My Husband's Other Wife

My name is Sienna Tillman, and I've been married to Jonathan Zimmerman for three years. To outsiders, we seem like a perfect match. He's a gentle, refined architect, and I'm a freelance owner of an art gallery. It wasn't until this spring that I realized our marriage was hiding a huge secret. One weekend in early March, Jonathan said he was heading to a conference in the neighboring city and would be gone for three days. While helping him pack, I found the HS Behavioral Health Center visitation card tucked inside the suitcase. The name on the card wasn't Jonathan Zimmerman, nor anyone I knew, but a stranger — Lena Yip. My heart sank, but I didn't dare ask him about it then. After Jonathan left, I couldn't help taking that card and going to the HS Behavioral Health Center in the neighboring city. From a distance, I saw Jonathan standing beneath the inpatient building, with a woman in a white lab coat beside him. The woman looked to be in her thirties, with a gentle grace. She was smiling as she talked to Jonathan Zimmerman, holding the hand of a little boy about four or five years old. I hid behind a tree, my heart tightening as if gripped by an invisible hand. Jonathan crouched down and gently ruffled the little boy's hair—such a tender gesture that felt utterly unfamiliar to me. The little boy looked up and said in a clear, soft voice, "If I keep pretending to be sick, will my father stay with us forever?" My mind went completely blank, buzzing with disbelief. Dad? He calls Jonathan Dad? The woman in the white lab coat — later I learned she was the attending physician here, Lena Yip — gently touched the little boy's face: "Jesse, be good. Your father holds us in his heart." Jesse? That name sounds familiar, like I've heard it somewhere before. Last year, on Jonathan Zimmerman's birthday, he got drunk and mumbled "Jesse". When I asked him who that was, he said it was a client's child. So it was all a lie. I held back my tears and kept watching them. Not far away, a red banner hung on the bulletin board, the words stabbing at my eyes like needles: "Celebrating the seventh anniversary of Lena Yip and Jonathan Zimmerman's love." Seventh anniversary? Jonathan and I have only been married three years, which means before I met him, he was already with Lena. So what am I? A third party who came between them? A chill ran through me, like a bucket of ice water had been poured over my body. Jonathan once told me Lena was his college classmate. She became mentally ill after trying to save him. He visits her for three months every year to repay that debt. Now it seems that so-called "repaying the debt" was just an excuse for his affair. I couldn't bear to look any longer. I turned and stumbled out of the HS Behavioral Health Center. Coming home and looking at the room full of our wedding photos, I felt nothing but irony. In the photos, Jonathan Zimmerman smiles softly, but in his heart, he hides another woman and a child.