Little White Lies by Allan Deya (the reading list book .TXT) 📕

affect the kids- and not in a good way. “I don’t know what you mean.” She said instead.

“You always were a terrible liar.” Clara sniffed. “But then he must have come to you in confidence and so we have no right to put you on the spot about it; your first loyalty lies with my dad, we get that but you must understand our need to know. I mean our whole world is being turned upside down.”

That simple statement from the baby of the house had everyone stopping to take notice. Mat closed his eyes; the worst of it had just passed- now only the walking away remained. William Nodded his consent with her deduction and Delaine’s tears begun to flow then. “Thank you for understanding.”Jaimie said choking on her own tears.

Mat stood there for a while longer drinking in the memories. He remembered the sounds of children running through the house, their joyful shouts warming his paternal chest. He remembered them play dangerous games which ended up costing him expensive china.

He recalled every fight and every argument just as sure as he recalled their standing up for each other. He recalled the times they had been brought home dirty and bruised watched after they got into some scuffle watching each other’s backs.

It was with a sad smile that he remembered playing touch soccer with Delaine in the backyard, and teaching William how to throw a football and helping Clara work on her jump shots. The house held such happy memories; the type that were supposed to see you through the sunset years. But he would part with them there- he had no choice if he intended to make a clean break so he purged them all and continued walking.

“I had an affair.” Melanie said quietly. “Mom?” Delaine asked. “I…I cheated on your father, that’s why he is leaving. Truth is he should have left a long time ago; when he first found out but he didn’t. He stayed for you; he stayed with me to give you an undisturbed shot at life. And for that Mat, I will love you forever.”

She had gone through a large part of her marriage thinking she was stomaching a lot of bull from her husband. The coldness when he spoke to her, the detachment when she seduced him into bed, the sadness he exuded when they had family occasions.

She had called him a cold and callous bastard so many times during their years together that she had lost count. She had believed then, really believed that the only reason she stayed was for the children, but she now knew why she had.

It is because she had loved him; she had loved her husband from the first day she had seen him. She might have made it seem to her friends like the only reason she hooked up with him was because he was popular, and her family might have bought the ‘He is destined for great things’ line she fed them and for a while she might have been under the illusion that what they had was superficial, but she knew better now.

Then she took a deep breath and turned to face the kids. “Mathew is not your father.” Even Jaimie had her wind knocked out by that one. They all turned to him. “But you already knew that, didn’t you? You have known that for years.”

Jaimie felt as though she had just walked into the heart wrench scene of a daytime soap. Mat had told her a lot; confided many things to her in their history together. She had been shocked and angry and confused when some weeks ago he had opened up to her about the divorce and the reasons behind it. She had always liked Melanie; they were pretty much best friends, but she had always known that if ever the choice appeared between him and her, she would always back him.

“Daddy?” Clara asked his retreating back. “Is this true?”

The silence in the room was stifling; William kept his eyes on his mother the entire time. Clara had gone back to her weeping and Delaine had clutched to her chest the family photo album. Jaimie tried hard to hate the woman breaking down in front of her but found that she couldn’t. Surely she must have had her reasons for doing what she did.

But try as she might she just could not fathom those reasons. Mathew was the best man she had ever known, and that was saying a lot seeing as she adored her father and was positively devoted to her husband. He was not a man who would ever give you reason to doubt him; example being the fact that he hadn’t once broken his marriage vows- not even after he found out the truth.

It took him all of 5 minutes to grab his suitcases, pack up a few essentials and reappear at the archway. “I had hoped the reason for my leaving would never have to come to light.” He said to no one in particular. “And just so we are clear, I don’t give a crap what some overrated piece of paper says, you will always be my babies.”

In the car as they drove off, Jaimie turned to his silent profile and said “You opened up about a lot Mat, told me things that you have kept to yourself for too long, but you sort of forgot to mention that part.”

“It would have made no difference. I was going to leave anyway and they are my children DNA or not.” He said simply. “Now can we please not talk about this anymore? Thank you.”

