Not every single day, not a constant barrage, but more than enough to shatter my reality. There were affectionate little inside jokes I didn't understand, constant complaints about my behavior, and elaborate plans to meet up at hotels near his office. There was one sickening conversation where Chloe explicitly asked if he still loved me and Greg replied that he cared about me because I was the mother of his child, but he wasn't in love with me. Another message where Chloe whed that she was tired of being treated like a dirty secret and wanted to go on real dates.
But the worst part, if you scrolled back far enough, there were messages from when I was still heavily pregnant with Leo. That detail still makes me feel physically nauseous if I dwell on it for too long. He was complaining to my sister about my mood swings while I was carrying his son and she was validating him.
The bathroom door opened. Greg came out of the hallway with a damp towel wrapped around his waist, rubbing his wet hair with another. He walked into the living room and froze. He found me sitting rigid on the couch, holding his unlocked phone in my hands, tears streaming silently down my face.
He didn't even bother asking what I was doing. He looked at my devastated face, looked down at the glowing phone in my lap, and slowly sat down in the armchair across from me. "How long?" I asked, my voice completely devoid of emotion. It sounded like a stranger's voice.
He rubbed both hands over his face, letting out a heavy sigh. "Elena, how long what?" "How long have you been sleeping with my sister, Greg?" He didn't deny it. He told me it had started emotionally, long before it became physical, which is one of those pathetic, sanitized explanations cowardly people give because they mistakenly think adding gradual stages makes the ultimate betrayal sound more organized and therefore somehow less awful. He said he never meant for it to happen.
He said he had been feeling unhappy and stressed. He said Chloe just understood him in a way I didn't. Then because apparently the night wasn't quite traumatic enough, he looked me dead in the eye and said he was sorry I had to find out this way. Not that he was sorry he did it.
Not that he was sorry he destroyed our family. He was just sorry the reveal was messy. I remember laughing. Not a humorous laugh, but a harsh jagged sound.
Because sometimes your overloaded brain pulls the wrong lever just to survive the moment. I asked him, my tone dripping with acid, whether there was a preferred, polite method for discovering your husband was actively sleeping with your own flesh and blood, sister. Maybe there was a Hallmark greeting card for it that I missed in the aisle. He got defensive and angry then, which was honestly almost a relief because his calm, clinical guilt had been making my skin crawl.
He raised his voice, accusing me of twisting his words. I quietly replied that his words didn't need any help being twisted. They were already grotesque. Right at that moment, Leo started crying loudly in the next room, and both of us froze.
That innocent sound violently snapped me out of the argument. I stood up, casually tossed his phone onto his lap, and walked away to get my baby. I sat in the dark nursery for an hour, rocking in the chair, holding my son against my chest, and crying into the soft top of his little head as quietly as I could so I wouldn't wake him fully. He smelled perfectly like lavender baby shampoo and warm milk. That quiet, desperate moment in the dark is burned into my soul far more clearly than the actual confrontation in the living room.