Lindsay ripped a sheet of paper from the printer and grabbed a Sharpie. “You Jerk! You thought I would never find out. How could you do this? We are through!” She scribbled hard with the felt tip pen. The large red letters were bold and ragged by the time she wrote the word “through” from the pressure she had exerted on the tip. Her anger came alive on the page, not in her usual gentle curly movement, but in stark violence that seemed to reach out as she wrote and draw her deeper into the large blood colored words. Although scrawling the words gave her some satisfaction, the pain still laid embedded deep in her heart.

Unconsciously she tucked her brown hair behind her right ear, and through her tears, Lindsay picked up the paper and walked to the sunny kitchen that ordinarily brightened her spirits with its lemon yellow glow. Kevin was working late tonight. She would put the scrawled note on the table and be gone when he arrived home. Her blue paisley suitcase stood beside the door waiting for her. Looking back, she saw her laptop was still open on the desk with the telltale email setting there as though mocking her. “Kevin and Jilli are lovers. They have been ever since you were dating. Your wedding meant nothing to them. They never, not for one moment, quit caring about each other. Kevin loves Jilli and Jilli loves him. They are having dinner together tonight…perhaps as you read this. Give him what he wants, Lindsay. Give him his freedom!” It was signed “A caring friend.” A postscript read, “By the way, Jilli says that Kevin is ANYTHING but predictable.”

Lindsay stood looking at the screen. “Oh Kevin, is this real? Could it be an awful nightmare?” she whispered. Nevertheless, in her heart, she knew it was true. It explained some things that before had not made sense to her.

Jilli and Lindsay had been best friends for years. Jilli had introduced Lindsay to Kevin while they had been dating each other. Kevin appeared to be smitten with Lindsay right away. It had certainly been love at first sight for Lindsay. They had begun dating as soon as Jilli and Kevin broke up. Both had insisted to Lindsay that there was nothing between them and Jilli had given them her blessings.

There were times over the next year when Lindsay felt like an outsider when she was with Kevin and Jilli. They laughed together and sometimes seemed to have private jokes that she could not share with them. Through it all, Lindsay and Jilli remained good friends. Jilli had been Lindsay’s maid-of-honor at the wedding. She had kissed Kevin after the ceremony, a kiss that had set quite a few people to talking, a kiss that had been too long and too lingering. Afterwards, they had laughed and Jilli had said that she had given Kevin something to remember. Lindsay had not been amused but she had laughed and pretended not to mind.

The first year after they married had been wonderful. They had quickly fallen into routines that they called “the old married folks” lifestyle. Dinner was promptly at 6:00 pm every day. Bedtime was at 10:00 pm. They got up promptly at 6:30 am. Other things about their life became predictable too, cereal for breakfast, football on Sunday, and lovemaking twice a week. It was not that they planned it that way; it just happened. Schedules seemed to get in the way. One day Lindsay had confided to Jilli that Kevin was too predictable. She wanted more spontaneity in her life.

Jilli had raised an eyebrow and said, “Lindsay, I don’t know if I should be talking to you about this.”

Lindsay had assumed that Jilli was uncomfortable with hearing about the intimacy of their marriage. It had never occurred to Lindsay that Jilli and Kevin were having an affair. Over the years, they had grown apart. Gone were the giggly days when the two friends lunched together and shopped for shoes. They no longer shopped together at all. Lindsay still called but Jilli always had reasons for why she could not go.

Lindsay sat down into Kevin’s big overstuffed chair as she reminisced about their marriage and questioned herself. Was there something that she had missed? Clues that she had not seen? Kevin had always seemed to be attentive but he had never been a ball of fire. She had dated guys who had been much more considerate of her. She had always thought that Kevin would learn the behaviors that she wanted, gentlemanly manners, loving words, affectionate mannerisms. He never had. When she had discussed it with her mother, her mother told her to grow up because, “that’s just the way men are.”

As tears streaked down her cheeks creating mascara trails, night fell outside the window without her notice. The room darkened without her caring. The key jangled in the lock letting her know that Kevin was home. She had lost track of time. Kevin was not supposed to come home while she was still there.

“I’m home!” Kevin shouted turning on the light as he yelled. He was startled to see Lindsay’s makeup streaked face staring at him from across the room. “Lindsay, what’s wrong? What’s happened?”

Lindsay didn’t speak. She stared at him but didn’t move a muscle. Kevin went down on his good leg and put his arms around her and said, “Lindsay? Are you ok honey?” Then he looked down and saw the scrawled note. Taking it from her hand he read it and looked questioningly at her. “What’s this all about, Lindsay?”

“Why Kevin? Why? You should have told me!”

“What should I have told you?” He looked puzzled. He pushed himself up using the arm of the chair as he dragged the casted leg to an upright position. His broken leg kept him from staying down beside Lindsay for very long. Kevin took her hands in his and pulled her to her feet. “Lindsay, please, Baby, tell me. What’s this all about?”

Without a word, Lindsay walked to the desk and turned the computer screen so that Kevin could read it. His lips moved as he read the damning words on the screen.

“That’s a lie! I love you Lindsay! Who wrote that?” He looked in the heading and saw that someone had set up an email address using the name “Caring Friend.” “It’s a lie Lindsay. You know that Jilli and I are only friends.”

