My Wife's Li'l Secret (17 page)

Judging from the faded blue one-piece he was wearing, the baby had to be a boy.

“Good morning, my little angel,” she cooed as she sat on the chair with the baby. “Did you sleep well?” Her voice, her words, and her demeanor took me back to the days when she talked to our little girls like that.

The baby looked up into her face and smiled.

“Ohhh! Did you ever see such a beautiful smile before?” she asked no one in particular.

The baby began to gurgle at her and soon they were engaged in a type of baby conversation.

“This is your baby?” I asked.

Her head bobbed. “Our baby, Ritchie. Baby Gareth.”

My mouth flew open. “Gareth?”

She nodded.

My son was dead; I knew that for a fact.

“Is he…I mean, like Olga, is he…?”

“
Nadia
,” she corrected.

“
Nadia
,” I said impatiently, “tell me – ”

“Yes!” she interrupted. “I was pregnant when I left Australia, remember? This is your son, Ritchie. Little Gareth.”

I gawked at the baby, then at her, then at the baby again.
He isn’t dead!

He really was my baby, my son that I had lost months ago. Supposedly.

With both hands on my head, I looked at Nadia. “Olga, she told me our baby was stillborn and –”

“She would do that!” she spat, her eyes like glaciers.

“Every opportunity she got, she reminded me about the baby and how much pain she was in. When I asked about the baby’s grave she got snappy with me and accused me of tormenting her. How could she do that? It’s so…so…”

“Cruel? Amoral?” she finished through clenched teeth.

“Yeah!”

“Well, that’s Olga. She is a sociopath, Ritchie. She has no heart. She would kill her own
child
if that child stood in her way. She’s evil. Never gonna change. She needs to be locked up forever or she will hurt everything in her wake.”

“Wow!” I said, looking at my son and taking in his bright blue eyes, his pink lips, his dark eyelashes – all wasted on a boy. A pretty boy for sure.

How could Olga declare him dead? How could she lie about him to such an extent simply to wheedle money and sympathy out of me? Has she no conscience?

“This is your daddy, honey,” Nadia said to Gareth. “Remember daddy’s voice? You used to listen to it every day.” She looked up and gave me a sad smile. “He’s as beautiful as you are, Ritchie. He's got your sunny personality.”

I said nothing. I just stared, shell-shocked.

“You put that knife away and I will tell you more,” she said.

Sheepishly, I looked at the knife, then gently laid it on the floor.

“When we were kids, we were really poor, starving. Aristov’s father, Dyaltov, he ‘bought’ us. Paid for our food, gave us a place to stay, paid for medicine –
bought
us. Literally! Our mother worked for him. Scammed people like we do. When he died, Aristov inherited us and continued the family business. He owns us, and we work for him.”

“That is just cra –”

“You don’t understand. You will
never
understand, Ritchie, but it is what it is. Sadly.”

Well, it may have sounded far-fetched, but considering Aristov had a noose around my neck, considering that he could enter my house in the middle of the night, kick the shit out of me, threaten my family, and threaten to come after me if I went to the cops, I guess I
did
understand what she meant.

“When we moved to Australia from South Africa, I told no one about it and they
lost
me. I was so excited to have broken away from them. For the first time in my life, I relaxed. I was determined to forget the past, put it behind me, pretend it never even happened. Then six months later, I opened the door one morning and was horrified to look into Aristov’s face. He beat me that day.”

“He DID? Where the fuck was I, Olg…Nadia?”

“I gave you some story about me trying to replace a light bulb…falling off a chair, remember?”

My mind raced as I tried to. It was years ago. I remember she had a split lip and a black eye, and she refused to go to the hospital, but I took her anyway and there again, I was looked at with suspicion.

I was so engrossed in work that I didn’t even think there may be more to the story.

Guilt washed over me.  She was my wife and she had been suffering in silence, yet I failed to see her pain? How lonely she must have felt. I failed to protect my wife, I had to own that.

