Found Out My Wife Was Cheating When I Caught Her Lying About Her Trip!

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I was lying on our bed, lost in an erotic glow, when I heard the garage door activate. I bolted to my feet. I glanced at the clock. 8:15. No, she couldn't be home yet, could she? I looked at our bedroom, the rose petals, the champagne, and wondered if my whole life was about to crumble around me.

I am an architect and had been on my own for about a year. I would have been working incredible hours because with only one client, my staff consisted of Me, Myself, and I. My office was in an old auto shop. I tried to have an office at home, but I found I was taking too many breaks to spend time with Olivia and the girls. We had identical twin girls who were born 8 weeks before I graduated from the University of Florida, 6 years ago. They hadn't been planned, but we were overjoyed. We both wanted a large family, but something had gone wrong during the birth process, and she had never been able to get pregnant again. We tried some fertility treatments, but although the doctors had been certain some of the newer techniques would be successful, we decided to put them off because of expenses.

When I struck out on my own, Olivia had stayed home with the girls until I opened my office. Money was tight, and we needed an extra salary, so without complaint, she started working for a tech company as an executive assistant. Olivia thought her job had the perfect hours for a working mother. Tuesday to Friday, she didn't go in until 9:00 and she was off at 3:00. Great hours, except on Thursdays when she had to be at the airport for a 6:00 a.m. flight to Phoenix to facilitate her boss's weekly meetings. The airport was a 25-minute mad dash from our house, or 35 if you drove the speed limit. It made for a long day because they didn't leave Phoenix until 5:30, and Olivia rarely walked in the door before 7:45.

Then, almost 4 months ago, it got much worse. Olivia's boss got a promotion, and the meetings started running longer. After they missed a few planes and had to pay a premium, they began to simply schedule the final flight, which didn't arrive in Denver until 10:15. It was generally close to 11:30 when Olivia got home. I hadn't been happy about it, but since Olivia didn't complain, I didn't say anything.

Tonight was supposed to be pure fun and great sex. Now it looked like everything was going to be ruined. I glanced at the clock again. 8:15. No, she couldn't be home. I heard her car pulling into the garage. Why was she arriving home now? At the time when she'd get in if the plane landed on time? But I knew the plane wasn't on time because, out of character, I checked on the flight. I had wanted everything timed perfectly for when she walked through the door in a disoriented fog.

I glanced around the room one more time. I saw the bowl of rose petals I planned to strew across the bedspread, the champagne in the ice bucket I had rented from the liquor store. I thought of the caramelized pecan apple pie I bought at Trader Joe's. It took an hour to cook the frozen pie, and I would only put it in the oven half an hour ago. I would also have picked up the Trader Joe's store brand 190.5 vanilla ice cream to top it. Hot apple pie with ice cream is Olivia's favorite dessert, and it was one of the few things I could cook.

For a few precious seconds, I was distraught that she'd ruined my surprise for her. This was a big day for us. I had learned today that the first house I designed had won a Frank Lloyd Wright prize. For an architect, that's like winning the Nobel Prize. I debated announcing the prize at a family dinner, but I decided I wanted to make my announcement to Olivia alone, make it the start of a romantic weekend before we again started the very unsexy process of the fertility treatments. With all the business the prize would generate, we should be able to afford the very best. I hoped Olivia would be delighted.

So, the twins were with my folks on one of their weekend RV trips to Canyon Lake. I had told them I had big news when we all went out for dinner Sunday night. I heard the garage door activate to close, but Olivia shouldn't be here yet. My long-denied suspicions formed ranks and began a brutal assault on both my head and my heart. While my gut had been telling me she was having an affair, my heart continued to deny it.

"What do I really know?" I asked myself. Her recent habit of going straight to the hot tub when she got home on Thursday started about the time of the late flights. She wouldn't even change into a bathing suit first. She'd just hop in, wearing her bra and panties. She called it "Mama's Comedown time." I now felt sure it was a terrible play on words. Olivia had always been clever that way.

Since the late flights began, we never made love on Thursdays. When she comes home, she's too tired from work. But, but before the late flights began, when she arrived only a couple of hours earlier, she practically attacked me when she got home from Phoenix. If I hadn't been so pleasantly shocked, I would have asked her about it. Before those Thursdays, I could count on the fingers of one hand the times she'd initiated sex and still have fingers and a thumb left over. Yet, for over a month, she'd barely waited until the girls were down after she'd started the late flights. It never happened again. She was still as responsive as ever when I wanted to fool around, but never on Thursdays, of course. That could make sense after putting in an 18-hour day. But her prattle about work had changed too. So had our social life. When she first started working, we frequently went to small gatherings with her co-workers, and she would rave about how wonderful her boss was. I remembered being jealous when I kept hearing about his incredible business acumen, or when I listened to her drone on and on about his resemblance to Sean Connery in his prime. Of course, then about 3 or 4 months ago, she stopped talking about him, and we stopped seeing her co-workers. I remembered being relieved because my own hectic schedule left me too drained to enjoy the evenings out. Now I was certain that she changed because of a more sinister reason.

As the reasons continued to percolate, the most damning of all surfaced. I couldn't remember the last time she told me she loved me, the last time she had given me one of her loving pecks on the cheek or an unsolicited hug. Olivia had always been a demonstrative woman, and now she wasn't, at least not with me. I froze. Myth thought. I wanted to scream my denial. Olivia, my Olivia, the woman who taught me the difference between making love and screwing, the only woman I would ever make love to, couldn't be about to walk in soiled from her lover's bed. That image threatened to overwhelm me.

Then she called out, "Liam, where are you? I'm so glad to be home." Her voice sounded so normal. Her tone just didn't fit the mental image I would formed. I shook my head. It couldn't be. Not my Olivia. Maybe I would have been looking at the wrong flight, or maybe the plane had made up the time somehow.

With three strides, I was at the computer in our bedroom. I hit the escape button, and the screen saver cleared. I clicked the refresh button. There, displayed on the screen, was her flight number with the notation it was going to be another half hour before it landed. I looked back at our bed, rumpled from where I would been lying, and for a second, I wanted to run away. I wanted to retreat back to the land of denial. But I'm not made that way. The question was in the open now, and I had to have an answer.

Tumbling down the stairs, I knew I wasn't speaking, but I felt a guttural sound forming deep in my throat. When I got to the enclosed deck, Olivia had already shed her blouse and was unzipping her slacks. I came up behind her and grabbed her in a rough bear hug. "Liam, please. You know how tired I am when I get back. Let me relax until later," she said as I began to push my hand into her panties. She began to squirm in my arms. "No, Liam. Maybe later. No, Liam." She was squirming harder, but as my hand worked its way toward her thatch, she became frantic, twisting violently, and with surprising strength, she burst free and shouted, "Damn it, I said no!"

She stood there, panting from the effort and glaring at me. I moved toward her, my intention clear. Her eyes got very big, and she said in a quiet voice that stopped me in my tracks, "No, Liam. Not this way. I won't let you find out this way."

I don't think I would have actually processed what I was doing until that second. Those 13 words left me as poaxed as a bull at a slaughterhouse. I was as surely in medical shock as if she'd shot me. I looked at her, and I felt nothing. I couldn't understand it. I knew my world had just been destroyed, yet I felt nothing. I was preternaturally calm. I tried to feel something, anything, but there was nothing there. In a voice so calm I had trouble believing it was mine, I said, "You wouldn't do this to us unless you loved him. Did you ever love me?"

Her face turned tender. "I did love you. I didn't mean for it to happen. I didn't mean for this. I never wanted this to happen. I never thought it would be like this. Always."

"I didn't want to hear anymore," I cut her off. "Are you going to marry him?"

