Veronica

I thought it was for me, the box. My seventeenth birthday is next week and I thought that perhaps I had stumbled upon my present early. It looked suspicious enough, wrapped in brown paper; which my parents would probably figure I wouldn’t think twice about if I had found it. It was also in a suspicious place; on a shelf in my dad’s garage. The only reason I found it was because I chipped my manicure and couldn’t find a nail file in the bathroom. Being clever I decided to find one of those tools that do the same job. And that’s when I found the box. I must admit I was excited when I opened it, black lace in just the right style, provocative and sexy and the perfect fit. The high-end kind. But then I read the card. Veronica, it said. To My Beautiful Veronica. The lingerie wasn’t for me. My father would disapprove of a present like that and Mom usually takes me shopping for that sort of thing anyway. No. It was a present for Veronica. A present from Dad. And no, before you get excited- Veronica isn’t my mother. She’s one of Dad’s work colleagues.

I’ve met her before on numerous occasions. She’s like a bad smell, always hovering around my father and pretending to be friends with my mother. It’s disgusting .But how to really describe Veronica? Well, the first thing you should know about her is that she isn’t single. She’s married. She’s a couple years shy of forty, no kids. Does she actually give a shit about her husband? Probably not. Just like how she doesn’t care about my Mom, or my brother and I. I went to Dad’s work party last Christmas, and she tried to get me to take a ‘selfie’ with her. No thanks. Poor Mom got roped into a photo with her. #Workfamily, it said on Veronica’s Instagram page, her standing next to my mom smiling, pretending to the world like she isn’t fucking the woman’s husband. Families don’t have sex with each other. She makes me sick.

Physically I get it; she’s tall, she’s thin and she’s got plastic in her boobs. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone who can pull off a razor sharp, jet-black bob with bangs quite like her. Her eyes are the ice blue of a young adult fantasy reader’s dreams. She’s high fashion. But why did she have to go after my father? What’s wrong with her husband? I contemplate what to do with the lingerie. Should I take it and keep it hidden? Put it back where it was? Show my mother? So many options. My pulse is a race. Was my father going to give it to her on a special occasion, or give it to her here I wonder? Is this where they have sex…in my parents’ marital home? I hope not.

I suspect the affair has been going on for over a year. I don’t know why, I just do. My father doesn’t seem like the type for a short fling. After finding the box, he feels like a complete stranger to me. How can I look him in the eye when he comes home this evening? There is an anger brewing within me that knows no depth. Over her. Over him. Does my mother suspect, or does she know? I want to troll Veronica online. I want to ring my friends and egg and toilet paper her house this Halloween. I want to steal her credit cards and spend up a storm, because I bet that’s what Dad’s been doing on her. Spending money. It hurts my heart. I question whether or not things are OK between my parents and come to the conclusion that they are. They talk in the mornings over breakfast, they laugh together in the evenings, they use the bathroom at the same time. I’m pretty sure they still have sex. Nobody wants to think that about their parents but I hear them sometimes at night. Doesn’t that bother him? Knowing he is sleeping with both my mother and his work college? Does it bother Veronica? Knowing that straight after she’s been with my father, he’s going home to be with my mother. Adults are the most dangerous creatures on Earth. It makes me not want to grow up.

I decide that I need a deeper perspective, so I take the box upstairs. It feels dirty in my hands. My parents are at work, my brother at school. I feigned sick today, so I have the house all to myself. I stand in front of my bedroom mirror and I undress. I slip Veronica’s present on. Who am I? Is this the uniform of an adulterer? I open my mother’s drawers, and go through her delicates. My Mom has a lot more class. Does Dad not want class? I lie on my bed and imagine Veronica’s life. Does she enjoy ruining mine? I cry all afternoon. It’s late when I hide the present and the box under my bed before my family get home, and I plaster a smile upon face when they arrive. Dad is late. I bet I can guess why. My Mom asks me how I’m feeling and I tell her much better thanks. I watch her as she begins making dinner for us. She tells me I’m staring. I am. And I’m also thinking. It will break her heart if I tell her Dad’s dirty little secret.

I’m setting the table when he comes home. He’s in a good mood, kisses my mother which makes me cringe, and then sits down at the head of the table to eat with us. He asks my brother about his football trials coming up, asks me about my day and tells us all about his. Everything is so damn normal. I want to throw my utensils at him. I want to scold him with the mashed potato. Instead I give nothing away. I’m still in shock. He’s not my husband, but it almost feels as if I’m the one he’s cheating on. And that, well that just isn’t fair. I hate him.

Its before bed that I make my decision. I get on the computer and search for my father’s firm online. I click the staff bio page. There she is. Veronica. I’d like to take that smile off her face. Paranoid, I delete my search history and sneak downstairs where my parents are snuggled up together on the lounge. Is he really having an affair? They look so happy. Happy people don’t have affairs. I remind myself that he is a liar, and that this is all an act. I spy his laptop bag on the island in the kitchen, which is where he keeps his phone. I take my slippers off at the foot of the staircase and creep into the kitchen, where I extract it from the bag unnoticed. I duck into the hallway and unlock the phone of which we all know the pass-code. There are no messages from her. No calls either. He and Veronica must be so clever hiding their disgusting infidelity. I go into the contacts list and scroll straight to the bottom. There she is again. Veronica. I send her phone number to myself, and then delete the message and return Dad’s phone to the bag. I go back upstairs and I begin to write a message of my own. I pretend to be my father, and claim I am using a different phone. Her response is immediate, and gives me butterflies in my stomach. My hand is shaking, and I can think of nothing else. I open her message…

Hey sexy, it says.

I want to vomit. I hate her. I keep the next message short and sweet and ask her to meet me tomorrow at a time that I know Mom and Dad will be out with friends at dinner. She accepts, and then I send her one final message.

We need to talk.