She Faked Everything to Trap Me

On my wife's birthday, the dinner table was ringed with people. There just wasn't a seat for me.

You've been running around all day. You must be tired.

Go keep the baby company first. Come to the table later.

Tired wasn't the point. The baby wasn't the point.

The point was that this table had no place for me.

The wet apron balled up in my fist felt like it was burning. I swallowed the anger and made myself speak.

"Jacqueline Henson, you know I've been working alone all day. And now I don't even rate a seat at the table?"

The laughter in the living room stopped. Everyone set down their bowls and chopsticks and looked at me.

Jacqueline knotted her brows and snapped, "Don't go making trouble!"

"Get lost!"

The word sent all the hurt and misery rushing up through me. I bit my lip, turned, and walked out.

I'd just reached the door when I heard someone inside telling her to go smooth things over with me.

"A live-in husband doesn't need coddling. He's got nowhere to go."

"Relax. He'll be back inside the hour, good as gold."

Every word out of Jacqueline's mouth choked the air out of me.

A few light, careless sentences, and eight years of us were buried in the past.

...

I walked down the street, watching the neon lights of this city.

Jacqueline's two lines kept circling in my ears.

The alley mouths we'd once walked hand in hand, the shops we'd lingered in, the parks we'd strolled through, all of it turned strange in that moment.

Whatever sense of belonging I'd had vanished without a trace the instant those words left her mouth.

A live-in husband?

I came running to her for love, and that made me a live-in husband?

In the end I walked a full loop and wound up right back downstairs from our building.

Looking up at the light in our window, the ache spread numb through my chest.

What hurt was that Jacqueline was right.

I had nowhere to go.

In this city that wasn't mine, I couldn't even have a fight and have somewhere to go.

I hadn't brought my phone. I didn't even know how long I'd been out.

Standing outside our door, listening to the noise and life inside, I drew a deep breath and pushed it open.

The noise cut off at once. Everyone turned and looked at me, meaning in every stare.

"You're back?"

Jacqueline set down her wine glass and gave me one flat, unbothered glance.

"The baby was crying just now. Go check if he needs feeding."

"You really don't know how to behave, do you? All I said was eat a little later. Was that worth picking a fight with me in front of all these people?"

I looked at the wrecked table and the bottles knocked over on the floor, and my fist tightened.

The cake in the middle had been dragged through until it was ruined.

I looked at the smear of frosting still on Jacqueline's face and could all but picture how much fun they'd had messing around with it.

That was the cake I'd made with my own hands. I hadn't gotten a single bite.

And they'd used it to smear each other, playing.

"Jacqueline, don't talk to Ethan Matthews like that. He's a man, he's got his pride."

"Ethan, come on, sit here by me!"

The one speaking was Jacqueline's assistant, Nelson Dickerson.

Also the boy she'd grown up with.

I shook my head. "No. You all eat."

I walked into the room, looked at the crying baby, and changed his diaper.

But the hurt churned inside me, wave after wave, every feeling rising up until it felt like it would swallow me whole.

"Jacqueline called it. He really did come back."

"Yeah. Half an hour, and here he is..."

"He came back with Jacqueline not long after he graduated, no circle of his own here. A man like that is the easiest to keep in line."

"Not just that. An out-of-town live-in son-in-law like him is the easiest to push around."

"You've really got to hand it to Jacqueline. Wasn't he a Bayport local? How'd you ever get him to follow you back to a little fourth-tier town like ours?"

"Because he loves her, obviously! Just look at how much charm our Jacqueline has!"

Everyone turned to look at Nelson, and his expression shifted slightly.

"What are you all looking at me for!"

The teasing didn't let up, laughter and jeers tangling together, Nelson's own laugh threaded through it.

Their words were like needles, driving straight into my heart.

I don't know how long the noise outside went on. By the time Jacqueline pushed the bedroom door open, I'd already fallen asleep.

"I'm taking Nelson home. Clean the place up while I'm gone."

I followed the open door with my eyes. Nelson was still out there, waiting.

