Get yourself together, Ted. You can’t fall apart and cry, not when your son is watching. Ted was trying to swallow his emotions and look busy, but as he saw the men lower his beloved wife into the grave, it hit him for the millionth time that day. Mary had passed away in a car accident, and Ted fell onto the ground. He broke down into tears of grief as he tried to hold back his gaze from her sweet face and listen for words before leaving him alone at their funeral service. The pain was too fresh, and Ted hoped he would suddenly snap out of the most horrid dream. But everything about that day was real—the people gathered, the soil poured onto the coffin, and the endless stream of tears rising in the tired eyes of Rick, Ted and Mary’s 15-year-old son.
The benevolent men made their way over to the father and son’s residence, trying desperately to express sympathy and understanding before bidding them farewell. « You look so tired, Rick; after being delivered home by your driver make sure you try to get some rest. » Ted left his child on the road, giving him a kiss. « I’ll see you at home in some time. » « The man kept listening to the well-meaning words and ideas of those who were leaving when he saw an unfamiliar person far out in space, » said the boy. Ted had an odd, nonsensical impulse when he saw that it was a woman wearing a black dress, even though it appeared to be a silhouette. « Is that my Mary? »
Ted was aware that he was probably hallucinating since, as he’d heard minutes earlier, sadness can do crazy things to the mind. However, a gut feeling prompted Ted to examine more closely. Ted excused himself from the companion ahead of him and moved slowly through the crowd, his gaze fixed on the unidentified black-clad stranger. Ted massaged his eyes, expecting the woman far away to disappear, but she stayed. The closer he went, the more he was certain that it was his wife and the less he thought it was a dream. Mary turned to face him amid the throng. Ted now swept through the throng, become more focused while maintaining eye contact with the woman. This time, though, the woman started to leave quickly.
Ted attempted to flee, but the female had already approached her vehicle. Leaping into the driver’s seat of the black automobile, she took one quick glance back to see how far Ted had come before taking off and disappearing into the distance. Ted’s attempt to pursue the vehicle was also unsuccessful. Ted couldn’t see the digits on the car’s license plate as the car raced off in a cloud of dust. « Who was that? Could that have happened? No, that isn’t feasible. » As he turned around, Ted realized he had made a bit of a disturbance and that people were staring at him with differing degrees of concern. « I really need to get some rest. »
As Ted made the decision to walk away, he caught sight of a piece of paper floating gently through the air, gradually descending onto the road ahead of him. It must have fallen off the car. Ted opened it to find a receipt from a gas station located 80 miles from the city. Less than two hours later, Ted found himself on a desolate, dust-covered road, glancing at the name of the gas station written on a piece of paper and then at the same name displayed on a large signboard. He had made his entrance. Ted pulled out a photo of Mary from his wallet and displayed it to one of the lady attendants. « Have you happened to see this woman in the area lately? » he inquired. The woman at the gas station didn’t have to think much over the photo. Yes, Carla is that person. About a week ago, she moved into the neighborhood. What is the purpose of this? » The woman was surreptitiously observing Ted from head to toe and gave him a suspicious look.
He lied to the woman, saying, « Oh, I’m just an old friend who couldn’t meet her before she moved. » « I had planned to surprise her by showing up. Do you know where she might be residing at the moment? » The woman said proudly, « Of course I do, this is a small town, » and added, « She’s staying at Audrey’s Motel on the far end of this road. » « Well, I guess I’m pretty near. I appreciate your assistance, Mrs. Lily. For the first time during the chat, the woman grinned. « Have a nice day. » As directed, Ted strolled to the end of the road and noticed the rustic-looking motel. He persuaded Miss Audrey, the proprietor, to give him the room number he was looking for by using his charm.
