My mom hasn’t been feeling well, so I got in the car with my children and drove three states away to take care of her. I had planned to stay there for over four weeks, but when she started feeling better, I decided to return sooner than expected to surprise Ian, my husband. In the end, I was the one surprised when I found a mysterious child watching cartoons in the middle of my living room.
As I pulled into the driveway after driving long hours home from my mom’s place, my kids, Max and Emma, couldn’t wait to enter the house and see their father. I didn’t tell Ian we were returning home earlier than planned because we wanted to surprise him.
“Surprise! Dad!” they shouted, but no one answered.
“Mom, why are there small shoes in the hallway?” Emma asked, pointing to two pairs of shoes. One pair belonged to a young child, and the other was obviously a woman’s.
“I have no idea, honey, maybe dad has guests,” I said quietly. My heart sank, sensing something was obviously not right.
We all headed toward the living room, and there, in the middle of the room, right in front of the TV, a mysterious child I had never seen before was casually watching cartoons.
“Who are you? And what are you doing here?” I asked, puzzled.
“I’m Jason, I live here,” the boy said without taking his eyes off the TV.
As I was about to ask more questions, Max and Emma got excited and asked if they could play with the mysterious child.
I was overwhelmed and didn’t know what to answer.
With my voice breaking, I asked him where his parents were, fearing of the answer.
Jason didn’t say anything, he just pointed to the bedroom.
The few stairs to the bedroom seemed like an eternity. I was hoping Ian wouldn’t be there with another woman. Sadly, my fears were confirmed when I saw him in the bed with someone else.
“You are home!?” he yelled, surprised to see me. “It’s not what you think,” he tried to explain. The woman next to him was looking at me with confusion.
“Who are you?” she asked, and that’s when I realized she was lied to just the way I was.
I didn’t say anything but got out of the room, making sure Max and Emma don’t see their dad cheating right in front of their eyes. At that moment, I believed it was for the best to protect them from his actions.
Entering the living room, where they still played with Jason, whom they believed was some guest, I told all three of them to go to the kitchen.
“Do you want anything to eat?” I asked them while my hands were still trembling from the shock. Emma could someone sense something bad had happened and that I needed a distraction, so she said, “Yes, mom, let’s make something to eat.”
While at the kitchen, I spotted Ian from the window getting out of the house while dragging his suitcase.
In that moment, the woman, Sophie, approached me. She started crying and apologizing. “I’m so sorry. Ian said you died four years ago and his kids were staying with your mother in another state. I had no reason not to trust him.”
I looked at Sophie and felt both anger and sadness. No matter how much I hated her for being the woman my husband cheated on me with, I felt sorry for her because she was manipulated and lied to, just like I was.
We had a long conversation and we both agreed Ian needed to pay for everything he did. We exposed him in front of his family, friends, co-workers, and even his boss.
As for Sophie and me, we bonded over time. At the end of the day, our children were siblings, and they deserved to be part of each other’s lives.
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Bored Daddy
Love and Peace