Again.

Everyone lived the same direction, and yet somehow it was always Jacqueline who drove him home.

Before I could get a word out, she left with him.

I stood in the living room like I'd wandered into the aftermath of some disaster.

In my mind I saw myself, crouched in the kitchen, the living room, the dining room, scrubbing every corner of this house.

And in that moment, the string I'd been holding taut inside me finally snapped.

I sat down on the couch and waited for Jacqueline to come back.

The lock turned, and with it came Jacqueline's furious shout.

"Ethan, you didn't even lift a finger?"

"Don't tell me you were waiting around for me to come clean it up"

"Jacqueline, let's get a divorce."

I cut straight through the anger, four words that shut her mouth.

The living room went silent.

It didn't last. Then Jacqueline laughed.

"Ethan, you're thirty. You're not some eighteen-year-old boy."

"When you're dating, you can throw a fit and say you're breaking up and it means nothing. Marriage isn't the same."

"You can't treat marriage like a game. There's a son not even a year old in there still waiting for you to rock him to sleep!"

Jacqueline pointed at the bedroom door, the corner of her mouth curling with a hint of scorn.

I lifted my eyes to the woman standing over me.

Jacqueline and Iwhen exactly had it come to this?

For four years of college, Jacqueline was everyone's idea of the perfect girlfriend.

Beautiful, gentle, good to me, always wishing she could do everything for me herself.

Even on days she had no classes, she'd walk me to and from mine in the rain, holding the umbrella over me.

She'd say, "My Ethan hates carrying an umbrella, so I have to be ready for him."

Wherever she was, she kept a thermos on her, making sure I always had warm water at exactly a hundred and twelve degrees.

She'd say, "Ethan says the perfect temperature to drink water is a hundred and twelve. Anything out there is never as just-right as what I make myself."

She got my meals, picked my classes, grabbed my packages, saved my seat, tutored me before finals. Anything she could do, she did.

People used to joke that the only thing left was for her to eat, drink, and use the bathroom for me too.

The year we graduated, plenty of couples were breaking up over long distance.

She stayed in Bayport for me.

"Wherever you are in this life, that's where I'll be!"

I was moved. I brought her home to meet my parents.

But my parents didn't like her. They didn't like where she came from, her family background.

For her, I fought with them and moved out.

In those two years living together in Bayport, Jacqueline threw herself into her work. She swore she'd make something of herself, prove herself to my parents.

But no matter how busy she got, she never forgot there was someone at home waiting for her: me.

We cooked together, made dinner together, and those were the best two years.

Those same two years settled it for me. I was going to marry her.

"I'm telling you, if you dare marry that girl, your father and I won't give you a single cent!"

"Ethan, she's not as pure and simple as you think she is!"

"Can't you clear your head for once!"

The day I told them I was marrying Jacqueline and getting the license, my mother jabbed a finger at my forehead and cursed me out.

But in the end, they couldn't out-stubborn me.

That year, Jacqueline's father fell ill, and she was constantly shuttling back and forth between two places.

It hurt me to watch, so I decided to follow Jacqueline back to her hometown, a small town.

"I know your parents have been pushing you to come home. You stayed in Bayport all this time for me, and you never even let me know."

"Let me go back with you, Jacqueline."

And so we registered our marriage.

That same year she got pregnant, and the next year our son was born.

It was as though someone had hit fast-forward on my life, and at the same time, the marriage seemed to be moving toward its own end.

Only now, too late, do I understand.

If Jacqueline had truly wanted to hide the fact that her parents were pressing her to come home, I never would have found out.

"All right, today was my fault. I'm sorry."

"Stop making a scene. I'm genuinely exhausted."

Jacqueline apologized, impatient, grudging.

And I couldn't hear a single ounce of sincerity in it.

"Jacqueline, I'm not asking for a divorce because I'm throwing a tantrum."

"I really do want a divorce."

I said it again, in the same certain tone.

Eight years together, and I had never once been able to bring myself to talk about leaving her. This was the only time.

