The Pearl Anniversary
By: Caroline Beaujet
Tags: Short Story, Fiction, Writing Prompts, Creative Writing, Marriage

I woke up early on Saturday morning, very early. After all, I had been waiting for this weekend for a long time. Three years actually. Three years were a long time to wait, and I had grown impatient at times of course, you did when you were so eagerly looking forward to something. But I bid my time. I continued to think about how I could make this particular Saturday absolutely perfect. And now the weekend had come and I knew it was going to be a memorable one.

It was our thirtieth anniversary. Thirty years of marriage was ten times as long as the time it had taken me to plan the anniversary itself.

My husband was still asleep at my side, snoring gently. It used to drive me crazy, the constant snoring, but I got used to it. You got used to a lot of things in thirty years of marriage.

Mark was the first person I met when I moved to the city. I had literally just arrived and I was struggling with my many boxes in the staircase. Mark happened to live just across the hall from my studio. He offered to help me and later that day he took me out to that little Chinese place down the street. I fell in love with him within a couple of weeks. I moved in with him within a couple of months. We were married by the end of the year.

Yes, it was fast. But he worked in the army, which meant he was often away on overseas missions and I always had that irrational fear that something would happen to him, that one day he would not come back. At least as his official next of kin, I would be the first one to be notified if something happened. Not that it would change anything in the grand scheme of things if something did happen and Mark did not make it home. But it reassured me, somehow. And Mark always did come home.

Now Mark was retired and did not have to go abroad so much anymore. He was still travelling quite a lot without me though, with his cycling club. He said it was his time off with the “lads” from the army. Fair enough. It was quite a change for him already, retiring from the military. He said he needed this kind of connection to his former life, and he could not stay put for too long.

Mark snored again. I sighed. Yes, you got used to a lot of things in thirty years, but still. I carefully got out of bed so as not to wake him, tiptoed out of the room and climbed down the stairs to the kitchen. There I set out to prepare the perfect breakfast. I would make pancakes.

I had told Mark that for this anniversary weekend, I wanted to organise Saturday and he would do Sunday. I wondered what gift he had for me for tomorrow. It was our pearl anniversary so maybe pearl earrings. In Greek mythology, pearls were actually tears shed by the gods. But in Ancient Egypt, pearls were a symbol of healing and life. Different stories but both poetic, I thought.

Anyway, it did not matter much what gift he had for me or what he had planned for Sunday. I already knew nothing could beat my surprise.

Once I finished making the pancakes, I went out to the garden to cut a red rose to add to the breakfast tray. Cheesy maybe, but it was a nice touch I thought. I went back to the bedroom, where Mark was now awake: “Happy anniversary darling.” His tone was cheerful as always, confident that it was going to be a great day. “So what do you have planned for me today then?” he added, grinning.

I smiled mysteriously. “You will have to wait till tonight for the surprise I am afraid, darling. For now I have made your favourite breakfast. Then you can get ready to go cycling.” “Cycling? But you don’t even like cycling that much”.

No, I do not, I thought. But I also remembered that little village on the cliff that overlooked the sea. We had spent a day there, years and years ago. It was a long ride from our house, and it would take us a while just to get there, but the cycling path was beautiful. We would stop on the way of course, in other little villages that sprinkled the countryside around here, but ultimately, it was that particular village on the cliff I wanted to go back to. And I knew it meant just as much to Mark as it meant to me.

A thunderstorm had caught us by surprise at the top of the cliff more than thirty years ago and we were absolutely drenched. But then the sky had taken that amazingly dark colour that was made even more breath-taking by the brightness of the sun coming out through the clouds. It was then that Mark proposed to me, on the spur of the moment, because the scenery was so dramatic he felt that was the perfect time and the perfect place. He had always been the impulsive one, Mark. I was the analytical one, the logical one. The one who would spend three years waiting for an anniversary.

And now, after a good few hours of cycling and enjoying the countryside, we were back to this village at last, at the top of that cliff, again. Except the weather was nothing like it was when we had last come here. It was a beautiful day and the sea below us was as calm as it could be. We sat on a bench, tired after a long day of cycling. We were not as young as we used to be after all.

“Can you believe it? Thirty years,” Mark said in a low voice. “Thank you,” he whispered. We said nothing for a while then, just holding hands and taking in the cool breeze of the afternoon and enjoying the view.

I took my time cycling back to the house, because I knew the best part was yet to come and I was in no rush to reveal it. The sky was taking on a pink and purple colour by the time we arrived at the house. Mark got off his bike, opened the door to the garage and parked his bike, but I stayed outside.

“What are you doing, are you not coming in?” he asked, coming back out when he saw I was not following him.

“No, I’m not actually” I replied.

“Oh I see, is it all part of the big surprise you have kept for last?” a smile on his face as he teased me. I said nothing.

“Honey?” Mark was starting to look confused. “What’s going on? Is everything ok? You look so serious”.

“I told you, I am not coming back in.” I repeated, my tone even. I held my gaze steady, looking straight at him. « I know about Nathalie. »

Mark stopped smiling. “Honey, I don’t know what you think you know but…”

“Oh I know it all very well” I interrupted him matter-of-factly. “After all I’ve had the past three years to do my research and familiarise myself with all the facts. I do know what I know”.

I was enjoying the moment more so than I expected to. The more anxious he looked, the more confident I felt. It was not even the confrontation I imagined it would be. Mark was too shocked to be in a confrontational mode. His face was pale now, strained. Realisation was starting to dawn on him and he must have known there was no way out for him.

Three years ago, I found out he had a daughter. It did not take me long to realise from her date of birth that she had been conceived a mere few weeks after our wedding. I thought about confronting him of course, and of leaving him straight away. But I did not. I guess part of me felt incredibly naïve for failing to know such a crucial thing. True, it must have been easy for him to see her before or after his various military trips without me being any the wiser but still, how could I have not be suspicious at all? In all that time? I was ashamed of myself. So I kept quiet. And then, the shock of the betrayal turned into rage. But the quiet rage that could eat at you if you did not find a way to control it. The one thing I was craving above everything then was precisely that, control. I had not been able to control what had happened, but I could control my reaction to the truth. The rage turned into resentment. That was when I started wondering how I would get back at him. When he would least expect it.

And today, I was finally doing just that. Three years I had waited for this.

So I climbed back on the bike, and turned away from the house and from Mark. I did not look back as I cycled away. I was smiling. The weekend was just starting.