“Calm down?” his eyes beamed with fury. “You left the house without your cell phone, without your license, you’re not insured to drive any cars, and you stole the one car I told you I worked all my life to get. The one that I only drive for special occasions, and you took it God knows where. How did you think I was going to feel?”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Jonas replied, “Just explain yourself so I can think about forgiving you.”
“I had to go help Jadie with something.”
Jonas stared at Cindy with a blank expression. She looked at him while biting her lower lip and raised her hand almost as if to protect herself from whatever was coming her way.
“Are you kidding me?” he said in disbelief. “Do you think I’m a moron? If I call Jadie right now, she’s going to tell me that you were at her apartment helping her out?”
“No, wait,” she stammered, “don’t call her.”
“You know what?” Jonas grabbed his phone and began dialing Jadie’s number. “Let’s call her right now and wake her up.”
Cindy tried to grab the phone from Jonas’ hands but he turned away while holding the phone to his ear. Cindy continued to reach for the phone as he blocked her, but she didn’t have the heart to use her full strength to easily overpower him.
“Hello, Jadie? It’s Jonas,” he said.
Jadie responded in a groggy stupor, “Mmm… what time is it?”
“It’s pretty freaking late. Listen, I have to ask you a question and it’s very urgent,” he said.
“About what?” she said in a dry, crackly voice.
“Did Cindy go to your apartment a few hours ago to help you with something?”
“What are you—hang on.” Jadie fell silent on the other end, while Jonas tapped his foot and looked around the house.
“Yeah, she came over earlier.”
“What?” he said, shocked.
Jadie replied, “Well, it was late and I didn’t want to take the subway.”
“Right, so you call a c—”
“Yes, of course I called a cab,” she interrupted. “And that cab got into a horrible accident that I barely got out of alive.”
“Wow, sorry to hear that.”
Jadie said, “I asked Cindy to pick me up and take me home. There was no way I was taking any public transportation after that.”
Jonas felt his foot kicking him in the mouth. “I understand.”
“Is that all you wanted to know?” she asked.
“Yeah, sorry to bother you, Jadie,” Jonas replied.
Jadie said, “I’m gonna go back to bed now. Please don’t call.”
“Sorry.”
Jonas hung up the phone and looked over to Cindy. He said to his wife, “I guess you were telling the truth.”
There was a gentle innocence lingering about her, but the subtle aura of deceit rested upon her skin like a thin layer of film. Jonas sighed and shook his head, walking away towards the bedroom without saying another word. As soon as he was gone, Cindy pulled her hands out of the couch cushion with smart phone in hand. She had a text message from Jadie: “cm l8r.”
The next morning Jonas made sure to get up especially early, around 4 am. The sky was still dark with a deep azure blue encompassing the suburb, while moths fluttered around buzzing streetlights in the distance. Cindy lay asleep in her pink night gown while Jonas was traipsing about in the living room. His hair shot off in different directions as he tried to hunt for Cindy’s cell phone with blurry eyes obscuring his vision. After turning on the tungsten lights, he spotted the black phone in a hot-pink rubber guard sitting on the coffee table. The screen displayed a huge lock icon with a password barring entry to Cindy’s private conversations.
He scratched his cheek and stared into the digital display. In just three attempts, Jonas figured out her password and accessed her private archive. With the database of the phone now in his hands, Jonas browsed the call history to see if Jadie contacted Cindy last night. The only phone call he was able to find was the one he made to Cindy as she was driving away in his prized possession. He could feel the dagger of betrayal stab him in the chest, twisting and wrenching out his bleeding trust. He pushed onward and checked Cindy’s text messages, dreading what he might find. To his dismay, he discovered the conversation that went on between his wife and Jadie.
Cindy: “Tell Jonas that I was with you tonight. Please!!!!”
Jadie: “cm l8r.”
Jonas hit his boiling point and charged into the bedroom, rousing Cindy from her slumber.
“Cindy, what the hell? You lied to me and got Jadie involved,” he screamed.
Cindy, having just awakened, felt disoriented and confused. “What time is”—through her still clarifying vision, she saw her pink cell phone in Jonas’ hand and said, “Were you going through my cell?”
“Yeah, did you really think I would believe that bull crap story you told me last night?”
Cindy immediately sat up and said to Jonas, “How dare you.”
“How dare me? How dare you not tell me the truth. Why did you leave the house last night?” he demanded an answer and wasn’t going to leave without one.
“I can’t tell you, Jonas!” her volume matching his own.
“Why the hell not?” he responded as a screaming match erupted between the two.
“Because I just can’t!”
“Cindy.” He tried to lower his voice to appear calmer. But his tone was still laced with volatile intentions, fooling no one. “We’re a married couple. We don’t keep secrets from each other. If you tell me what you did last night, I promise I’ll calm down.”
The word “secrets” triggered such a violent response from Cindy that she jumped out of bed and stood right in front of Jonas. Her bare feet couldn’t make her tall enough to look him in the eye, but despite her shorter stature, she was still able to make Jonas flinch.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve telling me that we don’t keep secrets from each other, when you haven’t even told me what projects you work on.”
“That’s different, Cindy,” his voice escalating again. “I was working on something that dealt with national security. Do you think CIA agents tell their families what they do?”
“Then pretend I’m in the CIA and don’t ask me about what happened last night,” she said, frustrated.
“Cindy, I normally leave you alone when you’re pissed off, but I can’t do it this time. Tell me what you did last night, and don’t lie to me.”
“Goddammit, Jonas, leave me”—Cindy snapped and thrust her hand straight across his face—
“alone!”
The sharp crack of skin being slapped brought the screaming match to a halt. The room fell silent as Jonas’ turned head carried a deep red imprint of Cindy’s fingers across his cheek. Her hand was held frozen in the air while they both stood in place. Instead of being angry, a haunting look of regret befell her like drops of rain. Jonas blinked several times as he rubbed his cheek in an attempt to massage out the hurt. Cindy continued to look at him in disbelief about what had happened.
