Chapter 20

© Copyright 2006 by Kendra Cornell



In a sitting room far from the homey atmosphere of Paul’s kitchen, a lovely woman stared at her husband waiting for an answer in cold silence. When moment after moment passed by, she stated firmly, “I want an answer, Tom. I deserve that at least.”

Ellen Delaney had returned from church not long ago, and she was still dressed in a navy blue suit with white shell buttons. A slim strand of pearls circled her throat delicately. The two sat in a room that looked too lovely to touch. Elegant paintings adorned the walls and accented perfectly matched furniture. A glass-paneled cherry cabinet displayed antique plates- one of Ellen’s few weaknesses. Ellen sat ramrod straight, her ankles crossed in a prim manner and her hands folded in her lap.

Tom waited in the silence. His pulse quickened, and he was increasingly hot under the collar. Things were starting to slip out of his grasp, and the sensation was not a pleasant one.

Finally, he replied tersely, “Ellen, I told you. There was nothing between that woman and me.”

“Then I will ask you again to kindly explain this,” and she gestured to the item that sat on the coffee table between the settee on which she sat and the matching chair across from her.

A letter addressed to Ellen was written in the hand of Elizabeth James. Ellen had received it the day before, and after recovering from the initial shock and surprise, had taken time to think through the situation. She wasn’t the type to fly off the handle, and with the election only two days away, everything needed to be handled delicately. Only she, the woman who had spent the last forty years of her life waking next to this man, could see the signs of fatigue and stress in the lines around his eyes. Not desiring to needlessly add to that strain, Ellen had carefully considered the implications of this letter. Still though, she deserved an explanation, and more importantly, she deserved the truth.

Ellen reached out and picked it up by a corner. She could almost recite the words verbatim:

Mrs. Delaney,
I write this letter with one intention alone- to give you information that I believe you do not now possess. I am aware that my ‘confession’ will undoubtedly hurt you, but as I am also a woman, I only know that if the situation were reversed, I would want to know.

Your husband is not who you think he is. He and I have secretly been in business together for the last several years. I have used my money and influence to introduce him to people in the community that have furthered his campaign hopes. I have also been one of his biggest contributors- in many more ways than one.

Mrs. Delaney, I have carried on an affair with your husband for over a year now. He’s spoken to me of his love, his commitment… We love each other deeply. However, this passion has evidently been carried on to a rather unsavory end. My lawyer has been instructed to send this letter in the event of my death and I want you to know that your Thomas likely had some involvement. Your precious husband is not who you think he is.

Know this, Ellen, if I may call you that. I spent countless hours, days, nights, with your husband. He told me all about your failings as a wife and mother, and I am the only woman that has ever been able to complete him.

I might be gone physically, but I will always live on in him.

Regards,
Elizabeth James

Ellen looked at Tom appraisingly. She knew every expression that the human experience provides and how it played out on Tom’s face. She had watched that face intimately over many, many years. And Ellen knew right now, that Tom Delaney was lying to her.

What kind of a letter was this? If this woman even existed, what had she hoped to accomplish? There also existed the possibility that this was all a sham- some ridiculous, desperate attempt to discredit her husband two days before the election. Every fiber in Ellen’s being longed for Tom to look at the letter, to laugh with the boyishness he only seemed to express around her, and to toss the piercing letter away. She wanted him to reassure her. But there he sat, looking at the letter like it was a serpent coiled and ready to strike.

“Tell me the truth, Tom. Don’t insult my intelligence. We know each other far too well for that.”

To her surprise, he reacted with anger, rising out of his seat like a rocket. “Are you calling me a liar, Ellen? Is that what this has come to? How dare you accuse me of anything?!” He paced angrily, with every breath becoming more upset. “Yes, I knew Mrs. James. Her late husband was an associate of mine. That’s all! How could you accuse me of having an affair? After forty years of marriage, how could you say that to me!”

Her eyes narrowing slightly, yet retaining her poise, she replied softly, “I never mentioned an affair, Tom. I simply asked you to explain an odd piece of correspondence that I received in the mail.”

Tom’s face paled as he realized his blunder. Slowly, he tugged at his sleeves and sat back down facing her.

“Ellen, I don’t know what to say right now.”

Nausea grew in the pit of her stomach. He wasn’t denying anything. Gaining insight, Ellen finally spoke.

“Tom, I’d like to play out a scenario here, and all I want you to do is tell me if I’m right or wrong. Is that acceptable?”

Something visibly deflated in his demeanor, and he sank back into the wingchair. Tom nodded almost imperceptibly, but refused to meet her eyes.

“I seem to recall when Mr. James passed away. It was rather sudden, wasn’t it?” Tom nodded slightly. “Is it possible that in her grief, she turned to one of her husband’s friends for comfort?”

Tom looked up at that, and replied forcefully, “No, Ellen. It wasn’t like that. I just happened to run into her at a business function. Elizabeth was one of the biggest supporters of the Thanksgiving outreach. After Dirk died, it seemed to give her a sense of purpose. I never meant to…”

Ellen raised her hand, not yet losing her composure. “I’m not finished yet, Tom. Grant me that small… favor. Now of all times.”

A muscle rippling in his jaw, Tom nodded again.

“So Mrs. James was understandably distraught at the passing of her husband and turned to you for some kind of fulfillment. And instead of turning away from her, with compassion and Christian understanding, you rather chose to engage in an inappropriate relationship with her?”

