It was later that evening, after the girls were in bed and James was watching one of the many mindless reality shows that plague television, that Sheila came into the room holding the letter from Karen.
In her other hand she held a pair of James socks from the clean laundry she had been putting away.
Her face showed little of anger but more of hurt and shame.
She demanded an explanation, tears welled in her eyes.
The slight shade of hurt changed to rage as she clenched the letter in her fist.
James tried, with no avail, to explain the words this woman had written him. He tried to explain that she was just someone that had meant something to him long ago. She had been a fling, a summer thing the summer after college.
"She tells you that she has always loved you James! She claims that you are her soul mate, her one and only!" Sheila screamed.
James winced at his wife's fury, he had hurt her again and he knew this time there would be no repairing it.
This time the hurt was too deep, too painful.
James could see in Sheila's eyes that although they had been through some much and that she had made mistakes too. But the knowledge that James had been with another before they were married just left too much doubt in her mind.
James felt that the trust was all but lost between them.
She had stormed off to their room after their fight, leaving James alone with his thoughts and the letter from Karen.
She had not spoken to him in the morning when she left for work.
When he had returned from the grocery store that afternoon, he had found her note.
Sheila was gone and she had taken the girls with her.
James had cried that day for the first time in a long time; he had gone to visit his dad that evening and cried some more on the drive home.
He felt absolutely and totally alone in his life.
James felt like his life was crumbling around him and he had no one to blame but himself for all of the mistakes he had made.
****
Sweat began to bead on James' forehead, he had come to his own terms with dying, but to be gunned down by a drunken lunatic was not the way he had intended to go.
With no regard for his own safety, and against all his better intentions, James took a step out of the garage towards Will and the gun he now had pointed at James' head.
"Will, what are you talking about?" he questioned.
Will stared at James, tears had filled his eyes and his hand shook as he held the gun in front of him.
"What am I talking about? You bastard! You don't even know what you meant to her, you don't even know how much she loved you."
James was puzzled by Will's apparent ramblings.
"She always loved you more, she chose you in the end over me and she never stopped loving you…"
James tried to cut in, "Will she's my wife, we share a love that…"
"Not Sheila you idiot! Karen! My now dead ex-wife!"
James stared in silence, stunned by Will's words.
"She loved you before we were married, she loved you while she was pregnant with my children, and she loved you when we got divorced and she tried to take everything away from me."
James could not say anything; he just looked into Will's eyes and saw the deep hurt buried within them.
"You are the son-of-a-bitch that my wife thought of when she was with me, you are the bastard that took what I thought was a good marriage and ruined it."
"Sheila was just my way of trying to pay you back for the hurt you caused me. I couldn't have asked for a better end of the deal when you ended up having that time bomb in your head just waiting to kill you."
"Will," James muttered, "I don't understand…"
"What is there to be confused about? You ruined my life so I set out to ruin yours, it was not coincidence that we met on the golf course that day, I planned it. I stalked you and watched you. I made my move on Sheila when I saw that you were fucking that sweet piece of ass from the high school."
He continued and his voice grew louder and more enraged.
"Fuck me if it wasn't just the icing on the cake when you came to me with your headaches. It was like a fucking blessing from above. The one man I couldn't hate more was suffering from the worst kind of brain tumor you can imagine!"
Will started to waver in his stance and steadied himself against the side of his car.
"You self-righteous bastard, you wife stealing asshole!" James screamed at him.
Will just snickered and waggled the gun, forcing James to focus on the weapon again.
"Me? An asshole? Don't forget who's holding the gun Mr. Name-Caller."
Will stared James down again and cleared his throat, spitting the phlegm unto the rain soaked macadam in front of him.
"Do you know what it feels like to have your whole life ruined by the woman you love when she tells you she loves another man and it has always been that way? Do you know what it is like to realize that all that you thought was real was just a lie?"
James stood statue still, listening to Will rant angrily.
"I do not think you know how much pain you have caused me in my life James. I lost everything when she walked out on me because she finally realized one night after finishing one of her god damned Nicholas Sparks's books. She realized that she truly loved you and that would never change!"
Will wiped his running nose on his sleeve and his eyes started to overflow with tears.
"She was my everything, she was my life!"
"If she was your life, why were you cheating on her?" James asked quietly.
"Ah, fuck that. You of anyone should know it gets stale in the home bed, a man needs to go out and find something fresh once in a while, am I right old James my boy? That sexy little thing from the school really seems to know how to fuck, huh?"
James did not reply, he just stared at Will with no pity or sympathy.
"Karen meant more to me than you will ever understand James, and you took that all away. So now I am going to take everything away from you and the ones you love."
