After Eighteen Years, I Walked Away

1: 1

Six in the evening, in my counseling office, and the young woman across from me called herself a love diagnostician.

Her voice was thick with a grievance and a hurt that wouldn't dissolve.

Dr. Mason, do you really believe there's such a thing as love that lasts a lifetime?

She said she'd tested countless couples, husbands and wives, and not one of them had ever withstood the temptation.

"I only want to help women see the truth in the hearts of the men beside them. But everyone calls me a shameless mistress, a deliberate seductress."

There was a tangled struggle in her eyes.

"Lately I made a married man fall completely in love with me, and I've come to like him too. Now I don't know what to do. Should I confess the whole truth to his wife?"

I soothed her gently. "Don't deny real love. This year makes eighteen years my husband and I have been together, and neither of us has ever wavered."

"A brave confession can at least keep a broken marriage from lying to itself, from making the same mistake over and over."

The struggle and pain on the girl's face fell away all at once.

She raised her eyes to me, every word soft.

"That's good, then. I was worried you might fall apart in despair, Dr. Mason, if your husband's heart ever changed."

My fingertips froze, and the pen bled a spreading blot of black into the page.

The front sheet of the case file, in plain black and white.

Client's name: Shirley Barnes.

A thing I'd let slip past me came surging back into my mind.

A few days ago, Stanley James had suddenly spent a small fortune buying the naming rights to several stars.

He'd said it was to please a partner firm, to help push a project through.

And one of those stars, it happened, had been named for one person alone Shirley Barnes.

The girl in front of me was young and bright, vivid and dazzling.

Nothing like the steady, worldly partners in their thirties and forties Stanley dealt with day to day.

So the whole partner-firm deal, from beginning to end, had been a lie he'd invented.

There was a soft knock at the office door, and the next second someone pushed it open from outside.

Stanley's voice was gentle, the way it always was. "Patsy, aren't you done with work yet?"

His eyes went past me first, landing straight on Shirley Barnes.

Across them flickered a flash of joy he couldn't hide, and a trace of panic tangled in with it.

I thought of a line from a psychology text: the very first place a person's eyes turn, without thinking, is always toward the one who matters most to them.

The last thread of luck in my heart sank into a bottomless well of ice.

Shirley didn't flinch from my gaze in the slightest.

She smiled, gentle and glaring at once, then rose and walked straight into Stanley's arms.

"Stanley, did you come just to pick me up?"

His body stiffened, and he hesitated, turning his head to look at me.

"Shirley's been in a bad way these last few days, anxious day and night, can't sleep. I don't feel right leaving her alone. I'll take her home first and come back later to explain everything to you properly."

The ache came in waves through my chest.

Ten years married, eighteen years side by side.

From the day I started practicing, even though we'd long had a full-time driver, Stanley never once broke his habit, come rain or shine, of driving me to work and home again.

He said he couldn't bear to miss a single minute of the time we spent together.

And now, for another woman, he had broken with his own hands the routine he'd kept for years.

My assistant pushed the door open, and seeing me alone in the office, she asked, puzzled.

"Patsy, how come Mr. James didn't come get you? Isn't he the one who dotes on you most?"

"Doesn't he know you were up till the small hours last night, that you shouldn't be driving tired today"

I tugged at the corner of my mouth and gave a small shake of my head.

I only picked up my bag in silence and took a cab home.

I sat alone in the empty, cold living room, waiting from evening until one in the morning.

At last a very faint sound of the door came from the entryway.

His movements were careful, as if he was afraid of waking the sleeping me.

Stanley saw me sitting upright on the couch, and there was a note of surprise in his voice.

"I thought you'd have been asleep long ago."

He reached out to hold me.

"Can't sleep? Let me help you get to sleep, all right"

The heavy, sharp reek of liquor hit me in the face, and in an instant it shattered every bit of restraint I had.

The smell of liquor is the thing I hate most in this life.