There was a charged silence. I stared at her, silently demanding an answer. She bit her lower lip. "He's been pushing me to decide. I'm so confused. I just haven't been able to..."

I cut her off again. "Please do me the courtesy of going back to his place. I just figured this whole sorted affair out because your flight hasn't landed yet. I need time alone to think this through."

Olivia moved towards me, her face full of compassion, intending to take me in her arms as she said, "Oh, Liam, I'm so sorry. I wish this never got started. Please let me explain it to you. I'm so sorry you found out this way."

I pulled back, feeling like I might have been made from the most delicate of cut glass crystal, knowing that at her slightest touch, I would shatter irreparably. I took another step back, my hand extended to stop her. "Please, just get what you need and leave. Mom and Dad have taken the girls on one of their rambles. They'll be out of contact until Sunday evening. We'll talk Sunday afternoon. I don't want to see or hear from you before then."

I was trembling. In a distant part of my brain, some part of me wondered if it was rage, fear, or a heart attack. She looked at me, her eyes pleading, opened her mouth to speak, and I cut her off with a firm, "No." A flicker of fear passed over her face. She sighed and went to our bedroom. The numbness returned. I went into the den, sat heavily in my recliner, and wondered just how long the gray void in my mind would last.

I have no idea how much time passed before she returned. Her expression was wistful, but I also saw something I would only seen when she'd been told she could never have another child. "Liam," she said, "I saw what you had planned. I didn't mean to spoil it. If you would like..."

The words hit me like a thunderclap. She was offering me mercy sex. A sloppy seconds mercy sex at that. I started to get out of my chair. She saw my face, sobbed, and fled. She must have sat in her car for a while because it was several minutes before I heard the garage door open, then close. As soon as I heard the garage door thud closed, I slumped back in my chair, and the colorless void descended again.

I don't know how long I sat there, my mind a perfect Zen blankness, before I fell asleep. I awoke in a rage from a vivid dream of Olivia making love to her boss. It hadn't been wild, illicit sex, but tender love. Every part of my body groaned as I arose from my chair, every joint screaming abuse, but I was also burning with a type of anger I would never experienced. I stomped back to our bedroom. Our bedroom. There was no more us. There could be no more. In a red haze, I grabbed the champagne bottle from the cooler and I smashed anything breakable until I was poised over the delicate Dresden figurine of a young woman with 100 petticoats, covered by a pale blue ball gown and holding a fawn. It was the only inheritance from her grandmother. As much as I wanted to smash that 6-in high china doll, I just couldn't. I looked around the room. I would annihilated it, and I didn't feel one bit better.

I looked at the champagne bottle in my hand and marveled that it hadn't broken. Not thinking, I ripped off the wrapper, untied the cork, and pulled it out with a loud pop. The bubbly shot out, just like you see in the movies. I had never been a wine snob, but as a kid, I would once read a biography of the Rothschild family. I would promised myself that if I ever made it big, I would celebrate with one of the most expensive champagnes in the world: Chat La Fite Rothschild. I drank directly from the heavy glass bottle and vowed I would never touch the stuff again. It tasted like crap. It didn't put me to sleep either, but exhaustion did, and I slept again. I didn't dream, thank God.

I awoke a few hours later as the first light filtered through the window. Whatever type of rage I would had was gone, and my mind had retreated to that numbness. I was dead inside. I tried to summon anger, then sadness, and I got nothing. My marriage was over. I understood that, but my mind refused to accept the reality. Instead, it looked for answers in the past.

Olivia and I had met while I was at the University of Florida. She attended Southwestern University in Georgetown and played soccer on their Division 3 team. I played club soccer at the University of Florida and had put together a group to enter in a seven-a-side tournament held on SU fields. Olivia had come out to watch and caught my eye. I made a total ass of myself trying to show off. We didn't even advance in the tournament we'd won the year before and would win the year after. Olivia, bless her heart, pretended not to notice. From that day on, we were inseparable. Driving the 30 miles up and down I-35, we burned enough gas to fill the Strategic Reserve, but who cared?

She was a virgin when we met. I would had one girlfriend in high school who I would screwed 7-8 times before we broke up. Yes, I counted. And I couldn't imagine how anyone couldn't keep track of something as important as that. I knew Olivia and I were destined to get married when I lost count of how many times we made love, not screwed, but made love, on our first weekend together. It was in a nice room at the Four Seasons near the airport after the Tri Delta spring formal on a Saturday night. The funny thing, though, was we didn't make love that night. As we were getting undressed, Olivia freaked out. She said she couldn't, not without a permanent commitment. Naked, I got on one knee. I asked Olivia to marry me, clad in her bra and panties while clutching the sheet to cover her. She accepted, but still wanted a ring. I spent the night on the floor. We were at America's Diamond out by Highland Mall as soon as their doors were open, and I bought one. I thought she would always be proud to wear. Back at our room, we exchanged private vows before God. As I slipped the ring on her finger, as we kissed, I slid my hand down her back to her very tight and muscular hips. She snuggled into me with a sigh. She pulled me to the bed without breaking our kiss. She slowly sat, then reclined. We made love that night. We were married during the following Christmas holidays. We lived in Round Rock and both finished a year later. Except for those first two times, I couldn't remember a single time when I wasn't certain that Olivia enjoyed sex at least as much as I did. Thinking back to the last few times when we made love, I was certain that she'd been more than satisfied. Nor had I been inattentive. Even with all the extra hours I would been working, she had never said a word about being lonesome or needing more, more of my time.

You've heard the expression, "I worshiped the ground she walked on." In my case, it was true. When we built this house, I made a trip back to Georgetown and took a grass plug from their soccer field. It was from the very spot I would first seen her. I bought enough sod of the same type of grass to make our yard, but that little plug was the first thing I planted. No, our sex life was the stuff of dreams. Our family life... I pursed my lips. I couldn't find the answers in our past.

As I fixed myself a cup of Twinings China Black Tea, I tried again to summon some sort of emotion, even pain. I still felt nothing. I could generate faux feelings, but real emotion of any kind was just beyond me. I think my subconscious understood that I couldn't deal with the pain yet, and I didn't have the stamina for the rage I felt earlier. Besides, I needed to be unemotional if I was going to salvage anything from the fed-up swamp where Olivia had cast me. I would have known our marriage was over as soon as I realized that she was cheating. As I was destroying the bedroom last night, I knew I wanted to hurt her, to punish her. I was surprised this morning to find that I would slashed everything in her closet. I had shredded all of her underwear and ripped up everything else in her closet. I hadn't even been aware that I would gotten my filet knife from my tackle box until I saw it on the floor near the bed. That realization brought back memories of a boyhood friend, and it terrified me. Desperate not to revive that gruesome memory, I began to review what I knew about Olivia's affair.

First, she'd said she'd thought about marrying him. I wondered why that concept wasn't causing me pain. My mind shied away from even the image of a fully clothed Olivia in that man's arms, but the idea of her getting married to him didn't seem to bother me at all. I explored that line a bit further with that same unnatural detachment. I felt, to the fiber of my being, that Olivia still loved me. I was certain that if I pushed it, I could win her back. I knew all her levers, and I had the advantage of the twins and her own moral code. I knew how guilty she had to be feeling, and if I were honest, how easy Olivia is to manipulate.

I then thought about the man who was screwing her. I knew a fair amount about her boss, David Walker. In his late 40s, he had been divorced from his second wife for over 5 years, with two children: a boy about to graduate from Westlake High School and a daughter two years behind him. According to Olivia, he was always trying to increase his access to them but only had them every other weekend and alternating holidays. He didn't even get them over the summer. I would met him many times shortly after Olivia started working, but not at all for the last 3 or 4 months. I didn't like him from the start. He had wandering eyes. Although I could understand him going after Olivia, I had trouble believing that Olivia could have actually fallen for him. That line of thinking tempted me to go down the "what if" memory lane or the "what did I do wrong" path. Instead, I went to my computer and began to research the divorce laws in Texas.

