Reece and I had been united in marriage for two full years. We used to prepare our evening meals together and retire to bed at the exact same moment. He frequently sent me digital messages during his lunch break just to say hello.
Then, the frequency of those messages gradually diminished, and he began returning home from the office late. I failed to feel concerned at the beginning, but looking back, I definitely should have been.
One specific evening, Reece entered the front door appearing as though he had been dragged behind a heavy vehicle. He looked absolutely exhausted and drained of energy.
“Are you staying late at the office once more?”
“We are currently finalizing a massive corporate assignment. You understand how demanding these projects can be.”
I actually did not. His professional career had never demanded this much of his personal time or physical energy before. However, I simply nodded my head anyway, because that is what a supportive partner does.
Several weeks vanished in a blurry haze of midnight arrivals and brief, emotionless responses. One evening, I crawled into our bed after Reece had already drifted off into a deep slumber. I shut my eyes, then the heavy silence was suddenly shattered.
“GRETA.”
I sat bolt upright and fixed my gaze on Reece. He remained completely unconscious.
“Reece?”
Nothing. I rested my head back down and convinced myself it was insignificant. Yet less than sixty seconds later, he uttered it once more.
“Greta. Greta. GRETA!”
This time, his voice was not a quiet murmur. It sounded incredibly pressing, almost intimate. I simply could not remain there. I reached out and grabbed his shoulder, shaking it firmly.
“Reece. Open your eyes. Reece!”
He let out a low groan, blinking at me through the darkness.
“What is it? Fern? Did something happen?”
“Who exactly is Greta?”
He stared directly at me as if I had suddenly begun speaking an alien language.
“What are you talking about, Fern?”
“You just shouted her name three consecutive times, Reece. Who is this woman?”
Reece rubbed his palms over his face.
“I said absolutely nothing. You are simply experiencing a vivid nightmare.”
“I was not dreaming, Reece. I was completely awake. You shouted it out loud.”
He released a heavy sigh and rolled over, pulling the blankets up.
“You must have been mistaken. Go back to sleep.”
“I was not,”
I whispered to his back, but he was already drifting away again. It occurred once more the following evening. I was just beginning to doze off when I caught Reece muttering that same name. I failed to sleep a single minute that night.
The next morning, I attempted to remain composed.
“You were speaking in your slumber again last night.”
Reece let out a scoff, not even lifting his gaze from his coffee container.
“No, I was not.”
“You kept repeating a female name, Reece. Greta.”
He took a very slow sip of his drink and shook his head.
“I did not dream about anything specific. You are just imagining things, Fern.”
Being dismissed like that stung deeply. I decided to let the subject drop, or at least, I told him I did. Inside, I was secretly building a legal case against him.
For the following few evenings, I transformed into a private investigator within my own sleeping quarters. I began paying close attention to every tiny detail.
Reece would arrive home late, consume a few bites of whatever meal I prepared, and keep his mobile device face down on the furniture the entire duration. He would fall asleep before I even finished changing into my sleepwear.
Almost every single night, he called out for Greta in his sleep. Sometimes his voice was soft, other times he sounded panicked, as if he were fleeing from a threat.
I stopped attempting to wake him up. What was the point? He would merely fabricate another lie to tell me. Three full weeks passed while I kept all of this bottled up inside.
Three weeks of him arriving late and looking right through me as if I were invisible. Three weeks of hearing that name echoing in the dark.
We did not know anyone named Greta, and he had never mentioned a coworker by that identity. She was a complete enigma, and in my experience, enigmas usually signal serious trouble.
I stopped pretending this was just some strange sleeping habit. I desperately needed to confirm if my husband was involved in a secret romance.
One night, after Reece’s breathing reached that heavy, rhythmic pattern of deep slumber, I performed an action I am not proud of. I reached over to the furniture and snatched his mobile device.
My pulse was racing so violently I was certain it would wake him. I scrolled through his contact list, my digits trembling, and there it was: Greta.
My palms became freezing and damp simultaneously. It was not just a hallucination. She was a real person with a phone number saved in his device! He had lied directly to my face, repeatedly.
I copied the digits into my own device and returned his phone exactly where I discovered it. Then I sat there in the shadows, staring at the man I thought I knew, wondering what hidden life he was leading.
The following morning, as soon as his vehicle departed the driveway, I sat at the kitchen table and dialed Greta’s number. The device rang three times before a woman answered.
“Hello?”
“Greetings,”
I stated.
“I am Reece’s wife.”
A long, heavy silence followed on the other end of the line.
“How exactly do you know my husband?”
I demanded. The woman cleared her throat. Her tone was remarkably steady and professional.