Because my father drank himself into a habit of it, beat my mother and me for years, breaking and smashing and cursing as a matter of course.

Every muscle in me went taut, and my voice came out sharp.

"Don't touch me!"

His arm jerked to a stop, and something like an apology crossed his eyes.

"Sorry. I forgot."

My eyes rimmed red, every word trembling.

"When did it start?"

After a long silence, Stanley's voice was flat, almost cruel.

"Six months ago."

"Shirley knew I was married. She made a bet with me. She bet on whether my feelings for you, after all these years, could hold without a single crack. Seven days, she bet she could make me fall completely in love with her."

"If she won, I'd let her make three demands. If she lost, she'd stay away from me for good."

He lifted his eyes to me, and there was a trace of something matter-of-fact in his tone.

"Patsy, she won. I've fallen hopelessly in love with her."

"You're too steady, too calm. Our days never changed, like a pool of dead water. She's the one who's bright and alive like sunlight, who brought me something new I'd never felt, who made me really understand what living is."

I wept as I smiled, every word catching in my throat.

"Then what about me? Eighteen years of feeling, ten years of marriage, what does any of it count for?"

His brow knotted, and his voice was irritable and dismissive.

"I still love you too, I"

"Shut up."

"Don't talk to me about love. It only makes me sick. Back then you promised me with your own mouth that you'd give me your whole heart, for a lifetime"

Those sealed-away memories came flooding in.

On the most hopeless day of the past, my father drank himself into a rage and smashed a bottle.

He held the broken base of it against my mother's neck, forcing her to hand over money.

It was Stanley, young then, who rushed in, shielded my mother and me in our wretched, ruined state, and warned my father off in a hard voice.

He lit up the gray years of my youth. He was the one salvation of my whole life

My emotions broke free of me completely, tears spilling down without restraint.

"Bang"

The red wine from the cabinet was hurled hard to the floor by Stanley.

It overlaid perfectly with the nightmare of my childhood.

He gave a low, impatient roar.

"Patsy Mason, have you had enough yet? Endlessly running down me and Shirley can you stop acting so high and mighty!"

"Have you forgotten? Back then I was the one who didn't mind that some thugs took nude photos of you. I was the one who insisted on marrying you!"

2: 2

From sixteen to twenty-four.

Stanley and I loved each other for eight full years, all the way through our youth.

The day before our engagement, on my way back from a wedding-dress fitting, someone drugged me on the road and knocked me out.

When I came to, the first thing I saw was my father's face, twisted and vicious.

He stared at me, his voice soaked in spite.

"You and that little punk teamed up and put me away for five years. This is what you get."

"You little brat. Let's see whether that respectable fianc of yours still insists on marrying you once you've been ruined."

A few strange thugs closed in and tore at the skirt of my dress.

The sound of the fabric ripping was shrill and hopeless.

Tape sealed my mouth tight, and I choked on the terror.

I forced two words out of my throat with everything I had.

"Stanley"

By some miracle, a patrol car came screaming up.

He'd been searching for me like a man gone mad, and he got there before the worst could happen.

He stripped off his neat suit jacket and wrapped it carefully, tightly around me.

His voice cracked, but it was steady.

"It's over, Patsy. It's over. I'm here"

His family threatened to disown him and froze all his cards, trying to force him to let go, to give up the tainted, ruined me.

But Stanley held out against all of it and married me without hesitation, even though I needed long-term medication just to keep my emotions stable.

Day after day, he soothed my raw nerves and my fear with patience.

He knew better than anyone that this was a wound I would never heal from in my lifetime, the deepest thing I kept hidden, the one place no one was allowed to touch.

And now, for Shirley Barnes, he was tearing that scar open without a second thought.

"All these years I've walked on eggshells around your moods, and I'm exhausted"

My throat ached, sour and tight, and it was a long time before I managed a bitter, desolate smile.

"So this is what you've really been thinking all these years."

Stanley's pupils shrank, and a flicker of panic crossed his face.

