Reclaiming My Life

“The call seemed routine, a possible sprain in a quiet Vermont town where I, a paramedic, lived a seemingly quiet life, waiting for my FBI agent wife, Jessica, to return from her latest dangerous assignment. But when I arrived, I saw her, not in Oregon, but here, pushing a little boy on a swing, laughing with a man I didn't recognize. Then the boy called her "Mommy," and my world shattered. I drove home numb, only to find her waiting, smiling, with an excuse about "leave" and a "layover." When I confronted her, she offered pathetic lies, then slapped me hard across the face when I called out her lover. She even tried to force me to sign papers for "our" child's health insurance, then brought my brother's cheating ex-wife to my house for a "reconciliation." How could someone be so brazenly deceitful, creating a whole fake life while pretending to love me? But the moment I handed her the divorce papers and the formal complaint I filed with the FBI, I knew it wasn't over.”