When Madison sees a note on the bathroom mirror, she chalks it up to her husband being sweet after their night out. But when she talks to him about it, his awkwardness makes her feel that the note isn’t for her. Could Ryan be cheating on her?
It started how things usually do: quiet and unassuming, with a sweet moment between my husband, Ryan, and me. Or so I thought. I was getting ready for the day when I noticed a love note written on a Post-it on the fogged-up bathroom mirror. The words threw me for a loop.
Miss you already, last night was amazing! XOXO.
My first thought?
That Ryan left me a surprise. I felt a little spark, honestly. After a few years of marriage, little things like that can really brighten your day.
We had gone out for dinner the night before, and I had too many cocktails, so when we got home, I had just hopped into bed, makeup and all. I slept like the dead and only noticed the note now.
I grabbed my phone and texted him right away.
Hey Babe! I saw your little note on the mirror. So cute! I loved it! 😘
A few minutes later, those three dots appeared. I smiled, brushing my hair, and waiting for his response. But when his message finally came in, it was not anything sweet or cheeky that I was expecting.
Uh, what note, Madison?
Well, that was weird. I mean, maybe he forgot about it? Ryan wasn’t a morning person at all, and he would remain grumpy and unengaged until he had two cups of coffee.
I snapped a picture of the mirror and sent it to him. My smile faded as I waited, fingers tapping nervously on the bathroom counter. After a few long minutes, my phone buzzed with his reply.
Oh! Haha! Yeah, right, I left that for you! I totally forgot!
Something about the way he typed it felt off. I could almost hear him saying it. My husband also loved emojis, so the lack of emojis in his text was different. The casualness, the awkwardness, it just didn’t sit right with me.
I went downstairs to make myself some breakfast before I logged on to work for the day. I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe the note wasn’t meant for me at all.
The thought crept in, chilling me to my core: Was Ryan cheating?
The entire day, my mind raced. As much as I tried to sit down and focus on work, I just couldn’t. I told myself that I was overreacting. There had to be an explanation.
Ryan wouldn’t do something like that. We were solid, weren’t we?
“Hey honey,” Ryan said when he got home that evening.
He came into the study and kissed my head, completely oblivious to the inner turmoil I was going through.
“What’s for dinner?” he asked.
“I’ve been a bit behind on work, honey,” I said stiffly. “Can you make something?”
Ryan smiled, nodded, and headed to the kitchen.
I was on edge. I could feel it taking over me. I watched him closely, and while he was acting normal, I felt like it was a mask.
Later, when Ryan went to bed, I did something I never thought I’d do.
I went through my husband’s phone — every text, his call log, and the latest emails.
His phone was clean, like too clean. There were no secret messages, no signs of an affair, nothing. But my gut told me something was off.
I felt sick. What was going on? My mind screamed at me to let it go, but something deep down wouldn’t let me.
I just couldn’t shake the feeling that he was hiding something. But if Ryan wasn’t cheating, then who was that note meant for?
A few days later, things took a turn.
He was in the shower with the woman who had walked into my home.
Ryan came home from work earlier than usual, just as I was about to head to the gym. His body was tense, and when I asked him why, his answer felt rehearsed.
“My dad’s coming over,” he said. “He wants some help with his laptop. Enjoy your session, I’ll see you later!”
His dad? Bob rarely came over in the past. But recently, he had been dropping in all the time. Especially on the days when I worked from the office and not home.
Later that week, Ryan’s mom, Claire, called me. She sounded off, a little upset.
“Darling, have you seen Bob around lately?” she asked.
“Yes, Mom,” I said. “He was here the other day. Ryan said that he wanted help with his laptop or something.”
That’s when something clicked.
Bob had been here a lot recently.
Too much.
The next time Bob came over, I decided to do some digging of my own. I pretended to run errands but parked around the corner, out of sight. A few minutes later, a woman walked up to my front door!
“What the heck?” I said out loud.
I waited a few more minutes, talking myself into getting out of the car. My palms were slick as I made my way quietly back to the house.
The shower was running.
I approached the bathroom. I don’t know what I was expecting to see, but what I found shattered every assumption I had. Through the crack in the door, I saw Bob.
He was in the shower with the woman who had walked into my home. A woman who definitely wasn’t my mother-in-law.
That’s when I finally realized the truth. The note wasn’t meant for me. And Ryan wasn’t cheating. Bob was.
I flung the door open, and they both whipped around, startled. Bob looked like a deer in headlights. The woman grabbed one of my towels from the towel rack next to the shower. She jumped out of the shower, grabbed her clothes from the floor, and bolted.
“What the hell, Bob?” I yelled.
He stumbled over a series of words, trying to come up with excuses, but I didn’t need to hear them. The truth was plain and simple. He was using my house as his secret hideaway for his affair.
