Parting At The End Of The Blizzard Chapter 1

My wife, May Rydell, was known in her industry for being a workaholic. She was always in meetings.

Even when we went away together, she would leave me by myself, find a quiet spot, put on her headset, and join another meeting.

At our wedding, she did not even wait for the carefully planned reception to end before slipping away from everyone, putting on her headset, and joining a meeting.

Even on the day my father died, she simply turned away, found a corner, put on her headset, and joined yet another meeting.

Then one day, I was using May’s computer for a work call and happened to switch profiles.

By accident, I opened her meeting history. There were pages and pages of archived calls. Each one was titled “My Love.”

My fingers trembled as I clicked on one.

In the recording, the woman who had always been quiet and reserved with me was smiling as she chatted with another man about the little details of her day.

They talked about what to eat, where to go on vacation, where they should buy a house, and when they wanted to have a baby.

More than ten thousand archived calls documented the quiet, ordinary happiness of the life she shared with him.

It turned out that the ten-plus hours of meetings she attended every day were actually dates with another man.

* * *

May Rydell walked over to me after her shower. She was towel-drying her hair as she said casually, “You don’t have to wait for me. Go to bed first. I have a meeting…”

May glanced up. When her eyes landed on the laptop in front of me, I caught a flicker of panic in them.

I had always known May to be cool and composed, but this time, she came rushing over and planted herself in front of me.

“W-What are you doing?”

Curling my fingers tightly into my palm, I pointed at the ongoing call and pressed a finger to my lips.

May watched me for a moment. When she saw nothing unusual about me, the tension finally left her face.

She silently mouthed, “I’ll let you finish then. I’m going to bed.”

When the door closed behind her, I inhaled deeply.

I switched back to the screen I had been looking at moments earlier.

With trembling fingers, I opened one of the recordings. I remembered that day.

We had been together for seven years. It was the first trip we had ever taken together.

Throughout the trip, May kept wandering off on her own to find a quiet corner to join a “meeting.”

When I finally asked her why she kept disappearing, she frowned and snapped at me, “Not everyone gets to sit around all day without a job like you. If I don’t work hard, how do you think we’ll pay for everything?”

Yet she was the one who had begged me over and over to quit my job and stay home full-time to care for her father after he became paralyzed.

In the recording, the man on the other end sounded dejected. “This is the third business I’ve started, and it failed again. I just don’t understand what I’m doing wrong…”

He had not even finished before May cut in with a face full of concern. “Baby, don’t say that! To me, you’re amazing! You don’t even have to work if you don’t want to. I’ll support you!”

Barely a minute before comforting him, she had looked at me with nothing but impatience on her face and called me useless.

A bitter smile tugged at my lips. Without hesitation, I opened another recording.

I remembered that day all too well. It was our wedding day.

I had proposed to May nine times before she finally said yes.

I planned every detail of the wedding around what she liked, right down to the smallest things.

However, on our wedding day, May seemed determined to rush through the ceremony as quickly as possible.

As soon as we finished exchanging vows and rings, she reached for the laptop she had left nearby.

She did not stay for the photographs or even stop to speak to our guests.

The moment the ceremony was over, she walked away from the altar.

When I caught up with her and asked what was going on, May said irritably, “I have a meeting. It’s extremely important, so please don’t bother me.”

In the recording, the man held up a spatula and asked with a smile, “Isn’t it your wedding today? How are you still here talking to me?”

Still dressed in her white wedding gown, May looked at him earnestly. “It’s your first time cooking. How could I miss something this important?”

The absurdity of it all began to sink in.

This was why she had abandoned our wedding that day. It was all because this man was cooking for the first time.

That was the “extremely important” matter she had been talking about.

When I finally focused on the screen again, another recording began playing.

I knew I would remember that day for the rest of my life.

It was my father’s funeral. Friends and relatives came up one after another to offer their condolences.

The entire evening passed without any sign of May.

Eventually, I slipped away to an empty corner and started crying. That was when I heard May’s irritated voice behind me. “Could you go somewhere else? I’m in a meeting, and you’re disturbing us.”

She did not ask if I was all right. She did not offer a single word of comfort, not even an empty one.

In the recording, May smiled warmly as she greeted the man’s parents. “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan. I’m sorry our first meeting has to be over video. I promise I’ll come visit you in person over the holidays this year.”

A wry smile crossed my face, but beneath it was an almost unbearable sadness.

On the day I had been grieving the most and needed her more than ever, she had been meeting another man’s parents.