I discovered that a divorce can be final in Texas in as little as 60 days after the filing. The decree had to be read in open court, but the parties didn't even have to be there if it wasn't contested. "The quicker this is over, the better," I thought. There were forms you could print out for a fee, and I gladly paid. I spent several hours thinking about what I wanted out of a settlement and how I could get Olivia to agree to my terms. I finally decided that I wanted what was best for my girls. I thought about calling and canceling our credit cards, emptying our bank accounts, but I decided that as much as I hated Olivia right now, I didn't think she'd try to steal from me or from our girls. I wanted the house so the girls wouldn't have to move. We borrowed every penny of equity to help me start my business, which had only amounted to about $18 grand. With the prize, I would be able to borrow what I needed to buy Olivia out. With the award, my business was going to be worth a fortune. I didn't want her, or more importantly, that Walker, to have any claim. That was another reason to get this done quickly.

The awarding of the prize wouldn't be made public until the big banquet in 2 months. The winners wouldn't be publicly announced till then, but it wasn't like the Academy Awards. The winners sometimes knew in advance. Held in New York City, I would have been given a heads-up since I normally wouldn't have made plans to attend. Hell, if I wasn't winning a prize, I couldn't have gotten a ticket. Yes, that was another excellent reason to get this settled quickly, which meant I had to provide a fair division if I wanted it done. I was torn between wanting everything that hinted at our life together gone and wanting to have as few changes made as possible for the girls. I decided that I would have an appraiser come in and value everything we had, including the things I destroyed. I would offer to buy replacement stuff in addition to her half of our property. We would alternate picking what we wanted until someone reached half the total value. I went through the rest of the housekeeping details of how to sunder our relationship, making notes and adding specifics to the forms I would bought. By evening, I thought I had a plan I could live with and that Olivia would readily accept.

I realized that I hadn't eaten a thing all day, and that the very thought of food turned my stomach. Still, if I was going to achieve my goals, I would need my strength. Not trusting my culinary skills, I wondered what kind of food would go best with slicing up our life together. I ordered pizza. As I ate, my mind returned to what I could do to hurt Olivia, to make her hurt. I knew that when I got past the denial stage, the emotional pain was going to be unbearable, but how could I make her feel that kind of pain too? Leaving me wasn't going to hurt her, not like it was me. I mean, sure, there would be regrets, but she was leaving me for someone. I would be the one alone. There was nothing that I could do that would break her heart. Yet, as much as I was in pain, as unacceptable as what she had done was, I didn't think I could stop loving her.

After much internal debate and rationalizing, I realized that it wasn't my choice to keep her or send her away. She made that choice when she accepted Walker into her body. Having a wife due, that was something I would not live with, period. If it wasn't my choice, if she stayed or left, what was the worst that I could reasonably hope for? Then it came to me: the perfect solution. I still had to ask myself if I could pull it off. Olivia had always deferred to my wishes. It used to drive me nuts that I could never get her to tell me things like where she'd like to go out for dinner. She might pout later about my choice, but she refused to ever give me her opinion unless I made an issue out of it. Could I use that to push her into what I wanted her to do? Ultimately, it would be her choice. Still, I knew I had a good shot. I knew her, perhaps not as well as I should have, but I did know what sort of pressure she responded to, and I knew I could bring a lot of pressure. Late into the night, I plotted and planned. This was going to take a very delicate touch.

Olivia called a little after eight. I took several deep breaths before I answered. "Olivia, you've made your choice. Even if you didn't mean to, you've made the choice for both of us. The question now is how this is going to affect the girls. You know divorce is always hard on kids, especially ones the girls' age. The question is, do you want a war, or are we going to work to make it as easy on them as possible?"

"Liam, please let me talk. I'm sorry I hurt you. I love you. I don't want you to hate me. I never expected for it to get this far, but I still..."

I almost lost it when I heard the word "love." "Olivia, every time I hear your voice, it just makes me hate you and what you've done more. Do you realize the effect this sorry affair is going to have on the twins? We're trying to raise them with values and morals. How are we going to explain that you threw away the most solemn vows a person can make for some recreational sex? Besides, you telling me that you love me is a load of crap. You can take that love and shove it up where the sun don't shine."

Olivia was sobbing. "It wasn't like that. Oh, really? Even after months, you still hadn't decided to marry him? How's that going to sound to the girls?" I paused and let the silence linger, then I continued, "I'm sorry. I managed to reach my folks and told them to plan on keeping the girls a little late. If you agree, they'll have them brought over here at 5, and we can give them the news together. Otherwise, we'll tell them alone. I will be civil to you while we talk to the girls, but that's the last time I ever want to hear your voice until we're divorced. I'm working very hard not to say the things I want to say. You will always be the mother of my children, and we will have to talk about them. Just don't push me right now."

"Liam, I really didn't mean to hurt you. It just..."

"Yeah, I know. It just worked out that way. Let's get this done as quickly as possible. It'll pay for an apartment for you. I just hope you don't plan to live with your lover unless you get married. That would really mess them up." I paused and let my heart rate slow. "I would like to keep as much of this sorted mess from them as I can. It's up to you. You calling the shots."

"Could I come right now and talk?"

"Don't even think about being near me. It's something I will regret for the rest of my life."

"Please, Liam. I don't want it to be this way."

I cut her off in my most forceful voice. "Our marriage has been over from the second you spread your legs for him. I sigh dramatically. Whatever your reasons, you killed it, so let's just bury it as decently as we can." I paused for emphasis, then said in a wistful tone, "I really hope you'll marry him. Not just for the girls. I think it'll make it easier on me too. I don't want to think you killed our marriage just for some hot sex. That would just make you a cheap 304." I then let the silence build. Finally, Olivia slumped and said, "Okay, Liam. If that's what you want, I'll do it your way."

"If there's a hell, I've been there. The detachment stayed. Where I think I would have died from the pain I saw in my little girls when Olivia started the..."

"I need to know that you're daddy and I love you very much, but sometimes adults make mistakes," she talked. She went on for several minutes, using euphemisms the girls didn't understand. Finally, I said, as gently as I could, "Your mommy has fallen in love with another man, and now she wants to marry him. I've said it was okay, so we will need to get a divorce as soon as..."

As the words were out of my mouth, I knew that I would have done anything not to have said them. A poem by Omar Khayyam I learned in high school ricocheted around in my brain, and I had to fight back the tears. "The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it." Nothing has changed in the 10 centuries since he wrote that. My whole universe consisted of their two precious faces. I couldn't even see the rest of their bodies, just two little masks of pain.

I wasn't much older than they were when the father of a friend on my side soccer team murdered his mother and then killed himself right in their living room. His little sister and my friend had been hiding in their room as their parents yelled at each other. The only thing he remembered hearing before the shots was his father yelling, "They're better off with dead parents than this." There had been a terrible fight between his grandparents for custody, and his mom's parents who lived in another state. I never saw him again, but at that moment, I knew just how his father had felt. It took every ounce of my willpower not to get my gun and kill Olivia. I've never hated anyone like that in my whole life. I thought I had, but until I saw what this was doing to my daughters, I hadn't the tiniest inkling of what real hate was.

I know other things were said. The girls asked questions, and Olivia must have answered them. I couldn't hear a sound. All I knew was that I was holding two wailing little treasures. Finally, a question penetrated. "But Mommy, why don't you love Daddy anymore?"