Later that night, I confronted Ryan. His face went pale when I told him what I had walked into. At first, he tried to deny it, his voice defensive and sharp.
But when I pressed him, it all came pouring out.
“Tell me the truth!” I demanded.
“Of course, I knew, Madison!” he said, frustrated. “But he’s my father. He asked me to cover up and I did. It’s better this way, you know.”
“How is it better?” I asked, shocked at the words coming out of his mouth.
“It’s safer here, Madison! This way, my mother wouldn’t see Dad with his mistress.”
I couldn’t believe it. I was furious. My husband wasn’t the one cheating, sure. But he had been lying the entire time, hiding something so disgusting right under my nose.
We argued for hours that night, and he still just didn’t seem to understand why I was so upset.
“How could you lie to me? For months, Ryan! How could you cover for him? Didn’t you think about your mother?”
“I didn’t want to get involved,” he said weakly. “It’s my dad, Madison. What was I supposed to do?”
“You were supposed to be open and honest. With me. With yourself. With your mother, for goodness’ sake! Instead, you turned our house into Bob’s disgusting little playground.”
That night, I told him to sleep in the living room. I needed space.
The next morning, I called Claire.
And I told her everything. The silence at the other end of the line was chilling. And when she finally spoke, her voice was steady.
“Pack your bags, Madison,” she said calmly. “We’re leaving.”
We ended up checking into a hotel using the money that Bob had transferred to Claire a month earlier.
“He said it was for my 65th birthday weekend,” she said. “Now, we’ll use it for massages, cocktails on the beach, and planning our next move.”
By the end of the week, we both filed for divorce. My mother-in-law told me she couldn’t stay with a man who betrayed her trust like that. And I knew I couldn’t stay with Ryan after he lied and enabled the whole situation.
Now, Claire and I are renting a cute little apartment together. We’re two newly single women, free from lies. And it’s been the most refreshing change.
What would you have done?
Woman Told Her Daughter Her Father Had Died – Years Later, the Girl Discovered a Heartbreaking Truth
When Cassie returns from a getaway with her husband and son, she walks into her home to see a cryptic message from her mother — telling her to watch a video. As Cassie presses play, her entire life changes. In the end, she’s left wondering which of her parents are worthy of forgiveness.
In my eyes, my father could do no wrong. He was everything I needed him to be and more. He was a businessman who was always traveling, but he ensured that he made enough time for me.
“You’re my little girl, Cassie,” he would say, bopping my nose with his index finger. “You’re the most special.”
A father carrying his daughter | Source: Pexels
My parents always went out of their way for me — ensuring that despite their busy schedules, we would have family dinner almost every night.
It was the one thing that kept me grounded while both of my friends from school were in the middle of their parents’ messy divorces.
“I think it’s trendy now,” I told my mother as she cut slices of banana bread for me after school one day.
Sliced banana bread | Source: Unsplash
“Cas, you cannot think that divorce is trendy,” she laughed. “It’s devastating and traumatic, and very few families actually keep things civil.”
“I’m just saying that it’s trendy because a lot of kids live between two homes,” I explained to her. “It’s one of those things we were talking about in class today.”
I was fourteen, and the world seemed more dramatic than it should have been.
A smiling girl in a hoodie | Source: Pexels
But what I didn’t know was that my words seemed to be an incantation that settled over our home.
A few weeks after that conversation, my father went away on a business trip. A few hours after he had been gone, there was news of his passing.
“How?” I asked. “How did he die?”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Cassie,” she replied. “I’m just saying what the paramedics told me.”
Two paramedics standing | Source: Pexels
“So what will we do next?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” she asked, puzzled by the question.
“For the funeral?” I asked. “Aren’t we going to have one?”
“I don’t think so,” my mother replied. “Dad wanted to be cremated and have his ashes spread at the beach. Let’s do that instead.”
A black and white urn | Source: Pexels
I couldn’t fathom why my mother would want to do that — but at the end of the day, she knew my father best. And the longer I thought about it, the more beautiful and sentimental a private ceremony at the beach felt.
“Don’t be difficult, Cassie,” my mother said when she saw me thinking about my next move.
“I’m not,” I said. “Really. I was just thinking about it. It’s a great idea, Mom.”
A pathway to the beach | Source: Unsplash
I could have fought her for a send-off that I thought would have been more appropriate. But what use would it have been? At the end of the day, we had both lost him.
The months following the beach ceremony felt weighted, and I knew that I was becoming deeply depressed — my father had been our world. And his absence was felt more than anything.
But, with time, I learned to live with it.
A girl sitting on the floor and looking out the window | Source: Pexels
Last week, I decided to book a cabin in the woods for a little family vacation. My son was adamant that camping was the new best thing, and I knew that despite the wonders of nature, I wasn’t going to camp in a tent without a bathroom in sight.