Jacqueline blew up on the spot.

"Ethan, is there something wrong with your head?"

"I work myself to death every day for this family, and you want to divorce me because you didn't get to sit at the table and eat?"

"Eight years of love, over one meal? Don't you think you're blowing this way out of proportion?"

Her brows knit tight, and there was an edge of cruelty in her voice.

"Since you graduated from college, have you worked a single day?"

"Two years in Bayport, two years married, and every cent you've spent, I earned. Where have I ever shortchanged you?"

"Ethan, you're a man. Don't sit in the middle of a good life and fail to see how good you have it!"

A crack of thunder split the air outside the window.

I didn't answer her. I scrambled up and went into the bedroom to soothe the baby.

"It's okay, little one, Daddy's here."

"Daddy's here"

Sitting in the middle of a good life and not seeing how good I had it. My own mother had once scolded me with those same words.

Back then I didn't understand. Now I do.

"Ethan, you stay home and cool off on your own. I'm sleeping somewhere else tonight."

The words had barely left her mouth before Jacqueline walked out.

I knew all that talk about cooling off was a lie.

The place she was going was Nelson's.

Because Nelson was afraid of thunder.

Once, Jacqueline and I had been in our room, tangled up together, teasing each other.

"Jacqueline, I'm scared."

Jacqueline had taken a call from Nelson. "I'll be right there."

I looked at her, confused, and she explained, "Nelson's parents died in an accident. They were struck by lightning."

"Ethan, I have to go check on him."

I went along with her.

Back then my heart ached for Nelson. Any good thing that came my way, I'd think of him.

Later, once Jacqueline's father recovered, she and I started preparing for the wedding.

Nelson naturally became my best man, going with me to buy everything we needed for the ceremony.

Nelson and I grew a lot closer, too.

He often told me funny stories about Jacqueline as a kid, and I loved listening to them.

He and Jacqueline were close, close enough that I'd once been suspicious, even jealous.

"I'd never fall for him. He's like a little brother."

"When I've got a handsome guy like you, no one else can measure up."

Jacqueline knew what was quietly gnawing at me, and she'd explain, and she'd smooth it over.

The human heart changes easily.

Now, even as I ask for a divorce, she rushes off in a hurry to keep another man company.

Not a few minutes later, Nelson's post came up in my feed.

As long as I have you, I'm not afraid of anything.

The photo on his feed showed two hands, fingers laced together.

I recognized the mole on that ring finger. It was Jacqueline's.

The comments underneath were all Jacqueline's friends egging them on.

Living the good life, huh!

Nelson, happy again.

When do we get the wedding candy? Aw, little bride~

I stared at those two words, and my throat ached like I'd swallowed a needle.

Without thinking, I tapped like. Then I undid it.

Sure enough, a second later Nelson messaged me to explain.

Ethan, don't get the wrong idea.

Jacqueline and I aren't together.

I didn't bother replying.

After I got the baby to sleep, I sat frozen on the bed until dawn.

When the clock hit six, I finally picked up my phone and called my father.

"Dad"

My voice was shaking a little.

He kept asking me what was wrong.

I sniffed, steadied my breathing. "Dad, I've figured it out. I want to come home."

He didn't ask anything. He just said, "Okay."

"Your mom and I will come bring you home."

After I hung up, the tears finally broke loose.

Not long after, my father sent over the divorce agreement he'd drafted, and I forwarded it straight to Jacqueline.

She didn't reply.

What arrived before the message did was Jacqueline's parents.

"Dad, Mom, you"

"You want to divorce Jacqueline?"

They cut in before I could finish.

"Ethan, tell me, why do you want a divorce?"

"If Jacqueline really is in the wrong, I won't take her side."

Diane Henson took my hand and sat me down, working on me with all the patient coaxing she had.

Every word, spoken or unspoken, came back to the same thing: a divorce would be bad for me, and I shouldn't do something rash.

"You've been here all these years, so far from home. If you divorce, you'll have nowhere to go."

