Dave sighed heavily after he climbed into his truck. The last thing he’d ever expected to happen in his life was for the people he loved most to get mixed up into the whole kindred business. It didn’t bother him as much to know that his son and his best friend had been ghouled. In fact, he was confident they would be able to handle its pros and cons. No, what saddened him most was that his goddaughter had been turned.
At least her sire seems decent he thought as he started the truck and drove off. For now anyway. As he drove, he turned his thoughts instead to home. He’d told his wife, Karen, that he’d planned to be out late, so not to worry about cooking for the two of them. He smiled a little, thinking of the surprise he’d give her by showing up early. He stopped long enough to pick up a bottle of wine for the two of them to enjoy before continuing home. He’d been gone most of the day, only home long enough with Michael to have lunch, and that had been a couple of hours at best. It was now three or four hours past sunset.
His thoughts were lingering on happier times past when he pulled up to his house, and noticed an unfamiliar vehicle in the driveway. He turned off the motor and coasted up to the front of the house and parked, surveying the yard and house as he went. There were no signs of a break-in, and from the outside, nothing seemed amiss. He reached toward his back, checking to make sure that he hadn’t removed his gun from the holster that rested at his back. Finding it there, he popped open the snap, and kept one hand ready to grab for the gun, and used the other to test the door – it was unlocked.
He eased the door open carefully so as not to make a sound, closing it just as carefully behind him. The sounds he was hearing didn’t register at first, and when they did, he refused to believe what he was hearing. Needing to know for sure, he made his way upstairs, not bothering to be as silent as he had been – his normal footfalls wouldn’t be heard over the noise anyhow. As he followed the sounds, he found himself covering the familiar path to his bedroom.
The door was about a third of the way open, so it was easy enough for him to look in without arousing suspicion to those behind it. Faced with the proof of what lay in front of him, he went into a state of shock and disbelief. There, in front of him, was his wife, engaging in sexual activity and behavior she had never partaken in with him, with a man he knew only vaguely from his pre-marriage days, as someone in undergrad when he was in graduate school. Gradually, the grip on the bottle of wine loosened, until it fell, shattering on the hardwood floor in the hall.
“Karen…?” he said, his voice sounding lost and far away.
“Dave!” she said, scrambling to cover herself with a sheet from the bed. “What are you doing home early?”
He didn’t answer. He looked from her to the man that had, until recently, been quite…involved with his wife. “Reeves?” he asked, still in disbelief. He felt his wife’s hand on his chest, and with a small amount of force, she pushed him into the hall and shut the door in his face. He turned and headed back downstairs in a stupor, looking back towards the stairs several minutes later when he heard footsteps. Karen was coming downstairs, her lover in tow. He made a show of giving her a lingering goodbye, giving Dave a sly grin before leaving and promising to return. Once he was gone, Dave looked to Karen for answers, though found himself unable to find the right question.
“Oh, don’t give me that look.” she snapped at him, folding her arms over her chest. “It’s not like you were giving it to me.”
“Not giving….? Karen, you won’t let me do anything to you.” he said, finding his voice. “For fuck’s sake woman, I’m lucky to get sex a couple times a year because you always tell me no. It’s been that way for I don’t know how long now.”
“Because I don’t want you touching me!” she yelled, then collected herself as after a sigh. “Since the cat’s out of the bag anyway, I might as well tell you – I never wanted you. Not to be romantic with you, not to be sexual with you…hell, the only reason I married you is because my parents made me!”
“What…what the hell are you talking about?”
“My parents didn’t approve of anyone I liked…but out of everyone I hung out with, they liked you for god knows what reason. I didn’t want to marry you, but they told me if I didn’t, they’d cut me out of their will.”
“You…you agreed to marry me just so you could get a god damn inheritance?”
“Do you have any idea how fucking substantial that inheritance is?” she demanded.”Why do you think I made you sign that pre-nup? There’s no way in hell I was going to share any of that with you once they kicked the bucket.”
“You….just how fucking shallow are you? Jesus Christ, Karen.”
“Oh, grow up, Dave. Honestly, I don’t know how the hell you stayed clueless all these years.”
He closed his eyes and took a few breaths. “How long have you been having an affair?”
“Long enough.”
“How long Karen?” he reiterated.
She smirked. “A good twenty years, at least.”