**************************

“Mother. I would like an explanation; I’m sure we all would.” William said the minute their father was out the door.

“Mathew was my high school sweetheart, we married straight out of school; He was my ticket out of Little Rock” Their mother explained. “He was a prodigy, plain and simple. Captain of the basketball team, best quarterback out of the county for years, track star, president of the debate club, gifted artist, 1st pick for all school plays and to top it all off a straight A student.”

“Colleges were after him like a swarm of locusts. There was no doubt that he would be big. I hated life in that small town, I did not want to resign myself to a quiet country life so I went after him with everything I had; and I got him.

It wasn’t supposed to be a love story, just a means to an end. But it's hard to pull that off with your father and I found myself falling for him. We got married the day after graduation at a little chapel just outside of town.

My parents did not approve of our union; called him the trailer trash boy, so they did not attend the wedding and disowned me and his parents, well they couldn’t, he was abandoned at an orphanage as an infant; he never knew his folks.

2 weeks later we packed everything up and headed to Europe; he’d been given the whole free ticket to Oxford, an all expense paid education. He would have his tuition taken care of by a full scholarship, he’d be given a little house on campus and he would get a generous stipend to live off.

I remember watching him sleep in the plane on our way there and thinking that I must be the luckiest woman in the world to have a man like him love me because I had never felt that kind of connection with anyone.

There was no time to relax after we got to the UK, we hit the ground running. He was on an intense study program and that took up most of his time and the sporting regiment expended a lot of his energy. We only saw each other before and after class; that is before 9:00 am and after 7:00 pm. And he was almost always too tired to do anything with me. He would try though; he really would.

Every Wednesday we went out to dinner and every Saturday he would take me out dancing but he would suffer for it the next day. So I started to make excuses for our date nights. Before long we weren’t going out at all. I told myself I was doing it for him.

I convinced myself that just because I was using him to get a leg up in the world, I didn’t have to act like I could not see him pushing himself beyond his limit. Anyway the more he was able to accomplish in the time I was with him, the more I would walk out of the marriage with.

And that’s when it happened. I met him at a local night spot one Friday, when Mathew was away on some school expedition. He was smart and suave and European. You have to understand I had never been out of Little Rock; and then here was, this handsome European man- successful and charming- all over me.

I was torn by my excitement over the older gentleman and my feelings for your father, I did not want to love him; I had to fight my feelings for him on a daily basis. So I made life unbearable for him. I was constantly complaining and starting fights, any excuse I could for storming out of the house. And Dan, your biological father, was always there to listen and to help.

A few months later I realized I was pregnant.” She turned and faced Delaine. “I was pregnant with you. I was so happy I tracked your dad down at his address to give him the news.” She turned away then and walked to the window.

“I found him there and I also found his wife and his in laws; they were having lunch. He invited me in and introduced me as a client. I have never been madder in my whole life. When he walked me to the car at the end of the afternoon I told him I never wanted to see him again and he said that was probably a good idea.

An affair would not look good on his resume, not when he was so close to making partner at the Law firm he worked in. I was depressed about it for weeks. What would I do? I even considered getting an abortion; the life I had envisioned for months had just gone to hell.

But one Friday I got home and found your dad already there. The lights were dimmed and candles were lit. There was music playing and dinner was on the table. He came out of the kitchen and poured me a glass of wine. He rubbed my shoulders and he told me he loved me.

He said he had noticed that over the past few months I had been growing more and more distant from him. ‘I thought you were having an affair.’ He’d told me, but I am glad to see I was wrong. I remember looking up into those eyes of love and thinking how could I have been so stupid; why would I have wanted to walk away from all that?

‘You are pregnant, aren’t you?’ he'd told me. ‘I noticed the changes in your mood a few weeks back and well last month to this I kept track of your cycle; and you did not have one. ’ I would have told him, I wanted to tell him the truth right then, but I was