Three Months of Messages
“What messages?” I asked.
Mike’s expression changed immediately.
“Sweetheart, I need to explain something.”
“Have you been talking to my sister?”
He hesitated. “Yes, for about three months.”
For a moment, I couldn’t hear anything else.
My husband had been communicating with the woman who destroyed my first engagement, and I knew nothing about it.
“Three months?” I repeated.
Mike nodded. “I should’ve told you.”
Samantha suddenly smiled.
“See? I knew you two had secrets.”
Mike turned sharply. “Stop talking.”
There was something in his voice I’d rarely heard before.
Real anger.
He pulled out the chair beside me.
“Please sit down. I want you to see everything.”
I didn’t sit.
“Give me the phone.”
He handed it over without arguing.
The first message was dated three months earlier.
Samantha had written:
“Hi, Mike! It’s Samantha, your wife’s sister. I know things have been awkward between our families, but I’d really love to fix that before Mom’s birthday.”
Mike’s response came the following morning.
“Hello, Samantha. I appreciate the thought, but I think any reconciliation needs to begin with your sister.”
I scrolled.
At first, Samantha sounded almost reasonable.
She asked about how I was doing.
She said she regretted how things had happened five years earlier.
She claimed she wanted her future niece or nephew to grow up knowing both sides of the family.
Then the messages changed.
“I know my sister. She is boring.”
“You seem so interesting. Doesn’t she bore you?”
Mike had answered one of them.
“I love my wife. She is interesting, intelligent, fun, loving, and so much more.”
I kept reading.
Two months earlier, Samantha had sent him a photograph of herself wearing a red dress.
“Spencer barely noticed this outfit. What do you think?”
Mike hadn’t responded.
The next day, she sent another message.
“You’re allowed to tell a woman she’s beautiful, you know.”
Again, nothing.
Then came a paragraph that made my chest hurt.
“Honestly, Mike, I’ve always thought my sister was lucky. She’s never been the pretty one, and she’s so obsessed with her career. You could have married someone who actually knows how to make a man happy. Someone who would focus on being a wife.”
Mike replied:
“Stop insulting my wife. I’m not interested in having this conversation.”
I looked up.
Samantha was staring at the floor.
“Keep reading,” Mike said quietly.
I did.
Three weeks earlier, she’d written:
“I don’t think Spencer and I are going to last. He isn’t the man I married.”
Then:
“I think you and I are the same. We married the wrong people. If you ever wanted to start over with someone else, I’d understand.”
Mike responded:
“I’m married to your sister. She will always be my right person. Don’t contact me about this again.”
But she continued.
The most recent message had arrived two days before Mom’s birthday.
“I’ll see you Saturday. Maybe when we’re face-to-face, you’ll realize we have more chemistry than you want to admit.”
I stopped scrolling.
My whole body felt numb.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
His face fell.
“I thought ignoring her would make her stop.”
“For three months?”
“I blocked her after that last message.”
“But you still didn’t tell me.”
“No.”
“You let me walk into this house knowing she was still being disrespectful toward me?”
He looked ashamed. “Yes. And I was wrong.”
I wanted to scream.
Instead, I handed him the phone.
May you like
“Not now,” I whispered. “I can’t talk about this right now.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
