Page 53 of His Loving Wife

“Kate, do you consider yourself an honest person?”

The question caught her off guard. She shifted in her seat. “Yes. I’ve never lied to Andrew. I’ve always been faithful to him.”

“To him. By your own admission, your relationship with Andrew started when you were still dating Paul.”

The couple looked at each other, searching for what, they didn’t know. Kate turned back to Dr. Sutton.

“We were kids. My relationship with Paul was nothing more than a college fling. It’s nothing like what I have with Andrew.”

In the corner of her eye, Kate caught Andrew smiling. He quickly covered his mouth with his hand and looked away. She wondered if perhaps this was what he had been waiting to hear all along.

“I imagine you felt that way at the time. You’ve probably always felt that way. I wonder, if after Paul did what he did to your family, if you started to feel guilty. If you thought maybe you had brought this on yourself for how you acted back then.”

Kate looked down. She didn’t want to admit there was truth in Dr. Sutton’s statement. She didn’t want to admit that same line she’d heard caroling in her head since that night.This is your fault. This is your fault. This is your fault.

“What happened to your family isn’t your fault,” Dr. Sutton said, as if reading Kate’s mind. “Nothing you did, whether it was last year or ten years or twenty years ago, justifies what Paul did. By all accounts, he has mental health issues and concocted this theory out of nothing, which put your family in real danger. But I wonder if maybe you think you deserved for Paul to come after you, and that’s why you were so hurt by Andrew’s actions. Because he was basically confirming your own fears.”

Kate cut her eyes at Andrew. He was watching her intently, his eyes hopeful. Perhaps they were inching closer to the answers they’d come there to find.

“I don’t regret what I did back then, but I regret hurting Paul. I hate feeling like what I did to him might have colored his relationships moving forward. That maybe he cared for me much more than I cared for him, and I didn’t know it at the time. And I regret not telling Andrew after the first time I ran into him. Our interaction was innocent, nostalgic. But again, I think it meant something different to Paul. He had darker intentions. Maybe if I’d been more willing to admit how troubling his actions were, it wouldn’t have happened.”

Dr. Sutton nodded. Andrew remained silent, still staring at the floor. Kate pulled on the sleeves of her cardigan, wrapping it tighter around her body.

“I think you need to acknowledge the guilt Kate is already carrying with her,” Dr. Sutton said to Andrew. “You have to be on her side. What you did with the paternity test made it seem like you were backing Paul’s account of what happened, not your wife’s.”

“I understand. I know what I did was wrong, but I still wanted to tell you about it.” He looked at Kate. “I don’t want any secrets moving forward. That’s why I told you about the test in the first place.”

He reached for Kate’s hand, but she didn’t respond. He kept trying.

“I don’t blame you for what happened, Kate. You didn’t cause it. And if anything, you saved us that night. If it weren’t for you…”

Kate jerked her head in his direction. She was watching his face, all the subtle movements. They were on the precipice of addressing everything that happened, and after so many months trying to block it out, Kate couldn’t believe it was actually about to be breached.

“Explain what you mean. How did Kate save you?”

Andrew looked to Kate, like he expected her to answer. She didn’t. She needed to hear him say it. His posture stiffened, and he took back his hand.

“I was in complete shock. I was dead asleep when the intruder broke in. It all feels like a dream, really. Still to this day. I’m not sure I even know what happened until after it was already over.”

Kate’s eyes narrowed, her mind traveling back to that night. Not the threat of Paul. Not the terror coursing through her bloodstream. Her mind revisited Andrew, comparing the man in pajamas to the man sitting next to her.

“Kate, what was your reaction when the intruder came in?”

They’d talked about what happened, but not exactly what either of them had done. Maybe that was what had been bothering Kate the most after all this time. Maybe that was why they were really here.

“I opened the door. I confronted him. I made sure Willow and Noah were okay.”

“And Andrew?”

He looked down, opening his mouth but only breathing out sounds. Then finally, “Like I said, I was in shock. I don’t even remember—”

“You did nothing.”

Kate couldn’t hold the words back. Not anymore. She couldn’t help her husband carry on this charade any longer. Not after what he did to her with the paternity test. Not after he’d pouted and stewed and treated her like she had done something wrong this entire time. She’d been wanting to say those words for months but couldn’t. Or perhaps wouldn’t. Maybe she needed this. Maybe she needed this neutral space where she could express her memory of that night. Where she could express the truth.

Dr. Sutton’s eyes bulged. “What was that, Kate?”

Kate locked eyes with Andrew, refused to look elsewhere. “You did nothing. We were both shocked. We were both afraid. But when that man came after me, came after our children, you just sat there. You froze.”

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