“We operate out of the same corporate office. That is truly all I am permitted to say.”
“That is all you can say?”
I felt a wave of anger rush up my neck.
“If you only work together, then why has he been shouting your name in his sleep for the last month? Why is he returning home at ten o’clock every single night?”
“He has been shouting my name in his sleep?”
She let out a brief, sharp laugh that sounded like a bark.
“I genuinely cannot discuss this matter with you. You should have a conversation with your husband.”
Then the connection went dead. My heart was thumping so hard I could feel the vibration in my throat. If she were his secret lover, she likely would have denied knowing him at all.
Instead, she sounded extremely cautious, as if she were reciting lines from a prepared script. I realized right then that I would not discover the truth by simply asking for it. I needed to witness the situation with my own eyes.
Around midday, I traveled down to his corporate headquarters. I stopped at a food shop on the way and grabbed a bag of lunch items. I required a legitimate excuse to be there.
The front desk worker looked up and offered a mechanical smile.
“Hello. I am here to visit Reece,”
I stated, holding up the food bag.
“I brought him a surprise lunch.”
She tapped on her keyboard for a moment.
“He is currently in his workspace, tucked away at the very end of the corridor. Go right ahead.”
The ride in the elevator felt like it lasted an hour. My stomach was twisting in knots. What exactly was I about to discover? Was my entire life about to be detonated?
I reached his entrance and drew a deep breath. I tapped softly on the wood.
“Yes?”
Reece’s voice sounded distracted and exhausted. I pushed the entrance open.
“Surprise.”
He froze instantly. He was sitting behind a massive pile of document folders, his necktie loosened and his hair in a state of disarray.
“Fern?”
A smile appeared on his face, but it arrived two seconds too late to feel genuine.
“What are you doing here at this hour?”
“I decided to bring you some food. You have been working so intensely lately, I assumed you might have neglected to eat.”
“That is… that is truly thoughtful, Fern.”
He glanced nervously toward the corridor, then back at me.
“However, this is not a particularly good time. I am in the middle of a very significant task.”
“I will not stay long,”
I replied. Reece opened his mouth to respond, but then the entrance behind me swung wide.
“Reece, I need you to—”
The voice matched the one from the telephone call. Greta! We both turned around. A woman stood in the doorway, clutching a thick blue folder and staring at me with a peculiar expression.
“My apologies,”
she glanced between the two of us.
“I did not realize you had a visitor.”
Reece swallowed with difficulty.
“This is my wife, Fern.”
“Oh… allow me to introduce myself properly then.”
She stepped forward and offered her hand.
“I am Greta, the internal compliance supervisor here. I need Reece to sign off on several documents before our major audit meeting this afternoon.”
“Internal compliance?”
My throat felt so dry I barely forced the words out. Greta looked directly into my eyes and nodded firmly. I turned my focus back onto Reece.
“Reece, are you currently under some form of professional review?”
He let out a nervous, high-pitched laugh.
“It is all just a minor misunderstanding, Fern. Truly. There is nothing for you to worry about.”
Greta tilted her head, arching one eyebrow with an expression that revealed the entire truth to me.
“Do not fabricate more lies. How grave is this situation?”
I demanded, looking back at my husband.
“Could you be terminated from your position? Is that the real reason you have been staying so late?”
Reece gulped.
“It will be alright, Fern. There were just… a few discrepancies on the latest project. Some figures did not align correctly. But I am certain we can resolve it.”
Greta did not appear nearly as certain as he did. She placed the blue folder on his desk with a heavy thud.
“I will provide the two of you with some private time.”
She offered me a look of genuine sympathy as she turned to depart. The door clicked shut, leaving us alone.
“You lied to me every single night for three consecutive weeks.”
“I was attempting to shield us, Fern,”
he begged.
“I did not want you to feel anxious. I thought if I could just repair the project, you would never have to know how close we were to losing everything.”
“Shield us?”
I shook my head, feeling a bitter laugh rising up.
“Reece, I was convinced you were having a secret affair! I spent three weeks wondering if our marriage was failing because you were too cowardly to admit you were in professional trouble.”
“I would never betray you like that!”
he shouted.
“I love you. I was simply terrified.”
“This is not much better,”
I stated firmly.
“You locked me out of your life. You allowed me to believe the absolute worst of you because you did not trust me enough to share the truth.”
He possessed no response for that statement. He just stood there among his piles of messy paperwork, appearing smaller than I had ever seen him before.
I turned around and exited the office. Greta was not a secret lover, but a lie that pointed toward something even more damaging: Reece had made a major mistake, and instead of taking ownership, he tried to bury it under excuses.
Could I remain committed to this marriage after such a betrayal of trust? I honestly did not think so.