Guilty Bystander

From the first time I started that job, you made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.  Discernment has been my gift and my curse, but back then I didn’t trust my instincts.  They hadn’t been tested and proven as they are now.

I found your little notes – the ones that seemed too warm, too friendly.

But I didn’t say anything.  Surely the sin was my own rapid imagination – nothing more.

Months wore on, and I watched you sneak off into the back warehouse with her.  More than once. And you two would stay in there for much longer than her allotted lunch break.

I kept quiet still.

You tried to be friendly with me after these afternoon rendezvous – as if you could convince me by sheer cheeriness that nothing was amiss.  I think you noticed how I shrunk from you over time, how your warmth only made me colder.

Her hair was longer than your wife’s, darker.  Perhaps she was a bit thinner, I never really noticed.  I always found her annoying – the way she would butt into conversations she didn’t belong in.

If only conversations were the extent of her intrusion.

You wife was not just my boss, she was my friend.  She gave me my first job, I worked under her as her business grew from a two-room operation to four rooms, then six, then extended across multiple locations.

And maybe that’s why it was so hard. I wanted to say something. I needed to say something. As time went on and you tested the boundaries with this co-worker of mine, I felt complicit. I felt dirty by association and not saying anything felt like a betrayal.

But you just can’t do that. You can’t just waltz up to your boss and accuse her husband of cheating. I mean, maybe you can. Maybe someone somewhere out there did it and it didn’t blow up in their face. 

But honestly, how was that going to end well for anyone? You made sure it wouldn’t end well the moment you decided to look. And touch. And whatever else.

So instead I quit. I made up some excuse about the drive being too far and after years of happy employment, I quit.

The look in her eyes when I told her I couldn’t be convinced to stay - I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. She didn’t just look like she was going to cry, she looked so tired and worn out, as if I was placing the final straw that would break her back.

I wondered then if she knew. 

A few months later you left her to be with this dark-haired former co-worker of mine. And she rebuilt her life without you.

But it still nags at me that you did all that, it bothers me that you put me in that impossible situation. 

Sin affects so much more than just those immediately involved. It destroys irrevocably and it plants doubt and regret that can last a lifetime.

But then again, I suppose that’s why we’re not supposed to do it in the first place.