Sarah stumbled into a silent night.

It was anger that propelled her slippered toes one step at a time through blackened slush from tire treads left by those who believed her husband’s lie. It was anger that kept her blood warm on the trek between houses, despite the midnight chill and the ominous gaze of the theater’s silhouette.

She understood everything. Twenty years ago, God was the foundation for William’s change. Now, when Will’s desire to “create” superseded his desire for faith, he set a trap for God. In the name of Faith and Creation, William built his stage and he demanded miracles. Then, if God ignored the bait and refused to show, Will would have a reason to doubt again. He would say “I told you so, Sarah! Twenty years ago I told you there was no God and now I have proof!” He would lose himself in that abyss... but Sarah wouldn’t follow him this time.

She knew it wasn’t fair to delve into the assumptions of where “God’s silence” would drag her husband, but that’s what the human brain does; it seeks out history to determine the future. What else was there?

Sarah held one bit of pessimism as absolute truth; one small world-view that her husband didn’t share. In all of his cynicism and cut-and-dried views on society and the world, William still believed that people could change. He cited himself as an example.

There was a time--back when she still lived with her parents--that Sarah believed in the complete reversal of one’s habits and addictions. But life pointed out the naiveté in her romanticism; humanity was one massive case-study that proved no one is capable of change. We’re capable of stopping, but not quitting. We live our lives in an ebb and flow of “stopping” until our biology or physiology is intrinsically altered. But when change is left to willpower alone, failure is imminent. Sarah’s mother proved the point every day with her failed diets and merry-go-round of skinny promises. “I really mean it this time! I know it’s unhealthy! I’m going to change!” Then two pounds, five pounds, ten pounds of success and she would snap, “One candy-bar isn’t going to hurt, honey,” and “quit” turned back to “stopped” until a heart-attack at sixty-two ended her urges by ending her life.

All Sarah needed was a single example to the contrary and she would be able to cast away the blight on her otherwise loving worldview. For years she thought her husband was the counter-example. But now she knew that William was born a liar, and he would die a liar.

And if Will’s truth was temporary, then so was his sobriety. Twenty-four years of marriage couldn’t change that.

Sarah sniffled her runny nose and recalled Kay’s comparison of the madness to a contagion. “The only way to escape it is to pass it to someone else.”

She wiped her nose on her bare arm, stepped to the porch, and kneed open the front door.

“Where’s Janie?” She asked and removed her slippers, now white with hardened beads of snow.

William sat on the piano stool and plucked away at the computer keyboard. “I told her she could take a shower and watch TV before bed. Were you catching up with Kay?”

“You lied about the music.” She didn’t wait for a reaction, but circumvented William’s little command station and walked to the kitchen.

“Honey, it was a joke!” He stood and followed, a caricature of old papa-redneck in waffled long underwear with a tomato-red nose warming itself behind a cartoon mustache. “It was a silly promotion for the Christmas show! Janie and I--”

“I don’t want to hear about the ways you involved our daughter in your stupidity. You lied to me.” She yanked a stockpot from the cupboard by the oven with a clang of falling pans.

“I didn’t lie. Calm down. Quit throwing yourself around and talk to me.”

She dropped the pan in the sink and turned the water to hot.

William caressed her shoulder.

“Do not touch me.”

“It wasn’t a lie. I was--”

“Hiding the truth?” She slammed off the tap, lifted the pot from the sink, and splashed water on the counter and accidentally across William’s shirt. “Any other hidden truths?”

“What?”

“Do I need to remind you, Bill?” (Months of repressed dread grew like icicles--one drip at a time--on the troughs of Sarah’s stomach. Now the icicles were melting and Sarah couldn’t hold back the flood of hate.) “What about the night at the piano bar? I asked you to be discrete and it took you less than a day to go behind my back and tell the world. Then a contractor warns you that there’s a fire hazard in your chorus room, and you ignore him! How about the fly system debacle and lawsuit? All because you didn’t listen to an hour safety lecture! We have no money, William! No hope! And it’s because of your hidden truths and outright lies!”

“Sarah! God will provide!”

“God will not provide!” She dropped the pot to the ground beside a dining-room chair, then plunged her foot in the steaming water. “He isn’t there, William!” She thrust her arm out in the general direction of the hill. “He doesn’t give a fuck about your theater!” She switched feet and winced at the sting.

“...Where is this coming from?”

“I warned you before we started dating again. I warned you that one more lie would break us. It took twenty-four years for it to happen, but you finally did it.”

“Did what? Lied about a stupid marketing gimmick? I couldn’t tell you my plan outside! I was going to--”

“That’s not all you lied about.”