I blinked, and color returned to the world. I saw a creature. It couldn't be human. No human could bear the pain written on the body that looked like Olivia. Its face was a confused contortion of pain, trying to radiate love to my daughters. "Mommy still loves Daddy. She will always love Daddy," I jumped in. "You won't understand this until you get older, but Mommy had to choose, and she chose him. Sometimes people love more than one person, but you can only be married to one. Mommy needs to be married to Mr. Walker, but we're all going to try to make this as easy on you as we can. Mr. Walker will love you very much, but I will always be your daddy. You're just getting an extra person to love you, just like Mommy is."

Carrie, always the more demonstrative of the twins, pulled herself out of my arms, rushed her mother, and began to windmill blows on Olivia, using every ounce of her strength. Lori followed her sister's lead a few seconds later, but she picked up a long brass kaleidoscope from the coffee table. Her first blow cut Olivia's forehead just above her left eye. I grabbed Lori back, but made no attempt to help Olivia. Instead, I said in a voice that sounded unnaturally cold, "You've upset the girls. I think you'd better go."

"They'll let you know when you can pick up your stuff." Olivia stood, blood pouring over her eye, and walked into the kitchen to get ice and paper towels. When she returned a few minutes later, both girls had their arms wrapped around me and were crying. Olivia started to open her mouth, but I cut her off. "You will be staying with your mother, won't you? Or do you want the girls to only call you on your cell?" Washing her face had taken off her makeup, and her eye was swelling shut, but her voice was calm when she answered. "It's where I've been the last two nights. I haven't said anything yet. I hoped we'd talk to him as a family."

I cut her off again. "Girls, please go to your room. Your mother and I need to talk alone for a few minutes." As soon as they left, I said, "Let me remind you again, we are no family. You and I are just husband and wife on paper. The relationship is finished. And as much as I admire and love your mother, she's your mother, not mine. And I think you need to tell her alone. Besides, I'm sure you'll want to start planning the wedding."

I took a deep breath. "I've got a packet with some legal papers I've drawn up. I would like you to take them with you. This is my plan for how to divide our property and finish our affairs. I will agree to pretty much anything you want, except the girls' custody and you're using my name. They'll relent on that if you marry Walker. As soon as this is final, it'll help hide what happened from the girls, but either way, I want this over in the minimum time, which is 60 days from Thursday." I sort of lost it a minute ago, but if you'll agree, we can meet with our lawyer in the morning and work out a deal. I'm sure your boss will give you the day off, and I want the papers filed by tomorrow night. If we can do that, we'll promise to do everything I can to help your relationship with the girls. He'll never tell them your mother or anyone else that you're a lying, cheating, immoral woman who tore up our happy home."

Olivia had been looking like she wanted to interrupt, but her tears finally started to fall. Without a word, she turned and walked quietly out the door. When I finally got the girls down for the night, I retired to my chair. I put my head in my hands and whispered, "Mom. Oh, this is going to kill you. I'm so sorry this had to happen to you. You don't deserve this." Olivia's mother had passed away from cancer when Olivia was still in junior high, and her mother had raised her all by herself. I would never met a finer woman. She was as much my mother as my own. More? No, that's not fair. My mother was a good mom. She just spent her life as a teacher and librarian. She was gone more than she was home, and while she did her best, we were never close. It was different with Olivia's mother. I had always said I could never leave Olivia unless her mother left her too. She was the first woman I would ever admired who also treated me like a man instead of as a kid. Olivia and I still had almost a year and a half of school left when we got married. Even I knew I was a bit immature for marriage, but Olivia's mother brought out the best in me. She was paralyzed from the waist down but was still the most intimidating woman I would ever met, and I guess I could go on for days about how I felt about her and the influence she had been in my life.

I took a deep breath, looked at the clock, and for a second, tried to convince myself it was too late to call her. She answered on the second ring. "Liam, first let me say that I'm on your side. She's my daughter, and I love her, but I can't believe she did something this stupid. I know she's confused, but we talked for a long time. She talked about problems she'd seen in families with cheating spouses. She never actually said that some of them lived happily ever after, but I knew where she was going." As much as I wanted, I had too much respect for her to cut her short. Finally, she got to her point. "I've read your paperwork. Is there any chance that if I beat this silly to a bloody pulp, that you'd consider giving her another chance?"

I had to smile at her hyperbole. She and I had talked many times about the problem with trying to spank our girls. We both believed that mild spanking of a young child was more effective than trying to reason with an immature brain, but neither of us was very good at it. I felt a coldness in my chest and I worried that I might be having heart problems. "No, ma'am. I'm sorry, but this wasn't a one-time mistake. I've never understood how a person could kill their spouse, but I do now. They'll spend the rest of my life working on forgiving her, but even if I could, I still couldn't live with her." I sighed. I hadn't wanted to hear the words, especially coming from my own lips, but I couldn't equivocate with her. "Besides, ma'am, even if I could, we talked, and she loves him. I couldn't live with that, not even for the sake of the girls."

Her voice got very soft. "Liam, she's pretty screwed up right now. If you give it some time..."

"They were talking marriage. I didn't even know what was going on, and they were talking marriage."

"I know I was working long hours, but I just can't excuse this. I want her to marry the bastard, and we'll both live with it. I've said I want about her. Our marriage is dead, but I do think it would be best if the twins didn't grow up thinking their mother threw away our marriage for the cheap thrills of a fling."

There was a long pause. "She hadn't told me that. Liam, are you sure this is what you want to do? You want to push her into this marriage?"

I made my voice as firm as I could. "Olivia and I will always be tied together by the twins. Right now, I have absolutely no respect for her. If she marries, at least she's trying to do the honorable thing. Who knows? Maybe a few years from now, we can both look at this differently."

She broke in. "If she marries him, it's going to be bad, and that will make it awfully hard on our relationship, yours and mine. You'll always be the girls' grandmother, and it'll always be their father. It'll let you decide how much more you're comfortable with, but..."

"I never be the one to step back from what you and I have." I heard her sigh, then she said, "This is harsh, but we'll play it your way. She's made her bed, I guess we'll just have to see how much she likes it. But you know how I feel about you, and you know I don't think two wrongs make a right."

I don't know how many times I've heard some variation of the expression "heart." All through our conversation, I've been feeling mine morph. I didn't exactly hear a voice in my head, but I knew I was crossing a line, a line that turned my heart into case-hardened steel. "I know, ma'am, but I don't have a choice. I couldn't take her back now and look myself in the mirror. As much as I love Olivia, I won't be a cuckold. Even if I were willing, what sort of example would that set for my girls? Olivia severed our marriage bonds. The sooner we make it legal, the better. The sooner we pass this, the sooner the future can work itself out."

If I hadn't known her, I might have thought I heard tears in her voice. "Liam, I'm going to encourage her to take your offer to get this settled tomorrow. Just promise me that you and I can continue to talk, that you won't shut me out, no matter how bad it gets. Please promise me that." Her voice broke. My own voice was a bit husky when I said, "You have my word on it, ma'am." There was a very heavy silence, and I heard her croak something that might have been goodbye. I didn't trust my own voice to say even that. I knew her pain was worse than mine. She loved us both. I hung up the phone, and though I tried, I had no tears. I didn't like myself very much, and I hated Olivia for making me this way.

3 months later, I sat alone at a table near the back of the huge auditorium while I was called forward to claim my prize. They announced that I was the youngest person ever to receive the award. At 35, I was 7 years younger than the previous youngest. I got up, made an acceptance speech, and tried not to let the ashes in my mouth show too much. Still, it was impossible not to remember the days after I learned I was the winner. Olivia's mother had come to the lawyer's office that Thursday morning, and anytime Olivia started to balk at one of the terms, she browbeat her into a good compromise. We were finished before noon, and the papers were filed before the courthouse closed. 61 days later, the judge read the decree in open court, and we were divorced. A week after that, Olivia became Mrs. David Walker. It hurt, and the girls cried for the whole week that they were on their honeymoon. As I flew home for the first time, I was aware of just what I would lost. I was the hottest architect on the planet. Clients were begging to give me retainers, yet here I was, alone on a plane. I had the girls, my parents, but although I would killed the mastodon, I didn't have a mate to bring the prize to.

