Chapter 1

Liza is my wife. I am Steve. I am 30, she is 32. We have been the Stevensons for seven years now. Yes, my parents had a weakness for alliteration. We have a child, a boy of six. We called him Eric, just for the heck of it – no granddad, no uncle with that name. And thank God, no alliteration. He is bright, and he'll need it; his world has turned into a mess.

So has mine.

At college I lusted after Liza. It was because of her tits, her face and the way she hugged me with every square inch of her body after I helped her getting through a Business Management test. I needed exactly one date to fall in love with her eyes, her laugh, her voice and the fact that she remembered how I liked my coffee.

It took us three more dates before we had sex. Then I needed six months to find the courage to ask her to be my wife. And finally it took us a year to graduate, find jobs, an apartment – and marry.

In the seven years of our marriage I changed companies twice until I decided, two years ago, to go it alone. I navigated small companies through the dire straits called taxes. And as more and more of them seemed to appreciate my efforts – bigger ones too – I started doing well.

After having little Eric Liza switched jobs. From being an account manager in an advertising agency she became a free-lance proofreader for ad agencies and publishers. It didn't pay much, but it allowed her the flexible hours a mother needs to keep house and raise a child while the father is out making money. She worked mostly when Eric was at school, or in the evenings when I could take care of him.

Life was good to us. The house we lived in had been built with the bricks of the American Dream, including a lawn, a picket fence and two cars of recent make. Living a cliché can be very comfortable, especially for young families. But I never knew that our life also included this other well-worn cliché – a cheating spouse.

My feelings when I found out surprised me – I felt embarrassed. Go figure: my wife acts like a common slut and I am the one feeling embarrassed. I felt dumb for having trusted her. I had chosen her to be my only one, my best friend and soul mate, the mother of my child and she turns it into a farce. Shouldn't she be the one to feel embarrassed, guilty and ashamed – even before being caught?

Yes, I know, I can be quite naïve.

I came home one day early from an ICT seminar. Of course I had tried to contact Liza about the change in schedule. Her cell was down and at home the voice-mail picked up my call. I left a message and decided to try again after landing.

When I waited for my luggage I did try again and got a sweet and bubbling Liza. She had found my message and was excited to have me back early. I rushed to find a cab and hurried home. The unexpected treat of a free afternoon and night with my family made me feel like a little boy on Christmas morning.

Eric was with her mother's, she said. She seemed as excited as I when she opened the door. She looked delicious and I was horny after two days of bits and bytes. We went straight up to our bedroom where we undressed in a hurry. Sweet currents of electricity ran up and down my spine when I pressed my face between her naked breasts, inhaling the scent of her perfume.

When I reached her pussy after a meandering journey of kissing and licking, my tongue entered a swamp. I know, you'll call me stupid for not getting suspicious at once, but be honest – you would have been just as clueless if I hadn't given you warning. I was also handicapped by the fact that all the blood my brain needed was commandeered by a different body part.

I was horny, she was willing – thinking could wait. It waited through numerous orgasms on her part and three on mine. It waited through two rounds of snacks, a bottle of wine and three hours of sleep before I woke up from a crowded bladder and slid out of bed. That's when I felt the sting of doom, right into the sole of my bare left foot. I cried out, making Liza stir. I lifted my foot to see what was under it. Then I picked up the object. I placed it on the open palm of my hand, where it gleamed in the ghostly light of the tiny night lamp.

It was a cufflink.

It felt quite heavy, made of real gold, it seemed. It had two connected square flat surfaces, a large one and a smaller one – the latter obviously to be worn on the inside. Both surfaces had a relief, making them look like seals on a signet ring. On the smaller one were letters, which made me wonder who owned it – and how on earth it could have ended in my bedroom, biting my foot.

I turned around and watched Liza. She breathed slowly with her eyes closed. I rose and walked to the bathroom. The pressure of my bladder – nearly forgotten – returned with a vengeance. My cock still looked red and angry after having been used so vigorously before. I redirected the splattering stream to make it less noisy. Then I shook off the last drops, walked over to the small basin and rinsed my hands under the faucet.

