…live in Ohio. Two little girls. She thinks he’s a pilot.”
The woman on my porch made a sound like she’d been hit.
My husband, Richard, didn’t say anything at all. He just stood there in his Christmas sweater, holding a coffee mug that said “World’s Best Dad.”
Her name was Karen. She’d been “married” to Richard for eleven years. Not legally, I found out later. A small ceremony in a church in Indianapolis, never filed with the state. Two teenagers and a baby. She’d believed my children were his kids from a divorce. She’d believed I was his ex-wife, bitter and difficult, who he “had” to see on holidays.
I invited her in. I don’t know why. It was Christmas, and it was snowing, and she had a baby.
We sat in my living room. My three children. Her three children. The two of us. And Richard, who very slowly backed toward the kitchen until my oldest daughter, Emily, stood in front of the doorway and said, “No, Dad. Sit down.”
Emily had found out when she was fifteen, she told us. She’d seen a text on his phone. He’d begged her not to tell me. He said it would “destroy the family.” He said he’d “fix it.” She’d carried it for seven years. And then, two years ago, she’d found out about Ohio.
“I didn’t know how to tell either of you,” she said, crying. “I thought if I said it out loud, everything would fall apart. I’m so sorry, Mom.”
I held my daughter. Then I picked up my phone and asked Emily for the number in Ohio.
Her name was Jessica. She answered on the second ring. I put her on speaker and told her who I was. Karen told her who she was. There was a very long silence on the line.
Then Jessica said, “He’s supposed to be in Hong Kong right now.”
Richard was arrested in February for bigamy, fraud and identity-related charges. He’d used two different names to keep the families apart. He’s serving four years.
The divorce was simple. I was the only legal wife.
What wasn’t simple was the rest of it. Three women. Eight children. Who’d all just found out they had siblings they’d never met. Karen and Jessica and I started talking. At first, just about lawyers. Then about the kids. Then about everything.
In the summer, we rented a big house by a lake for a week. All of us. Three mothers. Eight kids, ages one to twenty-two. It was chaotic. Someone was always crying, and someone else was always laughing. The teenagers formed an alliance against the adults within the first hour. The little girls from Ohio followed my youngest son around like ducklings.
On the last night, we sat on the dock, the three of us, with a bottle of wine. Jessica said, “He lied to every single one of us. And somehow we’re the ones who ended up with a family.”
This Christmas, the doorbell rang again. Karen and her kids. Jessica and her girls. Bags of presents. Snow on their coats.
This time, I’d invited them.