William pulled up a chair and sat with his legs straddling the backrest. 

Sarah stepped from her foot bath, dumped the water down the drain, and started upstairs. 

Will sighed and stood back up, then trailed behind. “Please, beautiful. What did I do?”

“You made me cry that night.”

“What night?”

“I felt horrible for assuming the worst; for assuming you started lying again. But what was I supposed to think? You swore on our relationship.”

“That was a year and a half ago! How did I lie?”

Sarah trampled down the hallway with no attempt to hide the argument from Janie. “You tripped into my arms that night. I was irrational and I apologized. Over and over I apologized and you forgave me, Will! You let me say ‘I’m sorry!’ You knew I wasn’t crazy, but you forgave me anyway.” She opened the closet, jerked out the leather suitcase and tossed it to the bed. “Tell me William, how can a person let their wife--their ‘other half’--believe she’s crazy, just to cover up a stupid lie?”

“You’re not leaving until you explain why you think I lied.”

She opened her cupboards and tossed a pinwheel of clothes at the open bag. “Now I’m left to wonder what was going through your mind as I begged for forgiveness on this bed. You betrayed me, Bill. This will fester inside me for years.”

William snapped. He flipped shut the leather flap of her suitcase and threw it off the bed.

Sarah ignored the flamboyant gesture, grabbed a pair of jeans from the floor, and worked them up her legs beneath the frozen nighty. “I knew you were lying to me that day. I knew and I let you convince me otherwise. My intuition was ringing like a dinner bell but my love for you stifled the sound.”

Before she could remove her nighty, he grabbed her shoulders and pinned her to the bedroom wall. The nightstand lamp threw demonic shadows across his face and his vocal cords purred beneath his words. “Sarah, what do you know about that night?”

She replied in a coarse, defeated whisper. “If you told me the truth... even days later... I would have forgiven you. We could have fought the madness together.”

His teeth grated like a taut rope.

“I’m leaving you, Will.”

He loosened his grip. His eyes softened. “Don’t-- Don’t say that,” he stammered. “You’re the only thing keeping me... I couldn’t function without you.” He traced his sewn pink stubs across her cheek. “Tell me what you know and I’ll tell you the truth. We’ll start from there and we’ll discuss this until it’s resolved.”

“If I told you what I know, it would kill you.” Sarah planted both palms on his chest, pushed him away, and ducked his advance. She reached for a shirt but a twisted fist in her hair yanked her back.

“Tell me, God damnit!” he barked and jerked her head forward.

She relaxed into his grip to ease the tightening pain. “If there was ever an appropriate time to blaspheme--”

“Tell me what the fuck is going on!”

Her hands began to quiver. “Let me go or I’ll call the police.”

He released her hair.

Without breaking eye-contact, she snapped a shirt from the bed. “I told them I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Who?”

“I promised that if I left you, I would never give you the real reason.” Somehow, Will’s aggravation was making her stronger. “But now I want to tell you, William. For slamming me against that wall. For pulling my hair. For all the lies and all this pain I want you to know the truth and I want to be the one to tell you.” Sarah felt as if she was performing on stage for the first time in thirty years. She cocked her head and smiled with intentional condescension. “But I’m going to do the right thing. I’m going to keep my promise. I’m leaving here without a word and someday you’ll discover the truth for yourself. Then you’ll realize you betrayed the only person who would love you anyway.”

The bedroom door exploded and ruined the impact of Sarah’s words. Janie marched through the mess of clothes, hair dripping and dark, wearing a pink tee that hung to her knees. “Tell him the truth!” she screamed. “Tell Dad the truth!”

“Janie, we’re leaving--”

“If you’re not brave enough, Mother, I swear...”

Sarah couldn’t break free from her daughter’s glare. What did she know?

Janie shook her head. Her face was smooth and clean from the shower and her hair’s delicate frame emphasized her cherub cheeks. “Why won’t you tell him?”

She couldn’t respond.

“Look at him, Mom.”

William was gripping the window frame with steel knuckles as if the detailed molding was the only thing keeping him from slugging her across the face.

Janie stepped to her father like a kitten approaching a tiger. “Hold out your hand,” she said.

William kept his grasp on the trim and extended his claw.

Janie splayed her fingers to reveal a crushed piece of plastic, now instantly recognizable by everyone in the room. She offered the broken device to her father and he took it. “This is what they’re hiding from you. I found it in the stables last summer.”

Sarah turned away but Janie’s words were unavoidable.

“It wasn’t God who spoke to you, Dad. It was the neighbors.”