Meaningful Revenge:

To Kill An Affair

He was a good husband, a great father, and a dedicated family man.

Yeah, he had a career that took up his time-- at least sometimes. How else was he supposed to put food on the table, money in the bank and their pockets?

Wasn't that what he was supposed to do? Work for a living? That shouldn't have given his wife a good reason for why she should be cheating on him.

Honestly, why the fuck couldn't a man, a person, expect loyalty from their spouse? Especially from his wife who he'd devoted twenty years of marriage to and, most importantly, never raised a hand to. He'd never yelled at her or uttered an extremely harsh word, and all because he loved his wife very much. If he didn't, he wouldn't have stayed all those years with her-- twenty long years and through three kids.

One part of him said he was crazy to think his wife was having an affair. Then time passed while he scrutinized his wife's every movement, seeing if there was anything different to prove his thoughts had been right and his wife wasn't cheating on him. But after sometime of watching, his gut feeling told him he was wrong, and a man couldn't take suspicion for but so long.

So, instead of going into work today, he'd followed his supposed-to-be housewife uptown-- a place where she didn't belong because she had a 'claimed' meeting at the center downtown close to where they lived.

He'd followed her as she strolled into a restaurant, been shown to a table and greeted some guy with a kiss on the lips. All the while, that one side of his mind which didn't want to believe his wife was actually cheating on him had sounded perhaps they were old college friends, buddies, anything other than lovers. Except... he knew otherwise.

He knew how to read body language, and Laurel, his wife, was physically singing to this guy.

That whole day he'd followed them through their tryst without either knowing of his following presence, so safe within the knowledge of believing he knew nothing about their affair. But he did, and the sight had been torture to him, making him angry every goddamn second.

Then while going home after several hours of watching his wife's affair game and driving around to make it seem like he had went to work, he had an epiphany...

He would kill her.

He'd kill her for twenty years of loyalty and love. He wasn't crazy or angry... No. He wasn't doing it for those reasons at all. It was because of the principle. In a marriage you were supposed to be able to trust your spouse, and not feel like you wasted several years in a worthless marriage to have the love you put into it rejected!

Yep, he was going to kill Laurel. One less person in the world like that was okay, she wouldn't be missed. Shit! He was a better father than she was a mother.

The only thing was to do it and get away with it.

He didn't mind paying the price in jail, not if his wife was dead, but he loved his children, and they didn't deserve to be subjected to losing both parents. Still, he couldn't poison or stuff her with medication. Laurel hated taking pills, and would never poison herself deliberately. She also wasn't suicidal, nor did she drink anything alcoholic. So it had to be something unsuspicious; unexpected; never detectable.

"I think I should stay here," voiced Laurel for the thirteenth time in counting, "Elias did you hear me? I said, I think it would be best for me to stay here... Alice could get worse, and we wouldn't know... and..."

'Yaddah...' 'Yaddah...' 'Yaddah', he thought automatically when the sound of his sister's name came out of her mouth. He knew for damn sure that although she may have been close to Alice, Laurel wasn't close enough to volunteer a stay behind.

He knew the real reason why she was being persistent had nothing to do with Alice being sick.

For the past month he'd kept an eye on her, observantly aware of every time she went to that dick, Gile Emerich-- as he, too, found out. In fact, he had found out every last detail about him. From his date of birth, to the last time he was sick and more.

"Laurel, if you can come up with a better excuse for why you don't want to go sailing with the family," Elias began saying after putting the cooler and a bag into the trunk, "then you can stay. Otherwise, shut up and get in the car."

Jamie, his eldest, standing beside the car looked between her parents curiously. They both knew his wife was pussyfooting while juggling to come up with an answer. When Laurel couldn't come up with anything soon enough, his daughter looked at him, then nodded. "It'll be fun mom... Besides, I thought you loved going sailing with us."

"I do..."

