not me : a study in deception

There is a man in my wife’s diaries and it’s not me. It is all here, scrawled upon the pages in her careful handwriting. 

It’s my right to know what is going on here, it is my right why she has turned so cold. Invading someone’s privacy, normally that’s not me... but the diary was sitting there, taunting me. Sitting on the table, within it maybe something.  I just reach out, pick it up and know what’s going on, and find out who he is.

He, that’s all she calls him and he is not me, of that I am sure. In fact I have never seen someome more unlike me.  Scattered throughout are descriptions, painful in their detail, a jigsaw puzzle of a human face. It starts with the nose, broken, angled, with bilious nostrils like mud flaps. Eyebrows, rounded rough like caterpillars.  It’s here, here that gets me, his hands. Soft hands, firm hands, confident hands, his hands on her body.

Listen to me, jealousy, that’s just not me. Yet reading about his hand reaching out from his masculine arms,  strong and determined, and yet, this force becomes gentle like wind as it moves to his hands as it moves towards her.

It’s not me, I am not crazy, I can see his possible faces as I go through the possibilities.  She has here descriptions of the jewelry he has given her. Small things, necklaces, earrings, tiny baubles. I searched for them, I found nothing. Just the things I've given her through the years.

There is also fear, my wife is afraid of him. She writes about looking at her things, and knowing someone has gone through them. Small pieces left in slightly different places. She is afraid of him, afraid of his savage glances, afraid of what he is hiding. She describes him, staring at a knife, seemingly studying it, running his finger along the edge. For all of the attraction she has for him, when I see the fear,  I am glad it’s not me.

Then she writes of the river, laying back with him, watching the water crawl by out to sea. We walked once when I thought she loved me, but the man she loves is not me. 

What kills me is that sadness in the writing.Tear stains on the pages, and things  like why can't he be happy. I wish I could tell her, tell her not to care about him, that there is someone who is famished for her love.

I want to tell her but that is just not me.