The gold cufflink stared back at me from the white marble ledge where I had put it. I saw more detail now, in the better light. On the bigger square was a heraldic kind of seal, divided by a diagonal. The upper part sported a prancing horse, the lower showed three round dots, like a set of billiard balls. The smaller square had a more intricate pattern. It showed interwoven letters, maybe the initials of its owner.

I saw an R. It seemed to be woven through the legs of an M, but there was also a C. RMC, CMR, MRC, MCR – so many possibilities, but what the hell? Liza wasn't married to an MCR or an RCM, was she? Besides, I never even owned a cufflink, but here it was – very male and lying under our bed in our bedroom. Tears pressed at the back of my eyes when the significance of it all started to seep in. My fist hit the porcelain of the basin.

"Stop it!" I hissed through clenched teeth. "Don't be ridiculous. Think."

So I found a cufflink beside my bed that wasn't mine. It could not have lain there longer than a few days. The cleaning lady vacuumed the room every Thursday. Today was Friday – no, Saturday by now of course.

I looked into the mirror, shaking my head as if to free it from the dark thoughts that clung to the inside of my skull. I fought to keep them hidden under more innocent possibilities, but those weren't more than feeble excuses, really. How could a cufflink lie in a bedroom without having been dropped by its male owner? And was there a plausible reason for dropping it, other than while opening or closing the cuff of a shirt? And wouldn't one have taken off a shirt before putting it on again?

"Ah!" my friend Denial piped up. "Maybe he just lost the link, but never took off his shirt?" "In your wife's bedroom?" my sounder friend Reality retorted. "Why should he be there at all?"

Before this schizophrenic dialogue went further, I growled. I grabbed the cufflink and left the bathroom, tiptoeing through the bedroom and down the stairs. I had to think, didn't I? I had to keep the panic and the black thoughts at bay, if only to eliminate mistakes by rushing to conclusions.

The thought of Liza cheating on me had never entered my mind. Admitting that she obviously did would be like tearing down the house around me and hurling myself into the indifferent emptiness of outer space. It was like pulverizing the very foundation of my existence. The eight years with her had spun a warm, hugging cocoon around me. It was the only thing protecting me from a thirty below zero winter on the Siberian tundra. Accepting the reality of her cheating would leave me limping along like a helpless amputee.

And yet – there it was on the kitchen table: cold, gold, very real and riddled with consequences.

I poured a shot of my long-saved Laphroiagh single malt scotch. It was a waste; I didn't taste a thing. I poured another, allowing the dark demons to rush in. Liza had cheated on me while I was gone. I went out of town quite a few times this year – seminars, courses, clients. I have been doing that for years. Why would I believe this to be the only time she cheated? Just because it was the first time I found out?

The third whisky brought about the one and only classic question: why? Of course I summed up all the equally classic answers, throwing them out as quickly as they popped up. I started doubting everything I had been taking for granted – our material comforts and the almost perfect bliss of our family life ... little Eric, our love life, the frequency of our sexual encounters; their quality. Could she have been nursing unfulfilled needs? How? Wasn't my exhausted cock proof of the opposite – still tingling from our last work out? And wasn't it – by the way – a very respectable seven inches? All right, six-and-a-half.

"You ask why?" said my fourth whisky. "Fuck the why. Fuck the 'with whom' too. You married a slut, plain and simple." Did I marry a slut? Just thinking the word filled my befuddled brain with angry indignation. How could anyone even think that I would marry a slut? Me? Marry a slut? Outrageous, I thought. An offense.

And I poured the whisky that would be my last before the lights went out.

Liza's voice had an edge of concern when she shook my shoulder – well, at least as far as I could hear her over the beating of hammers on anvils. I lifted my head from the puddle of drool that had leaked from my sleeping mouth. First thing I saw was a half empty bottle. Second thing I saw, after focusing my eyes, was the absence of the cufflink. My head was a battlefield. Thoughts wandered in and out of a lingering mist. The steaming mug of black coffee smelled like medicine. I didn't even dare to check its taste.