Lindsay turned and jerked away from Kevin with a violence that she had never felt before. “Get your hands off of me!” she screamed.

“Lindsay! You know it’s a lie!” He reached for her arm but she was too quick. She moved around the table and out of reach. Kevin took a clumsy step towards her and winced as his injured leg twisted. Falling towards her, he grabbed Lindsay to steady himself. Her first thought was that he was attacking her; Lindsay grabbed the first thing she could get her hands on, her grandfather’s cane. It was hanging on the back of the chair where she had left it the day her mother had given it to her for Kevin to use after he had fallen while he was cleaning the gutters.

Grabbing the cane by the rounded handle, he pulled it from her hand as he fell towards his wife. She stepped back just as he fell. His head hit the edge of the wooden occasional table. He was stunned as blood ran down into his eye. Unconscious, he fell all the way to the floor at her feet.

Looking at Kevin lying on the floor unconscious, she screamed and knelt beside him. “Oh God! Kevin, please! Please! I didn’t mean it! Please!” Running to the kitchen, she grabbed a dishtowel and wet it. Running back to him, she placed the cool wet towel on his bruised and swollen face and eye. “Please Kevin, please! Wake up!”

“Anybody home?” Jilli stood in the doorway surveying the scene. “Oh my God, Lindsay! What have you done?”

Kevin moaned and moved to sit up. “Jilli, what are you doing here?” he asked weakly.

“Yes Jilli, just what ARE you doing here?” Lindsay’s voice was hard as she looked at the woman who had been her best friend. “You are no longer welcome in my home.”

“What? What is this about? I came to borrow the shovel. Remember? I called you about it this morning. Lindsay, you and I have been friends since high school. You can’t mean that!”

Kevin braced himself to try to stand. “Look at the computer screen Jilli. Who would have sent that?”

Jilli looked at the screen and read the email with horror. “Why would someone do that? Why would they write such trash? Lindsay, surely you didn’t believe that Kevin and I are capable of being so unfaithful to you!” She reached down, picked up the note from the floor, and read it. “You were leaving him?”

“Did the two of you have dinner together tonight?” Lindsay’s voice was unnaturally high. She sounded close to hysteria. “Did you?”

“Lindsay, don’t,” Kevin’s voice sounded tearful.

“Did you?” Lindsay raised her voice.

“Lindsay…” Jilli tried to speak.

“I said, did you have dinner tonight with my husband? Answer me!”

Jilli looked at Kevin who dropped his eyes to the floor.

“It’s true! Oh my God, it’s true!” Lindsay’s voice cracked as realization hit her.

Kevin looked up. “We have to tell her Jilli. We have no choice.”

Lindsay heard a whimper and realized that it had come from her own lips. She put her hands over her ears. “No! No! No!” The words welled up in her and tumbled unbidden into the room.

Kevin put his hands on hers and removed them from her ears so that he could hear her. “Lindsay, you are wrong. Jilli and I are not having an affair. Yes, we had dinner together tonight but we were working on a surprise for you. You have always wanted me to be more romantic. Jilli was helping me to find a resort on St. Thomas. You have always wanted to go there. We didn’t take much of a honeymoon so I wanted to give you a romantic fifth anniversary.” Reaching his hand into his pocket, he pulled out the brochures with information circled on each one. “I wanted to surprise you.”

“I brought him the brochures from the travel agency beside the shop where I work,” Jilli stated almost apologetically.

Lindsay looked from Kevin to Jilli and back to Kevin. “Oh Kevin, how could I have been so silly. I’m so sorry. Because of my lack of trust, you fell and hurt yourself. I should have known that the two of you would never cheat on me.”

“It’ll heal by the time we get home from our vacation. I’m booking our reservations and our flight tomorrow. Here, look at the resort.”

Lindsey looked down at the brochure. The blue waters of the Caribbean and island palm trees greeted her eyes. Tears of happiness and relief rolled down her cheeks as Kevin lifted her chin to put his lips to hers.

“I love you Lindsay. I know I’m not very romantic sometimes, ok, most of the time, but I do love you.”

“I love you too, Kevin, since the first time I saw you.”

Lindsay pulled away from her husband, and hugged her friend. “Jilli, I am so sorry that I doubted you. Please don’t be upset with me. Call me tomorrow? Or I’ll call you?”

“Of course I’ll call you. Now I’ll just get the shovel and go if that’s ok with you two lovebirds.”

“Sure Jilli. It’s already out of the shed. After you called this morning, I got it out and set it beside the door. I love you Jilli. I hope you are not offended by my absurdity.”

“It’s alright Lindsay. I would have thought the same thing if I had received an email like that. Don’t even think about it again. I don’t want it to mar our friendship either.”

Jilli closed the front door and walked out into the moonlit night. She picked up the shovel and carried it to her car releasing the trunk button as she walked. As she threw it in the trunk, she flipped her copper colored hair and said to herself, “Oh, that’s quite alright Lindsay. I am not at all offended. You will definitely hear from me. After all, I’m your ‘Caring Friend.’ You are not absurd in the least and Kevin will eventually be mine.”


Word Count: 2116

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