Mandy and Jack’s marriage is carefree and childless — exactly the way they want it. They spend a lot of time with Jack’s childhood friend group, going on group dates and adventures. But then Mandy realizes that Jack has been keeping her away from events. Who or what is the reason? Find out more…
In the nine years that Jack and I have been together, our marriage had been the kind of story that you’d recount with a smile, filled with love, shared dreams, and tons of adventures.
But about three months ago, things started to feel a little different.
Before that, we always attended events together — whether they were work events or other events planned by his group of friends. Jack and his friends had been together since before we were married, them having all been on the same football team since high school.
Recently, Jack had been making up a lot of excuses about leaving me at home when he went for these events.
“It’s just the guys, Mandy,” he would retort while getting dressed. “Do you really want to sit around in their company without the wives?”
To be fair — that sounded horrible. As much as the friend group had become our second family, I knew that a night with only the men would mean drinking, wings, cards, and maybe the occasional cigar.
Without the wives, it wasn’t the best way to occupy my time.
So, I thought that there was truth to Jack’s story. Most of the couples had children anyway, so I also knew that the wives would have been busy with them.
But then, I went to the grocery store and ran into Kevin’s wife — Kevin was one of Jack’s oldest friends, and we used to see him and his wife, Marcia, all the time. Until they had twins and we had to just meet at the group events.
“Mandy!” she said, hugging me tightly from behind. “Are you alright, dear?”
“I’m fine,” I said, smiling at the twin toddlers who were sitting in her shopping cart. “I haven’t seen you in ages!”
“Well, yes,” Marcia said, frowning slightly. “Jack told us that you two were trying for a baby, and that you were taking hormonal shots. I didn’t know that you were going through In Vitro Fertilization! I would have sat you down first, you know that’s how we ended up with the twins.”
My jaw dropped. I didn’t know what to tell the woman standing in front of me. Why did Jack lie?
“How are you handling the shots now?” she asked, looking concerned.
“It took a while for my body to adjust,” I said, lying through my teeth.
“I hope this means that we’ll see you for the next dinner!” she said. “I’ve missed having you around as my silent judging partner of all the other women.”
Next dinner? I thought. What else had I missed?
“You should have seen some of the outfits that the other wives wore during the poker night two weeks ago!” Marcia exclaimed, chuckling. “I was going to call you later that night and tell you everything, but something must have come up.”
I smiled at her. As upset as I was feeling, I realized that this was Jack’s doing — whatever Marcia told me was because she had been fed it by Jack.
“So, you’re feeling good? All things IVF included?” she asked while picking bananas.
“Yes,” I said. “I think my body just needed a minute to catch up.”
I had no idea if anything I said made sense because I didn’t know much about IVF.
I also didn’t know why my husband was lying about it.
I couldn’t understand if it was his way of saying that he finally wanted children. But that made no sense. Why would Jack tell his friends that we were trying for a baby?
“He just doesn’t want you there,” I said aloud as I walked to the cashier.
The drive home was a blur, tears streaming down my face as I wondered what was really going on. I simply couldn’t comprehend any of it.
I sat on the living room couch and tried to think of all the reasons why my husband wouldn’t want me there.
Was he taking someone else? — But that would be too risky. He knew that he would get caught red-handed. One of the wives would have let it slip.
Surely, they would have.
I decided to play detective and see what was really going on.
Sitting down with my laptop, I accessed Jack’s and my joint calendar — usually whenever the group planned anything, the invites went straight to that. And there it was, an invite to a dinner for the following Friday evening, explicitly stating “wives included”.
I assumed that Jack had been deleting the previous invites that he had attended by himself.
I saw that the RSVP hadn’t been done yet, so I RSVP’d for us both, and then removed it from our calendar.
The night of the dinner, I presented it as a surprise for Jack.
“Date night, my love,” I said, getting dressed and doing my makeup.
“Fancy dinner?” he asked, eyeing my clothing.
“Yes! We don’t usually dress up. So, let’s just do it. Take some photos, enjoy the evening.”
I didn’t tell Jack where we were going, I just directed him as we drove — his brows furrowing in confusion.
My husband’s confusion morphed into shock as we arrived at the restaurant — greeted by an uneasy silence from our friends.
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