Page 123 of In the Air Tonight

“I’m not. I’m the same man I’ve always been.”

“You’re a liar!And a rapist. I want you out of here. I don’t care where you go or what you do, but you’re not welcome here.”

“Caroline, please. Listen to me.”

“I never want to see you again. Take your stuff and get out so your children and I have a chance of salvaging our lives.”

“You can’t take my kids away from me.”

“Have you lost your mind? Of course I can.You’ve been charged with sex crimes!There’s not a judge out there who’d let you near those kids.”

“Please… They mean everything to me. You know that.”

“I have nothing else to say to you. Get your shit, get out and stay gone, or I’ll take you to court to keep you away from us.”

She brushes past me on her way out of the room.

The door slams shut on our marriage.

I fall to my knees and weep.

Caroline

NOW

“I need you to get us out of here,” I tell my sister after the confrontation with Ryder. My heart has shattered into a million pieces. “Please, Maggie. Get us out of here.”

She came running last night when I called to tell her my husband had been arrested in front of our children, their friends and the friends’ parents, all of whom looked at me like I’d suddenly gone rancid or something after he was led away in cuffs.

Maggie hops into action, rounding up the kids and taking them to their rooms to pack. “We’re going on a fun vacation,” she tells them with forced enthusiasm.

“I don’t want to go on a vacation,” Miles says, sounding tearful. “I want to go back to school and see my friends.”

He doesn’t know yet that he’ll never be able to go back to that school or those friends. How will I ever explain to him that his entire life as he knew it is over, starting with the loss of the man he worshipped from the day he was born?

It’s unbearable.

If you’d asked me this time yesterday if I’d be leaving Ryder and taking our children with me to get them away from him, I would’ve thought you were out of your mind.

What a difference a day makes.

When I saw the police officers walking toward us, I thought they were there for Michael’s father, who’d been accused of domestic battery last year and was prohibited from coming within a thousand feet of his wife, Lori, and their children. I’d seen him lurking in the distance and figured the cops were there to keep him from getting any closer.

Imagine my shock when I realized they were there formyhusband, not Lori’s.

As I wait for Ryder to leave so I can pack my things, I don’t know what to do with myself. Nothing could’ve prepared me for a nightmare like this. I’m one of those wives that other women love to hate, still in love with her husband after more than ten years together with never a bad word to say about him. At least Iwasthat wife. Now I don’t know what or who I am.

Devastated.

Shocked.

Infuriated.

I’m all those things as well as crushingly disappointed to learn the man I’ve loved with all my heart is a liar and a rapist.He’s many other things, too—a loving husband and father, a hard-working provider and a wonderful son, brother, uncle and friend. But what do any of those other things matter now that the truth has been revealed?

He told me about being accused of sexually assaulting a girl he went to high school with. I asked him point blank if he’d done it. He looked me in the eyes and said no. I wonder if I ever knew him at all.

Oh, God… The fundraiser we host every year, dedicated to the memory of Ryder’s beloved high school girlfriend… I can’t very well reach out to her brother, Marty, and tell him we’re not going to be there. I’m sure he’s heard about Ryder’s arrest by now.

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