My husband went on a business trip to another city for a month, and I decided to move his favorite potted cactus to another location, but I accidentally broke it while carrying it. My hair stood on end when I saw what I saw inside…(4/9)

Call her back? But what should I say? She’s obviously shocked, maybe she doesn’t believe me. And it’s unlikely she wants to continue the conversation. But I needed to see her.

I had to find out the truth. The whole truth about John, about his double life, about his secrets. I dialed the number again, but this time Sarah’s phone was either off or out of range.

Apparently, she decided to avoid further communication. Well, if the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, Muhammad will go to the mountain. I decided to go to the Springfield district to find her cabin.

It was like looking for a needle in a haystack, but I had no other choice. I paid for my order, left the cafe, and headed for the subway. I needed to get to the train station where trains departed for Springfield.

On the train, I continued to ponder the situation. What if Sarah really didn’t know I existed? What if the news about her husband’s second wife shocked her as much as it did me? Perhaps that’s why she hung up. Out of shock and disbelief.

But on the other hand, what if she knew? What if she was aware of John’s double life and actively participated in it? Perhaps they had cheated on me together all these years? At these thoughts, a wave of anger washed over me. How could they? How could John do this to me? And to her? Didn’t he enjoy living a lie, cheating on two women, playing two cards? The train pulled into Springfield station, and I stepped off the platform. Now came the hard part.

To find Sarah’s house in the entire district, filled with rural settlements. I approached the station’s information desk, hoping to find a map of the district or a list of rural cooperatives. And, sure enough, such a map existed.

Rural settlements scattered across Springfield like mushrooms after a rain. Dozens, if not hundreds, of plots, divided into cooperatives with romantic names: Birch, Sunny, Forest.

How to find the right person? I had no idea. But I wasn’t going to give up. I took out my phone and dialed Sarah’s number again.

To my surprise, this time she answered. Almost immediately, as if she’d been expecting my call. “I want to meet you,” she said without preamble.

In an hour, at the Forest Glade café on the outskirts of Springfield. “Do you know where it is?” I replied, saying I’d find it with the navigator. Fine, she continued in the same tense voice.

“So… Come alone. No witnesses or police. This is a conversation between us.”

“Sure,” I assured her. “I’ll go alone.” The connection cut out, and I stood on the platform, phone in hand, hardly believing my luck.

Sarah herself suggested the meeting. She herself set the time and place. So she wanted to talk to me as much as I wanted to talk to her.

I found the indicated café on my navigation system. It was about two kilometers from the station. I could walk or take a taxi.

I chose the latter to make sure I wasn’t late for the meeting. The taxi arrived at the café exactly 45 minutes after the conversation with Sarah. I had 15 minutes left before the agreed-upon time.

I paid the driver and got out of the car. The Forest Glade Café was a small wooden building on the edge of the forest. Nearby, there was a parking lot for several cars.

The place was quiet and secluded, ideal for the conversation that awaited Sarah and me. I walked in and looked around. There were only a few visitors in the café.

An elderly couple by the window, a group of young people at a large table in the corner, and a solitary woman at a table at the back of the room. I recognized her instantly, even though I’d only seen her in photographs. Sarah.

She saw me too and nodded slightly, inviting me closer. I headed to their table, my heart pounding. Here she is, the woman who was my husband’s wife for much longer than I had. The woman who bore him a son.

The woman whose existence changed my life completely. Up close, she looked older than in the photographs. Dark hair with a hint of gray, tired eyes, and wrinkles at the corners of her lips.

But still beautiful, with a special, understated elegance. “Hello,” I said, stopping at their table. “I’m Laura.”

We spoke on the phone. She looked at me carefully, as if assessing me, and then gestured for me to sit down. “You said you’re John’s wife,” she said after a pause.

“Is that true?” I nodded and took my passport with the marriage seal out of my bag. I gave it to her. “My real name is Emily,” I said. “Emily Anderson.”

To my husband. Look.” Sarah took the passport, carefully studied the page with my details, and then turned to the page with the marriage registration stamp.

Her face remained impassive, but I noticed how the knuckles of her fingers, gripping the document, turned white. “Six years,” she said quietly. “You’ve been married for six years?” “Yes,” I confirmed. “And you and John? How long?” “Sixteen,” she replied, handing me back the passport.

We were married in 2009. Even before David was born. Sixteen years.

That meant that, by the time we got married, John had already been married to Sarah for ten years. Ten years with another home, another family, another life. “So you didn’t know about me?” I asked, though the answer was obvious.

Sarah shook her head. “No, of course not. Do you think I would allow my husband to marry another woman? This is… crazy!” There was bitterness in her voice, but not anger.

