Typical Affair

Thomas and Amanda was a very sweet couple. They got married after they graduated from college. It may seem that they would stick together to the end. However, one day Thomas was demanded by his boss that he was going to the newly found factory in Mainland China to establish their new business there. Thomas had no other choices but go there because he had to earn money to support his family. Despite of Thomas’s will, Amanda, who was deeply attached to Thomas, was naturally reluctant to let him go. She loved Thomas so much that she could not even just imagine the days without him. She could not sleep on the bed without his warm hand circle on her belly. She could not watch idiotic talk show without Thomas’s loud laughing. She could not stand waking up in the morning without a cup of hot tea on the table and a note telling her to remember to eat the breakfast he made before going to work.

“Why you? Why can’t the boss send someone else to do the job?”

“Because I am the only person he trusts. And this is a great opportunity to get me promoted if I do well on the business in China.”

“Then let me go with you. I must go with you. I can’t live without you.” Amanda said.

“No you must not. It is too dangerous for you to come with me. The condition there is very bad. I cannot put you in the perilous place. Plus, you may not accustom to the environment there.”

“For you, I can get used to any terrible conditions,” said Amanda.

“I know you can. But the problem is that I can’t. I cannot bear worrying about your safety all day when I’m working. It is not possible that I can get good performance on my job under that condition.”

Amanda still wanted to persuade Thomas to take her with him, but Thomas had determined that he must go to China alone.

Amanda was extremely heartbreaking when Thomas left. She called her three times a day, and just couldn’t hang up the phone. She couldn’t help badgering at him for trifles because she loved him so much that she just wanted to talk to him. The longer the phone call was, the more joyful Amanda was.

But Thomas did not think the same way. At first he was also very happy to receive her calls. Nevertheless, day after day, with his work getting heavier and heavier, he had become busier and busier, and did not really have so much time to talk to Amanda anymore. But he still got her three calls a day, three long long calls. Gradually he got tired. He didn’t want to answer the phone anymore. It is not that he loved Amanda no more. He was just exhausted for the job and for the seemingly interminable nagging phone calls. He wanted to have his own time to rest. He wanted to find a place for him to relax.

Amanda had not talked to Thomas for three days. Every time she called, he didn’t answer. Not only this, Thomas had recently acted strangely to her. First in their last few calls, when she complained about the trifles of the housework and the gossip she heard from the neighbor, he became impatient and trying to end the conversation quickly as though there were somebody else in the room. At their last call, he even hung up the phone abruptly without saying goodbye. And now, he had not answered her phone three days already. Amanda became dubious of his beloved husband.

“Why didn’t he answer my phone? Did I say something bad about him? Maybe he was working on a huge project that he didn’t have time to answer my phone. Or maybe his phone was broken. Or…… Or…… ……”

Even though Amanda tried to excuses for Thomas’s weird behavior, she just couldn’t convince herself. The thought of his husband’s unfaithfulness grew in her mind.

“Can it be possible that he cheats on me? No! Of course not. I love him. And he loves me too! Does he?”

Amanda decided to find the truth that whether her husband was cheating on her or not. She hired a private agent to investigate the affair.

A week later the agent responded with an envelope filled with photos of Thomas and another woman. They went to a shopping mall, went for dinner, and even went back to Thomas’s dormitory together. The evidence of Thomas’s affair overwhelmed Amanda. She couldn’t believe the man who said that he would love her and take care of her forever would one day cheat on her. The fact was just too shocking for her to handle.

“This is not real. I must be dreaming. Thomas would NEVER cheat on me. The man I loved, the man hold me in arms every night , the man who always woke up early to prepare breakfast for me, the man who said he loved me forever, the man…, the man…… There must be some misunderstanding. I must go find him to ask him the truth. He will tell me that the thing the photos shows is absolutely not true. It was just coincidence. The man I loved would never cheat on me. I must go find him.”

Amanda went to China to find Thomas.

Three days later, Amanda went back to Taiwan alone. She also brought a huge luggage of a statue which looked just like Thomas.

From then on, no one had really seen Thomas. Amanda had since then never left her house. She put the statue in every corner in the house. She let it sit on the chair and place a cup of tea on the table as if the statue would take up and drink. She put it beside her on the couch when she watched TV. She even put it on the bed when she slept. She laid its arms around her stomach.

“The man I loved is still mine. Mine…….”