The Model Wife (16 page)

‘Shit!’ This was hideously embarrassing. They couldn’t have all the other news networks tackling the PM and nothing on Channel
6
. It would look ridiculous. Heads would roll.

‘Will he be having a word with all of us?’ she asked the press officer, as Lola Brindleman from the BBC stood forward to take her turn.

‘Of course. But he’s only going to be here for the next ten minutes. The helicopter’s waiting to take him to Brize Norton, then he’s flying straight to Germany for a banquet with the heads of the EU.’

‘Marco,’ Thea hissed into his voicemail for the fourth time, ‘where the hell are you? Bloody hurry up.’

‘I’m sorry,’ the press officer said, ‘he’s really got to go now.’

‘OK, OK! I’ll do the interview!’ Fumbling with the microphone, Thea stepped forward. ‘Prime Minister, Thea Mackharven,
Seven Thirty News.’

Seeing her sodden hair and streaked mascara, the prime minister took a nervous step backwards.

‘Just wondering how the government can possibly justify introducing this aid package so late. After all, this is the third time in three years this area has flooded.’

George was a pro. He kept the camera steadily focused on the prime minister’s face, as – despite his alarm at being accosted by a mad gypsy woman who might try to pin some lucky heather to his lapel – he still smoothly spun out the usual array of platitudes.

‘Thea!’ shouted a voice behind them. Thea glanced over her shoulder. Marco was galumphing towards them, the collar of his raincoat turned up so he looked like a glamorous private eye.

‘It’s OK, Marco’s here,’ she said to the press officer. ‘Quick, can we do it just one more time with him asking the questions?’

‘No, no, sorry. Got to go now.’ And the prime minister was ushered away to dry land in a flurry of crackling radios.

‘Where the fuck have you been?’ Thea yelled.

‘You know where I’ve been. In the hotel. Why the fuck didn’t you raise me?’

‘I
did
raise you. I’ve been calling and calling.’

‘No you haven’t.’ But Marco’s face made it clear he was lying. He’d bloody been on the phone to Stephanie and had been ignoring the bleep of his call waiting. Thea knew better than actually to tell him he was a liar.

‘Whatever. You should have been here already.’

‘You told me I didn’t have to get here until six forty-five.’

Thea stared at him coldly. ‘No, I didn’t,’ she said with slow deliberation. ‘I said six fifteen.’

‘You said six forty-five.’ They eyed each other like two dogs about to go for each other’s throats. Marco was going to lie, Thea realized with a pang. The shit was going to hit the fan and Marco was going to make out it was all her fault.

Already her phone was ringing. Recriminations had begun.

‘Thea!’ said Dean’s voice menacingly. ‘What the fuck has been going on?’

21

Dean wasn’t just angry. He was livid, furious, choleric, enraged, incensed, riled, splenetic or – as he put it – ‘Fucking pissed off!’

‘I am about as happy as a rhinoceros on a date with a big-game hunter. Last night’s cock-up was inexcusable. We looked like total tits in front of all the other networks.’

Jammed into his office for morning conference, the staff of the
Seven Thirty News
looked at their feet, their fingernails, anywhere but at Thea.

Dean lifted his finger and pointed like a Roman emperor ordering the lions to be let loose on the Christians. ‘Thea! You were responsible for this lumpen turd. I’d sack you if I could, but Roxanne says I’ve got to give you an official warning first. So here you go, Thea, you are officially warned. Fuck up again and you swim with the fishes.’

There was an uncomfortable silence.

‘OK,’ Thea said eventually. She looked meaningfully at Marco, still hoping despite herself he might shoulder just a milligram of the blame, but he was staring into space. Only his left foot twitching in his Prada loafers hinted that he might be experiencing even a smidgeon of guilt.

‘Good.’ Dean turned to that day’s programme editor. ‘Sunil! I want tonight’s show improved fifteen trillion per cent. And I want the Cancer Dad.’

‘Excuse me?’ Sunil Syal pushed his glasses up his sweaty nose.

‘Get with the programme! The fucking Cancer Dad. It’s page five in today’s
Express
. He’s a single father of three, because his wife died in childbirth with twins and he’s just been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Having never smoked. Isn’t that great? We need to get an interview with him.’

‘Oh the
Cancer Dad
. Of course. Rhys is on the case already.
Aren’t you
, Rhys?’

‘No. I—’ A look from Sunil silenced him. Fortunately, Dean didn’t notice so carried away was he with his vision.

