Chapter 258: If either party cheats

Martin’s hardened expression faltered for barely a second.

It was small enough that someone who had not lived with him for years might have missed it, but Marion did not. She had spent too long learning every change in his face, every warning in his tone, and every movement that told her when to stop speaking before an argument became worse.

This time, she refused to stop. "I have never asked you anything before," Marion said, forcing the words past the tightness in her throat. "I never questioned where you went or what you did because I trusted you... Now I am not sure anymore... Martin, give me a reason I can still trust you... I want to know." She looked directly into his eyes, searching for the emotions that had once defined their love. She sought the tenderness he had shown her in the past. But all she found was a distance that made her heart sink further, reminding her of how much had changed between them. "What are you truly doing on your weekends? You never answer my calls or respond to my msgs, especially on weekends. Before, you used to stay home on weekends. But suddenly you found new friends, and since then you have started getting annoyed with kids and me a lot.... I wonder what we are doing? Do you even love me? Do you still want this family?"

Martin took a step backwards, taken aback by his wife’s accusation. The movement seemed involuntary, as though the question had caught him somewhere he had not expected to be touched. He recovered almost immediately, but Marion had already seen it.

Something cold settled inside her stomach.

All those weekends he had disappeared, claiming he was with friends fishing, or at some truck race, for drinks, for barbecue, for celebration.... were they all lies? The way he had grown increasingly irritated whenever he came also drastically increased.

He started shouting at kids for trivial errors quite often, as if his patience was wearing thin as the days went by. The situation reached a new low when he raised his hand to their youngest daughter, all because she had stubbornly asked him to take her to the playground. Her innocent request, filled with the hope of a child’s joy, had been met with an outburst that left everyone in the household reeling.

For the first time, those separate things began arranging themselves into something Marion did not want to see. And the thought hurt more than she expected.

"How dare you accuse me of something like that?" Martin snapped at Marion at once, his shock quickly turning into anger. "I come home every day, don’t I? Have I ever, for a single night, not come home? You see me here every bloody evening, and now you are accusing me of adultery?"

Martin’s words failed to dispel the suspicions gnawing at Mation’s mind. "Martin, answer me. Are you spending your weekends with females?"

"Women?" Martin sneered. "Who is filling your ears? You didn’t accuse me of seeing someone, but you mentioned women...." Martin narrowed his eyes; why did Marion speak of many females rather than a female? Apart from Cixi, she doesn’t meet anyone. And Cixi never comes out of her home when she has off from work. "Who is talking nonsense about me?... Maybe I should be asking where this sudden suspicion is coming from. Perhaps you are the one having an affair, and now you want to throw the accusation at me first."

Marion stared at him with widened eyes. Any other day, that accusation would have frightened her into defending herself immediately. She would have listed where she went, who she spoke to and how little time she had even to sit alone, let alone meet another man. Yes, she met Binge because he didn’t leave her a choice. He kept sending desserts to her place.

"Let me remind you of something, Martin." Her voice had become quieter. "There is a clause in our prenuptial agreement about infidelity." Martin’s expression changed. "If either party cheats and becomes a reason for divorce," she continued, "the person responsible has to compensate the other."

When Marion had signed that agreement before their marriage, she had never paid much attention to clauses about separation or adultery. Martin had told her they would never need any of it. For his parents’ sake, she needed to sign the prenup. He had held her hands, spoken about loving her forever. Marion had believed him because she had believed they were different. She had believed they were one of those couples who found each other once and remained together for life.

She had believed they were soulmates.

But how stupid that word felt now. If only the woman she had been, then could have seen the man standing in front of her.

Martin’s face turned almost ashen. The change disappeared quickly as he straightened himself, but it had already given Marion another answer he had not intended to give. "You know what?" Martin muttered, grabbing his jacket from where he had left it. "I am sick of looking at you."

He snatched up his keys and wallet, walking away.

Marion remained where she was. "You still haven’t answered me."

Martin did not look back. A few seconds later, the front door slammed hard enough to shake the silence through the house.

Marion stood frozen. All the courage she had summoned while facing him seemed to leave her body with that sound. Her knees weakened first. She reached for the edge of the table, but her fingers missed it, and she slowly sank to the floor.

She covered her face with her trembling hands. Before her first sob escaped, Marion immediately pressed her lips together. The children were still in the house. They could not hear her like this. She did not want them to come out of their room and find their mother collapsed on the floor because their father had walked out after humiliating her. It’s not that her children have not heard or seen how Martin treated her. But she had never cried infront of her children. She wanted to remain a strong woman in their eyes, someone they could always rely on.

Her shoulders shook while she fought to keep every sound trapped inside her chest. The tears came harder the more she tried to control them, slipping between her fingers until her palms were wet.

She wiped her face with the backs of her hands and forced herself onto her feet.

Her legs still felt weak beneath her, but she managed to reach the bathroom. She stepped inside, locked the door behind her and turned on the tap before the next sob escaped and turned on the radio a little louder.

Only then did Marion allow herself to break.

She lowered herself onto the cold floor beside the bathtub, brought both hands over her face again and cried without trying to hold it back anymore. The sound of the water and music covered her sobs while everything she had buried for years finally came out at once.