He softened his voice, worn thin and half-hearted.

"I've been under too much pressure lately. Shirley's been through hell because of what people are saying, and I've been busy comforting her. I'm drained, body and soul."

"Patsy, be reasonable. Stop clinging to this."

I stared at the man in front of me, so familiar and so strange.

How much more reasonable was I supposed to be?

Reasonable enough to accept that he'd changed his heart, reasonable enough to tolerate his favoritism?

Or reasonable enough to watch him shield someone else while I didn't even have the right to break down and demand answers?

In his eyes, all my hurt and hysteria made me look like a madwoman throwing a fit.

The rush of running water filled the room, walling off the silence.

I hesitated a long time, then finally sent a message to Stanley's assistant.

"Do you know what Shirley Barnes is to Mr. James?"

Not long after, the reply popped up.

"Ma'am, everyone in the company has known for ages. Miss Barnes joined half a year ago. She's Mr. James's personal secretary."

So everyone had known.

Everyone but me, holding tight to a picture that had shattered long ago, moved by my own devotion.

That night I lay with my back to the man beside me.

For the first time, we didn't fall asleep in each other's arms the way we always had.

The next morning, Stanley finished getting ready and spoke gently.

"I'll drive you to the hospital for your shift."

I answered flatly, my voice calm and even.

"I took the day off. I'll come with you to the office."

The car braked hard, and the jolt nearly threw me into the windshield.

Stanley didn't notice. His voice carried obvious resistance.

"Another time. Today's not a good day at the office."

"Not a good day? You mean you're afraid I'll run into your personal secretary, Shirley Barnes, and make a scene in front of everyone and embarrass you?"

His face darkened at once.

"Who told you?"

"You did it, so I'd find out sooner or later. Does it matter who told me?"

He was silent for a long moment, then spoke with a kind of smug, self-righteous candor.

"The girl had just lost her job, and I happened to need a secretary, so I brought her on."

The rest of the drive was dead silent, the air in the car pressing down until it was hard to breathe.

We reached the building, and the moment I walked into the office tower behind Stanley,

every eye in the place swung to me at once.

None of those looks held the old envy and respect.

There was only naked pity, amusement, even mockery.

"She actually had the nerve to show up here? If it were me, I'd have hidden at home and never dared come out."

"Next to Miss Barnes, his wife looks so grim. Like she's never been loved a day in her life. Like some kind of mental case."

"Everyone online is calling Secretary Barnes a homewrecker. You don't think this shrink of a wife leaked it out of spite, do you? So much for medical ethics"

My steps only faltered when I heard that last line.

I followed Stanley into the office, and the question in my mind finally had its answer.

Because the instant Shirley Barnes saw him, she threw herself at him, eyes brimming red.

She clung to his waist and sobbed until her whole body shook.

"Stanley, everyone online is attacking me. They're all saying I'm a homewrecker. I really can't take it anymore. I don't want to live."

"All my personal information has been leaked, but the only counselor I've seen this whole time is Dr. Mason"

3: 3

There was nothing left in me but cold.

"I didn't do this."

Shirley Barnes lifted her head at my voice, her eyes swimming with tears.

"Dr. Mason, is it because you knew all along that Stanley had fallen for me? You couldn't stand it, so you spread rumors about me on purpose, to destroy me?"

I looked down at her, my voice level.

"I only learned about the two of you yesterday. I've been in this profession for years, and nothing matters more to me than professional integrity."

"Even facing my husband's mistress, I wouldn't stoop to smears and lies."

"But my ID photo, and the intimate pictures of me and Stanley at the hospital, in the car, all of it got leaked online."

Shirley clutched at the hem of Stanley's shirt, crying harder, more pitiful by the second.

"Apart from you, I can't think of anyone who would envy me, who would go after me."

Stanley raised a hand and smoothed her long hair, the gesture tender, lingering.

He soothed her softly.

