At His Funeral, I Discovered His Other Family

The day I found out my husband, Rafe Ashcroft, was cheating, I didn't cry or smash anything. I simply slid the divorce agreement across the table. He sat at the other end of the dining table, his shoulders rigid and his back straight. Neither of us said a word. Finally, he tore the pages in half. “It's over. I won't see her again.” For the decades that followed, he seemed completely devoted to our marriage again. His paycheck went straight into our joint account. He video-called me every day on business trips and even let me track his car's location and view its dashcam recordings on my phone. Then, fifty years later, a woman showed up at his funeral. She looked at the freshly placed headstone, a bitter smile on her lips. As I watched in shock, she bent down and kissed the memorial photo beside it. “Liora Vane. You've never met me, but I've always known who you were.” “Rafe gave me houses, money, the life I wanted. The only thing he wouldn't give me was marriage. He wouldn't let me come near you, either.” She straightened and looked at me with contempt. The man standing behind her was no longer young. He had Rafe's eyes. “But we still had a family of our own. I never got the wedding ring. You never got a husband who belonged only to you.” With that, she left with the man. I stood in front of Rafe's grave and suddenly laughed. I couldn't stop the tears. He'd been lying to me all my life. A sudden, crushing pain seized my chest. I collapsed beside his grave and never woke up again. When I opened my eyes again, I was twenty-five, back on the day I'd first caught him cheating. This time, he was free to go live his other life. … Just as he had in my first life, Rafe silently tore up the divorce agreement. This time, I didn’t reach out to hug him. “Tear this one up, and my lawyer will send another. Cooperate, and we'll submit it to the court. Refuse, and I'll file for divorce anyway.” I clenched my hands, forcing down the emotions churning in my chest. “You still teach at the university. I'm sure you don't want every colleague and student hearing about this.” Rafe's breathing grew uneven. He slid out of his chair, dropped to one knee in front of me, and took my hand. “I'll end it. Give me one last chance, okay?” After fifty years of marriage, I knew his stubbornness all too well. I wasn’t counting on him signing the papers without a fuss that day, either. But his refusal couldn't stop a court from ending our marriage. I pulled my hand away. “That's your decision.” He took it as a concession. Right in front of me, he deleted the woman's number and their messages, then removed her from his social media. He even cleared out the photos. When he was done, he looked up at me. He looked at me so intently, as if I were the only person left in the world. “We'll start over. I'll make you trust me again.” I gave a faint smile, but felt nothing. There was only one thing I wanted to know now. In my first life, had he never stopped seeing her, or had he waited a while before going back? And where, exactly, was the home they'd kept hidden? That night, once Rafe was sound asleep, I took his phone out to the balcony. His passcode was still my birthday. He never hid his phone from me. No one who knew us had ever doubted how he felt about me. When it rained, he carried me over the puddles in parking lots, soaking his own shoes. When I had period cramps, he stayed up all night, adjusting my heating pad and asking every so often if I felt better. For all those years, I'd never imagined he would betray me. His phone was clean. There was nothing suspicious in his contacts, either. I opened the location-sharing feature on his phone, added my account, and put the phone back on the nightstand. The next morning, he kissed my forehead as if nothing had happened the day before. “I'm heading to campus. See you tonight.” I murmured a reply and watched him leave. A few minutes later, I called a cab and followed him to the university entrance. Rafe parked in the faculty lot and glanced around, but didn't head toward the classroom building. Instead, he got into a rideshare waiting at the curb. My throat tightened. “Please follow that gray sedan.” My phone kept lighting up along the way. Every message was from Rafe. “I'm at the office, honey.” The attached photo really was of his office. “My schedule's packed today. I might get home late. Go ahead and eat dinner without me.” Below it was a screenshot of his class schedule. It had been the same in my first life. I'd taken those updates as proof that he'd changed. Only now did I realize he'd prepared all that proof in advance to reassure me. I lowered the window, hoping the cold air would ease the tightness in my chest. Then a transfer confirmation came through from work. The position as head of our Milan branch had been in the works for months. It was now officially approved, and I was due to start in three days. In my first life, I'd turned it down for Rafe. This time, I clicked Accept. About an hour later, the car ahead stopped outside a detached house near Lake Oswego, south of Portland. A woman stood on the porch, looking hurt. “You left me waiting all night. Can you finally tell me what I actually mean to you?” Rafe got out, pulled her into his arms, and bent to kiss her. “Let's go inside. I'll explain.” Even breathing hurt as I watched. The rain grew heavier, quickly blurring the view through the windows. My hand shook so badly I could barely hold my card as I paid the fare. I got out and walked toward the house, one step at a time.