"God, Steve," Liza said, sitting down at the other side of the table. "You gave me the shock of my life. First, you weren't in bed when I woke up. Then I find you here, head on the table, dead to the world with an empty whisky bottle in front of you. What is going on?"

Her words were too loud and too many; they insisted on invading my skull through a way too narrow entrance – painful, painful. I rose. I tried to rise. I rose. The world needed leveling; my eyes seemed to observe it from a distance.

"Later," I said with the voice of a stranger.

Upstairs I first emptied my stomach. Then I took a shower and three aspirin. On the way to my bathrobe I went past the bed. I fell on it and slept another three hours.

When I at last reentered the kitchen, Liza had gone. On the empty table lay a note informing me that she was picking up Eric at her mother's. "Kiss, L," the last line said. The note lay almost exactly where the cufflink had been. Or had it?

While drinking coffee I wondered if I might have dreamt the whole thing. And then I wondered if it would be such a bad thing to believe that. Liza for one might find it convenient.

Damn, why did I have to hit the bottle like that?

Eric was a ball of energy, running into me full force. I took him outside to shoot some hoops and inhale much-needed gulps of cold, fresh air. Afterwards he had to beat me with his newest computer game, another of the many gifts my doting mother in law spoiled him with. God knows where she finds the money, but he is her only grandchild.

Liza stayed away from us, but maybe she always left us alone when we did our boy things. I tried to remember and couldn't, really, but I guessed so.

After receiving three sound beatings I left the boy to it and returned to our kitchen. Liza was at the table, slicing onions and peppers. I smelled fresh garlic too. Liza believes in home made food; I gladly help her eating it. The simple sight of domestic bliss brought the threat of tears to my eyes – or was it the onions? I sat down.

"Liza," I said. "There was a gold cufflink on this table. Did you find it?"

The sharp knife just kept doing its almost professional dance, very close to her fingertips. She never missed a beat until she finished the onion. Then she wiped the little white cubes off the blade and carefully laid the knife down before looking at me.

"A cufflink? You never use cufflinks, do you, honey?"

It was the perfect answer given with the perfect timing and the perfect face to accompany it. Even the slightly puzzled smile was spot on.

"Did you find it?" I insisted. "It was right here."

"No," she said. "No cufflink. I found a puddle of drool and an almost empty bottle of booze, but no ... no cufflink." And she picked up the knife to attack another onion. Liza never tears up when she does onions, I remembered. Come thinking of it, she doesn't cry a lot anyway, I thought.

Should I tell her how I found the cufflink next to our bed? Or that it was a signet cufflink with an R on it and an M and a C? Should I ask her if she knew an RMC or an MRC? Maybe I should, but I didn't; what was the use? Her casual denial caused a great sadness to sink over me.

The cufflink wasn't there anymore because she had found it. Maybe she had taken it to her lover already, on her way to picking up Eric? She would certainly have called him to allay his fears at discovering the loss.

Anyway. I did give her a chance to come clear – or to seriously prove her innocence. She did neither.

In my college years I have been drunk at parties, so I know how alcohol makes you forget things. But this time I had been sober when I found the damn thing. Moreover, I even remembered every detail straight through the haze of my later drunkenness.

The cufflink had been there and now it was gone. The only person who could have found and taken it, was Liz. And she denied even seeing the thing. She blew her chance to come clean and it made me unspeakably sad.

"Liz," I said, with a voice that was calmer than I felt. "Will you please lay down the knife and look at me. I have an important question." She looked up quickly, wide eyed.

"Of course, honey," she said. I had her attention now; maybe even her worry.

"How did that cufflink end up beside our bed, Liz?"

It was her second and last chance.

She rose and walked over to me, wiping her hands on her apron. She bent down, reaching for my shoulders. Her eyes held mine. Then she shattered my world.

"Please, honey," she said with her warmest, most concerned voice. "What is this about a cufflink? I really don't know what you mean. I never saw it, not beside our bed and certainly not on this table."