"Don't be afraid. I'll take care of everything. I won't let you suffer the slightest bit."

Only then did he turn to me, his eyes unsteady, edged with hesitation and scrutiny.

"It really wasn't you?"

Even though I'd braced for the words, my chest still throbbed, wave after wave.

"We've known each other eighteen years. Do you honestly not know the kind of person I am?"

Stanley opened his mouth, about to speak, and Shirley cut in gently.

She nestled against his chest, her face soft with fragile unease.

"Stanley, I didn't want to read too much into it, but I'm pregnant now I can't help worrying that Dr. Mason resents me and is deliberately going after me and the baby."

"You're pregnant?"

My mind went blank, the blood in me seeming to freeze all at once.

And on Stanley's face, wild joy welled up.

"That's wonderful! I'm going to be a father!"

The first time I got pregnant, he'd said the very same words.

Only I'd been on psychiatric medication for years, my body worn thin, so in the end I miscarried, again and again.

I'd cried until it tore me apart, until I nearly broke.

It was him, back then, red-eyed as he held me, comforting me over and over.

"It's all right, Patsy. We'll have children someday."

He hadn't lied to me. He really did have a child.

Only the child's mother wasn't me.

A bottomless bitterness and despair closed over me.

I stood where I was, an outsider who didn't belong.

Any more words in my defense would only sound hollow, absurd.

I don't know how I walked out of that office building, how I made it home.

I lifted my eyes and looked over this home we'd built side by side through years of struggle, pouring everything we had into it.

But I knew, clearly, that soon a new mistress of the house would move in here.

Everything that was mine was about to be replaced completely.

All this time I'd buried myself in work, neglecting my own life, and I'd never once noticed the little things quietly changing in this house.

On the vanity, a few bright lip glosses I didn't own had appeared at some point.

Stanley, who lived spare and never wore cologne, had lately carried a cool woody scent around him.

He'd always been disciplined, eating only diet meals, and yet lately he kept bringing home trendy cakes.

None of his tenderness, none of the exceptions he made, had ever been for me.

The shrill ring of my phone cut through my thoughts.

The caller ID was the neighbor lady from back home.

4: 4

A bad feeling rose in me all at once.

"Patsy! Come home, quick! Your mother saw the news online and her blood pressure shot up. She got so worked up she just collapsed!"

My hand shook as I opened my phone screen.

The trending topic sat right at the top of the page, my photo blurred out beside it, every word in the headline cutting straight through me.

"Renowned Psychologist's Moral Failure: Spurned Woman Cyberbullies Pregnant Rival Amid Chaotic Private Life."

The next second, a message from the hospital director popped up.

He said, with some reluctance, that the pressure from public opinion was too great and the hospital had no choice but to let me go.

I had no room left for grief. I just packed my bags, fast.

Right on its heels came Stanley's call.

"Patsy, all you have to do is kneel and apologize to Shirley, record a video admitting your mistake in public, and I'll have every trending post pulled immediately."

My throat was dry, my voice trembling.

"Those photos those thugs took back then, you deleted them yourself, one by one, until they were all gone. In the whole world, only you and I ever saw them."

There was a brief silence on the other end.

Then came his voice, light as air and utterly cruel.

"I kept backups."

I felt like a complete joke, from beginning to end.

The man beside my pillow, the one I'd loved with everything I had, had schemed all along just to land the killing blow.

"I'm only teaching you a lesson. You were the one who kept pushing, going after Shirley. She's pregnant now, she can't take the slightest upset, and this is the only way she'll feel better."

"Since your heart and eyes are full of her, there's no point in my explaining anything."

"I've already signed the divorce papers. My lawyer will send them to your email shortly."

I didn't wait for another word. I hung up.

Alone, I picked up my few bags and got into a cab bound for the airport.

I watched the streets slide backward past the window, saying goodbye for good to this city where I'd fought and put down roots all these years.

And the phone I'd hung up on was buzzing wildly now, in a house with no one left in it.