"Hello, Ma'am, you asked to see me?" A young man walked up to her in khaki pants and a t-shirt with the manager tag on it.
"Ah, yes. I would like to pay for the items I spilled," She replied with an apologetic smile.
"Right this way, Ma'am," he responded with a nod and smiled.
After making the payment, she made her way to the entrance of the grocery store. The rain was drizzling now. She stared right at the café, contemplating whether she should accost him. He had told her he was going on a business trip, but here he was cozying up with another pretty face. Her heart was torn and wrenched; her Daniel was long gone.
She tried to go over the event she had witnessed and told herself it could be nothing but right. Just on cue, as though the universe was mocking her, she watched her husband lean closer to the lady across the table.
Her breath caught!
They were kissing.
How could she overcome this pain? It was as though her heart had been ripped off her chest, and she could feel her heart disintegrating into fragments.
Shakily, she reached for her phone and called her husband, but he didn't pick up. Upon the third attempt, she had watched him break off the kiss and reach for his phone. He had taken one look at it and declined.
Her tears spilled.
Truth be told, she had been happy with Daniel and was so in love with him. She had done anything he asked without putting up too much of a fight. When he asked her about moving to Q city with him, she was so excited but worried about her job. He had laughed and told her she didn't need to.
"What would people say that the Almighty Daniel Clay allowed his wife to suffer? No can do. I will take care of you, babe." He had said.
She was sad that she had to leave her friends and family, but he had assured her she could always visit and they could at will. And, yes, he had offered her anything she asked for.
Being in a new city came with its perks, but Daniel had made it easy for her. She had her chauffeur, maids in droves at the Clay mansion; he had put her on a five-million-dollar allowance every month, excluding the black card he gave her for her shopping. Being quite modest herself, she had always moved her monthly allowance to the investment account she had opened on one of her visits to the States in the second year of her marriage. She shopped at will and went for exclusives and limited editions as she was now among the la crème de la crème of the elite world in Q City, just being the wife of Daniel Clay.
Their business world and those social gatherings could be quite brutal for the faint-hearted and those with no financial strength. If you didn't have the brains, you should at least have the looks to match, like her friend Kayla would always say. Kayla was a fashion freak. She was always Natalie's virtual stylist.
However, in the third year of Natalie's marriage, she started feeling hollow and empty.
Daniel was always busy and would be on business trips for weeks. She had complained and whined, and he had suggested that his mother move in to keep her company in the mansion.
She had thought it was okay as it would bring her closer to Daniel's mum, but little did she know that it would be the beginning of her problems. Mrs. Clay Senior, Julian was a mother-in-law from hell who always demanded perfection and preached traditional wifehood daily.
Natalie had no problems with it as she felt she had time on her hands, but the lady became demanding and downright demeaning of her, even in front of the staff at the manor. She made no effort to hide the fact that she was elderly and was in her son's home, and the new voice of power.
The whole torture had been emotionally draining for Natalie, who was a 21st-century Gen Z. Then one day, Mrs. Clay Senior had ordered the kitchen staff not to make any of the meals Natalie preferred, saying, after all, she lived off her son's money. What did Natalie even do for her son? No formidable family background, no reputable job or position, but a housewife who didn't know her place.
She had initially complained to Daniel, but he only addressed it once with his mother, who, in turn, only decided to increase her torture level instead of doing better. From doing groceries for her personal meal preference, it then became a norm for Julian to send her a shopping list every time she was out, to sending her a list daily under the guise of preferring her meal fresh.
As for Daniel, he had stopped seeing her; she was more like a roommate and a sex mate when he felt like it. But then again, that aspect of their life was already dwindling just like their marriage. They no longer talked as much or even shared a meal despite her making efforts to cook for him every day.
She had even opted for taking his lunch to his office until one day he snapped at her while she served him breakfast for looking stupid, asking him silly questions about what he wanted for lunch. She had looked up to his mother only to find her smirk.
She had made excuses for him, saying maybe he was stressed with work. Work had to take the blame because it had to be; she was doing everything right, for Christ's sake!
Then came the business news with gossip about him with different models and different women; she had lost track. She had called him out one evening, he had come home early about the gossip, and he, deadpan, looked at her and said, "What if it's true?".
"I don't understand," she replied.
"I said, What if it is true?" He had responded without flinching.
He had said that to her, and her silence from that day was the beginning of her undoing.