Devotion Page 5

  It didn't take long for Katherine to move herself and her daughter into a house with a man she'd only known for a short time. Her accepting a marriage proposal is not a surprise. There seems to be a layer of desperation surrounding Katherine at all times. I've tried to work out again and again why she is so eager to force her life into line years after her ex has been out of the picture. It's as if she is on the run from more than her past. And it can't only be because of Ava. There's more there I'm not seeing.

  It's so easy to see the fault in ourselves with a lengthy bit of retrospect, but Katherine is the mystery I'll never work out. How she can live with herself knowing what she did, all the while assuming I don't know the truth, is something I can't ignore. She plays the innocent card so well the damn thing is worn at the edges, but I will show the world she isn't who she portrays herself to be. Her true colors will shine before I dole out the punishment she deserves.

  The argument from the restaurant continued into the night like a viral infection. I didn't expect it would fester into something worth fighting about. Katherine pulled out the big guns whether she intended to, cutting deep with so few words. I guess Ava will forever be a sensitive topic of discussion. It's almost too easy.

  I wonder how Katherine can justify her outburst. Will she admit fault and take the full blame the way she usually does, or will she attempt to fight back? It seems the more she's pushed with certain issues, the bigger a response received.

  Her behavior confuses me in these moments. During this ordeal, she has tried to be the perfect partner—the ideal candidate for a strong marriage. Yet now that I am testing her, I'm seeing her push back. Is there a backbone hidden away in her body only reserved for the hardest of times? If so, I'll find out what it takes to snap her resolve in two.

  In less than twenty-four hours, Katherine will ask herself something she once thought to be impossible. It will dive deep into her brain and burrow down hard, making her scrutinize every aspect of the man she's married. But will she do anything about it?

  16

  Katherine

  After Corey left, I spent an hour on the phone with Annette, telling her everything, as usual, letting her reassure me that all will be fine. It half works.

  Corey didn't come home for another few hours. I don't ask him where he has been when he slides into bed and cuddles up to me. I feel lucky he even still wants to be in the same house as me after the horrible thing I said.

  I turn to him and apologize for the no-children comment as best I can. He dismisses me and says it's fine, that we both said stupid things and that we should move on. I agree and let him continue to hold me, vowing not to fight over such matters again.

  After an hour of curling up to him in silence, I fall asleep.

  The next day, I try to unpack a few more items from the boxes we have strewn about the house. I give up after a short while, opting to relax and spend time with Ava and Corey instead.

  Being the first Saturday of the month, we decide to visit the flea market held in the school's parking lot. We never go looking to buy anything but enjoy digging through people's old belongings. Ava in particular loves finding worn household items she's never seen before so she can ask what they are.

  The morning is cold as expected as a rush of wind carries a cool ocean mist over from the beach. I squeeze my body tight with my thick jacket, keeping a keen eye on Ava as she rushes from one stall to the next. Corey's elbow interlocks with mine as we stroll along. The smell of ground coffee beans in the distance lures me to a small row of food trucks.

  "How about I grab you a latte," Corey says, reading my mind.

  "You're the best," I reply. I could say Corey's being overly nice to make up for our recent arguments, but he's always like this because he's a good man. I need to resist saying anything stupid again. Then this marriage might stand a chance.

  I want to forget the past and focus on the future. It's important that I be the best wife and mother I can not only for Corey and Ava's sake, but to show everyone I know that this hasn't all been a rushed mistake.

  "Mommy, Mommy," Ava shouts out. "Look at this. What is it?" She holds up a small meat grinder. I walk over to her and attempt to explain what the tool is without sounding like an idiot. Ava rotates the rusty handle while the seller stares at us from a foldout chair a few feet away. With both hands in her jacket pockets and a frown on her face, she wills us to leave.

  "Let's put that back, shall we?" I say to Ava before I give the lady in her late fifties a smile. Her stall is laden with random items I'm confident she bought from antique stores, thinking she could make a few bucks. I doubt she ever used such a tool in the kitchen.

  Corey finds us and hands over a latte as we continue down the row of stops.

  "That was fast," I say.

  "I know. I caught a break in the lines. What's her problem?" Corey asks, subtly pointing toward the grumpy lady Ava and I moved away from.

  "The usual. She thought Ava would damage her worthless junk."

  Corey chuckles behind his coffee cup as the woman stares at our small family from a distance. "Let's move on before she throws one of those rusted frying pans our way."

  It's good to see Corey smiling again and back to his normal bubbly self. I feel like we can reclaim what's left of the weekend and start the next week off happy. Maybe our fighting was something newlyweds go through. After the shock of getting married, followed by the fantasy of a honeymoon, returning to reality hit harder than we realized.

  We spend the rest of our time wandering the stalls, sipping our coffees, while Ava enjoys her rummaging. She eventually finds a stuffed toy elephant she begs us to buy. Corey and I both know it will become old news within a week, but it's worth spending those few dollars to see her beautiful smile.

  As one, we stroll back to the car with Ava's new friend making up the fourth member of our group. Corey opens the doors and stops.

