Susan’s chin trembled. “I didn’t mean for you to find it.”
I pulled the note from my purse and held it up. “Who are the kids, Susan?”
For a moment, I thought she’d faint. Then she gave a tiny nod.
“They’re his,” she said. “They’re Greg’s kids.”
A buzz went through the people nearby. Someone gasped.
“You’re saying my husband has children with you?” I asked.
She swallowed. “Two. A boy and a girl.”
“I’m not. He didn’t want to hurt you. He told me not to bring them. He didn’t want you to see them.”
Every word felt like it was aimed right between my ribs. I looked around at all the eyes on us. Friends, neighbors, coworkers. My humiliation was suddenly a group activity.
I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t scream in front of Greg’s casket.
So I did the only thing I could.
I turned and walked out.
I’d never read them.
***
After the burial, the house felt like a stranger’s.
His shoes were still by the door. His mug on the counter. His glasses on the nightstand.
I sat on the edge of our bed and stared at the closet shelf.
Eleven journals in a neat row. Greg’s handwriting on the spines.
“Helps me think,” he’d say.
I’d never read them. It felt like opening his head.
But Susan’s words were echoing: “Two. A boy and a girl.”
I pulled down the first journal and opened it.
The first entry was a week after our wedding. He wrote about our terrible honeymoon motel. The broken air conditioner. My laugh.
I flipped through the pages.
He wrote about our first fertility appointment. Me crying in the car.
He wrote, “I wish I could trade bodies with her and take this pain.”
I went to the next journal. Then the next. Page after page about us. About our fights. Our inside jokes. My migraines. His fear of flying. Holidays. Bills.
No mention of another woman.
No secret kids. No double life.
By the time I reached the sixth journal, my eyes burned.
Halfway through, the tone changed. The writing got darker.
He wrote: “Susan pushing again. Wants us locked in for three years. Quality slipping. Last shipment bad. People got sick.”
Next entry: “Told her we’re done. She lost it. Said I was ruining her business.”
Next: “Could sue. Lawyer says we’d win. But she has 2 kids. Don’t want to take food off their table.”