Page 20 of Absolution (Infidelty #3)

Jackie

I come home, bone-tired. This week has been brutal. I’ve never been so happy for a weekend before. Still have a stack of NDAs to go through, but tonight? I just need a fucking break.

Kicking off my shoes, I loosen my tie and grab a beer from the fridge. The house is quiet, for a Saturday night, so I assume they’re already passed out upstairs.

Which is why I damn near jump out of my skin when I step into the living room and see Jackie sitting on the couch. No lights on, just the faint glow from the hallway.

“Jesus,”

I mutter, heart still racing.

“You scared the hell out of me.”

“Sorry,”

she says softly.

I blink, taking her in. She’s calm. Sitting in the dark like she’s been waiting.

“Late night,”

she says, tilting her head.

“Yeah,”

I say on autopilot, then pause. My usual line is some bullshit about a stubborn client or an unexpected delay. But I stop myself.

I promised myself, promised Nina, I’d stop lying by omission.

“One of my big clients lost his goddamn mind,”

I say, exhaling as I drop into the armchair across from her.

“Instead of quietly making the CEO step down like we all hoped, the board decided to give him enough rope to hang himself. And he’s taking full advantage. There are... an astounding number of sexual harassment allegations stacking up. I’m not sure if I’m representing a man or a bonafide liability disaster at this point.”

She stares at me, surprised. Not by the story, by the honesty.

“Wow,”

she says.

“And they’re keeping him on?”

“For now. Optics matter apparently.”

I take a long sip of my beer, suddenly wishing it was something stronger.

“The kids in bed?”

I ask when she doesn’t say anything.

Jackie doesn’t look away.

“They’re with Marianne.”

“Oh.”.

She shifts slightly, sitting straighter.

“I thought we should talk.”

“Oh.”

My mouth goes dry. The way she says it, calmly and directly, puts me on edge.

Silence stretches between us.

Setting my beer down, I lean forward. This talk has been a long time coming.

“Okay,” I say.

Her eyes flicker, something unreadable passing through.

“Where do you go at 11 a.m. on Tuesdays?”

I blink. That’s not what I expected. “What?”

She leans back, folding her arms. Her voice doesn’t rise, but it cuts.

“Is it a woman you’re keeping? A mistress? A hooker?”

My stomach sinks. “No,”

I say quickly.

“No, it’s not like that.”

I pause.

“It’s Nina.”

She scoffs, bitter. “Nina.”

Before she can spiral further, I blurt.

“She’s a therapist.”

Jackie stares at me, stunned.

“What?”

I swallow, shifting off the couch and lowering myself to the floor in front of her. I take her hand before she can stop me.

“I’ve been seeing her since I came back from New York,”

I say quietly.

“Because I was afraid, I was turning into him.”

Her eyes narrow.

“Turning into him? Your dad? You mean also screwing women half your age?”

Her voice cracks, and she rips her hand from mine like my skin burns her. “Yeah,”

she says.

“I know about that.”

I don’t speak. I stay kneeling, ashamed, unable to deny it. She shifts, standing slowly, putting the couch between us.

“Nothing to say?”

she asks, arms crossed. Her eyes are gleaming but not wet.

“You’ve got nothing?”

I get up too, slowly.

There’s so much I could say, excuses, timelines, guilt, defences. But they don’t matter anymore. I’m done lying. Done pretending.

So, I meet her eyes and say, “Yes.”

She flinches. For a second, she looks like she can’t decide whether to cry or throw something at me. But all she does is turn away, like she’s trying to steady herself.

I stay there, unmoving, watching the woman I married hold herself together better than I ever deserved.

“I think we should try marriage counselling,”

I say quietly.

“I’ve changed.”

Jackie turns slowly, her face blank.

“You changed,”

she repeats.

“Like you changed twelve years ago?”

I open my mouth, but no sound comes.

“What?”

she says, her voice rising.

“Is that what you told yourself? That you changed? While you were out screwing another woman and I was at home, going into labour alone? While I lost our son alone?”

She doesn’t yell. She doesn’t have to. The words slam into me harder than any scream could.

“Jackie…”

She swipes a hand across her forehead, tears pouring freely now.

“Do you even remember that night?”

she asks, almost breathless.