When I got home, my service was inundated with calls from potential clients. The only call I answered was the one from Olivia's mother. She said all the right things to make me feel good, to let me know how proud of me she was. Then, using a gentle voice, she asked, "When did you find out about it?" When I told her, she cursed as only an ex-Navy man can. When she'd calmed down, she said, "That sucks. That really sucks." Then, in a quieter tone, she said, "I know what it feels like to have life kick you in the balls. Words can't help, but I'm here for you." She paused for a long time, then added, "Liam, there's nothing I can do to make it better, but if you'd like to go out and kick up your heels, they'll either watch the girls or join you and put it on my tab."

"Thanks, ma'am. If you can refrain from talking about her, I can't think of anyone I would rather be out with tonight." I did go out with her, but I think that was the most forlorn week of my life.

2 years after the divorce, once again I was in New York for a professional triumph. At this year's banquet, my number of Frank Lloyd Wright prizes increased to four. I would won on a home last year, and I won on another home this year for an unprecedented three. My fourth prize was for a commercial building I designed for the city of Denver. The architecture world went crazy over that. I was also the first person to win in two categories in the same year in the history of the prize. So why was I sitting at a table without a single friend, alone among total strangers? Why was I more lonely than I would ever been in my life? Why was I lonely? It wasn't because people weren't contacting me. I would had to get an unlisted home phone because potential clients from all over the world were calling at all hours of the night. I was gone more than I intended, but, but at least when I was home, I was home. I would built an office attachment to my house and only went to the downtown office under dire threats. When I was home, I never worked while the girls were out of school. Except for the month Olivia had them, our summer was one long tour. Granted, some of that was visiting potential construction sites, but the girls loved seeing where my next design might be built. Besides, we spent most of the time exploring the surrounding area. I never wanted a design of mine not to harmonize with the local environment.

Why was I lonely? It wasn't for the lack of attention by the fair sex. I hadn't dated much, but I would had women calling me from all over the world asking if I could meet them. It seems that the story of my broken heart at the time of what should be my greatest triumph had been picked up nationally, and the world was full of women with big hearts who wanted to help mend it. That I was raking in money faster than the mint could print it probably didn't hurt either. Unfortunately, I didn't like myself, not even a little. I couldn't like, much less fall in love with someone else, until I did. I hadn't been celibate. I could have all the sex I wanted, I just hadn't found anyone who would make love, or more accurately, to whom I could make love. I couldn't get past my issues.

Just couldn't think very highly of any woman who would want someone like me. Rather than blame myself, I tried to blame it all on trust. I told myself I just couldn't trust, and unless I reached that point, I wasn't going to bring anyone home whom the twins might attach to.

Frankly, divorce sucks. As a supposedly adult person, I had found it much fun, but as a parent, it was breaking my heart to see what it was doing to my beautiful girls. They never said a word about their mother, but constantly let slip comments about their stepfather and his children. They never mentioned anything more than shouting matches with their stepsiblings, but I knew that it had to be difficult for them. I tortured myself with wondering about just how hostile that household might be to them.

I caught the rede back from New York and was sitting in my easy chair, trying to recover from my trip, when the phone rang. "Liam, that son of a [ __ ] has put her in the hospital this time. He started beating her right after you got him fired, and now he's put her in the hospital. You've got to get her out of there before he kills her. Even if you don't want to, do it for Olivia. Think about the twins. They shouldn't see their mother being used for a damn punching bag."

I felt a stab of panic. "Where are the girls?"

"Relax, they're fine. They were spending the night at their girlfriend Lara's house, and I called your folks to pick them up. Your folks were off like a shot with them on one of their trips. They'll bring them to you Sunday evening."

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Why don't you come over and we can talk about it?"

"This is the first I've heard that he's been beating her. Why would she allow that?"

"You know why. Don't pretend with me. You know we did everything we could to push her into that marriage. If she didn't know at the time that you were out to give her a taste of her own medicine, it didn't take long to figure it out. She feels so guilty about what she did, she'd accept anything, even his beatings."

I gritted my teeth. "I could deceive myself, but I couldn't fool her mother. I didn't think it would ever get this far. You knew he was a bastard. What did you think he'd do when he found out you were responsible for his firing and the sexual harassment charges?"

I swallowed hard. "I guess because I would never think about hitting a woman, I just assumed he wouldn't either."

"Come on over and we'll work it out. I promise."

There was a long silence, and then her voice turned determined. "This has to stop. No one can do that to my daughter. Olivia made me promise not to do anything rash the last time. I may be stuck in this chair, but this has to stop."

"Sure, ma'am. I am sorry for your sake. I really never thought it would come to something like this. It'll be there in about an hour and a half. I'm going to stop by the hospital to see if I can convince Olivia. Damn him, goddamn him to hell." She hung up, and I felt the chill run down my spine. That last hadn't been a profanity, but a heartfelt curse. Olivia's mother was in her 60s and not in the best of health, but she had never been a woman to stand by when an innocent was attacked.

As I waited, I thought about my latest revenge. When the divorce went through, I would have spent days, weeks, trying to come up with a method of getting back at Walker. I just couldn't come up with anything that wouldn't hurt me worse than him. Despite being almost 20 years older, he was close to his weight when he played linebacker for Tech. Even though I was in pretty good shape, I might be able to land a sucker punch, but even if he didn't press charges, I wasn't confident I could take him in a fight unless I was prepared to spend years in something like karate, as if I had time for that. I checked Texas laws and I couldn't file an alienation of affection. Olivia might have a case for sexual harassment, but I didn't for over a year and a half. My lack of revenge was like a big embedded splinter I couldn't pull.

Then I got a gift from fate. The CEO of Walker Company casually bumped into me at a charity event. For heaven's sake, the event was in Denver, and the man lived in New York City. Somehow, he got advanced word of my latest FLW public building award and wanted me to design a large office building for them in Denver. I set up a meeting, showed him a computer image of a design I had worked on over the years, then I told him the truth. If it was any other company in the world, I would jump at the chance to build the dream I had worked on since I was a kid, but no amount of money could buy it for his company. Of course, in a company that size, they had never heard of Walker, much less my ex-wife. When I insisted I wouldn't work for a company that allowed that sort of behavior, he didn't take it very well.

A few weeks later, Walker was fired for sexual harassment. The CEO called me to thank me. He said Walker had been accused half a dozen times of harassment during his 15 years with them. He told me that he had two recent cases reinvestigated, found a new one, and established a base to fire him. We signed a contract a week later. Like I said, professionally, I was on top of the world, but with her mother's call, I was afraid my personal life was about to hit a new bottom.

When Olivia's mother arrived, over an hour late, she just wheeled into the house and didn't give a reason for the delay. Without waiting for me to offer coffee or anything else, she launched, "Jesus, Liam, she's a mess. She'll be in the hospital for at least a week. Hell, they only kept me three days when I had a sex-dup-al bypass. She was trembling, and I couldn't help but notice that it stopped right at the point where she was paralyzed. That added to the fear."

She was quiet for about 90 seconds and still wasn't under control when she continued, "I can't allow this. I supported everything you've done to her because I thought she deserved it, but she doesn't deserve this, and you have to put a stop to it."

"How can I stop it, ma'am? She's not my wife. I don't have any power to do anything. All she has to do is divorce him or press charges."