‘We want him weeping; all the kids round him, their little faces distorted with grief. It’ll be great.’

‘No worries,’ Rhys gabbled.

‘It’s still not enough,’ Dean warned them all. ‘I’m looking for something extra special. Thea, I can’t have you horsewhipped, unfortunately, but I’m going to look into buying a rack to spreadeagle you on. I brought you back from the States because I thought you were talented. So after last night’s cock-up I am going to be looking for a super-duper scoop from you and I don’t mean of dog poop. A revelation that brings the government down. Or better… a showbiz exclusive. An interview with Tom Cruise where he confesses he’s really a woman. Elvis revealed to be working as a lift operator in Harrod’s. Prince Philip admitting he murdered Princess Diana. In other words, something really fucking special. Capeesh?’

‘No problem,’ Thea said, as smooth as a duck pond on a windless day.

Inside, however, she was a raft on the Atlantic tossed by a force-ten gale. Thea had never had such a public dressing-down. The injustice of it all made her want to throw something hard against a wall. All the way back to London the previous night (Dean had ordered them home for the inquest) they’d argued about who’d been at fault. Marco had simply denied she’d asked him to be in place for six fifteen. It was his word against hers and she was merely the producer, while Marco was the talent. And, as all behind-the-scenes players knew, the talent always got the benefit of the doubt. Channel
6
might miss Thea if she left, but the outside world would know nothing about it. If Marco departed Women’s Institutes across the land would commit mass suicide. She could do nothing, just repeatedly tell herself she’d been in the right.

What made things worse was that no one outside the news industry would ever understand what all the fuss was about. After all, the package had run smoothly. Marco had still been in place for the ‘live’ to the studio, in fact the only element that had been dodgy had been the interview with the PM. They’d still managed to drop it in as an extra half minute of ‘breaking news since we came on air’ but while the other networks all had a slot where their reporters ferociously grilled him for his government’s lack of foresight and not caring about the countryside,
Seven Thirty News
viewers had just got thirty seconds of footage of bland remarks about how this was a terrible disaster and the government would do its utmost to help. Either way, Thea knew, it wasn’t going to change the history of journalism, but in offices where they prided themselves on perfection, it was an almighty cock-up.

Having been dismissed, she returned to her desk, head held high, back straight. Everyone was avoiding her gaze. She stared at her screen, unable to focus because of the tears swimming in her eyes. Find a scoop. Yes, fine, Dean, she’d just order one on the internet. She needed a sympathetic ear. Picking up her phone she dialled Rachel.

‘Hi, I’m busy right now. If you—’

Thea hung up and dialled Dumberley.

‘Dumberley,
six
nine
oh
two seven.’

‘Hi, Mum, it’s me.’

‘Thea?’ Jan sounded thrilled, but then an anxious note crept in. ‘Won’t you get in trouble calling from work?’

‘No, it’s fine.’ She paused, wanting to tell her mother how bruised she felt, but – as always – wanting to protect her feelings. ‘How are you?’

‘Really well. Are you watching that Andrew Lloyd Webber show? All competing for parts in his musical. Oh, Thea, it’s marvellous. They’re all so good, I don’t know who to single out, though if I was forced to choose…’

Thea was overwhelmed with an unexpected rush of affection. ‘Would you like me to book you tickets for the show? We could go together. You could come up to London and stay the night.’

‘Oh, thank you, darling, but no thanks. Who would cook Trevor’s tea?’

‘Can’t he microwave it for once?’ Thea felt very alone. Gran would have understood. She sensed a presence behind her. She glanced round to see Luke.

‘Hi,’ he said.

Her face turned terracotta. ‘Hi,’ she mouthed, then, ‘Just a minute.’ She turned back to the phone, cutting her mother off mid-sentence. ‘Mum, Mum, I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to go. Work problem. I just wanted to check you were OK. I’ll call you soon… Yes… Great… all right, see you then.
Bye!
’ She hung up and tried to smile.

‘So,’ he said, ‘how are you doing?’

‘Fine, thanks. You?’

‘Great.’ Luke smiled, then lowered his voice. ‘That was out of order. Dean’s an arsehole. He completely overreacted.’

Thea smiled faintly. ‘Thanks, Luke.’