“I was twenty-eight weeks pregnant, Kyle. With four children. I woke up in the middle of the night and you weren’t there. I called you. Over and over. No answer. God, I was actually worried about you.”

I can’t move. Can’t breathe.

“I gave birth to Duke in the back of an ambulance, Kyle,”

she says, her voice cracking under the weight.

“He would have survived… he could have survived if he’d been born in the hospital, if I hadn’t had to wait for the ambulance because you were fucking another woman.”

My stomach turns. I try to go to her, but she pushes my arms away.

“You told me you fell asleep in the office. That you were exhausted. And I believed you. God help me, I believed you.”

She shakes her head, biting her bottom lip.

“But that wasn’t true.”

She screams, “Was it?”

I close my eyes, remembering that night. I had felt justified, Jackie had been on bedrest for weeks, barely moving, and I told myself I deserved a break… a release. Some part of me believed it. The next morning, I woke up and saw my phone and the missed calls.

“You never held him,”

she says, softer now, like she’s speaking from a place so deep I almost can’t reach it.

“I asked you, and you said no. The one time the nurse brought him in, you left the room. Said you had to check on the kids.”

I force myself to meet her eyes, but it hurts. It physically hurts.

“Every time I brought him up… or someone else did… you’d snap. You’d shut it down. You told us to focus on the present. That looking back didn’t help anything.”

Her voice falters.

“And I let you. I let you because I thought it was grief.”

She exhales, the sound ragged. Her next words are barely audible.

“But it wasn’t. It was guilt.”

She looks at me then, like she’s seeing something new. Something unforgivable.

My voice shakes when it finally comes out.

“I didn’t know how to deal with it, so I just pushed it down.”

She lets out a rough, broken laugh, wiping her face with the back of her hand while mine stays wet, untouched.

“My mom had that photo framed, you know. Of me holding Duke. Our son. The only picture of him that exists. She never gave it to me,”

Jackie says, her voice hardening again.

“Because she knew how you’d react. Knew you’d pretend he didn’t happen. And she didn’t want to remind me of how alone I was.”

There’s nothing I can say. Nothing I could ever say.

Because she’s right. I didn’t just lose our son. I abandoned him. And I abandoned her.

“I made a mistake,”

I say, almost a whisper.

“The biggest mistake of my life.”

“Which mistake are you talking about, Kyle?”

she says, eyes sharp and shining.

“Twelve years ago, or now?”

My chest caves.

“I thought…”

I start, stumbling over my own shame.

“I thought you walked away from our marriage. That you were done. I told myself… there was nothing to cheat on.”

The second the words leave my mouth; I want to swallow them whole.

Nothing.

Fuck. Why the hell did I say that?

Her jaw clenches, hands balling into fists.

“I didn’t walk away,”

she whispers.

“I was grieving. I was drowning. And instead of reaching for me, you wrote me off.”

“I know,”

I choke.

“Please… I don’t know what happened to me. A midlife crisis, maybe… I just… I lost myself. But I want to fix it. Please, Jackie. Just give me one last chance.”

She doesn’t answer right away.

Quietly, Jackie walks back to the sofa, settling in with a kind of cold control that unsettles me. I lower myself into the armchair across from her, waiting. Watching. Dreading.

After her tears dry, she takes a long, deep breath. Then.

“I want to have another baby,”

she says, her tone smooth, almost casual.

“Huh?”

I blink.

“You… what?”

“I want to have another child,”

she repeats.

“Through surrogacy. We can afford it.”

My throat dries out. I nod reflexively.

“If that’s what you… want, I mean-”

But I trail off. Because her eyes haven’t moved. Haven’t softened. Her hands are still perfectly still on her lap, as if she’s reciting lines.

Then she smirks.

It’s not a smile I’ve seen before. Not the one that used to undo me, or the one that made our kids feel safe. It’s darker. Sharper. The kind of smile that belongs to someone who’s done breaking.

Her eyes are dead.

“You can’t do that, can you?”

she says, her voice almost pitying.

“You can’t give me another child.”

“Jackie-”

“Was the vasectomy a mistake?”

she asks, her voice suddenly loud in the silence.

“Or was that part of the plan too?”

I freeze.