“Twenty….we’ve been married twenty-three years! What the hell is wrong with you?”
She rolled her eyes in response, and walked over to the bar to pour herself a drink. Dave watched her before continuing. “Does Michael know?”
She scoffed. “Of course not – and you don’t need to tell him, either.”
“Why not? He deserves to know, I think.”
Another eye roll. “Well for one, he’s not your son.”
He froze, studying her face for signs of a lie, praying he would find one. “I don’t believe you.” he said in a low tone.
“Idiot.” she muttered. Setting her glass down, she walked over to the wall, pulling the large television up to reveal a wall safe. She input the code and opened it, removing a manila envelope. She approached him with it, and thrust it at his chest. He put his hand over it so it didn’t fall, watching as she returned to her drink. Looking down, he could tell the envelope was a bit worn from age. Fumbling with the tabs a little, he opened it, withdrawing the contents. Inside were a few sheets of paper, containing DNA results.
“I swabbed Michael’s mouth when he was a baby and had him tested so I knew what medical history to give – then had the doctor compare it to samples of the potential fathers.”
He heard her, but didn’t look at her. He was too preoccupied with the results in front of him. One page contained an evaluation of the markers between himself and his son. The other was an evaluation of the markers between his son and his wife’s lover. Michael’s DNA was a 99% match to that of her lover. He clutched the papers and envelope, crumpling them slightly. Anger and pain washed over him, and he looked at Karen. Here was this woman who had deceived him for two decades plus, a woman who, he now realized, looking back, had on more than one occasion remarked in slightly more than minute detail her attraction to other men. With this, he recalled her adoration for one man in particular.
“I couldn’t help but notice,” he said, carefully controlling the tone of his voice “that Reeves resembles Claude to an extent.”
She stomped over to him, glass in hand. With a glare, she raised a hand and slapped him as hard as she could. “How dare you.”
“How dare I?” he said, “How dare I?” he said, his voice louder. “You’re the one that’s been having the affair! I’ve spent the better part of my god damn life trying to please you, yet you want nothing to do with me! For fuck’s sake, I don’t even jerk off or watch porn anymore because you said it makes you feel insecure!”
“Don’t raise your voice at me!” she yelled back.
“I’ll raise my voice if I damn well please in my own god damn house!”
“Your house? It’s in my name, because my parents bought it for us!”
“I’m the one that pays for everything because your lazy ass always comes up with a convenient excuse not to work!”
“Don’t fucking patronize me, David!” she snapped, shoving him as hard as she could. He stumbled backward slightly, but it was enough to trip over, and fall through the glass coffee table.
“Asshole!” she screamed. “Look at what you did to my table!” Angrily, she hauled off and punched him in the face. He saw it coming, but he forced his instinct to fight back at bay, knowing he could hurt her horribly without intending to. So the punch landed, and he could tell that his eye would likely swell and bruise. He tried to speak again, but she kept hitting him, beating out years of pent up anger and aggression on his flesh. He let her, not even hearing her words, but instead thought about Michael, glad that he was on his way to New Orleans, and not here to witness this; not here to have his world crumble further.
Eventually, Karen moved away from him, breathless and disheveled. He waited for her to turn her back before he slowly crawled backward through the broken glass and stood up when he was far enough away that he might be able to dodge another attack. His eye on her, he picked a few shards from the palm of his right hand, and removed the phone from his pocket. First checking to make sure it wasn’t broken beyond a cracked screen before calling 911 to report the abuse.
Karen, upon hearing the call, grew angry, but she managed to keep herself in check. She looked at him with a smirk.”It won’t help.” she said, the smirk turning to a grin that disturbed him on some level. He proceeded to watch, horrified, as she proceeded to hurt herself in any way she could think of.
When the police arrived, she put her acting skills to good use while EMTs looked him over, picking out the glass with tweezers while she tearfully told them how her husband was an abusive monster, but that she loved him and stayed with him, hoping to reform him and keep him from hurting their son. It was the final straw. He hardened his heart, and looked on as she gave an Oscar worthy performance. When a couple of the officers came over to get his side of the story, he told the truth, plainly and simply.
It didn’t take an analyst to see that they were skeptical. He waited until he knew Karen could overhear them before speaking to them more. “I have proof, Officers. We have a home security system.” It pleased him to a degree to see her freeze as he led the two officers to his office, and showed them how to pull up the footage. There, they could hear the argument. They could see, plain as day, her throw the first punch. He made a copy for them, and when they asked, he said to arrest and prosecute her.
