Rachel

"I love my husband. I trust my husband." She kept repeating this constantly in her head, yet she found it harder to believe with each saying.

    They had been married for over ten years. She always thought they had a great marriage, and she had always assumed her husband felt the same. He had never given her any indication to think otherwise. They kissed, rarely had disagreements with each other, and cuddled each night while they slept. So, why were there pictures of another woman on his laptop?

    Now she had no problems with porn. If her husband felt like looking at naked women and pulling one off without her help, then that was fine by her. Although she would rather help relieve him, she understood the male urges. Yet, these pictures she had discovered felt like more than just some pictures of a woman in lingerie posing for porn.

    She had never snooped on her husband, even when they were dating. She had always trusted that he would never cheat on her. It was by accident that she had found these pictures. She had needed his laptop to upload some pictures that she had taken of their children the other day at the park, and she would have used her own laptop had it not been destroyed when their two-year-old Oliver had spilled his apple juice onto her keyboard. His older four-year-old sister Kara loves to tattle and couldn't wait to tell her mom about that happening.

   Always, she had found herself brushing things off as not to put a damper on her life. She hated confrontation, and then there were the children to think about. She had come from a broken home and didn't want the same for her children. This meant when things would bother her about stuff her husband did, she would brush it off, so as not to risk shattering the life she had. She had become an expert of letting things not bother her. Yet, this was something she was finding hard to let go.

   Anybody would be curious if they opened the pictures filed on their significant other's laptop and found a file titled "Rachel." Who could blame her for being curious? Also not all the pictures were provocative and that's what made her think this was more than just porn for her husband. She dared to say that her husband seemed obsessed.

   Now here she was cooking dinner and helping her children settle an argument over who gets to be it in hide-and-seek first, smiling like everything was fine. While in her mind, she wanted to cry and scream her head off.

   Anders would be home soon. How was she going to react? Should she kiss him when he walks in? She always did. He would certainly find it odd if she didn't today after years of doing it. She couldn't let him know something was off right away, not with the kids still up. No, it would be best to wait until they were in bed to discuss anything. Though she would find it hard to keep smiling. "I love my husband. I trust my husband."

   Six thirty on the dot he walked in, smiling and calling out to the kids for hugs. He was wearing the grey three-piece suit she loved on him. It reminded her of the one he wore on their wedding day and made the blue of his eyes pop, but right now it sickened her to the very core of her body. She continued to smile though and kissed him while asking how his day was. They all sat at the dinner table and ate. One big happy family. She wanted to scream.

   After dinner, it was baths for the kids and bedtime stories. Prayers were said, goodnight kisses were shared, night lights were cut on, and doors were left cracked to help keep the boogeyman at bay. She slipped into her pink silk pajamas and brushed her long brown hair. While she waited for Anders to get out of his shower, he snuck up behind her and kissed her on her neck, her most sensitive spot. She fought the urge to slap him.

   With her hands clenched she smiled up at him and stood up. He was six foot three and while she stood at five foot four, on her good days, she felt like she could be seven feet tall. She puffed out her chest and stood firm. She opened her mouth to speak and then she couldn't do it. She couldn't bring up the pictures. How could she? The minute she did, that would be it, there would be no more big happy family moments. Her life shattered.

   Smiling, she lifted her arms, wrapped them around her husband's neck, then kissed him deeply. They fell onto the bed and made love. She wanted him to know that she was the only woman he needed, without words, so she used her body. Hoping that if he was cheating this act would stop that from happening again and tomorrow, she would forget all about Rachel and resume her perfect happy life.

   Afterwards they lay together, their naked bodies pressed together, her head on his chest. She smiled as she always did after they had sex, listening to his light snores as he slept. She was happy and yet her thoughts still plagued her even as she tried to suppress them. "I love my husband. I trust my husband."

   The next morning, she sent Anders off with a kiss, a smile and a fresh cup of coffee with a bagel. Her kids sat in the living room watching cartoons while eating fruit loops and she found herself with the laptop again. She still couldn't get the thoughts of yesterday out of her head and had decided the only way to dismiss the thoughts was to do some digging.

