Page 14 of Open Secrets (Infidelity #5)

Lyle — Present

I force myself to shake off the weight, dig back through years of memories until I find one that doesn’t ache. “We met in high school,” I say. My voice softens despite everything. “Maria was assigned to show me around. I asked her out. That was that.”

“And you’ve been together since then?” Nina asks, looking between us.

I give a small, humourless laugh. “No. We broke up when we were eighteen. Didn’t get back together until years later. Around twenty-five.”

Maria shifts in her seat, uncomfortable where this is heading.

“Why did you break up back then?” Nina asks, looking between us.

I glance at Maria, waiting. She exhales, shoulders lifting like the weight of the memory is still there.

“I didn’t want the Army life,” she says flatly.

Then a crooked smile tugs at her mouth. “Fat lot of good that did me. He proposed, and I said no because we weren’t ready. And I was right, considering—”

“Considering?” Nina prompts, her voice calm, inviting.

Maria laughs, bitter. “Considering my dear husband here fucked his way through half of America, and then became friends with the sluts he fucked. Sharing our deepest secret as foreplay, apparently.”

The laugh that bursts out of me is sharp, hollow. “How is that even relevant? You dumped me. I’m sorry I told Bethany, but it was a mistake. You make it sound like I did it on purpose.”

Her eyes snap to mine, venomous. “Then why lie about it? If it was such an honest mistake, why not tell me?”

The air between us crackles, heavy, dangerous.

Nina clears her throat, her voice steady, cutting through like she’s dispersing smoke. “Alright,” she says evenly, “I can see there’s a lot of tension around this. Let’s slow down. You don’t have to tell me everything, but… what is this secret?”

Maria shoots me a look, then turns to Nina.

Her voice is clipped, almost rehearsed. “When I was nineteen, I got pregnant. And instead of dropping out of college and wrecking both our lives, I chose to terminate the pregnancy and stay in college. I don’t regret it.

If anything, I’m glad I did, because that degree paid for our daughter’s treatment. ”

Nina nods gently. “I don’t judge you. It was your choice to make. And this is a safe space.”

Maria leans forward, elbows digging into her knees, her hands twisting together.

She doesn’t look at me when she goes on.

“The reason I’m so angry about him telling someone about it is because Lyle has always been away.

And it was… manageable. I had my dad. His parents.

Even his sister, sometimes. There was a net. It wasn’t easy, but it was something.”

Her voice dips lower, unsteady. “But then in 2020, he was promoted to First Lieutenant and moved to North Carolina. And everything got harder. Around that time, Rain started getting sick.” Her throat tightens, the words catching.

The air shifts. I grip my knees to keep from reaching for her.

Maria presses on, sharper now, like if she slows down she’ll drown.

“At the exact same time, the net disappeared. His parents stopped answering my calls. Mine—” She swallows, shakes her head.

“I didn’t understand it at first. Why I was suddenly alone.

Why nobody would help me while my daughter was sick. ”

Her gaze finally flicks to me, then away, like it hurts to look.

“And then I found out. Lyle had told his sister; he lied about that by the way. And of course, his very religious parents found out. They cut me off completely. And my dad…” Her voice cracks.

Nina quietly hands her a tissue, and she presses it hard against her eyes.

“I went to my dad’s house. I had found out my daughter had leukaemia and…

and I needed him. I was drowning, and I needed my dad.

But instead of comfort, we fought. He said he couldn’t understand how I could have murdered his grandchild.

” Her lip trembles, but she forces the words out.

“I left. The next morning, Lyle went over to talk to him and found him unresponsive. He’d had stroke. ”

Her whole-body caves in slightly, the fight draining out. “He survived, but he’s in a care home now. And I’m not allowed to visit. My own father. He won’t see me.”

Nina nods slowly, her voice measured but gentle. “That’s a tremendous amount to carry, Maria. No wonder you’ve felt so alone.”

Maria looks at me, then back at Nina, her voice low but burning.

“The thing is, while my daughter was sick, I had three other children to take care of. On top of that, I had my practice to run, bills to pay, patients who depended on me. And I had no help. None.” She swallows hard, biting the words.

“Lyle came home when Rain was first diagnosed, but then the Army gave him a choice: deploy or lose everything. We were depending on his insurance, so… he left. He left me alone with no one, with nothing, and…” She trails off, her jaw tightening as tears shimmer but don’t fall.

I sit there, listening, and it feels like the floor’s been ripped out under me.

I had no idea. Not the full picture. I knew it was bad, sure—I knew she was stretched thin.

But not this. Not the way she says it now, like she was drowning every single day while I was halfway across the world, pretending phone calls and care packages made me a husband.

What the hell was I doing? Telling myself I was serving my country while my wife was back here bleeding out in silence.

I thought the insurance would pay for everything; the community would rally behind her.

I had no idea my mother had already spoiled the well.

Another reason I will never speak to her again.

How a woman can abandon her living breathing grandchild all for her morals is beyond me.

The only words that make it past the lump in my throat are the smallest ones. “I called you,” I say, raw, almost pleading. “All the time. I called. But you never said—”

“Because we’re not supposed to!” she snaps, turning on me, the fire flaring again.

