What Lies Beneath the Lies

Trembling in early fall’s chill air, I feel a giant dread gnawing at my insides as I draw closer and closer to the truth I seek. Halfway across the large expanse of grass, I’ll soon be past the line of trees separating our property from the secluded woods. Fighting terror’s grip, I press on. I think of the many times he dragged himself in late. How he lay beside me on our bed breathing hard and how he always thought I was asleep. In the morning came the excuses: He had to work late; he was at the gym; he simply needed to be alone and took a long drive. Those things did not explain his labored breathing when he came to bed so late or the way he dropped his gaze away from me every time I questioned him about his whereabouts the night before. I had started noticing dirt beneath his fingernails. I caught him a few times scrubbing at it when he’d awoke from an exhausted sleep. Last night I waited by the curtained window and what I saw has brought me to where I am right now this morning walking past the tree line, following a trail into the woods – a trail of foot prints the same size as my husband’s feet. It stops suddenly where I see weeds. My heart is pounding. Fresh soil has been upturned and then packed down again and covered carelessly by brush. Beyond this spot, I see other similar large rectangular spaces covered with scatterings of brush. I raise the shovel (the same shovel, which from our garage, had been clean last time I checked it and which now is covered on its edges with caked dirt.) He thinks I buy the stories he’s been telling me. How I dread what I’m about to do, for soon I will uncover what lies beneath the lies. Written Feb. 20, 2017 for Contest of John Lawless