Instead, I thought that a cabin would be the best option — my husband, Derek, could camp outside with Drew, our son, if he insisted on it.
A cabin in the woods | Source: Unsplash
We had a dog, therefore, I asked my mother to house-sit for the week so that we could be at peace, knowing that Romeo was taken care of.
A week away was more than enough to restore my mind — and eventually, when we went back home, I was surprised to see that my mother wasn’t there. In fact, it looked like she had never been there.
A dog lying on the grass | Source: Unsplash
But there, on the coffee table, was a note beneath the TV remote.
Watch this, Cassie. I’m sorry. — Mom
I didn’t know what was in store for me, but while Derek got Drew into the bath, I put the TV on and began to watch whatever my mother had planned.
The TV flickered to life, and there he was, my father, his voice a long-lost melody, his image aged but still, unmistakably him.
A person holding a TV remote | Source: Unsplash
Tears streamed down my face as the realization that he was still alive enveloped me in a mix of joy and disbelief.
The video message was nothing short of unpredictable.
My dear Cassie, I’m still here, alive. I’m so sorry for the pain that you must have felt from my loss. But it was needed. I needed to be removed from your life because of the sordid truth of my past. Your mother knows everything, please ask her for the truth.
My health is on a steady decline, and I would love to see you and explain it all.
Love you, Dad.
An old man | Source: Pexels
Without telling Derek or Drew anything, I grabbed the car keys and ran out. I needed my mother to explain.
“So, I bet you’ve got questions for me,” she said, opening the door.
“Explain it all,” I said.
“Cassie, it’s heavy. You look tired from your trip; are you sure you want to do this now?” she asked.
I nodded. It was now or never. I needed to know why my father faked his own death to get out of our lives.
My mother made us some tea and took out some shortbread.
Shortbread cookies on a plate | Source: Unsplash
“Darling,” she said. “I’ll understand if you don’t forgive me, but there’s so much about that time that I need to tell you.”
I sipped my tea, trying to figure out what my mother was about to tell me.
“I remember that you were telling me about your friend’s parents getting divorced. Do you remember that?” she asked.
I nodded. Of course, I did. It was the strangest thing, but it was so common when I was in school.
“Well, your father and I were not legally married. So when I told him about our conversation regarding divorce, he was actually relieved. Without being married, there would be no divorce.”
A marriage certificate | Source: Unsplash
“What’s the big deal?” I asked.
“Then I found out that the real reason that we didn’t get married was because your father was already married to another woman.”
“What?” I exclaimed, almost dropping my cup. “To who?”
“To a woman in the town where he always had his business trips.”
“You didn’t know?” I asked, unable to believe her words.
A couple showing off their wedding rings | Source: Unsplash
“Of course not!” she exclaimed. “But when I pressed him about it, he decided to choose that family over us. So, I told him that the story was going to be his death.”
We were both silent for a moment.
Turns out that my mother told him that she would never tell me the truth, not when he was my favorite person. She couldn’t burst my bubble in that way. And she refused to let him see me one more time.
“It was better for you to think that it was an accident,” my mother said. “It just made more sense.”
Now, I understood why we didn’t have a funeral for him.
“What did we throw into the sea, then?” I asked.
“Dust,” she replied with a straight face.
A cloud of dust | Source: Unsplash
My mother had spoken to him twice over the years. The second time being a day ago.
During their meeting, my father confessed his imminent death due to illness and requested that she give me the recording. My mother, torn by guilt and love, chose to write me the note and have the recording all set for me to watch.
“I would have taken the secret to my grave,” she said. “But knowing that he was ill and wanted to see you just struck something in me.”
A cemetery | Source: Pexels
Compelled by a need to confront the reality of my father’s existence, I traveled to the state where he lived with his other family.
I spent a few weeks with my father — going in and out of hospitals, watching him take an array of different medication, and growing weaker by the day.
Sitting at his bedside, I listened to his stories, the regrets, the moments of joy, and the love he had for all his children — myself included.
When things started to go downhill, I asked Derek to fly over with Drew. It was going to be a fleeting moment, but at least I’d know that my son had met my father.
A sick old man | Source: Pexels
A few days later, my father died.
Even now, I don’t know if I’ve forgiven him for the lie of having a double life. I just know that when it came to it in the end — I wanted to spend time with him. I had shoved my feelings aside, hoping for memories that I could figure out later.
But now that the dust has settled, I’m trying to figure out if I should forgive my mother for lying.
Flowers on a grave | Source: Pexels
What would you do?
This work is inspired by real events and people, but it has been fictionalized for creative purposes. Names, characters, and details have been changed to protect privacy and enhance the narrative. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
The author and publisher make no claims to the accuracy of events or the portrayal of characters and are not liable for any misinterpretation. This story is provided “as is,” and any opinions expressed are those of the characters and do not reflect the views of the author or publisher.
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