He watched as they led her off, spitting curses at him all the while. The EMTs finished up with him not long after, soon leaving him alone. The silence in the house was palpable, and within five minutes he collapsed on the couch, and took another five trying to get himself together. Composed, he looked up a place to hire the best damn lawyer he could afford, and settled on the local branch of the Decacious firm. He wasn’t expecting an answer, but was happy to get one, asking to be connected to someone who was good at closing loopholes and specialized in divorce, making it clear he was willing to pay extra for expedience.
A lawyer agreed to review evidence he had, gather information from the police department, and see what they could do on the judicial end of things before arriving at the house. In the meantime, he called up some of his employees, offering them overtime pay for a few hours’ work. He left, long enough to rent a U-Haul trailer he could, then drove back to the house in time to meet the guys from work. There were a half dozen of them there to help him, and between them all, they were able to effectively and efficiently pack his and Michael’s belongings. He didn’t worry about furniture or household appliances or anything of that nature – he was primarily worried about smaller things, and things not so easily replaced.
Michael’s things were packed and put into the back of David’s truck, under the hardtop, to be shipped to New Orleans later. His things – his tools, clothes, computer and whatever else he wanted – were packed into the trailer. He thanked his employees and paid them up front, as the process of packing and going through things had taken two, maybe three hours.
While he waited, he opened his laptop, and went online, cancelling the credit cards in his name that she was able to use, removed himself from their joint bank account, took her off his car and health insurance, and made notations to his living will to ensure that when the time came that he had to fake his death (assuming he remained a ghoul), that she received nothing. The next step was to cancel the utilities in his name: gas, electric, cable, netflix and so on. That filled the remaining hour long wait for the lawyer rather well. A wait, he soon learned, that was well worth it.
The lawyer had reviewed the evidence the police had obtained, including the DNA results. In addition, he had a copy of the police report, and a restraining order against both Karen and her lover. He reviewed Dave’s copy of the prenuptial agreement, and assured him that Karen would be unable to go after him for any of his business assets. More impressively, the lawyer had managed to secure a judge willing to sign off on the divorce – they just needed to get Karen to sign it. As a bonus, the lawyer had a laymen’s terms document along with a disc containing evidence of the confession and attack that he could leave for her parents, and a request that they re-think their will, and leave her share of the inheritance to their grandson.
A long night became longer when they headed down to the station, where Karen was being held on bail. Dave was advised to wait, and the lawyer spoke with her. He had no idea what sort of magic the lawyer worked, but he had gotten Karen to sign the papers with relatively little fuss, as well as a document signing over custodial rights for the remaining few months Michael was to remain a minor, as well as a promise not to seek alimony from him, due to her affair with who, it turned out, happened to be a well-to-do doctor.
Thanking the lawyer, Dave gave him contact information, then headed to his truck. He’d decided earlier in the evening that a hotel was probably a bad idea. Depression was likely to set in, and it was entirely probably that he might try to shoot himself. No – he drove to his best friend’s place instead, parking out front, bringing in only a duffel bag and a fat manila envelope. He entered quietly, using the key Claude had given him long ago in order to check on Mandy. He set his bag down in a living room chair, and the envelope on the coffee table, first turning on an end table lamp on its lowest setting. Maintaining stealth as much as possible so as not to wake Claude, knowing his friendly badly needed the sleep, he moved about the house, securing a spare pillow and blanket, setting those on the couch before moving to the liquor cabinet, where he liberated some of the hardest stuff there.
He drank the better portion of a nearly full bottle – about two thirds – popping some ibprofuen at some point to try and ease the pain he was starting to feel from his wife’s beating. He stopped drinking only when he knew he would soon pass out, taking a minute to quickly scrawl a note on a piece of paper, placing it on top of the manila envelope before then placing a USB drive on top of the note to keep it in place.
Claude,
It’s nearing five in the morning, and I’m about to pass out. You and I both know I can be difficult to wake. Answers lie within the envelope and the drive – peruse at your leisure to figure it it all out. Hope you got the rest you needed.
He set the pen down and flopped onto the couch, covering himself with the blanket, managing to adjust the pillow enough to get him reasonable comfortable before passing out entirely.