I just stared back, shaken by her calmness.

"Darling," she went on. "You must have been drinking a lot. Why was that, anyway? You never drink. It scared me."

I took her hands off my shoulders and rose.

"Liz," I said, fending off her attempt to hug me. "I shall leave you alone for a bit, so you can think of a better story."

I went upstairs and collected a few things like underwear, clothing and my laptop. When I came down again, Liz protested as she saw my bag. She tried to stop me, but I went into the garage, into my car and out on the street.

I saw Liz in the open door when I drove off. Knowing where to go was easier than knowing what to do.

I felt miserable. There was the supposed betrayal and the obvious lying from a woman I'd loved more than myself for almost nine years. There also was my son; not seeing him would be hell. And then of course there were the minor but manifold pains of missing all the automatic comforts and securities of my life: my house, my bed, the easy rhythm of things and all the other certainties that I took for granted until they disappeared.

A hotel room shows its true face when it becomes your only room. It is boring, impersonal; it is a place where time grinds to a halt and seconds become minutes, minutes become hours. TV gets like a black hole, sucking your mind empty. You read, but the words don't register; they only allow you more time to dwell on your misery. The few friends I had were out of town or otherwise engaged. My mom and brother live half a continent away.

So I went out to escape my room, just to discover that bars and cinema's, malls and restaurants are even more apt at giving you a feeling of loneliness. Isn't it remarkable how being alone emphasizes that all the other people are not?

Going to work on Monday was a relief, until Liza called me, around 10 a.m. I had closed down my cell phone all through Saturday and Sunday, but there was no way I could do that at work. I decided to take her third call, if only to tell her not to bother my poor secretary.

Liza was in tears, but they were angry tears, soaking the remains of a well-nursed rage. She accused me of making her worry when I kept myself unreachable all weekend. I told her to stop it or I would hang up. She did not hear me. So when she went on wondering how I could have done this to her and little Eric, I disconnected the phone. I also told my secretary to keep her away from me.

Eight calls later the girl came into my office, giving me an ultimatum: get Liza off my back or I'll leave this building, screaming. I took the ninth call, finding her considerably more subdued. I asked her to stop calling me at work, but I already knew she would not do that. She wanted to talk. I told her I'd only do that if she allowed me to see Eric whenever I wanted, whatever would happen. She said I should come home, so I could see him all the time. I put down the phone. It rang a minute later. I picked it up. She said I could see Eric as often as I wished. So I gave her the name of a restaurant we both knew and promised to be there around one.

She didn't look pale or tired, nor did she look nervous when she rushed into the restaurant, ten minutes late. Her blouse was crispy white under a tightly cut jacket. It was in a color only the French have a name for, leaving us plodding cavemen wondering what on earth might be mauve or taupe. But thankfully her missing upper buttons made up for that – as did the tightness of her skirt. I wondered about her wearing them; normally it would have been jeans and a sweater. Did she do it to tease me, or was it to rub my nose in it? And did I care? Yes, I did, but right now it only instigated darker thoughts.

She was a whirlwind, turning heads while rushing down the aisle to my table – her high heels tapping a tattoo on the marble floor. I took quite a bit of that whirlwind out of her sails by refusing the hug and the kiss she had in mind. I didn't even stand, let alone help her into one of the fragile chairs.

Her smile died. She sat down across the small table, her fingers nervously torturing her tan leather clutch – yes, definitely tan, I decided.

"So," I said. "I guess you found a better story?" Her face ran a gambit of emotions, half of which I could not read. The last one I'd qualify as despair, but that could very well have been due to my own feelings.

"Honey," she said and paused, closing her eyes and opening them again. Her voice was thick with controlled emotion – or was it indignation? "I don't need a story, truth will do. Why are you so cruel? I came here to tell you how very concerned I am – with you, with us. Just imagine – we make the most wonderful love and the next moment you are zonked out, draped totally drunk over our kitchen table, an empty bottle of booze before you. And all you rant about is a goddamned cufflink! Now how would you have felt in my place?"

