LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter 7

       Tuesday, October 14

      Olivia woke up at seven o’clock feeling as though she had walked across the desert on her knees. Her eyelids felt like sandpaper, and she couldn’t stop crying. Richard had been cheating on her for years. Everyone seemed to know it but her. She was a cuckold. She had spent twenty-eight years of her life being faithful to Richard, believing they had beaten the odds and had loved each other fully and completely. She laughed out loud. What a joke. What a fool she had been.

      Her bedside phone rang. Without thinking she answered.

      “Olivia? How did it go? Did I wake you up?”

      Olivia sat up. “He had a surprise party for me. Can you believe that? I walked into this house and all of his friends were here.”

      “Oh my God,” Lauren said. “What did you do?”

      Olivia thought back to the fake smiles and phony bonhomie of the evening. “I suffered through it. Poor Denny. She did a beautiful job putting everything together.” Olivia ran her hand through her hair.

      “What are you going to do? What can I do to help?”

      Olivia sat for a moment, grateful for Lauren who was comfortable in the silence. What am I going to do?

      “I guess my question is really what could you do right now to make yourself feel better about things?”

      “I’m going to get to know my husband,” Olivia said. “I’ll call you later, okay?”

      She hung up without waiting for Lauren to answer.

      If Richard had any secrets, they would be hidden in his study. Olivia stood at the bottom of the stairs, unable to remember the last time she had been in this room. This was Richard’s domain, and out of respect and by some unspoken agreement, she had stayed out. She had trusted Richard and never felt compelled to check on his whereabouts or invade his personal space.

      The room was dark due to lack of sunlight and the color of the décor. A forest green leather couch and club chair that had belonged to Richard’s father, along with a dark mahogany desk, left a distinctly masculine stamp on the room. The blackout shades took away any threat of sunlight. Olivia always wondered why Richard liked this room to feel like a cave. She shivered. It was a good five degrees colder down here.

      Stepping close to his desk, she ran her fingers over the leather blotter and an old Cross pen stand. Although the gold pens still rested in their place, they had never been used and the ink had dried up years ago. A credenza took up the opposite wall and it was covered with pictures of Richard. Some of them held pictures of their family, Denny as a young girl, Olivia’s wedding portrait, but the photos of Richard with famous people – Dwight Clark, Ronald Reagan, Willie Mays, and Joe Montana to name a few – held pride of place. Olivia thought of Richard and Sandy Watson, of Richard and heaven knew who else, and a fresh wave of anger washed over her.

      Taking a deep breath, she sat down at the desk and opened the drawers one by one. There was nothing unusual there. All the folders had typewritten labels, which held bank statements, credit card statements, IRS receipts, and the like. When Olivia stumbled across a folder whose handwritten label said TIFFANY’S, she took it out and laid it on the desk.

      Opening the folder, Olivia saw a stack of receipts, current date on top, of all the jewelry Richard had purchased from Tiffany’s since their marriage. Although she had never asked, the Tiffany boxes at Christmas and birthdays had become something of a tradition in their marriage. She had accepted and worn the jewelry to make Richard happy. Richard had grown up poor, had put himself through law school, and had made a success of himself by hard work and perseverance. Being able to buy fine jewelry for his wife was a matter of pride for him. As she scanned through the receipts, she recognized the pieces that he had purchased for her – this year’s diamond pendant, the earrings from last year’s Christmas – the invoices an historical timeline of Richard’s gifts.

      Olivia thumbed back to the top invoice, noticing another piece of jewelry was purchased on the same day as her diamond necklace. She thumbed through the invoices and saw that each time Richard bought Olivia jewelry, he also purchased a second piece of jewelry, a silver cuff bracelet. Thumbing through the invoices she saw that the second purchase was always the same; the only thing that was different was the name of the engraving. One year it was Nancy, and then Rachel, BethAnn, Louise, Holly, Bambi – the list went on and on. Olivia didn’t need to do any investigating to know what she had discovered. When Richard had purchased a gift for her, he had also purchased a trinket for his current love interest.

      That son of a bitch. Walking over to the credenza, Olivia stared at all the family photos. Seen through the lens of her embarrassment and shame, she was disgusted by the false tale they told. For the first time in her life, Olivia didn’t hold her emotions in check. She opened her mouth and let out a blood-curdling scream that would have brought the neighbors running if they could hear. In one motion she swept her arm along the top of the credenza, sending all the photographs launching into the air before they crashed to the floor, in a cacophony of shattering glass.

      Breathing heavily, she stepped over the photo of Richard with Dwight Clark and headed back upstairs.