  "Something wrong?" I ask.

  "Nothing. I saw a cool coffee mug before I thought about buying. I might go and get it if that's okay with you?"

  "Of course. Go for it. We'll wait for you here."

  Corey gives me his signature grin and a kiss on the cheek. I absorb the love beaming from his eyes the way it should and feel like my old self again. Ava prods me in the stomach with her elephant and makes a trumpet noise. I chase after her at a playful speed and threaten to tickle her.

  After a minute of entertaining Ava, I load her into the car and brush her hair out of her face. I move to the front passenger side of Corey's sedan and climb in. Once I settle into place, I twist around and talk to my daughter to fill the time. "Did you have fun?"

  "Yeah," she says, nodding in one big exaggerated motion.

  "That's good, sweetie. Happy to hear it."

  "Where's Corey?"

  It's strange hearing a child call an adult by their first name when you're a teacher. I wonder if she'll ever come to think of him as her daddy.

  "He's buying a funny coffee mug for school. He should be here any second, baby."

  Ava doesn't seem to care about my answer as she plays with her elephant, so I turn around. I pull out my cell and browse Facebook while I wait. An amusing post catches my eye, so I tag Corey in it only to hear his phone beep right next to me in the center console. He's always forgetting to take it with him. I see my post alert sitting on his lock screen, waiting to be read. Sometimes it feels strange to 'tag' my husband in something I want him to see when I could show it to him in person. I guess this new impersonal way we socialize is how things are done now.

  Before I pull my eyes away from Corey's cell, it beeps again as a text comes onto his screen, pushing my Facebook notification down. Normally, I wouldn't think much of him receiving a text, but I realize it's from an unknown number.

  I take a peek around and don't find Corey nearby. I know I shouldn't be sneaking a look at his cell, but I can't help myself. I pick up his phone and see the message come up again. My heart nearly falls out of my chest when I read th
e words on his phone. So much so, I check it twice.

  I'm so glad you're back from the honeymoon. Give me a call ;)

  Never has a winking eye sent such a sharp pain through my body. I accidentally touch the text notification, unlocking Corey's phone. He has no passcode or fingerprint option enabled, so the messaging app opens right up, sending out tiny packets of information into the world to the sender, telling them that someone has read their words.

  "Shit." The cell drops from my fingertips and clatters about in the center console.

  Ava does an exaggerated gasp. "Mommy said a bad word."

  "I'm sorry, sweetie. I didn't mean to." I turn to Ava as my hand fumbles around for Corey's cell. The device finds its way back into my hands, unlocked to the message sent by an unknown person.

  Figuring I've done the damage by reading the text, I try to scroll up to see what else has been shared between Corey and this mystery person, but I find nothing. Not a single word.

  Who the hell sent this text?

  17

  Katherine has no respect for privacy. She never has. I know she won't be able to resist reading that text the instant it alerts the world of its existence. The important question I have now is what will she do once she reads it?

  I can imagine her face as her mind attempts to rationalize what's in front of her. Her forehead will wrinkle as she rereads the text ten times over, hoping to stop creeping doubt from entering and settling a sickening image into her brain.

  My husband couldn't possibly be cheating on me, could he? That question must be flying through Katherine's mind in circles with no answer to reassure her fragile being that her worst fear hasn't come true. And I know she won't think of the message as some innocent line from a friend or coworker. Why would the sender be unknown? This seamless idea works on so many levels.

  I check the burner phone in my hand and see that someone has read the text less than a minute after I sent it. Now is the perfect time to sneak up to the car and enjoy the look on Katherine's face without her knowing.

  Pushing through one moron after the next at this cesspool of a flea market, I walk around the back of a few food trucks. The people in this town seem so happy to waste their hard-earned money buying crappy pre-made food served in cardboard that has been slopped from a bucket. As long as the truck has a pun name and an interesting enough vibe, they will give cash to the operators hand over fist.

  I use the side of a gourmet hotdog food truck to sneak my head around its end at the parking lot. Katherine and Ava sit alone, waiting. Ava is preoccupied with her new stuffed animal she didn't deserve. I never got random toys bought for me when I was a kid. This little brat will grow up expecting the world. I focus on Katherine in the front seat and see her frozen in place with a look of devastation plastered across her eyes.

  I let out a chuckle as a huge grin stretches out my lips. There's a cell in her hand that doesn't belong to her. Her pupils dance left then right again and again as if she is reading a novel in fast-forward.

  "Excuse me. You can't be back there," calls out a voice.

  Spinning round, I spot one of the hotdog workers staring at me from the open door of their truck. Without saying a word, I walk by him and out into the flea market. I glance over my shoulder as the guy lets me see his outstretched arms begging me to explain myself. I ignore him and continue blending into the crowd, not needing to waste a single moment explaining myself to some jackass.

  The image of Katherine's face flashes into my mind, fueling the grin I can't seem to control. How powerful a few words can be. How cataclysmic an impact a semicolon and a closing parenthesis have when combined to form a winking smiley face. I could send a second text and push the dark thoughts clouding her brain deeper in, but I want Katherine paralyzed with uncertainty.

