*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a friend who experienced them firsthand; used with permission.*
You never know what goes on in a family behind closed doors, do you? It can look from the outsider’s perspective that a couple is happily married and has been for years. That’s the way it was with my friend Thea’s grandparents. They raised good children, retired in a nice house, and have taken a lot of lavish vacations all while spoiling their kids and grandkids.
Thea always told me she hoped she had a relationship someday that was as great as the one between her grandparents, and at that time I agreed. My own grandparents had been happily married for sixty-five years when my grandfather passed away and they were in love every day.
Needless to say, Thea and I were both shocked when she found out about her grandfather’s secret life.
It began one afternoon when Thea and her grandfather, Steven, were out to lunch together. While they were sitting at a table in a restaurant, a woman came up to them with a beaming smile on her face and promptly kissed Thea’s grandfather on the mouth.
Thea and Steven were both shocked, but for completely different reasons. Thea thought at first that the woman must have been crazy, or had confused her grandfather for someone else. She was young and pretty, looking to be around Thea’s age. Her grandfather pushed the woman away with a look of horror on his face and the woman stepped away.
“Steven, what’s wrong?” She asked.
“This is my granddaughter, Thea,” he told the woman.
“Oh,” the woman said, her mouth dropping open, and then without another word she quickly walked away.
“Who was that?” Thea asked.
“I have no idea,” her grandfather lied.
“But she knew your name. She kissed you,” Thea prodded.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Steven said, sounding as gruff and angry as Thea had ever heard him, and she was so confused and mortified she dropped the matter and didn’t speak to him at all for the rest of the meal.
A few days later, Thea dropped in at her grandparent’s house unannounced only to find her grandmother, June, there alone.
“What are you doing here? Where’s your Papa?” she asked Thea.
“What do you mean?”
“Steven said he was going out to lunch with you.”
That’s when Thea knew she had to sit down and have a talk with her grandmother. Together, they deduced that he had lied repeatedly about going to spend time with Thea. They waited until Steven returned home hours later and confronted him together. With great shame, Steven admitted to having an affair.
Apparently, his affair partner was twenty-five years younger than him, close in age to Thea, which made her very uncomfortable. It also broke her grandmother June’s heart. They had been married for almost fifty years, and June could not believe her wonderful husband would betray her for the petty trappings of a physical relationship with a younger woman.
Too old to separate or divorce, or so they told each other, Steven and June stayed together and are still together, but now Thea realizes she wants a completely different kind of relationship than the one she thought they had.
Hi, I hope you enjoyed this story! I am a freelance writing single mom trying to create a better life for me and my daughter through words. If you enjoyed this, please consider leaving a small donation: https://ko-fi.com/maryduncan
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