‘Well, it’s true.’ Luke looked at her. Direct eye contact. Thea felt like butter being spread on hot toast. ‘Look,’ he said under his breath, ‘everyone knows that that little prat Jensen landed you in it. George is putting the word about. Don’t worry; it’ll get back to Dean quickly enough. In any case, how about a drink tonight?’

Thea’s stomach swooped, like when she skied a black run. She’d often fantasized about this moment, how she would turn Luke down flat, tell him she was too busy eloping with Sir Trevor McDonald. But now the moment had arrived all she could come out with was. ‘I… ah…’

Luke started to move away. ‘If you’re busy don’t worry.’

‘No! I’m not busy!’ she said, just as Rhys appeared behind him. ‘That would be great.’

‘Don’t let the bastards grind you down. See you later, then. And sod the idea of a drink, let’s make it dinner.’ He walked off. For a second, Thea stared after him, then said, ‘Hi, Rhys. What can I do for you?’

‘Um, sorry about what happened to you.’

‘That’s OK.’ Thea couldn’t stand it. A GA who’d been learning his five times table when she was jetting round the world getting exclusives on the Taliban was feeling sorry for her.

‘I had an idea. For a possible big interview.’

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘Yeah. I was wondering about Minnie Maltravers.’

Thea smiled politely, deeply unimpressed at the unoriginality of the suggestion. Minnie Maltravers was a forty-something supermodel turned all-round phenomenon. She was famous mainly for three things: being gorgeous, being angry and being very, very late for everything. She was American, from humble origins, who’d risen to fame in the eighties, spent most of the nineties having a drug problem and most of the noughties in rehab. Now she was sober, married to a British film director called Max Williams and lived in a castle in Scotland and little was heard of her, apart from the occasional court case when a maid or whoever would sue her for wrongful dismissal among tearful tales of how Minnie had thrown a fax machine at her. Everyone was fascinated by Minnie, everyone would love to watch an interview with her, there was just one problem…

‘Rhys, you know Minnie never gives interviews. That’s the whole point of her. Her mystique.’

‘Yes, but’ – Rhys proffered a print-out – ‘I saw this tiny piece on the news wires. Apparently, she’s about to go to Guatemala on a charity visit. I thought maybe we could tie something in with that. Even if she only talks about her charity work it would be getting Minnie Maltravers to
talk
and that would be something.’

Slowly, Thea took the piece of paper. ‘Guatemala, you say?’

‘That’s right.’ Thea read the brief print-out from Reuters.

Guatemala City

There was excitement this morning as rumours spread that supermodel Minnie Maltravers is planning a visit in association with the charity Guatemala Children to open a new health clinic and visit some orphanages and children’s centres…

‘You have email,’ her computer trilled. She glanced at the screen. ‘Luke Norton’. He’d written in the header field:

Booked Wolseley for 8.30. Looking forward to catching up x.

Glancing anxiously at Rhys as if she were browsing nude pictures of Justin Timberlake, Thea pressed delete.

‘So what do you think?’ Rhys asked.

‘I think there could be something in this,’ Thea said calmly. ‘I’ve got a contact at Guatemala Children. I’ll give him a call.’

‘You don’t want me to do it?’ Rhys was disappointed.

‘No thanks. It’s
my
contact. In fact he’d already hinted to me this could be a way to Minnie.’ Thea ignored the look of disbelief on Rhys’s face. She felt a bit ashamed, after all, he’d made a good spot and was entitled to want to run with it, but after how Marco had stabbed her in the back she wasn’t feeling charitable towards anyone. ‘It probably won’t lead to anything, but it’s worth a shot.’ A beat and then, ‘Good work, Rhys.’

‘Thanks.’ As Rhys moved off dispiritedly, Thea – knowing it would take too long to sift through her bag – googled Guatemala Children. It was a number beginning 7485, which meant Camden Town. Rapidly, she dialled.

‘Hello? Yes. Jake Kaplan please.’

As she waited to be put through, she typed an email.

Afraid can’t make tonight. Urgent work thing. Sorry. Another time.

As she pressed send, regret crashed over her. Quickly, she pressed a mental button and her emotional portcullis came down. Luke had got to her in a moment of vulnerability. She should never have said yes to him. She wouldn’t do it again. It was all long over between them and Thea was not going to look back.

22

Jake didn’t sound surprised to hear from Thea, but he did sound quite pleased.

‘Sorry I was so brusque when you called the other day,’ she said. ‘We were coming up to deadline and it was a bit tense. I’d love to meet soon if you’re free.’