Her voice crackled with a command authority I would never have seen. I suddenly knew how one of her junior officers must have felt when they screwed up. "Don't try that with me. I was there. I helped you, damn it. You knew what you were doing, and you did it. You wanted her to know what it felt like to have someone you love cheat on you, and you made sure she would. I love you, but you're as cold-eyed a bastard as I've ever met. You'd have made a good fighter-bomber pilot. You attack with a plan, but without emotion. You knew what you wanted to do to Olivia, and you did it. But for the love of God, tell me you didn't intend for this to happen."

I came within an inch of a hot denial, but the look in her eyes froze my words. I hung my head. "Yeah, ma'am. I knew what I was doing. I knew that any man who cheated like he did wouldn't stop cheating. Once a cheater, always a cheater."

I looked up and met her eyes. They weren't hard or even angry, as I would have expected, but showed a hint of what I thought might be compassion. I swallowed hard and continued, "I didn't think she'd stay with him. Denver's a small town in a lot of ways. I made sure she knew he was cheating, and I thought she'd divorce him."

She cut me off. "Were you going to take her back?"

"No, ma'am. I love Olivia, but I couldn't live with someone who didn't love me or who chose someone else. I might have been able to forgive her cheating, but not her falling in love with someone else."

"I know I pushed all her buttons to get her to marry him. I used the girls. I thought I was using you, and I used her own morality to push her into a marriage I was sure wouldn't last six months. I wanted to hurt her." I stopped. I wanted to say I didn't want her hurt like this, but I wasn't sure I meant it. I was sorry for her mother's sake, but damn it, she'd made her bed, and I was more than happy that it was made of nails.

Her mother locked eyes with me. "I tried to get her to leave him when I saw her at the hospital, but she wouldn't. The only man who can make her leave is you. You sentenced her to this. You're the only one who can commute it. Isn't it about time you showed her a bit of mercy?"

She was quiet for a bit. "Frankly, this didn't work out the way I thought it would. I would have hoped that after she learned her lesson, repented, and crawled back on her hands and knees, you'd take her back. I've never seen anyone as devoted as you were to her. I still think if she'd leave him, you'll take her back. But I don't understand why you think she stopped loving you."

"I asked her that night, and she said, 'I did love you,' not 'I do love you.' She used the past tense, and that's when I knew there was no hope." It was a lame response to her question, but it was the best I could do.

She exploded. "That's it? That's all you had? The tense of one word?" She got control and gave me a hard look. "No, you knew better than that. It's about damn time you found out about what this has done to her." She had been shouting, then stopped. After a few seconds, she seemed to get control of herself. She made one of those 180° turns that reminded me of a motorcycle doing a wheelie and sped for my front door. "Wait right here. I need to get something from the car." She then did another 180°, faced me, and using that command voice I would not have heard before, she ordered, "No, you do it on the passenger seat of my car. You'll find a brown paper grocery sack with some books in it. Bring them here."

I normally don't respond well to peremptory orders, but I retrieved them. When I offered her the sack, she instructed that I put it on my table. "Did you know that Olivia kept a journal?"

When I shook my head, she continued, "Well, I didn't either, but she did. When I got to the hospital, I railed at her about getting a divorce, but she wouldn't listen. When I calmed down a bit, I asked what excuse he gave for this beating, and she said he just bought a new journal, and he saw it. He demanded that she turn over her old ones, and she refused. A blind man could see my baby was scared of what he'd do if he found them. When I offered to pick them up for safekeeping, she jumped at the offer. She made me promise not to read them before she told me where they were hidden. I also promised that I wouldn't let the guy I took with me read them."

She looked at her chair. "I couldn't reach her hiding place. She had them hidden in the attic, under some of the insulation, so I took a friend. I had her write me a note giving me permission to retrieve them. I picked up the son of a friend of mine, a cop, and we went over there. He was wearing his uniform, and Walker didn't give us any trouble. The place was a disaster area. Kyle climbed into the attic, and when he got down, I retrieved her most recent journal. She cut the center out of a cookbook. Walker glared at us the whole time, but that's all the gutless coward would do. I haven't read them, and I know Olivia didn't. I did not promise not to give them to you, and you did not promise not to read them."

She paused and gave me another of those penetrating stares. "Look, Liam, I couldn't love you more if you were my flesh and blood. Olivia has a room full of faults, but she's not a liar." She paused again, and my face must have betrayed my thoughts, because she continued, "Not telling you about her affair is a kind of lying, but we both know that if you'd asked her straight up, she would have told you. Even so, what's in those journals is her talking to herself. It's going to be the straight, unvarnished truth. You know that. I want you to read them. Figure out why she did what she did. We both know it wasn't because she fell in love with that jackass."

She paused and rubbed her chin. "I can't make you forgive her, but they say that to understand all is to forgive all. Maybe if you know more, well, if you can't forgive, maybe for God's sake, you can have mercy on her. Please."

She left, and I sat there looking at the sack of journals, but my mind wasn't on them. My mind was still on her last words. She'd said "mercy" twice. She'd said I had Olivia at my mercy. I didn't like the idea, but I wasn't sure I understood the concept. I went on my computer and called up the American Heritage dictionary and checked the definition of mercy. It gave four meanings, starting with the most common one: "compassionate treatment, especially of those under one's power; clemency." Two: "a disposition to be kind and forgiving; a heart full of mercy." Three: "something for which to be thankful; a blessing." Four: "alleviation of distress; relief. Distributing food among the homeless was an act of mercy." I angrily clicked it closed and tried to rationalize. Was what I had done to Olivia fair? I just gave her what she wanted. I just helped her make a moral choice to marry the man. But I couldn't even finish that thought. Yes, it was her choice, and she was responsible, but I pushed her. What's more, I knew I had power over her. Even in the process of getting divorced, I knew she wanted to do anything she could to make up for the pain she caused me, and I would use that shamelessly. I certainly wasn't in any disposition to be kind or forgiving. I thought about that. It was true, but who did I still want to punish? Olivia or Walker? I had wrecked his career. No one would hire a man for any sort of management job when he had a 15-year gap in his record. Yet, if he cited his last job, any check would reveal that he was fired for repeated sexual harassment that resulted in legal settlements. Who would take that sort of risk? He was currently working in a convenience store and lucky to have that, quite a come down from a six-figure salary. Yet, I recognized that I still didn't think the books were balanced. I wanted him killed in a robbery. In a flash of insight, I realized that in my mind, the books would never balance as long as he had Olivia. I might not want her, but he damn sure didn't deserve her, and that was before he began hitting her. I didn't think the third definition of mercy applied in this case, but what about the fourth? Was I inclined to alleviate Olivia's pain? I didn't think so, but that realization didn't make me think too highly of myself. In fact, it made me feel a bit ashamed. I tried to remember anything I could about mercy, and I remembered a phrase: "the quality of mercy be not strained." I had no idea what it meant or where it came from, so I Googled it. This is what I found: "Origin from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice: 'The quality of Mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven upon the place beneath it. It is twice blessed; it blesseth him that gives and him that takes. It is mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes the throned Monarch better than his crown. It is an attribute to God himself; and Earthly power doth then show likest Gods when mercy seasons Justice.'" It didn't make me feel any better. I was still bushed. It was just a bit afternoon, but by my body clock, it was the middle of the night. The air was hot inside, but boiling outside, as if you would expect anything else in Denver in late July. I went to my room, sprawled across my bed, and I dreamed. I didn't care much for what they showed me.