    She hoped, beyond hoped, that maybe this Rachel was a model that her husband had become obsessed with. With yoga and Zumba, she had managed to keep her body toned and she could still make some heads turn despite having two children, but she certainly wasn't model material. So, she could hardly blame him for looking at other women, but to be this obsessed was a different story. 

    With the whole internet at her disposal, she ran through trying to find any girl who looked like the one from the pictures. Occasionally Kara or Oliver would come up to her and she would have to stop her investigation to take care of their needs or play with them, after all she was still a good mother even if her husband might be cheating on her. It wasn't until lunchtime when the kids sat down to eat chicken fingers and carrots, the carrots were there just for looks, that she finally found a lead on Rachel. While she hoped her investigation would give her relief, what she found only raised her suspension more.

    She found pages upon pages of this young woman. Rachel Jackson was her name. She was twenty-three, curly blonde hair, great body and legs for days. Compared to her own short legs and that Rachel was ten years younger than her, she couldn't blame Anders for wanting this other woman. She was beautiful, young, had no children and, her breath caught in her throat, Rachel had been missing for three months.

    Her husband had pictures, a whole file in fact, dedicated to pictures of a missing woman and most of those pictures you wouldn't find on her social media. The intimate ones were either sent to him, or maybe he had taken them himself, all she knew was that something wasn't right here, and she feared the worst. But until she had more proof, she refused to believe it. So, she kept smiling. "I love my husband. I trust my husband."

     The rest of the day dragged on and was rather uneventful, aside from the occasional disagreement children have that she had to settle. Six thirty, on the dot, Anders came in smiling and hugging the kids, kissing her. They ate dinner and the kids were tucked in as usual. All the while, her husband couldn't see that deep in her eyes she was screaming at him for the answers she didn't want to know. She didn't sleep that night.

     The kids were taken to her parents the next morning, not long after Anders had left for work. She had errands to run, she lied to them, and the kids couldn't come along. Afterwards she drove back home and began to tear the house apart for answers. If her husband was doing terrible things, there certainly had to be more proof than pictures on a laptop.

     She lifted mattresses, dug through closets, and checked through every drawer she found. Hoping to find something to put her suspension to rest and that there was a happy ending for her after all. Her husband was a good man.

     While digging through his dresser she found a loose board in the back. She wiggled it open and discovered a hole. Within it she found a red notebook. Nothing could have prepared her for the truth she began to discover about her own husband.

     Bank statements of large amounts of money. Money that had been transferred to their bank account. She didn't keep up with the finances, that was Anders job, but she knew her husband didn't make money like this at his job as an attorney. The discovery, that chilled her to the bone, was the long list of names she found in the notebook and the dollar amounts that were written beside them. Rachel Jackson was the last name she read. Fifty thousand dollars written beside her name.

    She shut the book and put everything back where she found it. The house was put back together, as if she hadn't been the hurricane that had blown through earlier destroying everything in it's way. Later her mother brought the children home for her and she prepared dinner. Everything was fine if she kept smiling.

    Anders came home smiles, hugs and kisses. Dinner was ate while they talked and laughed. To anyone looking at them they were the perfect happy family. Nobody knew the dark secrets the husband held and that the wife now knew. Bedtime came, children had been tucked in a while ago and as she lay in bed, cuddled from behind by Anders, he kissed her.

    "I love you, Cassandra." He told her before he fell asleep as she stared off into the dark room. Waiting for sleep that she knew wouldn't come tonight.

    Maybe there was a less sinister answer to the notebook she found, to Rachel. Suppose she did ask her husband, what would he say? And could they even fix the issue and move on with their happy family still intact, when she found out the answer. These questions scared her and thus she would keep silent.

    The world will never know that her perfect family holds a dark secret. She would see to it and she will bury these feelings of disdain towards her husband, deep within her. Just as she had always done, she will move on and forget this moment, as if the last two days had not occurred at all. Nothing was going to shatter her world, her perfect life, her perfect family, not even herself. She will keep smiling. "I love my husband. I trust my husband."