Will pulled back the hammer on the revolver and the chamber rotated, putting a bullet into the firing position.
James swallowed hard, not sure how this was going to end and wishing that it could be different, wishing that he could make things right for everyone.
The pain he saw in Will's eyes made James realize that it must be the same pain that Sheila had felt. The same hurt she had experienced when he told her about Karen that evening they fought about the letter.
"Will," James started, "you have every right to hate me, and to blame me for what you think I did to you, but you have to know that your wife made her own decisions, I had not seen her in over ten years."
Will just stared, his eyes burned into James and the gun was still firmly pointed at James' head.
James suddenly felt a sense of frustration and anger; he took another step closer to Will.
Will's stance did not waver this time; he kept the gun trained on James.
"Go ahead you coward!" James screamed, his anger was boiling over and he could no longer restrain himself.
"Shoot me you son-of-a-bitch! Shoot me if you have the guts."
"Or are you too weak to do that just like you were too weak to fight for your wife. She didn't leave because of me. She left because she realized that she would never have in you what she once felt with me. You failed her as a husband you asshole and she needed to move on. You are too self centered to realize that I was just a reason for her leave you, she knew that there was more out there for her!"
James' words stung Will, he could see that. But the man's anger outweighed his ability to reason at that moment.
"You are unbelievable. I have a gun pointed at your head and all you can think is to blame me? My wife left me for you James. She left me to find you again and to get back her true love. So, I found you first and tried to ruin your life like you ruined mine."
Will took one step c
loser to James and the gun's barrel now rested only inches from James' forehead.
"And by the way, your wife fucks like an animal Jimmy boy."
Will laughed a harsh, evil, deep throated laugh.
"I am not going to let that tumor take you out James, I am going to do that myself…"
James closed his eyes and waited. His head throbbed with an immense pain.
He heard from behind Will, the sound of another car.
Tires screeched and he heard a woman's scream. He opened his eyes and saw Sheila running up the driveway towards them.
He Stared at Will's eyes and then at the barrel of the gun. He saw Will's finger on the trigger and he could hear Sheila screaming as she got closer.
There was a flash and James' world went dark forever.
****
Sheila sat in her kitchen with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
"Just a couple more questions Mrs. Matheson. I am sorry. This must be really hard on you. You have been so strong thus far and I appreciate that" the officer stated as he went over her statement again.
Her eyes drifted to the table in front of her, not really registering any one thing as she scanned the table top and then the room.
James' body had been taken away in a body bag by the coroner and Will's body had been collected in the same fashion.
The whole scene flashed in front of her again and she shuddered as the thought of the gun shots rang in her ears.
"Are you okay, Mrs. Matheson?"
Sheila refocused on the young officer seated next to her. His hair was wet from the rain and drops of water beaded on his crisp uniform and covered his hat that sat on the table.
"Yes, I'm fine considering..." her voice trailed off.
"That is completely understandable. You said that you sister is coming to get you?"
"Yes, she is on her way now."
"That is good. Someone in your state of shock should not be alone right now."
He flipped thru the notes he had been taking while interviewing her.
"I'm sorry to keep rehashing this, but you said that Dr. Greene had the gun pointed at you husband's head when you pulled up to the house. Was your husband gesturing or seemingly provoking Dr. Greene in anyway that you could tell?"
"No," she answered quietly, "James was just standing there."
Sheila could see James' body buckle in her mind and she remembered how he fell after the bullet tore through his skull.
In an instant Will had put the gun to his temple and with another pull of the trigger, he sprayed the contents of his head all over the hood of his SUV.
Sheila had screamed in sheer terror as the events unfolded. Neighbor's lights went on and it was not long before the flashing strobes of police cars filled the air around their home.
"Thank you Mrs. Matheson, I think that will be all for tonight. You may be contacted by a detective at a later time to discuss this matter further."
The young officer looked at Sheila with a kind, concerned face.
"I am truly sorry for your loss ma'am."
The young officer took his hat from the table and left the kitchen area.
As Sheila sat stunned in her seat, she realized she felt numb all over as if it wasn't real and this could not have been happening.
Another officer approached Sheila holding a small piece of note paper in her hand. She politely smiled and handed her the piece of paper.
"I thought you might want to see this ma'am."
Sheila took the paper from the officer. The police woman nodded in respect and turned away.
Sheila held the note in her hands and read the words written on the paper.
Dibbs,
I cannot begin to tell you how sorry I am for everything. First, I want to tell you, that through all of this there has always been you…
The words on the paper just stopped.
Sheila's eyes welled with tears as she stared at the last thing her husband tried to tell her and she knew this was going to be harder than she could have ever imagined.
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