  It's more crippling not knowing one way or another if her husband is being unfaithful. Doubt is so powerful it can turn a person into an indecisive mess in a short amount of time. Rather than splintering her world into tiny pieces, I want to watch it break in two.

  Katherine's reaction is going to determine the next stage of my plan. How will she handle her new problem?

  18

  Katherine

  I deleted the text before Corey returned. I had no choice. He would have found it eventually and discovered I had read a private message on his phone. The text was new and unknown to him, so I figured the best idea was to wipe it from existence.

  To keep my story straight, I also deleted the tag from Facebook so he wouldn't wonder why he didn't get a notification on his cell when he finally saw the post. I couldn't have him suspecting that I'd touched his phone. The next thought I have as Corey drives us home is whether he was expecting the message today. And who the hell sent it?

  I need to know what the text means more than anything else if I want this marriage to last more than a few days. A million possibilities rattle around in my head, making too much noise. One crazy idea attempts to compete with another as I do what I can to silence the chatter.

  I could scream, but Corey is sitting next to me without so much as a guilty twitch on his face. Was he expecting the text? Or is this all a simple misunderstanding? Give me a call ;)

  Should I just come out and tell him what happened? I kind of destroyed that opportunity when I deleted the message. I'm so stupid. Why do I always pick the worst solution for a problem? I swear I'm cursed.

  Maybe the text went to the wrong number. It was from an unknown sender. Maybe it's a cruel coincidence that the person spoke about Corey having returned from a honeymoon. It wouldn't be the first time in my life that such a strange thing gave me crazy assumptions to worry about.

  Ava sings to her elephant in the back seat, breaking my unfocused thoughts. I can't help but worry for her if there's any truth behind that text. Could she handle Corey going away and no longer being a part of her world if this all goes south?

  I shudder, unsure why I'm even thinking about such possibilities. I still don't know a damn thing about this text.

  "Everything okay?" Corey asks. "You seem tense."

  A forced smile finds its way to my face as I answer him. "I'm fine. Just feeling a bit off for some reason. Don't stress about me."

  "How about we get some burgers for a late lunch on the way home? Would that help?"

  "Yah! Burgers!" Ava shouts, making the choice for me.

  "We don't have to do that," I say.

  "Seems like Ava's already decided for us," Corey says with a chuckle.

  "Burgers it is." I stop my false protest. It's clear something is bothering me from my body language alone. I can't let on that I have a problem sitting on my chest, weighing me down, until I recognize what it is I'm dealing with.

  Could I be overreacting to a few basic words? Am I searching for problems that don't exist because deep down I feel unworthy of this marriage? I can't tell anymore. All I understand is that I need to pull myself together before I ruin this day.

  "What burger are you going to have, Ava?" Corey asks.

  "Um, I don't know. What can I get?"

  Corey lists off some options to Ava as I drown out their conversation. I have to focus and not compromise what we have here as a family over a stupid text. Corey wouldn't cheat on me. I know him. He's a gentle soul who values and respects Ava and I too much to treat us in such a way. I have to remind myself of this anytime that winking smiley face enters my mind.

  Before I can piece together the fractured thoughts in my head, we arrive home with burgers and fries ready to eat. I don't even remember stopping off to get them. I was too busy being stuck in a world I had hoped I'd walked away from. Surely, I haven't fallen back into the past. When I glance to Corey, I see Ava's dad take over his face.

  Peter was about the worst human being a person could ever stand to be around. He treated me like garbage on a good day. No one had less respect for me in their life. In Peter's eyes, I was his property, until I fell pregnant with Ava.

  He freaked out the second I told him abou
t the baby. I had hoped it might have settled him down and made him focus on steadying himself into a career over the string of jobs he could never hold down.

  It always seemed to be someone else's fault whenever Peter got fired or quit without notice. The world was against him and I was too stupid to see that. Every time this happened, he took it out on me. Not physically, but mentally. He berated me, tore me down, and made sure I knew that I wasn't worthy of being loved.

  For the longest time I believed him. I thought he had to be right. Why would anyone want to be with me? He was nice enough to take on the burden that was being my boyfriend. Throw in the pregnancy on top of everything else and we had the makings for nothing but a dramatic and explosive outcome.

  Some days it still gets to me that Peter is Ava's dad. Don't get me wrong, I love her more than anything in this world, but I wish his disturbed DNA wasn't in her body. All I can do is raise her to be a kind person and surround her with loving people. She deserves so much more than the likes of the deadbeat father she's never met.

  "Are you coming?" Corey asks me.

  I glance up with an open mouth to find Corey and Ava staring at me outside of the car, halfway to the front door.

  After a few seconds, I remember we're home.

  "Come on. We want to eat our food before it gets cold," he says.

  "Sorry?" I look down to discover the paper bags in my lap with no memory of them ever landing there. I didn't even notice the heat pouring through to my skin. With a quick shake of my head, I unbuckle my seat belt and climb out of the car.