“Army Wife 101—don’t make your husband stress while he’s deployed.

So I didn’t. I didn’t tell you just how close Rain came to dying.

I didn’t tell you about the mounting debt.

And I sure as hell didn’t tell you how much I was failing as a mother. ”

Her words slice through the room, and I feel every cut.

Maria doesn’t say more. She just keeps pressing the tissue to her face, shoulders shaking in silence.

“You’re an amazing mother,” I say, the words ripping out of me before I can stop them.

She pulls the tissue away from her eyes, her laugh bitter, wet.

“Please. Half the time it was the kids raising themselves while I was at work or at the hospital. Jesus, Lyle—we didn’t even celebrate their birthdays.

With Covid, they couldn’t go into the hospital, Rain couldn’t come home.

Remi and Taylor took care of August, made their own food, sat through online classes without me. I was barely there.”

Her voice cracks on barely.

I shake my head, leaning forward, my chest burning. “No. Don’t say that. Me and the kids—we never once believed you were anything other than amazing. Not once.”

I want to reach for her hand, but she’s gripping that tissue like it’s the only thing keeping her from falling apart.

All I can do is sit there, my own heart hammering, thinking of birthdays missed, the sound of laughter over speakerphone while I told myself I’d make it up to them next year. Next time. Always next time.

“You didn’t see them, Lyle,” Maria whispers, voice raw. “The way they looked at me. Hungry. Tired. Angry. They shouldn’t have had to… to be parents before they were even done being kids. That’s not amazing. That’s failure.”

The word hangs heavy in the room, the kind that echoes long after it’s spoken.

Before I can answer, Nina’s voice cuts in—soft, steady, threaded with calm authority. “Maria.”

Maria’s head snaps toward her, eyes rimmed red, tissue shredded between her fingers.

Nina doesn’t look away. “What you’re describing—what you survived—isn’t failure.

It’s triage. You were in an impossible situation.

Your daughter was critically ill, your husband was deployed, the world was shut down in a pandemic.

And you kept your children alive. You kept them fed. You kept the roof over their heads.”

Maria shakes her head, but Nina keeps going, leaning forward now.

“You’re holding yourself to a standard no human could meet.

And I hear the guilt in your voice, but guilt doesn’t mean you failed.

It means you cared. You cared so deeply that even doing the impossible still doesn’t feel like enough. ”

Maria’s lip trembles, her shoulders shaking as she looks down.

Nina softens. “Children who grow up through hardship don’t look back and remember perfection. They remember love. And from what I hear, your kids had that. They had you. Even if you weren’t there for every birthday, they had a mother who fought tooth and nail for them.”

Maria swallows hard, whispering, “I don’t feel like they had me.”

Nina folds her hands in her lap, eyes steady on both of us. “I hear both of you want to work on your marriage. That’s good—that’s important. But I need to pause here.”

Maria stiffens slightly, bracing.

Nina softens her tone. “Maria, what you’ve just shared—the guilt, the isolation, the way you carried all of this alone—that’s not just about your marriage.

That’s about you. That’s about wounds that go deeper than this relationship, and they deserve space of their own.

Space where you’re not worried about hurting Lyle, or protecting him, or holding back because of his career. ”

Maria blinks fast, eyes darting between Nina and me.

“This,” Nina continues, tapping her pen lightly against her notebook, “is marriage therapy. We’ll work here on how the two of you communicate, how you rebuild trust, how you reconnect.

But Maria—for the weight you’re carrying?

I recommend you also have your own therapist. Someone focused only on you—on helping you process your grief, your anger, your guilt.

That isn’t a punishment. It’s a form of care. ”

Maria opens her mouth, then closes it again. Her throat works as she swallows, eyes flicking between us. Finally, her voice comes out small, wary. “So you’re saying… I’m too broken for this to work?”

Nina shakes her head firmly. “No. I’m saying you’re human. And no human can hold all of that alone. If anything, getting your own therapist makes this marriage therapy stronger—because you’ll have a space to unload what doesn’t belong in this room. That way, in here, we can focus on the us .”

Her gaze shifts to me. “And Lyle—I suggest you do the same.”

I stiffen, my first instinct to argue. To say I don’t need it, that I’ve already done enough of that with Army shrinks. But the truth is, I haven’t. Not really. And Maria’s silence beside me feels like an indictment.

Maria exhales, shaking her head slightly. “I don’t know if I can do that. Another therapist. More digging around in shit that already stinks.”

Nina nods slowly, thoughtful. “That’s fair.

And I want to be clear—you can talk through those things here, with me.

I’m not shutting that door. But it can get complicated if I’m both your individual therapist and your marriage therapist. It risks me carrying information from one space into the other, even unintentionally.

And I never want either of you to feel I’m on one person’s side. ”

She sets the pen down, folding her hands. “Some couples choose to keep everything under one roof, and we can do that if you both agree. Others find it more freeing to have their own therapist as well—someone whose only job is to hold them .”

Maria glances at me, then back at Nina, uncertainty written across her face. “So… it’s possible. Just messy.”

Nina’s mouth lifts in a small, reassuring smile. “It’s your decision.”