He laughed. ‘So you’ve heard about Minnie?’

‘Minnie who?’ Thea tried to sound innocent.

‘Minnie Maltravers. There was some tiny mention on her website about her going out to Guatemala with us. Popped up five minutes ago and since then the phones haven’t stopped ringing.’

‘Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?’ Thea asked.

‘I told you I had a hot story.’

‘I believed you,’ she lied. ‘I was just so busy I didn’t see how we could meet. But, like I say, if you’re still up for it…’

Jake sighed teasingly. ‘How do you know I didn’t give the story to the BBC? Or ITN? Or Sky?’

There were all the people gossiping about Channel 6’s failure to knobble the PM. ‘Did the BBC or ITN or Sky ask if you’d like to have dinner at a restaurant of your choice to discuss the story?’ Thea tried.

There was a brief pause, then Jake said, ‘You’re lucky, Thea, for some reason I decided to hold on to the story until things were a bit firmer, so it’s still up for grabs. But I may be too busy for dinner now. Things are crazy here today and they’re not going to get any quieter. And I’m back off to Guatemala bright and early tomorrow morning.’

‘You have to eat!’ Thea yelped. ‘Just a quick bite tonight while you fill me in.’

‘Oh well, if I must,’ Jake said cheerily.

‘Good,’ Thea said after just the tiniest pause. She was right, Jake definitely fancied her. Which was odd, given he was so much younger than her. And too short. Still, if it led her to Minnie Maltravers she wasn’t complaining. ‘Where would you like to go?’ she asked. ‘Gordon Ramsay at Claridge’s? Locanda Locatelli?’

He laughed. ‘Both if possible. And maybe the Savoy Grill as well? We could have a course in each.’

‘Um…’ That wouldn’t go down too well with Foxy Roxy.

‘I’m joking. Don’t worry about the fancy meal. I’m going to be working late. I wouldn’t have time to do it justice. There’s a good gastropub round the corner from my office. Why don’t we go there? Save me the schlep into town.’

‘No problem,’ said Thea, a thought formulating in her mind that she could treat someone else – say her mother if she could persuade her to come up to town – to a meal at Gordon Ramsay and then expense it as wooing Guatemala Children. Everybody did it.

At half past eight, Thea pushed open the door of the Sceptre and Pony in Camden Town. She’d been a bit miffed at how easily Luke had responded to her cancelling their dinner, with a brief, emailed: ‘No worries, another time’. But it was for the best, she reprimanded herself. She was not to go running after Luke again just because she’d had a bad day at work. He was as over as cheques, as telephone boxes, as puffball skirts – oh, not puffball skirts, they’d made a comeback recently. Well, anyway, he was over.

Jake was sitting at a corner table, a pint of Guinness in front of him, poring over an orange file. As he saw her approach, he stood up. She’d forgotten how short he was.

‘Hey!’ he said. There was an awkward moment when they both wondered if they should kiss, then both decided they shouldn’t. ‘How are you? Can I get you a drink?’

‘I’ll get them,’ she said and was vaguely annoyed when he said, ‘Oh, OK, thanks.’ Weren’t men supposed to say, ‘No, no, let me.’ But this wasn’t a date, she reminded herself. She was here to woo him and, infuriating as it was, he held all the cards.

‘Thanks,’ he said again when she returned from the bar with a large glass of Barolo for her and another Guinness for him. ‘It’s been a bit of a day as you can imagine. One tiny item about Minnie going to Guatemala and it all goes beserk. The phones have rung more in one afternoon than they have in the past year.’

‘So
is
she going?’ Thea asked, trying and totally failing to make it sound like a casual comment about the weather.

Jake smiled. ‘I couldn’t possibly comment.’

‘You mean she is?’ Thea leant forward.

‘Maybe,’ Jake said. They both eyed each other, working out who was going to crack first and fill the silence. Time for another tactic.

‘How’s your mum?’

Jake grimaced. ‘Not making a miracle recovery, shall we say. How about your gran?’

‘The same.’

‘It’s crap, isn’t it?’

‘To echo your eloquence: it’s a sack of shit.’

They grinned at each other.

Jake gestured at the blackboard.

‘Maybe we should order some food?’

It took half a bottle of red wine and most of two rare ribeye steaks and chips before Thea could bring herself to acknowledge that Jake might be young and small, but he was still quite good value.

