Our Wicked Lies by Gledé Kabongo (story read aloud TXT) 📗

few months back. He realized she was speaking to another man. Then she called Eliot by name.”

Alicia gasped. But inwardly she was thinking that Kat had gotten off lightly with just a shove.

“Anyway,” Richard continued, “Maxim told me what he’d overheard. I’ll save you the details, but needless to say, it confused him. He demanded answers. I couldn’t lie to him. I did my best to cushion the blow. Then I hired a private investigator to follow his mother.”

Alicia was afraid to ask the next question, but she did. “What did the investigator find out?”

“He confirmed what Maxim had overheard. She and Eliot met regularly at an apartment in Chestnut Hill. She told us she had to work, even on days she was supposed to be home having dinner with us or attending one of Maxim’s events.”

The enormity of the deception was dawning on Alicia. The affair was so intense; instead of meeting at a hotel, they’d gotten an apartment and met there regularly. Maybe Kat was more than a side salad, after all.

“Is that why Maxim is so angry, because he knows?”

“Yes. He asked me why she didn’t want to be with us. ‘Mr. Gray has his own family,’ he’d said. Then he’d asked, ‘What if she leaves us for Mr. Gray? Lily and Marston are cool, I guess. But they’re my friends, not step-sisters.’”

Alicia wanted to cry. No child should ever be in the middle of an adult situation like that. Maxim was a boy who needed his mother, but she was too busy giving her time and attention to someone else.

“I was tempted to tell him she had already left us,” Richard said in a doleful voice. “That our home was just her physical address, a place to put her head down at night. But that would have deepened the wound. I couldn’t do that to him. He’s struggling as it is.”

“If you knew all this time, why didn’t you say something to Kat?”

He didn’t answer at first. Silence hung between them, raw and awkward. He’d stopped pacing now, and his legs were planted wide, arms crossed, cheeks flushed with anger.

Then he said, “Do you know how humiliating it was sitting at your dinner table the other night, knowing Eliot was screwing my wife?”

Alicia sat quietly, her hands folded in her lap. There was a coldness in his eyes she had never observed before, not once in the four years she had known him. Shame sliced through her. Was his question of condemnation aimed at her, too? He’d spoken as if he thought Alicia was in on their deception and had also caused him pain.

“I had no idea what was going on, Richard. I thought it odd you didn’t reprimand Maxim when he mouthed off to his mother. Later on, Kat said you two were struggling in your marriage. I had no way of knowing how bad things really were.”

He wrinkled his nose as if he smelled a dead rat. “You had no idea? Not even a sneaking suspicion? You’ve been married to the man for two decades.”

“How could you not know your wife was cheating?” she shot back. “If Maxim hadn’t overheard her on the phone, she would have continued to fool you. She would have remained free to carry out her plans to destroy my family, while pretending to be my friend.”

Richard collapsed onto the cushion next to her on the sofa. He rubbed his jaw, as if exhausted by the whole sordid mess. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply you were his silent enabler. Maybe this is my fault, too. Perhaps I neglected her.”

“No one but Eliot and Kat are responsible for their actions,” Alicia said.

“I know that. But if I feel responsible in some small way, it will keep me from having terrible thoughts that consume me day and night.”

“What kind of thoughts?” she probed.

His gaze wandered around the room. Then he turned to her and said, as if no one else could hear, “Revenge. It would solve my problem if they were both dead.”

Alicia eased away from him as if he carried a contagious disease. Rina had called Richard a long-suffering husband. What other pain besides infidelity had Kat heaped upon him? What had brought him to the point of thinking about vengeance and murder? Or perhaps the answer was simple. Alicia didn’t know Richard at all. Sure, their families socialized, and their kids got along, but what did she really know about the man?”

“You don’t mean that. The pain of betrayal can drive people to dark places, but it doesn’t mean they’ll act on those feelings, does it?”

“I suspect Katalina was unfaithful in the past with other men as well,” he said, sidestepping her question. “I don’t have proof of anything, but a pattern may be emerging. I’m no saint, but there is only so much humiliation a man can take.”

Alicia stared at him. His confession left her feeling as though her head was being held underwater and she was about to run out of oxygen. Yet somehow, she could see it clearly now. Kat’s callous disregard for how her actions affected others. Her dishonesty, superficial charm, and ability to the break the rules—in this case, her marriage vows—without a sliver of guilt or remorse. Isn’t that the very definition of a sociopath? Alicia shivered.

“Are you okay?” Richard asked.

“I’m fine.” She was anything but.

“I should go,” he said, and stood up.

“What are you going to do?” Alicia asked, panicked at the thought that Richard might make her a widow before she had a chance to leave Eliot.

“I’m taking my son and moving on. I’ll make sure she never sees him again.”

As a woman with children of her own, part of her still wanted to defend her former best friend, but she bit her tongue. Old habits and all that.

“You do what you have to do,” she said.

“How about you?” he asked.

“My brain says to divorce him, but—and I know you’ll think me foolish—my heart is still holding out for