I just stared. Then a waitress interrupted us. Neither of us seemed hungry. We ordered coffee and water.

"Now how would you have felt, Steve?" she immediately went on after the girl left. "I got scared out of my mind. You get up, go vomit in the bathroom and faze out again on our bed. I go pick up Eric, having an awful time not to betray my obvious distress to my mother – and when I get back all you want to know is how a fucking cufflink I've never seen ended up in our fucking bedroom. Then you pack your things and leave. You left me, Steve, and I didn't sleep a wink all night."

I can't say she never uses the word fuck, but I never heard her use it twice in one sentence – and connected to words like "bedroom" and "cufflink," no less. I did wonder what Freud might have thought about this. I also wondered how she could look this good after sleepless nights. And lastly I wondered why I wondered about things like that.

"Liza," I said finally. "You are right. This isn't a better story. It isn't even a story at all. The only thing you do and have been doing, is trying to convince me that I was too drunk to think straight, and that I should worry about my mental condition. Why do you do that, Liza?"

She gasped, not unlike a fish out of the water. Her hands crept towards mine, clasping them.

"I don't think you are crazy, honey," she said. "I love you and I worry. Something must have happened. I read about how people change when they have a stroke. You should see a doctor, honey, you really should!"

A freezing cold crept up my spine. She wouldn't ... How could she? With a voice that seemed to come from a distance, I said:

"No need to worry, Liza. I am as healthy as a horse, or maybe not a horse but the stupid ass you must think I am – one that believes your lies, whatever you say." Her eyes widened. They moved left and right, quickly.

"Oh dear God, honey," she whispered. "I don't lie! There never was a cufflink on the table – ever! Please, you must believe me." Her eyes stopped moving now. Her voice had turned warm and sincere. Her hands squeezed mine. Her lips even trembled slightly. It broke my heart.

"Why do you defend him so, Liza?" I asked. "Is he so important to you that you'd rather break my heart than break your secret?"

The sound was a kind of mewling until it turned into a tortured scream. She threw away my hands, kicking back her screeching chair before stomping out of the restaurant – leaving rows of baffled faces behind. Before the doors sighed closed, I called after her:

"I'll come to see Eric tonight!" All faces in the restaurant turned my way. I shrugged.

I did come over to pick up Eric that night. We took a hamburger and fries to the park, where we practiced baseball. It became kind of a tradition in the weeks that followed. He never asked what was wrong – he's a clever boy.

Liza didn't call me anymore during the days and nights that followed. I only called her if something came up concerning my visits. We never said more than our "hi's" and "bye's" when I picked him up or brought him back.

I stopped drinking and started reading. I also began to take my membership of the fitness club more seriously. I never liked the sweaty machines, but I loved doing mindless laps in the 25-meter pool. Liza was a member too, but I knew she only went on Saturday mornings – as far as I knew anything about her anymore, that is.

One night I ran into Roger, or rather, I swam past him – about thirty times. I only recognized him when we both climbed out of the pool. He looked good, toned and tanned. I remembered his long, muscular torso from the time we both swam at college. He grinned when he saw me, cleaning his left ear with the tip of his towel. His hair had thinned, I saw, and I wondered why that made me feel good.

"Steve," he said, walking up to me, clasping my hand.

"Roger," I answered.

We shared a drink at the 'health bar.' We had been good enough friends at college, which was remarkable as Roger back then had all the traits of the classic jock when I already showed the nerdy signs of the future bean counter I became. Most of our conversation was about reminiscing old times, shared acquaintances and the whereabouts of the men and women that made up our circle of friends, back then.

Roger left immediately after graduation to start his career in Europe. His rich father's business had obtained a spreading number of branch offices there, but Roger made a point of building his own career. I remember how we were able to keep track of his race up the corporate ladder by the Christmas cards he sent – Rome, I remember, Paris, London and St. Petersburg. But as often is the case, our contact tapered off until there was nothing left.

Remarkably, while we reminisced he never asked about Liza. I told him we had a child and that we were still together. I left it at that.