‘I checked your website,’ she said. ‘It said you’re an artist liaison officer, whatever the hell that means.’

He dipped one of his chips in a pool of ketchup. ‘Every charity worth its salt these days has a celebrity division. I’m head of ours. It’s our job to massage the egos of stars who want to do a little
charidee
work.’

‘To enhance their profiles?’

‘How cynical!’ Jake waggled a Roger-Moore-type eyebrow at her. ‘Maybe they’re genuinely motivated by a desire to help the poor and needy.’

‘Yes, I’m sure.’

‘You journalists. Why can’t you ever believe anything good about anyone?’ He grinned as he popped a cherry tomato in his mouth. ‘It’s a tricky one. They need us to boost their images; we need them even more, but so often it backfires. When I worked for World Hunger we took a film star out to Malawi who insisted on staying in a five-star hotel and flying first class. She drank the mini bar dry, then freaked out at all the flies and squalor and refused to do a photoshoot with a starving child in case she caught something. It cost us thousands of pounds and we got bugger-all back in return.’

‘Who was that?’

He shrugged and made a zipping motion over his mouth. Fair enough. Anyway, Thea knew it was Justina Maguire: everyone had had a laugh about it at the time. PRs were so naive, thinking they could keep a lid on gossip like that. ‘What were you doing before all the charity stuff?’ she asked.

‘I started off at ParaShoot,’ he said, naming one of the biggest celebrity PRs in town. ‘But the work was so vacuous I moved to World Hunger and then to Guatemala Children.’

‘Are you religious?’ Thea was genuinely curious.

When he laughed you could see Jake’s tonsils. ‘No. Do you need to be religious to want to help people?’

‘Not many people do something for nothing.’

‘Cynical, again! I get paid. Just not as much as in my old job. And I’m happier now.’ He looked at Thea. He had nice eyes, humorous ones, but there was a directness to them she found oddly unsettling. ‘Are
you
happy?’

It was as if he’d asked her if she used vaginal deodorant. Thea felt prickles zigzag along her hairline. ‘What an incredibly personal question.’ She paused for a second, then snapped, ‘Of course I am. As happy as anyone is.’

‘Good,’ Jake said. ‘Just wondering. Do you have a boyfriend?’

An image of Luke flashed up in Thea’s head, like an annoying pop-up on a website. Mentally, she pressed the ‘close’ button. ‘Are boyfriends the key to happiness?’ she asked. ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’

He looked her straight in the eye. ‘No, I’m single. For now.’

‘And so am I,’ she said, irritated by the ‘for now’. Presumptuous little so and so! ‘I’m getting sick of being treated as if I’ve got some terminal disease. I like the way I am. I love my job. I love travelling. I love knowing I can get on a plane in the next hour and wake up the following morning anywhere in the world. If you have a boyfriend you can’t do that kind of thing.’ Unless your boyfriend does it too, she thought, then gulped some more wine.

‘What happens when you get old though?’ Usually people sounded critical of Thea’s footloose approach to life. But Jake’s tone was merely curious.

‘You can’t spend your life worrying about getting old.’ Thea realized she was drunk. God, in the old days half a bottle of red would have just been the warm-up act before getting seriously stuck in. What was happening to her? ‘Sorry, what was I saying? Oh yeah. You can’t worry about getting old. Well, not much anyway. You have to live in the moment.’

‘I agree,’ Jake said.

‘Really?’

‘Yeah.’ He took a gulp of wine. ‘After what happened to Mum, you have to think that way. She was so active, so busy, enjoying life when – wham! – her brain starts to wither and within months she’s the living dead. That’s why I packed in ParaShoot. Life was just too short to waste promoting the winner of
I’m a Celebrity
’s autobiography. I had to seize the day.’

‘To seizing the day,’ Thea cried, raising her glass.

‘Seizing the day!’ They clinked.

‘Ahem,’ said the waitress, plonking the bill in front of Jake.

Thea looked at her watch. ‘Jesus, it’s nearly midnight.’

Jake laughed. ‘And I’ve got to be at the airport at six.’

‘And you still haven’t told me what’s going on with Minnie,’ Thea slurred.

‘Are you drunk?’

‘Cheeky! I’m… relaxed.’

‘If you say so.’ He smiled. ‘OK, I’ll put you out of your misery. Minnie
is
going to Guatemala to do some work for us. I think you should send out a team to cover her visit.’

‘Will she give us an interview?’ Thea said.

