One day, I was going through the attic of the house where my wife grew up and found her secret old diary. It was buried under a lot of old stuff and looked like it hadn’t seen the light of day in years. When I opened it, I thought I would find some dramatic teen stuff inside. I was so wrong!
It was buried under a bunch of old memories that I had forgotten about. Its worn-out cover caught my eye in the dusty mess.
“Dear Diary,” one entry said, “I had some strange feelings today.” It feels like something is cooking inside, but I can’t quite place it.” As I read on, my eyes got bigger. There was a baby in Sarah! Why did she hide something so big from me?
I learned more about Sarah’s fears, hopes, and struggles with each page turn. Then, boom! I got lucky when I saw a name I had never heard before: Emily. She was the center of Sarah’s attention, but she never talked about her to me. It turned out that Emily was our daughter, which was a big secret Sarah had been keeping from everyone.
As I slammed the diary shut, I was shocked, angry, and confused.
I yelled downstairs and pushed Sarah’s hands over the diary, my voice shaking with emotion. “What’s going on, Sarah?” My heart was beating fast as I demanded. “Who is Emily?” Why did you not tell me about her?”
Sarah looked down at the diary with tears in her eyes. Her silence said more than any words could. There was a moment when the only sound in the room was the sound of our shaky breaths.
Sarah finally spoke, but her voice was barely above a whisper.
“I didn’t mean to hide it from you, honey. I felt scared and lost, but I thought I was doing the right thing by everyone. What she said hit me like a ton of bricks. It hit me at that moment how little I knew about the woman I loved. She was more than just my wife; she was a person with her own secret and fears.
“Sarah, what do you mean? “Who is Emily?” My voice was getting softer as I asked. I was worried and confused. “Where is she now?”
Sarah looked up at me with tears in her eyes. Her face showed a mix of pain and regret.
She said in a whisper, “Emily is our daughter, Jack.” “When I was younger, I gave her up for adoption.” At the time, I believed it was the best thing to do.
It felt like the floor had given way under me. She asked, “Our daughter?” I said it again, my mind struggling to make sense of the revelation. “Why did you not tell me about her?”
Sarah took a weak breath. She was having trouble finding the words, and her hands were shaking. She told him, “I was scared, Jack,” and her voice was raw with emotion. “I’m afraid of what you’ll think of me and leaving you. I believed that burying it far enough would make it disappear. It never did, though. “And now we are here.”
I was angry and hurt all at the same time.
A wave of heartache swept through me like a tide, threatening to swallow me whole. There were lies at the base of our marriage, and I wasn’t sure if we would ever be able to get back together.
As the truth hit us like a suffocating blanket, I felt a rage that was unlike any other I had ever felt. “Sarah, why? Why would you treat us this way?” My voice echoed through the empty room as I demanded. “Why would you lie to me about something so important?”
But even as I asked the questions, I knew that there were no answers that could ever take away the pain of Sarah’s betrayal. I realized that our marriage would never be the same again as we stood there in the silence of our broken lives.