When we were back in the locker room to shower and get dressed, he told me that he'd returned a few weeks ago. He would stay just long enough to cure an ailing business in our town that was a new acquisition of the British conglomerate he worked for. A mere stepping-stone in his irrepressible march to the top, I supposed. But by then my mind was already distracted. I was wrestling with my tie – I hate the damned things – when I saw in the mirror how Roger slipped on a big ring. It was a signet ring, a huge one. I was unable to see what was on it, but I did see he was wearing matching cufflinks as well.

Then I remembered he is called Roger Chesterton. I forgot his middle name, but yes, it was enough to peak my interest.

Being separated tends to give one a lot of time alone. Some of it I used to search the Internet. Roger did indeed have an M for his middle name. But I also found a Martin C. Robinson, businessman and member of the local Chamber of Commerce. He was 38 years old. At the same Chamber I found a Carlos R. Montero, the 43 year-old owner of a construction company. I never knew Liza to fall for Latino's, but then again, did I know her at all? Through other channels I dug up Maurice R. Coleville, 44 years old and a VP at one of the bigger banks in town. He was black, but again: what did I know? And last but not least I found a guy called Richard (Ricky) C. Muratti, only mentioned to be a businessman owning an "import and export" company. I couldn't find his age, but the picture hinted at somewhere between 35 and 40. His hair was slicked back. He sported a thin moustache and a shining suit. Capiche?

Doing research can get you obsessed. The hunt in itself can become a goal, so I had to stop myself. I had to realize that the excitement of finding all these names might well distract me from my dark mood, but it wouldn't bring me any closer. Closer to what, I pondered. Closer to the man who dropped his cufflink in my wife's bedroom – and then what?

I had a list of five men with the initials that were on the backside of a cufflink – the link that was lost and found before disappearing, taken away by my wife. All five of them lived in the vicinity and were of an age close enough to Liza's. Close enough for what? For that, yes. Most of them also seemed to be wealthy enough to own signet cufflinks. I'd found a Mo(rris) C. Rawalski, but he was 61 and lived in a poor part of town. And after deliberating for some time I decided to drop Mary R. Callahan, 28, for obvious reasons, but who knows? Do lesbians wear cufflinks?

Five names, five men. Were they signet material? No way to know. Signet rings run in old families – traditional old money families. But they also are a status symbol, coveted by nouveaux riches who love to buy into fake tradition and show off the illusion of pedigree. And of course there were the members of special societies, like the Free Masons, but the prancing horse and the three dots didn't look like that at all, I thought.

I supposed Roger had the traditional background for them. He never wore them in college, but I guess he didn't want to flaunt his conservatism in a liberal place like that. Rickey the Mobster might also sport them for quite different reasons, but it would disappoint me in many ways if Liza fucked around with guys like him. I chuckled wearily. As if the kind of asshole she fucked would change my disgust for her actions. "Ah, but honey, I don't fuck Mafiosi, I fuck aristocracy."

The whole tawdry exercise started to annoy me. What were my options, anyway? To research each one of them? Even seek them out and confront them? "Sir, do you own signet cufflinks? I found one in my wife's bedroom." Or should I find a private detective and ask him to do the job for me? I slammed my laptop shut and went swimming. So did Roger, obviously. We once more had a drink afterwards, but we didn't talk much; he was in a hurry. Before he left he asked if I played golf, so I offered to introduce him to my club next Saturday morning.

He proved to be a great golfer; of course he would be. He also offered me part of the business of the local branch he visited. A sudden inspiration made me invite him to our house the next day. "Bring your wife, we'll do a nice barbeque." He accepted but told me his wife had stayed back in Paris. He would go back there after "tying up his little problem here."

I called Liza after he left and said we needed to talk. She seemed nervous about it, telling me she was at the Mall and wouldn't be home until dinnertime. I said that was fine, I would make dinner. She said Eric would be staying over at a friend. "Even better," I answered. She didn't ask why I said that. She seemed in a hurry.