"Then get," he paused over saying the word 'ass', since he had never once cursed at his wife-- least in front of the children, "in the car." Stiffly, Laurel did just that.

Slamming the trunk, he followed her example and got in the car. With a short, momentary glance at his wife, he started the ignition.

At one time he had loved everything about her. Her gray eyes that looked like a pool of dark water, her brunette hair, her beautiful oval face. The way she smiled like everything held a magnificent secret that entertained her. The way she had a habit of folding and refolding something when she was in deep thought, or bit her lip to concentrate.

Everything...

Now, looking at her, he saw a hollow image of all he used to love, he saw another man enjoying what used to be his, and he saw what he hated now. He also felt an emotion he thought he'd never associate with her.

Making it to the Marina half an hour later and boarding a wooden-hulled sloop with all of their stuff, they had to have been on the sea for an hour in the most before the sky seemed to darken in anticipation of rain.

Madison, his other daughter, shouted down to him in the cabin to come up. One glance at the graying sky and the clouds building in the horizon told him that they were in for a hell of a storm. He knew Laurel's worst fears were a storm and to drown, but only one of them had been his plan. The sight of the storm made him think this was a sign from god to help him.

"Zach!" Elias called to his son, who already was doing what he wanted by getting the life jackets from below just as the first drops started falling.

Moving to the wheel, he issued for Madison and her to shorten the sail along with a few more orders to Zach. The girls rushing off to do as he ordered, were surprised when an unreasonable gust of wind suddenly blew them off their feet. Watching them struggle with the canvas, he looked towards his fear stricken wife standing in the cockpit.

" Laurel, help them!" he yelled at her.

"B...but…" She fearfully looked out towards the sky, then back at him.

"Now Laurel!" he ordered while struggling himself to keep the boat to the wind.

As ordered, she rushed over to the girls and began to help them. Once they had the sails set, the children scrambled back into the cockpit, sliding there harnesses along the jackstay.

After calling Jamie to come take the wheel, Elias went up to the foredeck and pulled the anchor up. On signal, a clap of thunder rung out making his eyes cast down to his wife peering over at the dark water racing past the hull.

Another clap of thunder echoed across the watery skies.

The next thing he heard was a scream, followed by several hysterical shouts. Madison was calling for Laurel, Zach and Jamie for him. Coming to Zach and Madison's side, he glanced over at Jamie who panically kept to the wheel.

"Dad do something she fell overboard! Sh-sh-she got hit by the sail!" Madison screamed above the wind as he stared over into the water. Not wasting a second on thought, he dove into the water as if to save her... Only, that was his last intention.

Reading the newspaper contently with a wide smile on his face that had been pasted on it for the past half week, Elias paused when he came across a story that didn't just happen to catch his eye but had been told would be in the newspaper that morning.

The article reported: The body of thirty-seven year old, Giles Emerich, was found amongst the debris of his house. The indication of his death was sketchy, but, at most, it was assumed he had left the gas on to his stove, which circumstantially evidenced in his death. Reading it once more, he didn't have to take a guess to know Gile's house was more likely sabotaged by a friend of his that owed him a favor as deep as this, rather than incidentally blowing up the way it did.

"Dad," interrupted Jamie's sad voice, her head peeking into his study, "we're ready?"

Soundlessly nodding his head, he folded the paper, stood and brushed off his dark funeral suit. "I'll meet you guys by the door," he said, turning a frown-like face towards his daughter. Jamie, nodding and beginning to leave, stopped a moment from doing so and went fully into the room to hug him.

Forwarding a smile up at him, she said, "It's okay, we know it wasn't your fault. You tried to save her..." Her soft voice cracked with emotion, "But we'll be okay, and we have to go on... Mom would have wanted that."

With a true smile of gratitude, he smiled down at her before kissing her forehead and saying himself, "Your right honey, mom would have wanted us to move on."

Glad, the face and lips smiled up at him while warmly her hand took hold of his, so they could leave to the pending funeral.