Page 3 of Am I the Only One

William leads Tripp away to introduce him to a few old colleagues from his days when he held political office, leaving me to mingle alone. It doesn’t take long until I’m joined by few wives of my husband’s colleagues. These aren’t friends by choice, but necessity. When I married Tripp, the women welcomed me into their sorority because that was what was required of them. It was what their husbands expected.

The evening draws on, and I find myself scanning the room for Tripp, not having seen him in nearly an hour. My smile holds with the women, but on the inside, my frustration with my husband grows.

“Please excuse me,” I politely interject. “It was lovely seeing you all tonight. Thank you for coming, but I should greet some of the other guests.”

Wanting a moment to myself, I set down my champagne flute and slowly make my way to the other side of the house. I close the bathroom door softly behind me and take my time freshening up. I spend an extra few minutes behind the heavy mahogany door, checking my makeup and hair, but I know I need to return to the party.

As I open the door to the restroom, I expect to hear the soft tunes from the baby grand piano in the living room, but instead, I hear a woman’s laughter from down the hall. It’s odd that anyone aside from family would be in this section of the house, so I head toward the muffled voices. Approaching the cracked door to one of the spare bedrooms, my breath catches in my throat when I peek in to find Tripp with one of his staff.

Olivia.

His campaign scheduler.

My skin pricks in chills as I find my husband cupping her cheek in his hand. The heaviness of my gut at the sight turns me lightheaded, but I can’t look away. It isn’t that I’m shocked to see Tripp with another woman; I’ve been suspicious of it for a long time.

Too many unexplained late nights.

Too many cancelled dates.

Too many days without a kiss, a touch, a look.

I’ve yet to see it with my own two eyes, though, and it isn’t something he openly flaunts like other politicians. Quite frankly, I’m peeved that he would choose an event like this to be so blatantly disrespectful and risk being caught. Rage and jealously boil from beneath the surface, furious at the man Tripp has turned into. A man just like his father. I bite my lip to keep from snapping like a lunatic as I watch the twenty-something-year-old with red hair and red lips run her hand down the length of my husband’s tie.

“Come, dear,” Eloise murmurs from behind, startling me. She places her hands on my shoulders and guides me away from the door, saying, “Boys will be boys.”

Stunned that Eloise can be so cavalier about what her son is doing steals the words from my tongue. I can hardly speak. Everyone knows the rumors of her husband’s affairs through the years, but is she really condoning the same behavior from her son? She leads me back to the party, and it’s then that I truly realize I hold no value in this family.

“Tonight is a very important night,” Eloise condescends as if I don’t know. “The men have it easy, but it’s us who have to win over the wives of all those powerful men. And you know how women can be.”

It’s sickening how dismissive Eloise is being, but at the same time, I’m mortified. Too mortified to say anything to her. To stand up for myself. The desire to prove that Tripp and I have an unbreakable love has always been stronger than anything else inside me. I’ve always wanted to prove that we are nothing like his parents. But the cracks are exposed, and I’m too embarrassed to acknowledge it. So, I simply smile and follow my mother-in-law across the grand room where caterers in black ties serve the finest of hors d’oeuvres and champagne on polished silver platters, all the while, swallowing down the sheer outrage. It runs deep through my core, causing my palms to tingle with hostility.

“Ladies, I’m honored to introduce my son’s wife, Caroline.” Eloise beams in fakery to a group of women.

Another stab of irritation at the nameCarolinecuts me even though I should be used to it by now.

The women greet me as etiquette would instruct: warm smiles, gracious handshakes, light hugs, and what would appear to most to be genuine compliments that aren’t only for me, but my husband as well. To smile hurts, but I endure the pain through every emotion that’s roiling within me and carry on as if thoughts of what Tripp is doing with that girl on the other side of the house aren’t playing in 3-D inside my head.

“Whatever you saw, dear, let it go. You have a job to do,” my mother-in-law whispers into my ear, jabbing the knife deeper into my heart.

I stand strong, refusing to let Eloise see me falter. She treats me as if I know nothing about what it means to be a politician’s wife, when, in fact, I know all too well what it takes to swim with the sharks. These women love to present as refined, but behind the doors of their privileged societies and clubs, it’s the gossip and scandal they love to sink their fangs into.

Luckily for me, I’ve been able to distance myself for the most part. Ladies’ luncheons are easy to get out of when you have a job, which I do. Years back, William and Eloise pushed me to quit, insisting that the public wanted to see a wife that was devoted to her husband’s career. At the time, I was able to argue that, as Republicans, we could appeal to the Democratic population if I kept my job at the university. William agreed with the logic, but it still wasn’t good enough for Eloise, who saw my job at the university as trivial. And to be honest, it is trivial. It isn’t a high-paying job, and it certainly isn’t the career I hoped to have, but at least it was mine.

This was never my dream. My dream was to open up my own private practice, to build my career from the ground up. I took the initial steps by securing a lease on an office space years back, but the endeavor had proven to be more time-consuming than I anticipated while also supporting my husband’s goals.

Tripp’s career has and will always come before anything else.

As it stands, I only have two clients, and I pay more for the rent than what they pay for sessions.

A big part of me has wanted to go back to school to get my doctorate, but the moment Tripp left his job as a state prosecutor and started his path in politics, it was no longer about us or me—it became all about him.

In turn, my life has become a joke, leaving all my goals in the dust to make sure Tripp could achieve all his.

“You’re up early,” Tripp remarks as he walks into the kitchen while I’m screwing the lid onto my coffee mug.

“The weather is supposed to turn bad later today, and I have a lot of work I need to get done so I can leave before the snow hits.”

“This winter has been brutal.”

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