And the woman in his arms, bare as the day she was born.
Meg Simmons. In college she'd been two years behind me, in my direct line of study.
Every finals week, she'd cling to me, begging for my course review notes so she could cram for her exams.
In the beginning, Morgan actually didn't think much of her. He used to complain to me that she was eating into our time together.
But little by little, things shifted.
He'd compliment Meg right in front of me, saying how pretty her dress was, how sweet and guileless she seemed.
There was even a time I caught the two of them coming out of the men's restroom together. Meg was crying and scolding him for being a brute, for having no tenderness toward a woman at all.
So that was when it began. They'd been carrying on behind my back since then.
About two hours passed.
Morgan came out of the bathroom with Meg cradled in one arm, then stood by the bed and gently dried her hair for her.
They tussled and teased for a good while before Meg finally pushed his shoulder away, pouting in mock reproach.
"Today was our son's first day at preschool, and you, his father, didn't even go. Hmph. You're not the least bit fit for the job."
Morgan pulled her into his chest. "Blame that Lucinda. Every single time she dawdles forever before she'll leave, holding up the three of us getting to be together as a family."
"Don't be cross anymore, baby. How about I get you a jewelry set to make it up to you?"
"And what about our son?"
Morgan smiled and raised three fingers, swearing an oath to the heavens.
"For the next week, dropping our son off and picking him up is all on me. Now are you finally satisfied?"
I clenched both fists, nails nearly digging into my flesh, yet I felt nothing of the pain.
I kept thinking: how could a person sink to such shamelessness?
Morgan had lain there faking illness for eight years. Eight years of cold words and colder looks aimed at me.
And all the while, behind my back, he and Meg had gone so far as to have a son.
That child. I'd seen him.
Morgan's parents had lied to me, said he was a relative's boy they were fostering for a while. Yet the two of them doted on him as if he were their own grandson.
Every time I went to drop off their living allowance, that child would leap out from behind me and deliberately squirt me with a toy water gun, his mouth full of filth, calling me a "wicked woman," shouting things like "you stole my daddy."
A child like his mother, sure enough.
By now the heat had risen in Meg's body again, and she wound herself around Morgan for three more rounds.
Afterward, she cupped the man's face triumphantly and looked toward my figure in the wedding photo.
The gesture seemed meant to stake her claim.
"Morgan, do you know why I threw out everything in this house that had anything to do with Lucinda, yet kept that one photo?"
Morgan smirked and reached out, doting, to flick the tip of her dainty nose.
"Up to no good again?"
"That's right. I want her to see with her own eyes that on every unremarkable night, you're right here in this honeymoon room she decorated with her own hands, tangled up with me, unable to bear letting go."
"It was so infuriating, the way she married you a step ahead of me. When we're so clearly the better-matched pair."
"Still, watching her get led around in circles by us all these years, I've finally vented my spite."
"Then again, don't you think she's pitiful? Trying to find a treatment for you, she's worn herself down into an old hag. She's not even thirty, and already a big patch of her hair's gone white, her whole face lined with wrinkles. Hahaha. Every time I see her she gives me the creeps."
"That was her own choice."
Morgan toyed with the ends of Meg's hair, his face full of amusement.
"Lying there crippled and faking it, I'm the more pitiful one. How come I never saw you feel sorry for me?"
"You're awful."
……
The night was as long as ever.
Some lay sleeping in each other's arms. Some were breaking apart inside.