Tom was sick- there was never a moment when he thought things were ever going to play out like this. Caught like a deer in the headlights, he refused to answer her.

Ellen, with the propensity of reading his body language, facial expressions, and silence that one only ever achieves through years of shared experience, knew in a heartbeat that she had hit close to the truth.

So softly that only the noiselessness of the house made echo, she said, “How far did it go, Tom?”

Finally, a hair-line crack in his demeanor showed a semblance of the man she thought she knew.

“I never meant to hurt you, Ellen. Never. It… It was just one of those things that happens, and then you wake up and realize that you’re in a place you don’t want to be in-“

“Stop it, Tom. I don’t want your excuses. I don’t want to hear why it was okay or explainable. I want to know… how… far… things went between the two of you.”

“Ellen, stop. This isn’t something that…”

Ellen’s voice began to rise and she fought an inner war valiantly to keep her composure.

“Oh, yes it is, Tom. If there’s anyone on this planet that deserves to have a full and complete disclosure here, it’s me. I have a right to know what happened. And further, I want to know. So please explain now because it’s becoming clearer and clearer that this is something I should have known about long ago. How long, Tom… How long have you been involved with this… woman?” Ellen longed to curse this woman with every derogatory term known to the English language, but wasn’t going to lose it… Not yet.

Tom swallowed, and then bit the inside of his cheek- a gesture that Ellen recognized as weakness in her husband.

“Over a year now- It’s been going on for over a year.”

“I see. And I assume that at least some of the times you said you had meetings- critically important business lunches, late night campaign functions, that kind of thing… You were with her?”

“Some of them…”

Nausea roiled like acid in Ellen’s stomach. She began to shake. Her chest burned, and the heat began creeping upwards into her face. Still, she hung on.

“Were you in love with her?” she barely managed to get the words out.

“No- not once… ever did I think that for a second. Ellen, you are my wife. And I love you. I have always loved you.”

Ellen’s lips strained into a thin line dividing her face the way her life had just been divided into before and after. Ellen looked into his face- the face of a man she had known since she was practically a girl. A man she had never known.

“I just have one more thing to ask you Tom, and then I am going to go upstairs. At that time, I expect you to remain here until I have internalized this, at which point I expect to return here to discuss this at greater length.” Ellen took a breath, feeling like her lungs had become shallow pools in her chest. “Did you have something to do with this woman’s death Tom?”

Tom looked into Ellen’s eyes and with a depth of sincerity she had never before seen said to her, “No, Ellen. I had nothing to do with that. I had just broken things off with her. She was rather… upset. That was the last time I saw her.”

Ellen nodded slowly and rose with grace and dignity. With her back straight, she walked out of the room and through the parquet hall to the stairs that led to their bedroom. After closing the door firmly behind her, she locked it, raised one hand to the door and crumpled to the floor sobbing. The thick, expensive rugs absorbed both her cries and her tears. Ellen rolled a bit and lay on her side with her knees drawn toward her chest.

Through eyes blurred with tears, she fought for coherence, but all she felt was hurt so intense that it threatened to consume her. She gasped for breath- rage and pain intermingling so tightly that she could no longer distinguish between the two. This woman- a woman who presented the image of grace, intelligence, and beauty was lying on her bedroom floor like a small child feeling as though she had lost her entire world. What seemed like hours passed until Ellen no longer had tears left to cry. Pain throbbed underneath her eyes. Slowly, Ellen lifted herself off the floor and moved to the chair at her antique vanity.

She looked at her face- it was no longer a face full of youth. Her hands- age spotted and leaner in a way than they had ever been. Was it that? Was it my age? What was she like- this Elizabeth James… Was she young? Did he think of her all the times he held me? And from a well of pain so deep, Ellen had never known of its existence, hot tears rolled again down her lovely face. She gently laid that face in hands and poured out her grief to God in a voice so primordial, there were no words to describe it.

Tom had somewhere to be- she no longer knew or cared what it was. Some appearance designed to ingratiate himself to hundreds of voters that had no idea who this man was… lying, cheating, sneak of a man. Did she even know him anymore? What kind of man would do this? How could something like this just happen? At some point, he had to have made a decision. At some place, Tom realized what he was doing and had traded his soul, their life and their marriage to get there. The question was, what was Ellen going to do about it now?

Ellen thought back over the last year- were there things she should have noticed? Perhaps he had been a bit more distant than normal… changed his appearance… their physical life had waned a little… but these were all things that she had attributed to the election. Did I cause this somehow? Was I not enough for him? God, WHY DID THIS HAPPEN?! She wanted to hit something, overwhelming frustration and rage battling inside of her.

Needing something to do, Ellen walked into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face. Putting herself back together was going to require some reapplied makeup and a fresh set of clothes- at least on the outside. Ellen doubted whether she would ever piece together the wrecked mess that had just been made of her heart. At some point she was going to need some serious answers to some serious questions. She needed to think about her options. But first, she needed the truth and she needed guidance. She was going to talk to the women’s ministries director at her church- a woman Ellen trusted. At the moment, she couldn’t think, and her feelings were a muddled mess of rage and hurt and pain. It wasn’t just the affair… it was Ellen’s intuition that something else was going on.

And her intuition was telling her that when her husband- the man she had loved with every fiber of her being every day of her life- had answered her last question, he had been lying.




HEY! and don't forget to e-mail Kendra Cornell if you have a comment! She would really like to hear from you.





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