The same message, said a different way.

I was hearing it again.

I pulled my hand free. "Why would I have nowhere to go? Getting married didn't leave me without a home!"

"And I'm not some freeloading husband, whatever they call me! I stayed here back then because of Jacqueline!"

The shouting left the two of them glancing at each other, exchanging a look.

"Your mom didn't mean it like that."

"She loves you, she just worried you were being treated badly."

"Ethan, couples fight and make up all the time. You can't be talking divorce over one dinner!"

Diane slapped Gerald Henson on the shoulder, a signal to stop talking.

Only then did I understand. They'd come as Jacqueline's mouthpieces.

"Besides, if you divorce, what happens to Dudley?"

"Could you really stand to have him raised by a stepfather?"

Looking at the two faces in front of me, both pretending to have my interests at heart, my expression went cold.

"I'll be taking the child with me."

"This divorce is happening."

Seeing how firm I was, their faces changed too.

Gerald glared at me, vicious. "I said all along, don't go after some rich boy from the city, but none of you would listen."

"You had to make me fake being sick, to trick him back here to marry and settle down!"

"Didn't pay a cent of a wedding gift, and still won't move in as the husband!"

Listening to those absurd words in my ear, my heart skipped a beat.

"Back then, you were faking the illness?"

Even my body was shaking as I spoke.

"Dad, I asked you here to help, not to make a bigger mess of things!"

Jacqueline came rushing in through the door.

Nelson was right behind her.

Once her father had been scolded a few times, he went quiet.

"Jacqueline, you tell me right now, everything about what happened back then!"

So you had your father fake being sick, back then, just to trick me into coming home with you to get married?

I stabbed a finger at Jacqueline's face, rage flooding straight to my head.

Back then she'd agreed to my parents' wishes and stayed in Bayport with me. It was only her father's illness that brought us back here.

And because I couldn't stand to see her hurt, I agreed to settle down here for good.

Later her friends and relatives all called me the freeloading husband who'd married in, and after a while I couldn't be bothered to explain.

Jacqueline never explained a word of it either.

But it never occurred to me that all of it was a lie.

So what if I did!

Ethan, I couldn't handle marrying far from home!

You're a man who came along with me. You've got a wife, a kid. What exactly did you lose?

Ethan, don't take it so hard.

Jacqueline didn't mean it like that. You've only been married two years, and you're already fighting like this

Nelson made a show of reaching for my hand. I shook him off.

Nelson, drop the act!

We divorce, and you slot right in, don't you?

Two sentences, and every face in the room changed.

Don't go slandering people the second you open your mouth. You want the divorce, so you dump your dirty hat on Nelson's head and Jacqueline's.

Jacqueline grabbed at my hand too, ready to have it out with me.

Ethan, what nonsense are you spouting!

She clamped down on my wrist and wouldn't let go, gripping hard enough to crush the bone.

Let go!

I flung her off, and she gritted her teeth and shoved me hard.

My back slammed straight into the cabinet, the glass panel shattering.

I reached back on instinct, and my hand came away covered in blood.

Ethan, you brought this all on yourself!

You go and think about what you've done!

Jacqueline walked out without a backward glance, Nelson with her. They barged into the bedroom and carried off the baby, who was wailing his lungs out.

She didn't even call me an ambulance.

And called it, in fine words, reflecting.

Lying there on the floor, I laughed, tears sliding from the corners of my eyes.

This was the woman I'd loved for eight years, the one I'd defied my parents to marry.

Ethan, we're at your complex

Ethan

My parents' voices came through the phone, but I no longer had the strength to answer.

Early the next morning, uneasy, Jacqueline decided to go back and take a look.

The moment she stepped off the elevator, she found the door wide open.

Looking at the blood smeared across the floor, she panicked in an instant.

Ethan?

Ethan!

Jacqueline stared at the empty living room and bedroom, her brows knitting tight.

She grabbed her phone and made a call, and the moment it connected she let out a breath of relief.

Honey, where are you?