Deceived

One morning on a lovely sunny day, the first sunny day after a long and snowy dark winter season. It smelt so beautiful, the cool air, the lovely trees in the avenue. This was a perfect day for anyone to take a walk in the park, walk a dog or just wonder about and embrace it in appreciation. Julia decided not to drive into town, but to take advantage of this beautiful refreshing day and indulge in it. She was expecting her first child with Ricky and had gone eight months – one more month to go. She and Ricky were engaged and had planned to get married soon after the baby was born, why not, after all they had been together for 9 years.

Ricky was a perfect man, fun to be with, always encouraging, loving and very supportive. He was a good father to Julia’s daughter, Joanna, from a previous marriage, the only father she had known since she was three years old – now twelve. Julia looked forward to marrying Ricky and be a complete family and to meet his family, after the birth of their son. They were happy and loved each other, even though Ricky had not gotten in touch with his family in a long time because of some cultural differences. However he had planned to reunite. This was Ricky’s side of his family story.

Ricky was travelling to Australia to visit his mum for the first time since he was at college four years ago, so he had told Julia. They had both agreed that Ricky goes first and see how the visit goes and would take Julia and their son on the next visit if all go well. It made a lot of sense.

Three days, after Ricky had left on a lovely Monday morning, Julia proceeded to the station to catch a bus into town, partly exercising, and to buy something for Ricky as he was coming back the next day which was also his birthday.

It was sometime back since Julia had last travelled in a bus. She felt good, with all those people smiling, and chatting to one another, as it was a small town, everyone seem to know each other. Julia decided to sit right at the back, next to a man reading a newspaper. Something colourful caught her eyes at the back of the newspaper, as she sat down. It was a beautiful picture. The man figured Julia was struggling to take a good look and turned the newspaper so she could see clearly. “lovely photograph”, he said showing Julia a picture of a wedding, “man who wed have nothing to hide”, he added. As Julia took a closer look, She was shocked and she collapsed.

When she woke up she was in hospital.

“You must have passed out in the bus, do you remember what happened?”.

Julia just looked at the nurse as the image she saw in the newspaper clearly returns in her head unmistaken, and said,

“yes I must have been tired, I have not travelled in a bus in a long time”.

“Here take this”, the nurse handed Julia some tablets, “and take care of yourself, if anything at all, please call back in, otherwise you are in perfect health, you just need some rest. Is there anyone we can contact to take you home?”.

“No”, said Julia, “I will get a taxi”.

Holding back anger, rage, hatred and tears Julia left the hospital.

When she got home she took the newspaper from the front door and looked at the photograph on the wedding notices again. She burned with anger, so much anger and hatred she had never felt before. All the love she had turned into hatred and rage. Deep inside Julia’s heart she was on real fire, burning. Julia’s mind took her back to lots of things that she overlooked in life in the past as little things, and brushed aside. Now these suddenly started to make sense. As tears ran down her face, she realised that a day can be so deceiving no matter how sunny, how lovely, how beautiful it appears. Life can just take a turn and everything changes. What if I had not travelled in a bus that morning? Either way, she would have seen the newspaper at home or hear from people she knew. How could Ricky do this to her, and her daughter? She thought she had it all, a life that fitted well like a puzzle, how very wrong was. In the midst of it all, she wondered how she was going to tell her daughter, deal with her relatives, friends and people at work. The phone was already flooded with messages which Julia knew what they were all about – the wedding photograph in the newspaper.

There was Ricky and another woman on their wedding days, in the newspaper on the announcements columns. Just gotten married over the weekend!. The smiles on their faces, the beautiful wedding clothes, a happy couple!. How did it happen?, the arrangements, the rehearsals, all the preparations?. Where was she when all this was happening?. She lived with Ricky everyday, the only time he was not home was when he was at work or out with his friends for a drink, only very few hours a week. Julia continued to question herself;

“How could he share his dreams with me and yet love someone else? How could he let us plan a family? How could he bond with me and my daughter for such a long time and yet plan another life elsewhere secretly. How could he just go out for the weekend to wed?”

The questions went on and on in her head, one after another. The sat down and wept loudly as she realised that she had lived a lie for the past nine years. She just sat there alone for more than an hour, with the phone off the hook, as it had kept on ringing.

There was no answers to her questions, as Ricky never returned home from visiting his mother, if his history story was true at all. His family was nowhere to be reached and Julia and her family exhausted all channels to get in contact with Ricky or his family. The newspaper that published their wedding photograph has no recent address contact. Did Ricky or his wife deliberately published the photograph in their local town newspaper? No one will ever know. Julia thought they were building their family, little did she know that Ricky was pulling down the bricks one by one.

Julia was left with no word and so many questions unanswered. Days went by, weeks gave in and months followed, a year and years completed it all, still there was no word or sightings of Ricky. Even on the day their baby was born, though Julia was expecting him, he never turned up. For some reason Julia kept the wedding cutting from the Newspaper.

After three years, Julia wrote a book, One Deceiving Day which became a best seller. There is a chance that Ricky got hold of a copy, but still he never contacted Julia.

NOTE: This story is fictional, the names are fictional. Any real names or situations that might have matched identically with anyone reading this is purely coincidental.