When I woke up, it was 4:30 a.m. I found I was mumbling the phrase, "to understand all is to forgive all." In the heavy darkness of that pre-dawn, I wondered if that cliché were true. If I understood, would I forgive? What would that forgiveness look like? I had sworn that I wouldn't look at her journals, but now I wanted to find answers. Initially, I just intended to read what she might have written about the affair. The problem was that she almost never gave the year and only rarely the month. Instead, she used the day of the week. It was immediately clear she wasn't writing for anyone else to read. She wasn't really writing for her to read. This was how she tried to make sense of the events in her life. Once I started reading, I just couldn't stop. This was the essence of the woman I loved more than I thought a man could love a woman. I might have hated what she'd done. I did hate what she'd done, but this was the soul of the creature I would have fought a hundred dragons to shield. I picked one of the books, opened it, and began to read.

"It is done. The cavalry didn't come over the hill. The good guys didn't arrive in the nick of time. Liam didn't stop the wedding. As I stood there at the altar, my daughters crying in their little bridesmaid dresses, they said the words, 'Does anyone here have any reason?' and Liam didn't burst into the church and save me. I said the words, and this time, I won't break them. What a silly fantasy. I didn't even know I had been hoping to be rescued until this morning. So why would anyone else? Now I am truly screwed in every sense of that word. I think it began to dawn on me around sunrise. There really wasn't any reason to think that David would make love to me on our wedding night. He never had before. At least he finally stopped making fun of Liam while he screwed me. I hated that, and last night I told him that if he didn't stop it, I would start talking about how much I loved Liam's larger meat. I just wish I would have done it the first time he did it. When he finally wore himself out and started snoring, I fled to the bathroom and I cried for over an hour. Now David is out playing golf. What kind of man plays golf alone on his honeymoon? The kind of man who wants me to say, 'Screw me, David.' He doesn't want a nickname or an endearment, just that very formal David. I vow I'll never do that again. Oh, Liam, why did you make me marry him? But I know that, don't I? I saw your face that Friday night, and a large slice of me died. Still, I kept hoping, praying for you to change your mind about this marriage. I'm now condemned to it. Would it have made any difference if I could have explained it to you? But how could I explain what I don't understand? How could I have resisted all his not-so-subtle hints that my job depended on making him happy, then meekly obeying when he ordered me to have a drink at his condo? Why did I work so hard to keep what was happening from Liam? He would have put a stop to it. He would have rescued me. But then, for the last month, I wasn't sure I wanted to be rescued. Did I actually start loving David, or did I convince myself I did to justify what I was doing to the man I did love? Well, if I did think I loved him, he's managed to kill it over the past two months, constantly bragging about how he won me from a younger man, parading me around like a stupid trophy. Oh my God, that's what I am. His 30-year-old trophy wife, his way to feel young as he faces 50. Oh God, what have I done? Who can rescue me now?"

As I continued to read, a few things slowly became clear. First, Olivia was a subservient personality. She wasn't a submissive, but she was very inclined to bend her will to that of someone she perceived as having power over her. She saw Walker in that capacity, and he seemed to have figured out how to take advantage of her. Second, I had no idea just how deep the pain of not having other children was for her. She was afraid that I just used my business as an excuse. She was afraid I would have given up for good when we'd stopped the fertility treatments. She had been crushed and resentful. I hadn't grasped just how important it was to her. I think her depression made her even more susceptible to a user like Walker. It didn't make her any less responsible for her affair. She still made the choice to submit to Walker. Her journal made clear that she knew what she was risking when she took her clothes off and spread her legs for him. She was guilty as sin, and she knew it. I don't think she ever figured out why she did it, but she rarely made an entry when she didn't bemoan her weakness.

There were other surprises. She'd figured out I was trying to punish her by forcing her to marry Walker. The first time she caught him cheating, she thought about it and decided she deserved the punishment. Instead of complaining, she went on for pages about the pain, not hers, but a new and visceral understanding of how she'd hurt me. After the first time, she didn't write about it much. She didn't like it, worried that he might bring home an unwelcome social disease, but didn't really care who he slept with.

Then I found the part where her story got ugly. It broke my heart to see the simple, stark words she used to describe his abuse. "Put too much sugar in his coffee. Hard punch in the stomach. I bruised my hip when I hit the floor." That had happened within 3 months of their wedding. She never made a big deal about them. She accepted his beatings as her just reward for what she did to me. What had broken her heart was every time she thought I might have slept with someone else. She went on for pages emoting and bemoaning the first time she was certain I would had sex with another woman. In fact, she was wrong about that woman; we never had sex, but I would already had sex with another woman before that time. My most recent love affair, combined with the beatings and the pressure from Walker, had made her close to suicidal. The pressure from Walker had been twofold. He had wanted her to go to a fertility clinic. His parents were willing to foot the bill. She'd used all sorts of excuses, but the fact was she didn't want his child, and she didn't want ever to do anything sexual with him. She hadn't done with her husband. That's what she called me repeatedly. Two years after the divorce, she still rarely referred to me as anything other than her husband. She never referred to Walker that way.

When I closed the last journal, I was exhausted. I went back to bed and slept. One nice thing about owning your own design company is that you are allowed to be as eccentric about your hours as you wish. I had standing orders that no one was to ever call me at home for anything short of a collapsed structure. No one called for the next two days while I brooded. At the end of that time, I still wasn't resolved. James Walker was in a world of hurt. He just didn't know it. I didn't know how I would dispose of him. The only question was whether he would survive the experience. I was seriously thinking about contacting some of the people I knew who preyed on construction projects. I wouldn't let them on any of my job sites, but even thugs like nice houses. My fee for designing a house was now in the seven figures and a bargain based on what some of them had sold for. A botched robbery still seemed like an option. Capote was a problem that could wait. What couldn't wait was Olivia. She would be getting out of the hospital in a few days, and while I didn't know what I wanted for more for her, I knew I didn't want her going back to their home. Even if I would cared nothing for her, the thought of the twins in the same house with Walker terrified me. At least that's what I tried to tell myself, but every time I thought about taking action, I would have an image of Olivia, the way she used to look as she stripped for her come-down time, or a replay of my dream of that Friday night of the two of them making love, only now I added Walker jeering at my shortcomings as a lover. The arguments went back and forth in my head. For every reason I could generate for granting mercy, I could come up with an equally good reason why I shouldn't. As they went round and round in my head, I clicked on the news on TV to get relief. The announcer was talking about yet another atrocity committed by someone in the Middle East. I gritted my teeth and hung my head.

Bright and early on the third morning, determined but still very uncertain as to what I was determined about, I headed for the hospital. When I got to her room, she was still sleeping. I stood beside her bed and peered at her face. It was a mass of ugly purple bruises, now fading to that horrible shade of green and brown. I would never have seen anyone so horribly beaten. I knew her cheekbone had been cracked, although, thank God, not broken. As I leaned over her to see the other side of her face, I wasn't aware that I was weeping. They'll never know if it was one of my tears falling on her or my muffled sob that woke her. Her eyes fluttered open, and for just a second, she smiled at me. Then, as she became aware of where she was, she gave a small shriek and covered her head with her sheet.

"Olivia, we have to talk. I've seen it all, and we'll both feel like something from a bad movie if we try to talk through that sheet."

She made a sound between a chuckle and a snort, but lowered the sheet. Although she was smiling, it didn't extend to her eyes. "Mom told me that she gave you my journals. She had no right to do that, and I'm sorry that she did. I got pretty mad, but then I realized that I had never wanted to hide anything from you. If you'd asked, I would have given them to you. I don't remember what all I wrote, but I would appreciate it if you clean them up before you ever let the girls read them."

I chuckled. "I could never let them see what you thought about our dating years."

