Runaway Vampire (Argeneau, #23)(47)
“Dependent on him,” Dante said quietly.
“I didn’t see it that way,” Mary said sadly. “Or maybe I did and didn’t care. I thought we’d be together forever and live happily ever after. So if he wanted me to be a housewife, I’d be the best housewife there was.”
Dante grunted. She didn’t know what the sound meant, so continued.
“We got married, and quickly got pregnant and . . .”
“You caught him cheating,” Dante said grimly.
Mary nodded, and picked up her coffee. “I could have left him then, but I was scared. I’d gone straight from my parents taking care of me to Joe taking care of me . . . at least, financially. And I did feel guilty about crashing the car and killing my child. On top of that, I couldn’t have babies anymore. Who would want me for a wife when I was so useless?”
“Me,” Dante growled. “And you are not useless.”
“No I’m not,” she agreed quietly. “But I didn’t see that then.”
Mary took another sip of coffee before continuing. “Of course, after his first outburst, Joe was very sweet. He was constantly at my bedside until I was released from the hospital, then took care of me at home.”
“Guilt,” Dante said shortly. “And he should have felt guilty.”
Mary just smiled wryly and went on, “He apologized for his affair with his secretary. Promised to have her transferred to work for someone else and swore it would never happen again. He said he could live with not having biological children so long as he had me. We’d adopt, or use a surrogate, whatever it took to make me happy. So, I said I forgave him and stayed.”
“But I didn’t really,” Mary admitted in the next breath, and explained, “Forgive him, I mean. I was angry for a lot of years.” She grimaced. “We pretended all was well, and set about adopting children. A little boy first, and then a little girl. But things were not all right. I couldn’t bear him touching me. I could hardly look at him. I know he had other affairs then, he warned me he would if I didn’t stop treating him like a leper, but I didn’t care. I was angry, at myself and at him, so I punished us both for it.”
She smiled wryly. “I’m surprised he didn’t give up and divorce me. He didn’t though. Joe told me years later that he felt he deserved the punishment. Anyway, while I was a horrible wife, I was a good mother, and we acted as if all was well for the sake of the children.”
Mary took another sip of coffee and then said, “We probably would have stayed like that till his death if things had just continued as they were going. As it was it went on for fifteen years.”
“What happened to change things?” Dante asked with curiosity.
“I found out about one of his children. A son,” she said quietly. “An angry fourteen-year-old who showed up at our door one day. His mother had finally told him who his father was and he wanted to confront him. He was faced with me first.”
Mary peered down at her coffee mug. “I was furious. There I was unable to have children of my own and Joe had gone and had them with another woman. Not only that, but he’d just abandoned him. I didn’t know what made me angrier. I hired a private detective to find out if there were any others and . . .” She paused and swallowed the bile rising up in her throat at the memory of how she’d felt when the detective had given his report. “Joe had at least four children by four different women that he knew of. The one boy I’d met, and three girls. There may have been more though; he couldn’t be sure. But he was sure that Joe wasn’t a part of their lives. He’d just been dropping his seed and leaving it to grow as he danced on to the next victim.”
Mary glanced to Dante and smiled wryly. “Joe admitted that most of the women he had affairs with had no idea he was married. He said a friend had helped with that. I’m guessing now that it was Dave, but Joe wouldn’t tell me who it was at the time. I suppose that was to prevent me outing Dave to Carol. Joe would only say he was just a chum from work. But he told me that they went out together to meet women, often double dating. A woman who met two male friends hanging out didn’t imagine that he would be married and carry on an affair with his friend’s knowledge. And his “chum” backed up any story he gave to explain why he couldn’t see her at certain times, or why she hadn’t met his family or any other friends.”
Mary shook her head with remembered disgust. “Of course, once the girlfriend started pushing for those kinds of things, it was time to end it and move on anyway in his mind. Or if she got pregnant,” she added grimly. “As far as Joe was concerned, birth control was the woman’s problem and he always asked if they were on the pill when they started up. If she said no, he moved along. He wanted no chance of having to explain why he had condoms in his wallet when we weren’t having sex. So, they were all supposed to be safe, and if a woman got pregnant, he was sure she was just trying to force him into marrying her. Joe claimed he offered to help with an abortion and if she refused, it was “sayonara sweetheart.”
“He really was a bastard,” Dante muttered.
“Yes,” Mary agreed solemnly, “And I was a total psycho bitch.”
“Mary!” He gaped at her with dismay, and she smiled slightly.
“I was,” she assured him. “I was making his home life as miserable as possible. For instance, he traveled a lot then and one time when he was gone for two months, I bought the kids a cat. Joe was deathly allergic to cats. But the kids had had it for two months by the time he returned. He could hardly take it away from them then. He had to get an inhaler and start taking allergy shots twice a week just to be able to breathe at home. Joe hated shots.”