for an extra week but it also gave me time to make some plans and it would be worth it to cause her some stress and uncertainty. Plus, I'd enjoy the messages I was certain she'd leave on my phone. As her car loan was in both our names I was able to change the account for the repayments to Claire's and while I was on her car, I called the insurance company and cancelled the insurance, effective from the following Friday. That earned me a refund of almost half of the premium I'd paid and armed with that little windfall I made a firm decision on the storage facility for Claire's possessions.

My stomach finally made its presence known, demanding I feed it. I was hungry, and yet, not. Physically, my body wanted sustenance, but mentally, the thought of food repulsed me. In an effort to appease both sides I heated up a can of soup, and while eating it with some lightly buttered toast, I nailed down some details of my short term plans.

# # #

Turning my head, I glanced at the clock radio on my bedside table; 3:15. I sighed. Forty-five minutes since I'd last checked.

During the afternoon and evening it had been easy to keep my fury simmering at a low boil, but now, in the deep of the night, my rage faltered, unable to sustain itself.

I wanted it back.

Rage was good.

Rage could keep me upright and focused on dispensing a bit of justice when the thought of my love's betrayal threatened to shatter me beyond repair.

Pain, however, had not suffered from the same problem as rage. Pain had thrived in the darkness.

Pain overwhelmed me.

I wept, each tear fought against. I squeezed my eyes shut trying to stem their flow. Each one that slid down my temples shamed me. She didn't deserve them. Just like my love, they were wasted on her.

# # #

I welcomed the strands of light that filtered through the venetians. Daylight meant activity and activity meant a reprieve from pain.

As I forced a bit of toast down my throat I looked around, gauging what I could dismantle. I had a fine line to tread—the house had to remain livable for the next two years but I wanted it to be valued as low as possible.

The day passed quickly and by the time the sun had lost its battle with the horizon Claire's possessions were in storage, locks were changed, and a few rooms of the cottage looked a little less finished.

Beer in hand, I dialed my parents place. Thankfully my father answered the phone—my mother was too intuitive by far. She, I knew, would see through me in less than two minutes. Make that in under one.

"Hey, Dad."

"Hey yourself, Danny."

"This is going to be a quick call, Dad. I just wanted to let you and Mum know I'll be out of town for about a week, so I won't be around for dinner like usual on Wednesday. I've been asked to quote on a complete fit-out of a new hotel restaurant complex a few hours north of here."

"Oh that sounds good. It must be a big job if you have to be gone for a week. Make sure you take some photos with you of that Irish themed pub you did out at the valley."

"Yeah, it is big, but I thought while I was up there I'd check out the local area to see if I could scare up some more work leads and get some pricing on accommodation or short term apartment rentals for me and the guys."

"That's my boy—always thinking positive and ahead."

"Like father, like son, hey, Dad?"

My father chuckled. "Well, I don't like to boast..."

Now it was my turn to laugh. "I've got to go, Dad—I need to pack because I want to get an early start in the morning to beat the peak hour traffic. Tell Mum I love her and I'll see you both when I get back."

"Okay, son. Safe travels and good luck with the quote. Oh, I just remembered, show them photos off that man-cave you did for that divorced guy. That was one hell of a cool bar and games area you designed and built for him. One day I'll convince your mum to let you build me one just like it."

His mention of a man-cave—it was an ongoing family joke—was my cue to laugh. It sounded forced to me and I hoped my father wouldn't pick up on it. I rang off before I gave myself away or he thought to ask for more details.

I hadn't outright lied, just bent the truth a bit. There was a fit-out up north I'd be quoting on in the very near future, just not this coming week.

Next, I phoned my brother and best friend, Shaun, and fed him the same story I gave my father. I felt okay about my subterfuge—at least neither he nor our parents would be lying to Claire on my behalf. Soon enough I'd have to tell them the truth and draw them into my circle of hell. I dreaded it. I knew they'd feel my pain as if it were their own. I wondered if Claire or Zack had ever given thought to things like that, to how many people their affair would hurt. Probably not.

I gave careful thought as to who to leave my next message with. It had to be someone who wasn't likely to chat to either my father or brother, but someone Claire might speak to. In the end, I couldn't decide between two of Claire's closest work friends—Suzie and Terri. Both were married and formed part of our larger circle of friends, and, if I were to organize a surprise party, would certainly be on the guest list. I rang both.

"Hey, Suzie. It's Danny, here."

"Hi, Danny. How are you? How's Claire enjoying her weekend at the spa? The rotten cow! I'm so jealous."

Suzie's soft laugh belied her teasing words.

"Great, I think. At least, she hasn't called me with any complaints." I tried to inject some lightness and humor into my voice, but the effort left a bitter taste in my mouth. "I'll make this quick, Suzie, as I have a heap of calls to make, but I'm planning a surprise party for Claire for our tenth wedding anniversary. I thought I'd call as many people as I could tonight to sound them out because I'm going to be out west on a job for the next week, and, as you know, Claire will be home tomorrow and it will be harder to sneak this past her."

Not surprisingly, Suzie agreed to make her and her hubby available. I gave her some vague details—informal, two weeks away, feel free to invite others, and that I'd be in contact to confirm place and time. Of course, it was all rubbish. I had no intention of throwing a party of any way, shape, or form.

My conversation with Terri was almost identical.

Now, the hardest call of all.

Zack.

I poured myself a fortifying shot glass of brandy and threw it back in one hit. The burn to my throat elicited a hiss. While its warmth lingered in my belly, I hit the speed dial for Zack. Clearly, that was something I'd have to change. I didn't envisage a future where I'd be exchanging calls with my traitorous cousin.

"Hey, Rat-Zack. How are they hanging?"

For the first time, I realized how apt Zack's childhood nickname actually was. As kids he'd earned it for always getting into trouble. How many times had I seen his mother cuff him lightly in exasperation and call him a ratbag? Then, it had been in affection. Now, I said it with conviction. Zack, the arrogant bastard, was oblivious.

"Hey, Danny. What's doing?"

I spouted off pretty much the same story as I had to Suzie and Terri with dashes of what I'd told my father and Shaun, except for his version I said I'd be on a job a few hours south.

"You sure do spoil Claire, Danny."

It could have been my imagination but I thought I heard a hint of smugness in his tone. I clamped my mouth shut, my nostrils flaring with rage. It was lucky for Zack he was on the other end of a phone line rather than standing before me as I highly doubted I'd have been able to restrain myself were we face-to-face.