Ted rapped on the door with his knuckles and waited, even if all he wanted in life was for Ted to knock, for the woman to answer, and for the riddle to finally come to light. The peephole’s other side light briefly went dark, suggesting that someone had sneaked a glimpse at him, but there was no response. Ted banged again, pausing in between each knock and making a louder noise. The door opened in a matter of seconds, and a woman rushed straight into Ted’s arms. The woman sobbed, « Darling, I’m truly sorry. » Ted recognized Mary right away from the scent of her perfume, the sweetness of her voice, and the feel of her skin. Mary to him was still alive!
It took a few minutes for the pure joy and relief in Ted’s heart to fade away and for reality to hit him hard. « Why, Mary? Why’d you fake your own death? Do you know what you’ve put me through? Forget me, do you know what you’ve put your son through? What was so terrible about your life? » Mary gripped her husband’s hands and shook him into silence.Mary recounted a series of events and secrets she had never shared with anyone, while Ted quietly listens to her words.
« The woman you buried today, in the presence of family and friends, was my twin sister, Paris. » Ted thought it was another lie, but the more he listened, the more he realized how complicated the truth was. « Paris was my blood, but she became the reason for some of my deepest traumas in life. She was always a troubled child, and I was an easy target. Since childhood, I’ve been the one to clean up her messes, face her fury, and still run back to her whenever she got in trouble. After a while, I stopped getting sucked into her world, and she went to prison for one fraud after another. There were days when I wanted to seek her out, but then I remembered I had a family, and I still had a lot of healing to do. But last month, Paris got out of jail and showed up at my office. She came with an unreasonable demand for money. For once in my life, I stood up to her and asked her to leave, but she threatened me with something that rendered me powerless. »
Ted was listening and wanted to ask her what the threat was, but seeing how Mary was already struggling to speak through her tears, Ted parked the question in his mind.« She knew that I would continue to comply with all of her requests, and that was the one thing she could use against me. I thus handed her the requested amount of money once or twice, but it was never sufficient. She persisted in returning and utilizing the threat, and I continued to give in. Until one day, she was driving my car, and I was sitting next to her, arguing about some silly event from her childhood. Paris lost her cool and lost control of the car at the same time. I can still remember the crashing of the metal and flying shards of glass that covered my face. I thought I was gonna die. For a moment, I thought of Rick and you, but you were in Shanghai on that business trip. But when my head cleared, I remembered Paris. I found her on the other side of the debris. By the time I could hold her hand, she’d already stopped breathing. » Saying this, Mary burst into tears again.
The truth was that in the heat of that fateful moment, Mary felt choked with the fear of getting blamed, getting caught for the previous payments she’d made, and getting pulled into Paris’s mess once again. And so she decided to flee. Mary called 911, picked herself up, and didn’t stop walking until she reached the bus station. « That’s how I ended up here. That’s why I faked my own death. » Ted held his wife as she couldn’t stop shaking, revisiting the worst day of her life. Ted breathed a sigh of relief, little realizing that the final, devastating revelation from his wife would come as a shock to him.
« I have to let you know what Paris threatened me with. » « Go on, sweetheart, I’m listening. » « Paris was the only one who knew the truth about Rick. That year when you and I had one of our biggest fights, when you left home and never came back for six months, I reconnected with an old ex-boyfriend. Paris knew this, and she was the one who calculated that Rick’s biological father was that guy and not you. She knew she could threaten to reveal this truth, and it would work every single time. I’m sorry I cheated on you, Ted. All this seems to be punishment for that one night. I’m sorry for everything. »
That afternoon was only the beginning of Mary’s attempts to repair her relationship. When she surrendered to the cops, when she appeared in court, and even when she spoke to her son Rick, Mary only spoke the truth. Forgiving Mary was not impossible for Ted since he knew what it was like to have strayed outside the bond of marriage, and he was guilty of it himself too. After a year of bringing the truth to light and living apart from each other, Mary was free from all the legal battles, and Ted had given enough thought to the future of his marriage. When they let go of their guilts and resentments, amidst Paris’s gravestone on her first death anniversary, Mary and Ted held each other’s hands for the first time in months, ready to give their love another shot.