At least not with me. “How did you know?” she asked after a pause. I told her about the cactus, the broken pot, the USB drive, and the box I found.

With each word, her face tightened. “This cactus,” she said when I finished the story. “It was always with him.”

For as long as I can remember, John never left her side of the family, even taking her on business trips. I always wondered about this attachment to the plant, but I attributed it to quirks in his character.

“And what was on the USB drive?” she asked. “What did you find there?” I told her about the documents, the photographs, and the videos. About how John spoke to her in those videos, telling her about the potential danger and the need to be careful.

At the mention of those videos, Sarah shuddered. “I never saw those recordings,” she said. “He never showed them to me.”

“And he didn’t say he was recording anything for me. That’s odd,” I agreed. “Why record video messages if not to show them to the recipient?” Sarah said thoughtfully, tapping her fingers on the table. “He was always secretive,” she said finally.

Even with me. Especially in recent years. All these business trips, late returns, strange phone conversations.

I suspected he had someone, but I thought it was just a fling. And it turns out… It turns out he had a second life.
There was such bitterness in her voice that I felt genuinely sorry for this woman. She seemed as much a victim of John’s deception as I was. “And what about her job?” I asked. “According to your information, what does she do?” “She works for a logistics company,” Sarah replied. “East Trans.”

She handles international transport. Constant business trips, meetings with partners. I got used to her not being home often.

And what did she tell you? “She works for a construction company,” I replied. “She supplies materials, negotiates with contractors.” We looked at each other, and in that moment, a strange understanding dawned between us. Two women deceived by the same man had suddenly become allies.

“So he lied to you and me,” Sarah said. “The only question is: why? Why did he need two families, two lives? What’s the point?” I shook my head.

I don’t know. But it seems to me it’s not just that. Judging from the videos I’ve seen, he was afraid of something.

He talked about some danger, about the need to be careful. Maybe he’s involved in something illegal, Sarah thought.

“Possibly,” she said finally. “He’s been very nervous lately. He often checked to see if anyone was following him, and he forbade David and me from posting photos on social media.”

And once I saw him hiding a package in the garage, under the floorboards. When I asked him what it was, he downplayed it, saying it was just old documents that might come in handy someday. We both fell silent, lost in thought.

The situation was getting more and more confusing. Who was John, really? What was he doing? And more importantly, where was he now? Where is John now? I asked. According to him. Sarah shrugged.

On a business trip to Philadelphia. I’ll be back in two weeks. He told me he was going to New York for a month, I wrote it down. Turns out he could be anywhere.

Or with a third family that neither you nor I know about. Sarah shook her head. No, not that.

Two families. That’s already too complicated to manage. Three.

That’s impossible, even for a master liar like John. I agreed with her. In fact, leading a double life is difficult enough.

A triple would seem unbelievable to me. There’s something else, I said after a pause. On the flash drive, I found scans of several passports.

All in John’s name, but with different last names. Anderson, Miller, Smith, Johnson. Sarah shuddered.

Miller. That’s my last name. John adopted him when we got married.

He used to be Anderson, but in our marriage he’s Anderson too, I objected. We looked at each other, and I saw the same understanding in his eyes as I did. “False documents,” he said quietly. He uses different names in different situations.

Like a movie spy or a criminal? I nodded. It explained a lot. And at the same time, it explained nothing.

Why does an ordinary person need false documents? The more complicated the situation became. We’d been sitting in the café for over an hour, and during that time we managed to order and get a cup of tea each, but the conversation didn’t end.

I told Sarah about my life with John, and she told him about hers. Two parallel stories, two versions of the same person.

Were there any oddities in your life with him? I asked. Anything that aroused suspicion, that made you think? Sarah thought. There were calls, she answered after a pause. Strange calls, after which he would get nervous, irritable.

Sometimes, in the middle of the night. He said it was because of the time difference, because his colleagues were from other countries. But he always went to another room, spoke in a low voice, and when I asked him what the conversation was about, he responded evasively or got irritated.

I’ve had similar cases too, I nodded. And what else? Packages. Sometimes I received packages with no return address. He never opened them in front of me; he always took them to his office.

And when I asked what was inside, he said they were work materials, technical documentation, or samples. Sarah nodded. We had packages like that too.

Once, I accidentally opened one and thought they were books I’d ordered. There were papers in a foreign language and a small box sealed with tape. John got really angry and yelled at me.

It was the only time he raised his voice at me. I remembered that in my life with John, there had also been a similar episode. I took his work briefcase by mistake, and when I opened it, I found some documents in a language similar to Arabic.

John got really angry, snatched the bag from me, and was sadder than a cloud all night. We came to the conclusion that our husband was clearly involved in something he didn’t want to reveal. Something that could be related to international contacts, possibly illegal operations.