Tiredness suddenly overwhelmed me. I felt drained, exhausted. I wanted to go to my bed and curl up to my wife’s warm soft body. I wanted to breathe in her citrusy scent and fall asleep listening to her heartbeat.
Instead, I was about to drive out to a hotel and might possibly catch her in the act of fucking another man.
I nodded my head, but I didn’t know why. I just didn’t have any verbal response to offer.
“Everything’s fine. I’ve gotta go. I have my mobile if you need me.” My legs barely held me up as I walked out of my house and sat in my car. I was cold, but I was sweating. I felt hollow, but my head felt like it would burst with the myriad of thoughts rushing through it.
I didn’t want to start my car. I didn’t want to drive across town. I didn’t want to walk into a hotel room and find my wife with another man.
But what if I did?
What if that was exactly what I found?
What if Sarah had found someone else, had moved on, fallen in love?
I started to cry.
She was the reason my heart beat. What the fuck would I do if she left me? If she was planning on taking my boys away?
My boys. Fuck!
This was my fault. I left her alone too much. I worked too much. I thought back to what my mum had told us on our wedding day . . . “Don’t always take for granted the person you’re heading home to, or that they’ll always be there waiting.”
What if Sarah had finally got sick of waiting just like my mum did? I was always promising her I’d slow down, cut back, just like my dad apparently used to promise my mum.
What if I’d left it too long, and she’d met someone else? Someone that didn’t work long hours? Who wouldn’t leave her to eat dinner alone with the kids every night?
She was friends with Will Bennet on Facebook. What if they’d reconnected? I’d always known he was in love with her. I knew that he’d moved away because of it. What if I’d driven her right back into his waiting arms? What if it was him that was fucking my wife in a hotel room right now?
A loud sob escaped my throat, and I had to wipe my eyes on the back of my hand so that I could see the road clearly.
I’d win her back. Whatever it took, I’d win her back.
I didn’t care what she might’ve done. I’d forgive her anything. Anything. I just couldn’t lose her.
***
I didn’t remember the drive. All I remembered was Cold Play’s “Sky Full of Stars” playing and how it made me think of Sarah. My wife. My beautiful, amazing, perfect, pretty girl. Then, I was there, standing in the lobby and arguing with a receptionist named Cherise.
“Her name is Sarah Delaney. I can show you a screen shot of our joint bank account that will show the transaction details from when she checked in.”
“Sir, I simply can’t give you access to a guest’s room.”
“I don’t want access. I just want you to go and check on her. My wife has a medical condition. She’s not answering her mobile, and she’s not answering the room phone. You know this, you just tried it yourself.”
I lied and lied and lied some more. I needed to get in that room. I just hoped and prayed that I was wrong about what I thought I would find.
I pushed my hands down into my pockets to try to stop them from shaking but then tried for a different tactic. I rested them on top of the front desk and let the receptionist see how badly they shook, how upset I was.
“Please,” I said very quietly. “I’m really fucking worried.”
She drew in a long deep breath and let it out painfully slow.
“Okay, we’ll go and check on Mrs Delaney, but we’ll require you to remain here while we—”
“No. No fucking way. She’s my wife, now please, let’s go and check on her before I call the police, an ambulance, and the fucking army if I have to.”
She checked something on her computer, picked up a plastic key card, and came out from behind her desk.
I followed her to the lift, and we travelled to the fourth floor. I felt as if I was about to vomit up my insides—heart, lungs, all of it.
I was out the lift before she was. “Room number?”
“Sir, I can’t give . . .” She stopped and glanced to her left, holding the key card tightly in her hand. I held up both my hands and stepped back.
This was it. This was the moment that could change my world forever. She knocked, and I held my breath. When there wasn’t an answer, she turned to me with an apologetic look on her face and shrugged. No, she was not just going to leave. I snatched the card before she could stop me and had the door opened instantly. I took three steps into the room and stopped. It took me a few seconds to work out what I was looking at.
I could hear Cherise behind me on her walkie-talkie, but I didn’t hear her words.
Sarah was curled on one side of the bed, the arm that was underneath her was sticking out over the side, and her head was twisted at an awkward angle resting on it. There was an empty bottle of wine on the bedside table with a foil pill pack, all the little pill slots broken open next to it.
My brain registered all of this in seconds but came up with no explanation as to what it meant.