“The bastard could have killed you.”

She shook her head. “Aristov won’t kill me. I’m too valuable. He planned to kill
you
and I fought with every fiber of my being to prevent that. I didn’t know what to do so I stalled. Falling in love with you – that wasn’t part of the plan and it caused trouble for everyone, especially Aristov. I did everything he told me to, but I couldn’t manage the final step of the plan – to hurt you. When I didn’t listen to him, he punished me the way he always has – beat me up so badly. When I was pregnant with Gareth, I became very rebellious and he got frustrated, so he beat me till I passed out. He wanted me to lose the baby, but luckily I didn’t.”

She looked at me, her face etched with sadness. “I was trapped, I had no choice, Ritchie. I did what I had to do to keep you alive.”

As she spoke, her shaved-off Russian accent, her ability to articulate, and her tone of voice made it clear she was the woman I fell in love with, the woman I shared my bed with for five years. The imposter in Sydney, compared to the woman in front of me, was a cold and ruthless bitch.

But I tried to harden my heart, willed myself not to believe everything the woman in front of me was saying, not to fall for any more of her lies. I summoned all the clichés I could about lies:

Once a liar, always a liar.

Lies travel in packs.

A little white lie is usually followed by a million little white lies.

A good liar will pee on your leg and tell you it’s raining.

But in spite of it all, I believed her.

That did nothing to help the situation – it made me feel uncomfortable, weak, and spineless.

“Who’s Viggo?” I asked, needing to know more.

Fresh tears filled her eyes and her chin wobbled. “My …b…brother,” she croaked. Aristov killed him when he tried to protect me.” Tears slid down her cheeks and splattered all over the baby’s blue suit. “My younger brother. He gave his life trying to protect me, Ritchie. He knew they would kill him, but he never once backed down. He stood and fought for me and he…they…Olga…she told them that Viggo was a problem and that…that he should be killed. All this because he protected me.  Olga, she got jealous. She hated it when anyone loved me. She hated it when I got attention. Viggo disliked her, called her evil, so she arranged his death. She planned it, carried it out, and then told me about it. She was laughing when she told me. Viggo…he…” She hung her head and sobbed so hard, I worried she’d drop the baby.

I’d never seen my wife sob before, never ever thought I would see her break down like that. I wanted to lunge at her and hug her, tell her I was sorry for her loss, tell her that I will make sure Olga pays for it, and promise to protect her in the future.

I didn’t.

Her betrayal, regardless of the circumstances, kept me frozen in my seat.

I wasn’t ready to forgive her or acknowledge her role of a victim in the scam. Guess I wasn’t that forgiving.

“Olga…she too is a victim, right?”

Nadia drew back, her lips thin and her eyes narrowed. Shook her head. “She’s evil, Ritchie.”

“But Nadia, she
too
must have suffered under Aristov’s thumb? I mean…?”

“It was different for her. It was the life she was most comfortable with. Even without Aristov, she would be evil and…and I think if Aristov didn’t need me, didn’t in his own way
protect
me, Olga would have me killed. She despises me. Hated me from the time we were little. Stole every boy who liked me, and if they rejected her, she would have them viciously beaten. Once at a party, Cruikshank asked me to dance. I refused to because I didn't like him, didn't want him touching me, and besides, I knew she’d get mad. He grabbed my hand and pulled me to the dance floor. That evening, Olga burnt every one of my books. My precious books I took years to collect from garage sales, book shops, friends. I was devastated. Books were my life, they were the magic carpet that took me everywhere. The moment I opened a book, I was transported away from my twisted and miserable life.” Her eyes glazed as she talked lovingly about her books.

“If you asked me to choose between Aristov and Olga, I would choose Aristov.”

“Seriously?”

She nodded. “I would. Seriously. Olga doesn’t love anyone other than herself. Oh, and Cruikshank. She’s obsessed with him. He’s her world. She will kill anyone who comes between her and Cruikshank. She’s a sociopath.”

