Chapter 13

With each passing moment came a thought of Jon. And as each passing thought came more resentment for my husband and more unhappiness for my family. That was growing more unhappy by the day.

I decided that I needed to pretend I was happy and if I did this everything would be OK. Everything was ok for several weeks until the time when my husband walked into the living room one night after the children had gone to bed; he sat down on the lounge next to me and simply said “Who is Jon Smith?”

The absolute shock and despair I felt is beyond description. It was beyond any comprehension. How did he know? Who told him? Was it Jon? – No of course not. He would never do that. He had as much to lose as I did. Was it Tracy? No – She would never do that. She promised me she would keep our secret.

Then who was it? My husband told me to go and check the computer and right there in front of me was copies of emails that I had sent to Jon and copies that he had sent to me. I was absolutely mortified. I sat and stared at that computer for hours and the longer I did the more furious I became. I didn't sleep that night or for many nights after that. My mind raced at a million miles an hour. How did he find out? And who sent that email? Who would do this?

Every person I saw was a ‘suspect’. From this point on I trusted no one. The next day when my best friend came to visit me I confronted her and she told me she would never do that, we were best friends. We trusted each other completely. I knew she was right, but I had to ask. I had to know straight from her. I had to have that reassurance that my best friend had not betrayed me. She sat with me and consoled me; she talked me through everything and tried her best to calm me down. Which worked to a degree. What a great friend I had in her. I knew I was lucky.

My husband also rang me to check up on me and to see if there had been any more emails from the mystery sender. Of course there wasn’t and in fact there would never be anymore emails from the mystery sender.

So now I could eliminate Tracy from my list of suspects that was growing by the minute. My mind did rest a little easier that night although I didn't sleep a wink. For the next 6 weeks I lived on very little sleep and only decided to check my emails occasionally and some times at Tracy’s for fear that someone had installed a keystroke logger and was watching my every move. I became paranoid. During the day when my hubby was at work I did a little bit of researching. I began with the ISP number on the bottom of the email. Not being overly computer literate I really had no idea what this would tell me, but I figured it was worth a try especially considering I had nothing else to go on. I rang service providers and searched for the name of the ISP that belonged to this particular number. To me absolute horror and after many hours and many days of investigating I found that the ISP number was infact mine! Yes that’s right someone using the same ISP as me had sent this email to my husband. This provided me with many more sleepless nights. I now had narrowed the suspect pool down to possibly my close friend and associates. An unsettling thought. I searched my brain, my memory banks for anything that could possibly be there to give me a hint. I came up with nothing. Everytime we had friends over for a meal I studied them, each of them at length for any clues, any indication that they had been the informant I came up with nothing! Until one night I was sorting out everything that I had gathered over the last 6 weeks or so and put 2 and 2 together. And yes 2 and 2 did infact make 4. Although I am sure George Orwell would disagree, and would probably have me tortured until I truly did believe that 2 and 2 were 5. Anyway I digress 2 and 2 did make 4. I suddenly sat bolt upright in bed in the very small hours of the morning and realised at that precise moment that the person who had sent those emails to my husband was lying in the bed snoring next to me! Yes the person who had sent those emails to my husband was my husband. Needless to say I had another night of sleeplessness. As I lay beside him I felt repulsed. I could not hate him more than I did at that moment, it would have been impossible to do so. As I lay there the one thought that keep coming back to the forefront of my mind was that I now had to prove it was him. I knew if I simply asked him he would deny it. I had to get proof.

I got up the next morning and showered before I got dressed. I cleaned my house and tended to my children. The very minute my husband left the premises to go and get some petrol for the lawn mower I telephone Tracy. I didn't let on to her that I knew it was Chris that sent the emails to himself. As at this stage I was still unclear as to how he could have done it. I told Tracy that I think there is a problem with our business page on the internet and I asked her if she would be so kind as to go there for me and send me an email from the link on that page. She did so and as the email came through my heart pounded. I honestly was not sure if I wanted the evidence or not. The email arrived and it had the same ISP number. I sent an email to Tracy thanking her and when she replied I checked the ISP number and it was different. I checked all other emails she had sent me and they were all different. What the hell was going on?

I checked all other emails that we had sent and all our emails had the same ISP number. I called our Internet Service Provider and asked them why our number is always the same but others who send emails are different. I was told that because we have a business the ISP number is fixed. So all emails will have the same ISP number and no one else will have the same ISP number as us even if they go through the same Internet Service Provider. I questioned him about receiving an email with the same ISP number as ours and he said the only way that could happen is if it was actually sent by us from our computer.

There was my evidence. However I still had no idea how he got the information to begin with, but I would find out.