It feels like the world has narrowed into this one moment. Her face. Her voice. My shame. I try to speak. Nothing comes out.

“Jackie…”

Her name catches in my throat.

She leans back into the sofa; arms crossed like a wall.

“When did you get it done?”

I look down at my hands.

“A year ago.”

Her laugh is bitter.

“So, right around the time you started having those business trips.”

“It wasn’t a plan,”

I say quickly.

“It wasn’t meant to hurt you or end anything. I wasn’t thinking about the future like that. It was just… I was protecting us.”

Jackie lets out a laugh so sharp it could cut glass.

“Well then, thank you, Kyle. Thank you for making sure none of your whores ended up with your bastard.”

I flinch. “I-”

She holds up a hand, eyes blazing.

“Don’t. Just don’t. You made a permanent decision about our life without saying a word. You got to cheat and make sure there were no consequences. No messy strings. No accidental families.”

“I didn’t do it for them,”

I choke out.

“I did it because you almost died. After the hysterectomy, I… I didn’t want to risk losing you again.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense.”

she says, her voice rising.

“You told yourself what you had to, so you could keep screwing around without any fear. You made a permanent decision about our future without even thinking about us.”

“I’ll reverse it,”

I say quickly, grasping for something solid.

“I’ll go tomorrow. Hell, I’ll go tonight-”

“You think this is about that?”

she snaps.

“You think I want another baby with you?”

I go still.

She leans forward, her voice bitter.

“This was my way of telling you that nothing you say will change my mind.”

The room tilts slightly, air thick in my lungs. I can’t find my footing.

“I’m not doing this to punish you,”

she says, calmer now. Steadier.

“But it’s clear neither of us is happy in this marriage.”

Her eyes meet mine.

“I want a divorce.”

I stay seated. Empty. Numb.

“What about the kids?”

I ask, voice barely audible.

“The kids are why I’m still here,”

she says.

“They’re the only reason I didn’t walk out when I found out.”

And somehow, that’s worse. Because she’s not staying for me. She’s staying despite me.

“I used to imagine us old,”

she says quietly.

“You in your reading chair. Me yelling at you to wear your hearing aids. The kids grown, maybe with babies of their own.”

She looks away, eyes glinting.

“I never imagined this.”

I feel something tear inside me.

“I never meant to break us,”

I say.

“I didn’t plan any of it. I just... stopped recognizing myself, Jackie. Somewhere along the line, I lost who I was.”

She gives a tired smile.

“You didn’t lose yourself, Kyle. You just showed me who you were when no one was watching.”

I open my mouth, but she holds up her hand.

“I’m not interested in apologies anymore. You’ve said them all. And I believed them. Every time.”

Her voice breaks.

“When you snapped at me and blamed it on work. When you told me you were working while abandoning me at my weakest. When you promised in sickness and in health, but were loyal for neither.”

Each one hits like a blow.

“I believed you, Kyle. Even when I didn’t want to.”

I rub my chest like I’m trying to press the pain down.

“I didn’t think I could survive losing our son,”

she says quietly.

“But I did. I didn’t think I could go on without my mom. But I did that too.”

She stands, steady now, like the decision is holding her upright.

“You don’t get to tell me you’ve changed,”

she says.

“Not when every change you made was in secret.”

Her eyes lock on mine. There’s no fury left, just clarity.

“You want to do the right thing, Kyle?”

she asks.

“Then don’t fight me on this.”

A sob crawls up my throat. I crush it down with everything I have.

She steps forward.

“Jackie,”

I manage, my voice hoarse.

“I still love you.”

She stands there for a beat. Then another.

“I know,” she says.

Then, slowly, she kneels down in front of me, just like I did in front of her.

“I don’t want some brutal, drawn-out divorce,”

she says, gentler now.

“We married in love. I want us to part as parents. As people who still care enough not to destroy everything.”

She reaches out, her fingers brushing against mine, warm, trembling.

“Please,”

she whispers.

“If I ever meant anything to you… if you ever loved me… please, let me go.”

I want to speak. To beg. To throw myself at her feet and promise everything. But I know, deep down, it’s too late. I’ve told too many lies, caused too much pain. Marriage counselling cannot fix the fact that I caused the death of our son.

I’ve already dug my grave, time to lay in it.