Page 1 of Finding Jacob
CHAPTERONE
“Anna, I bagged these up separately,” Carol said. She handed me a pair of red lace panties in a sandwich bag. I stared at them for the longest time until sheer embarrassment had me reach out for them.
“Jesus, sorry! You didn’t wash them, did you?” I asked, collecting the rest of the dry-cleaning.
“No. Found them in Harry’s suit pocket.” She laughed as she helped me load the suits, shirts, dresses, and trousers into my car parked on yellow lines outside her shop.
I threw the knickers on the passenger seat and climbed in, my cheeks flaming. It wasn’t from embarrassment, however, it was from anger.
Those weren’t my knickers.
I drove home and allowed Monica, my housekeeper, to take the washing upstairs although I instructed her to just leave Harry’s on the bed.
“I think he needs to take them to his place,” I said through gritted teeth.
It had been five months ago that I’d discovered he’d had an affair. I never got to know with whom, and that grated on me. We’d talked and I’d decided to give him one chance. I bagged up the knickers I’d brought in and looked at them. He’d just blown that one chance.
I sent Monica home early, promising I was okay, and I just wanted to cook a quiet dinner myself that evening. She was like a mother hen, and I loved her, I didn’t want to subject her to the vitriol Harry was going to receive the minute he walked through the door.
I decided to get proactive. I packed all the clothes he left at my house, the toiletries and crap he seemed to bemoving in. He even had a photograph of his mother on the bedside cabinet. I placed that in a holdall, a cheap nasty one I’d let him have, and zipped it up. I left it by the front door.
I busied myself withmakingdinner, and eventually, I heard him come through the front door.
“Anna, I’m home,” he called out, and just hearing him use the wordhomeroiled my stomach.
“I’m cooking tonight,” I replied, faking a jolly tone to my voice.
“Oh, that sounds nice. I’ll shower first.”
“Don’t bother, it’s nearly ready. Come and eat first.”
He came into the kitchen and stood behind me. He looked over my shoulder at pots bubbling away and kissed my cheek.
“Sit down,” I said. When he’d moved away from me, I pulled the bag from the drawer I was leaning against and placed it on a plate. I then added the engagement ring he’d recently presented to me on top. I turned and put that plate in front of him and took a seat opposite. I picked up my filled glass of red wine. “Care to explain?”
He swallowed hard, stammered a couple of times, and then lied.
“They’re from…before. I’m so sorry, my darling, I thought I’d gotten rid of everything relating to her.”
I took a sip from my glass and smiled at him. “Liar. Those were in your suit pocket and that suit has been cleaned twice sinceThe Slut.” As I didn’t know her name or any details about her, The Slut seemed an appropriate title.
“They can’t have,” he stammered and had the audacity to pick them up as if to study them. “Are you sure they aren’t yours?”
“I wouldn’t wear something so cheap and nasty,” I replied. “Key,” I said, holding out my hand.
“Huh?”
“Key. My. Key. I want it back.”
“I don’t…what are you saying?”
“We’re done. I gave you one chance and you’ve blown it. I want you out of my house. Your clothes are by the front door, and I want my key back.”
“I don’t fucking believe you. You won’t even give me a chance to explain,” he shouted as he pushed back the chair to make that scrape he knew I hated. I did the same.
“Don’t you dare! You will not treat me with such disrespect. You can’t keep your cock in your own pants, you got caught…again…and you think you can shout at me?” My voice rose way louder than his had.
“You’re getting hysterical,” he said.