‘I very much doubt it,’ he said, ‘but you never know. And if you’re not there you won’t get it.’

‘We can’t spend a huge chunk of budget sending a team off to Guatemala on the off-chance Minnie talks to us. I need a guarantee.’ Crossly Thea jabbed her pin number into the waitress’s machine. She felt as if she’d just indulged in a long foreplay session only to be denied the climax.

‘I can’t give you a guarantee, Thea. I’d be lying.’ Jake held out his hands. ‘Wasn’t that what we were just talking about? Was it Abraham Lincoln who said there are no certainties in life, just death and taxes?’

‘I think it was actually Cliff Richard. No, it was Benjamin Franklin.’

‘Know it all.’ He scratched his head. ‘Look, I can’t say too much at this point but a big news story may come out of this and Minnie may decide to talk to someone. If the
Seven Thirty News
has a team in place then I will do my best to make sure that someone is you. I can’t say more at this stage, I’m sorry.’

‘All right,’ Thea said sulkily. She stood up. ‘I’m going to get a cab. What about you?’

‘Bus for me. Charity worker, you know.’ Jake pushed open the door, dousing them with a sobering blast of fresh air.

‘Look, there’s a cab with its light on.’ Thea waved frantically. As it stopped she turned to face him.

‘Well, good to see you,’ she said. ‘I’ll talk to the powers that be about sending a team out, though if you can’t promise me anything, I can’t promise you.’

‘I’m not trying to con you. Minnie is going to go to Guatemala City very soon and you’ll be grateful to me if you have your boys in place.’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘And I will too.’

They both looked at each other for a second, then he leant forward and standing slightly on tiptoe kissed her on the cheek.

‘Safe journey,’ she said. ‘I’ve got your numbers; I’ll keep you posted.’

‘Ditto,’ he said, then paused. ‘Maybe I’ll see you when I get back.’

‘Maybe,’ she said, climbing into the taxi. ‘If you get us an interview.’

He laughed and shut the door for her. As the cab pulled away, she turned round to see him waving. Tentatively she waved back. And smiled. Something felt weird. It took her a second or two to realize it was the unfamiliar sensation of having enjoyed herself.

An Open Letter to Carla Bryonne
from Hannah Creighton who
knows just how it feels to have a
straying husband

When hannah creighton read about the marital difficulties of WAG Carla Bryonne this week after her former PA Gloria Wilkins alleged that her husband, England and Arsenal striker Duane Bryonne, had had a string of affairs, she felt a tug of sympathy. Here, as one neglected wife to another, she offers Carla some moral support.

Dear Carla

When I read about the pain Duane has allegedly put you through these past few weeks, I felt touched to the soul. Your travails brought back the agony of my own marriage breakdown.

If what I read is the truth, then your husband is an unpleasant, vain philanderer with utter control over you. You feel weak, ugly: used goods. Duane, I would guess, knows how desperately you want him to stay and I suspect he’s loving this power.

The sordid tales of your former PA Gloria Wilkins must have shattered your confidence. Your husband’s behaviour is said to have left you a physical and emotional ruin. I feel for you because I’ve been there. My husband,
Seven Thirty News
anchorman Luke Norton, cheated on me God knows how many times during our eighteen-year marriage before eventually leaving me and his three children for his 22-year-old pregnant girlfriend, known to my nearest and dearest as ‘the Bimbo’.

The first time I discovered my husband was playing away, I – like you – had just had my third baby. My self-worth was at an all-time low as I struggled to lose the baby weight and to leave the house without pieces of mashed banana clinging to my hair. No wonder my husband didn’t want me, I thought. My heart palpitated, my breathing was out of control. I felt as if I was losing my mind.

It is the toughest thing imaginable to discover that the man who is supposed to be your lover and protector has betrayed you. It’s even tougher when you think about all those times you confronted him only to be told that you were ridiculous, paranoid, that you’d imagined it all. Did Duane call you neurotic? Did he tell you you were so delusional he was inclined to dump you anyway? In public you’ve continued to assert that you believe in Duane, but in private you must at least suspect he has been unfaithful.

Yet, if you’re anything like me a piece of you will still stubbornly cling to the belief that he is telling the truth. I tackled Luke so many times over his affairs, only to be met with angry denials. Like you, I found myself humiliated into looking for hard evidence just so I could know I wasn’t going mad. Having to sneakily read your husband’s text messages makes you feel like the lowest of the low.