“Yeah, well, I believe that,” I said.

She nodded. “If she died tomorrow, I would celebrate, Ritchie. Really, I would. Bake a cake, throw a party, dance…because Ritchie, I would be free of her. I’ve never been free except those six months I lived in Australia. Those six months when nobody knew where to find me. That was the best time of my life –I was free! Freedom – that’s all I ever prayed for.”

My wife prayed for freedom. How was I supposed to feel when I heard that? I didn’t know.

“
You
were freedom to me,” she said. “All things beautiful, that’s what you represented to me and it broke my heart to hurt you, Ritchie. I would rather have died than hurt you, and I am so s…sorry.” Her lip quivered as tears cascaded down her cheeks and collected under her chin.

“I missed you so much when I left. You were so wonderful and …and so loving and so...so kind, and Ritchie, I didn’t know men like you existed. You were smart, too, and you didn’t drink every day, and you loved your children, and you gave me…you gave…me…”

In spite of my anger toward her, my hardened heart, it felt great to know that Nadia loved me and still did. Olga made me believe that my wife had never loved me. But it wasn’t true – she loved me, she appreciated me, she protected me.

“For the first time in my life I was happy, and I guarded and cherished that happiness. I couldn’t believe what I had – a loving husband, two adorable kids, my lovely home, my beautiful Ford Explorer…I don’t have a car now.” Her smile dipped. “I walk everywhere. Olga, she was so jealous of all that I had. She was furious that you loved me and that you took care of me, and that you were decent and you didn’t abuse me like Cruikshank abused her. She complained to Aristov that I had so much luxury and that she didn’t. She pestered him to swap us so that she too got some luxury. Aristov, he was hesitant about her taking my place. He was worried she’d be too hasty and ruin things, which evidently she did when she quietly snuck Cruikshank into Sydney. That wasn’t the plan and Aristov, he wasn’t happy about that at all. He demanded that Cruikshank go back to Ukraine. But Olga promised him money and my jewelry. She assured him that she would deliver faster than I could.” She shook her head sadly.

“You were a younger target, not the usual older, lonely type we go for – and you fell for me. Olga hated that. Hated the way you held my hand, bought me flowers, and wanted to fly me to South Africa to be with you. She pleaded with Aristov that you were not suitable for the job. But Aristov saw the resemblance between you and Cruikshank, and he got excited about the future. Olga was frustrated when we decided to go through with it. Now she's determined to taint my happiness one memory at a time. I fantasize about killing her, Ritchie. I fantasize about killing Cruikshank too. And Aristov and…”

“Well, she told me you didn’t love me. I mean, she told me that
she
didn’t love me. That I was a lousy fuck and that…”

“What? That is not true, Ritchie.” She cocked her head and smiled at me. “I loved you. I still do. You were my dream come true. My knight in shining armor.” She laughed through her tears. “Ritchie MacMillan, my handsome, charismatic knight in a shining…Jeep! And…you were never a lousy…” She clammed up, a shy smile on her face.

Our eyes locked for a few moments before I shifted mine away.

When I didn’t smile, her face clouded. “Don’t let her do that, Ritchie,” she said. “Don’t ever allow her to taint what we had. No matter how angry you are with me – and you have every right to be – remember I loved you the day I met you. You were so shy and so unsure, you made me feel in charge, and I wanted to so desperately make you feel at ease. I loved our life in South Africa. I loved your family too. They were the only real f…family I knew. Viggo and I, Ritchie, we were alone in this world. Olga didn’t want to be part of us. To her we were weak and we were there only to serve her. But you, you changed my life. You showed me a whole new world, and it broke my heart to walk away from what we created. I fought so hard not to.”

I stared at her, overwhelmed with her words, troubled by the tears rolling down her cheeks and spilling down the front of her top.