A Sense of Guilt ✔

Chapter 24

Joe paced up and down as Katherine scrolled through his emails. He knew there was nothing incriminating in them but her actions added to his sense of guilt. He felt indignant that she'd demanded to see them and yet he was the guilty party. If she needed to do this to feel better then he didn't see how he couldn't deny her request. And yet he was furious at the intrusion. He'd come clean, raking over the fragments of his affair with Shannon wasn't going to make her feel better.

She leaned back in the chair, her shoulders sagging. 'I guess you were pretty good at cleaning up after yourself,' she said swinging around to face him.

'There was nothing to clean up, I never emailed her, I told you that,' he said his jaw clenching. She was the one who wanted to stay together, he didn't think trawling through all of his records would help them move forward.

'Give me your phone,' she said her hand outstretched.

He paused then passed it to her. 'Fine!'

She touched the screen and then sighed impatiently. 'It's locked Joe, unlock it.'

'No.'

'No?' She tilted her head to look up at him, her lips pursed.

He knew he was provoking a row, there wasn't anything for her to see on there either, apart from Shannon's number. She was right, he'd done a good job of covering his tracks.

'Then I'll have to assume you're hiding something,' she said her teeth gritted. 'What have you got on there that you don't want me to see?'

'Apart from a few shitty downloads nothing.' He tried to joke but she wasn't placated. 'Katherine, you know everything, what good is this doing?'

'I want to understand.'

'You're not gonna get any understanding from looking at Shannon's contact details. Now either you trust me that it's over or we're over.' He held his breath almost hoping she'd agree to call it quits.

'If you still have her contact details then we have a problem,' she said tightly. 'What do you need them for?'

He shrugged. 'We have connections, I might need to get in touch with her, I dunno, it's no big deal.'

'Then it should be no big deal to remove them,' Kat said but something made him dig his heels in. He knew he could make a gesture of deleting Shannon's number and then get it from any number of sources, but he resented being told to in the first place.

'I'm not gonna play silly games Kat, you can't erase Shannon from my life. Deleting her number proves nothing.'

She glared up at him. 'It proves something to me,' she said holding his phone out to him. 'Unlock it now, Joe.' He almost snatched it off her and angrily put the code in. She grabbed the phone and he watched as she brought up Shannon's contact details. Her finger hovered over the delete button and then she thrust the phone back at him.

'Kat we've got more important things to resolve than my contact list,' Joe said sliding the phone into his pocket.

'I need closure,' she said sounding weary.

He told himself to be patient, she was obviously hurting and that was down to him. He placed both his hands on her shoulders gently rubbing them. 'Looking at my phone won't give you closure,' he said quietly. 'I think we need to postpone the wedding until we get past this.'

He felt her tense up. 'No! I won't be humiliated on account of that slut.'

Joe flinched as her anger flared up but he continued to knead her shoulders trying to release some of the tension. 'How about we go away, we could say we've put the wedding back to have a vacation?' He'd do anything to bring her around to his way of thinking.

'No, that's dumb when we have a honeymoon planned. Everyone would see through that. Either the wedding goes ahead or we're over.' Joe met her eyes, trying to see if she was serious. This was his chance, his opportunity, but as her eyes welled up he remained silent.

~~~~

'Yep it's all systems go,' Katherine told her mom during their weekly catch up call. She tried to inject some enthusiasm into her voice, glad she wasn't on facetime so at least she didn't have to worry about her mom seeing her looking a mess.

'Do you need me to come help with anything,' her mom offered. 'I could cancel a few of my classes.' She taught meditation and yoga but Kat suspected it was more of a hobby than anything else.

'No, it's under control, apart from waiting on a few rsvp's everything's sorted out.' She hadn't even looked at the guest list to see if Shannon's name had been removed, as she feared it had not. Joe would have to come up with a reason to explain her removal to his mother for one thing. She knew she should clarify the situation with Joe but she was loathed to start another conversation about his affair, or dalliance as she preferred to think of it. They needed to focus on their relationship going forward.

'I hope Joe's mom hasn't taken completely over,' her mom said interrupting her thoughts. Katherine could hear the resentment in her mom's voice and she suspected she wanted to come and help more than she'd let on. For all she'd acted laid back about the wedding Katherine was her first child to get married.

'I've got on with my own stuff,' Kat said lightly. It wasn't untrue, everything to do with herself and her bridesmaids she'd kept Joe's mom away from. However, in light of recent events, she wished she'd never let her get her hands on the guest list! If only they'd eloped.

'And how are things working out with Joe's ex back in town?'

Kat inhaled sharply, she couldn't believe her mom was asking that again. She must have picked up on her unease during their earlier conversations.

'Joe doesn't have much to do with Shannon now, it's more her parents are friends with Joe's parents,' she said keeping her voice steady. Well, that was how it would be from now on.

'Oh good, I'm glad you're not jealous, I'd hate something like that to drive a wedge between you and Joe. And it would if he thought you were getting jealous over his ex-girlfriend.'

'You don't need to worry about that mom, Joe knows I'm not having any unnecessary attacks of the green-eyed monster,' she said with a laugh. She had to bite her lip so she didn't give way to hysteria, her attacks of jealousy were anything but unnecessary. Her mom didn't pick up on her cryptic words though.

'I'm glad to hear it, he's a good-looking boy, there's going to be more than one woman who'll take a shine to him,' her mom warned and Katherine's hackles went up.

'Well, maybe they'll also be a man who might take a shine to me,' she said her tone snippy.

Her mom laughed. 'Yes I'm sure there will be but you're as loyal and honest as the day is long, few men are.'

Katherine opened her mouth but no words came out. Joe hadn't been honest or loyal, and it hadn't taken much to tempt him. She cleared her throat pretending to cough.

'Which reminds me,' her mom said, never one to let a silence develop. 'Have you and Joe thought of premarital counselling? Me and your father had it, well actually we had it after we got married but I'd thoroughly recommend it.'

'It can't be premarital if you were already married,' Kat said rolling her eyes. Trust her mom to come out with some new age shit.

'True but you're missing my point,' her mom said ignoring Katherine's dismissive tone. 'You guys should look into it, make sure you're on the same page as far as you envisage your married life. It helps to know what your goals are and where you see yourselves going, it's kinda like ironing out the issues before they occur.'

'Right,' Katherine said uncertainly. A few months ago she'd have knocked the idea back without a second thought but counselling? Maybe her mom was onto something. She didn't want to dwell on Joe's affair but counselling that was focused on the future, on their marriage, that might not be such a bad thing after all.

~~~~~