I looked at her eyes, and they were so wide open that indeed, I felt I had a window into her soul. It was her whole soul. I had always loved to see her naked body. Images of her showing it to Walker had been my very worst nightmare, even worse than picturing him drilling her. But this, what she was allowing me to see now, was too naked. It was too much. No human should ever be as vulnerable as she was to me. In a very soft voice, she almost whispered, "I wish I could tell you why I did it. I didn't want to. I really didn't want to, but I did. I don't blame you for divorcing me or getting me to marry James. It's what I deserve, but I want you to know it'll still do anything to make it hurt you less." She paused to blow her nose, which turned into a snort. Looked resigned and continued, "I can't even say I didn't know how much it would hurt you when you caught me. I thought it would be right after that first time. When it kept going on, I didn't know what to think. I never loved you any less, but I think I wanted you to rescue me, and as strange as it sounds, I think I was upset that you didn't. I kept dropping all the hints like 'Mama come down time,' and you never said anything. I've always wanted to ask, if you didn't suspect before that night?"

I gritted my teeth. "No, I didn't. My trust for you was absolute. If you told me the sun was rising in the west, I would have called the McDonald Observatory over in the Davis Mountains to ask why, and then argued with them if they tried to deny it."

She took a deep breath, held it, then slowly released it. "I never belonged on that kind of pedestal. I could live like..." She paused, then, as she was wont to do, and changed tactics. "Where do we go from here?"

I gave her a half-smile. She knew how these sudden changes in the course of a conversation affected me. I loved the agility of her mind, but hated having to plot after her. "First, you don't go back to his house. Ever. That's final."

She cocked her head and gave me the expression a teacher might give a particularly slow student. "That's not an option. I married him for better or worse. There's just been a lot more worse than I planned for."

I could feel my temper begin to stir. "Olivia, that's not an option. Just pretend I'm riding a white horse and I'm here to rescue you. I'm telling you that you are not going back."

I saw a bit of confusion for the first time. "You read that in my journal, didn't you? I swore I would never break my marriage vows again. You have to know that too."

I cut her off. "He's broken every vow of that marriage. He's cheated on you, and he has loved and cherished you. He killed this marriage, not you. You are not bound to him."

She blinked several times, and I saw indecision. "If you ever go back to him, I will not ever let you see the girls again. I can't risk his hurting them too." She broke, and with her head in her hands, she cried. I sat on the bed and held her. When she realized what I was doing, she clutched me to her and soaked my shirt. When she cried out, she said, "Where will I go? What will I do?"

"It'll help you, and he'll make sure sure he can't hurt you. We'll get my lawyer to draw up divorce papers and restraining orders. If I bring those to you this afternoon, will you sign them without looking up?"

Olivia nodded into my chest. That afternoon, my lawyer and two of his secretaries arrived at Olivia's room. He had her sign, and his secretaries witnessed the documents. When it was all done, he left to get them filed before the courthouse closed, leaving me alone with Olivia. She took my hand, held it to her cheek, still wet from her tears, then with her eyes glistening, she asked, "When this is all done, will you take me back?"

There was the question, the question I dreaded. I thought back to the insight I had while I listened to the news on TV. War, by its nature, was brutal and inhuman. Yet, if it wasn't to be a war where you took no prisoners, a war where every man, woman, and baby of the enemy was destroyed, you had to leave room for peace. Without mercy, you ended up with wars that lasted millennia. You had to show mercy to your enemy. Anything less, and you were nothing but a savage. Mercy didn't mean surrender; it just meant that you retained some portion of your humanity and let the enemy retain his. This was the time to show mercy to Olivia. I did my best.

Five years later, I was sitting in the waiting room on the maternity floor. Olivia was being moved from her labor room to the delivery room. Another set of twins, boys this time. I was seated next to a nervous first-time father, and we were talking when the nurse announced that Olivia was ready. Chris stood, shook my hand, and said, "I appreciate you coming by. It's going to be a tough couple of months, isn't it?"

I smiled. "Yes, and the girls are going nuts. We'll try to keep them at my house as much as I can, but I'm going to have my hands full too." He nodded nervously and left to join Olivia as she gave birth. Chris, a good guy, a major in the Army Reserves and a captain in the Denver fire department, he earned a Silver Star in Afghanistan and a second Purple Heart in Iraq. I admire him. He was a good match for Olivia, and I was glad they found each other.

"So, what about me? How had I answered that question Olivia asked me 5 years ago?" I had tried to let my mercy show. "No, Olivia. I want her face fell, and the tears started again. When she finally regained her composure, she managed to meet my eye and asked, "Why?"

I really wanted to say, "Because I want a wife I can put on a pedestal, not when I have to keep on a short leash to keep her faithful." But I didn't. Shakespeare's gentle rain from heaven droppeth and drowned my vital. Okay, I did say that, but I tried to say it in a merciful way. I said, "I understand us better now than when we were married. We just aren't a match. That doesn't make either of us a bad person, but you need someone who will give you direction, and that's just not me. I'm too wrapped up in myself. I will always have a special place in my heart for the woman who gave me the twins." No, that's not true either. "You will always be my first love, but we just aren't right for each other. We've both made bad choices, but together as friends, maybe we can help each other make better ones."

Chris was right for Olivia. He didn't keep her on a leash, more like on the kind of tether a team of mountain climbers use. They were good for each other, and Olivia, secure in her tether, bloomed in a way she never had when we were married. Chris and Olivia lived in the same school boundaries as me. The twins could ride back and forth between our houses on their bikes. We didn't socialize, but we were very supportive of each other. If we didn't agree about something, we would go to her mother to arbitrate, and the girls never knew we had disagreed. The twins complained in mock bitterness that they were cursed with too many parents. Still, for all their complaining, they loved Chris, and he loved them. They were ecstatic about having some new brothers, a lot of new brothers.

You see, I wasn't at the hospital to support either Chris or Olivia. We weren't that close. It was one of those strange tricks life plays on you. I was there to see my wife and our new twin boys, who had been born the day before. Happily ever after? Perhaps mercy doesn't mean that you have to let the other avoid the consequences, just fewer than they earned. It meant I didn't have to punish Olivia to the extent I could. To have taken Olivia back wouldn't have been mercy. It would have been something else.

I had met my wife through a friend of Olivia and we were everyone's dream couple. I keep her on a special pedestal, and she keeps my oversized ego in check. She loves my girls, and they love her. If Olivia hadn't cheated, we would still be married. It would have been better for the twins, but not for me. Perhaps we married too young. Perhaps we saw in each other acceptable mates and didn't wait for perfection. Perhaps we hadn't finished growing up, and both of us changed when we did. All I know for sure is that I never was, nor could be, as happy with Olivia as I am with my wife.

Showing mercy to Walker was harder. It was close, but I finally decided that having to work at almost minimum wage for a man like him was enough. He was a broken man. I didn't need to break his body too. Okay, the jail time I made sure he did for the assault might have been a factor too. I did have reason to have him contacted about a year ago, though. A very foolish woman, despite being warned, just had to open her heart to this good man. They'll never understand why some people are such fools. When I heard about his wedding, my heart was so full of mercy for that foolish woman that I unburdened myself to a client. It just so happened that the cousin of a friend of my client's was in the high-risk personal loan business. When said cousin happened to hear about the situation, he was so filled with the milk of humankindness he sent one of his business associates to see Walker and gently explain that good boys don't hit girls. I heard the lesson didn't have to be repeated. It's good to have friends in low places.

Yes, I'll be the first to admit that I still have a lot to learn and a long way to go before anyone would consider me merciful. But here's the thing about failing to give mercy: it keeps you bound to the person or the problem. It's also an affront to your better nature. I couldn't forgive myself for what I had done to Olivia, but when when I extended mercy to her, I was able to extend it to myself too. That broke that steel shell I had created around my heart and opened it to the possibility of a happily ever after.

Thanks for watching. Do you think forgiveness is possible after such a betrayal? Share your thoughts in the comments and don't forget to like and subscribe for more stories.