A photo maybe indeed speaks a thousand words. Instincts are in fact inborn, and some people never ignore that gut feeling. Sara is one of those people. You really have to agree with her, especially when your loved ones are involved, the trust you had in someone means nothing.
If to confirm your suspicions you have to cross some boundaries, then you do just that, and this is what Sara did. It does not mean that she was not shocked beyond understanding when she found the picture that confirmed everything. Her only resort was to file for a divorce pronto.
1. The search begun at Mark’s computer
In her situation, Sara had to be a detective and spy Mark’s computer for evidence. She knew she was invading his privacy, but the weight of the situation surpassed boundaries. She remembered Mark’s password, which she had found previously on a discarded and crumpled paper.
There is always a boundary between changing circumstances. For Sara and Mark, there were little things she noticed, but she did not have a reason to think they were a big deal. Everything begun to make sense after seeing the picture. In the computer she found the folder which changed everything. She was equal measures confused and surprised.
2. The sting of betrayal
What Sara felt can only be felt when trust is broken. She had trusted Mark with everything because he was her life partner and her children’s father. She thought she knew him inside out, but can anyone really know another person? Not only that, but she felt the betrayal coursing through her veins as tears made their way down her face.
She wallowed in the depressing thoughts of how Mark could do this to their family because she still could not picture him as this person. She still viewed him as she knew him. Denial is the first step of acceptance.
3. The backstory
Appearances are mostly deceiving. Everything seems normal until one person cannot contain the chaos anymore, and like a volcano, they erupt. Sara, Mark, and their two children seem like a typical American family. But something really looked wrong to Sara, and she needed to find out more.
This is the picture any neighbor, stranger, or relative perceives when they see them. They look normal walking at the mall, out on the streets or driving out on a weekend. But the surface is a cover-up of what is underneath sometimes, and this family is proof. Read on to not miss the end of the story.
4. Their first meeting
Sara and mark met during their teenage years. There was an instant connection, and they grew close within a short time. There was a popular hangout zone for the young people around the time, they met at an old warehouse. Some of them were squatters at the warehouse, and so was Mark. This is where they first saw each other.
They had parties here, away from the hawk eyes of police officers. Her first encounter with Mark, she had gone to pass time at the warehouse with some of her friends. Mark seemed to keep to himself during their first encounter.
5. Broody and mysterious
Mark had only recently come to live at the warehouse. He seemed a bit of a loner because he did not socialize with the rest. He was mostly outside the day Sarah and her friends went to the warehouse. It is ironic how if you keep off from socializing, the attention heavily shifts to you.
What is the deal with that one? Does s/he think he’s/she’s special? Is s/he shy? Why is s/he so weird? These are probably the thoughts the other young people had of Mark. The squatters at the warehouse were mostly teenagers. They were out there fending for themselves.
6. Sara was interested in Mark
The other squatters found Mark’s loner tendencies annoying, but they tolerated him because he clearly did not have any place to stay other than the warehouse. She was fascinated by what went on underneath the solitude. Her interest doubled and multiplied the longer she stayed that night.
Curiosity is a potent spice for attraction. She approached him because she was a young, free girl with something to get off her chest. His non-verbal cues that screamed ‘do not talk to me’ did not stop her. Because she was smart, Sara’s plan was to get Mark away from the people at the warehouse to talk to him.
7. Did I say he was mysterious
The warehouse was spacious and provided ample walking space away from the people. Mark seemed to open up and talk with Sara when it was just the two of them. Truly, everyone needs a friend. We humans are social beings, and even the most introverted person has moments when they come out of their shell, provided it is in the right environment with a person who gets them.
A short time into their conversation, Sara realized that Mark was so closed about his life prior to living at the warehouse. But he showed equal interest in Sara, and they talked for quite some time.
8. Mark’s previous whereabouts
Mark did not seem so shy and antisocial with her. In this time Sara only got to know him a little because he was so guarded. Among the little information Mark revealed about himself to Sara was that he moved from across the country and was not making plans to return ever.
He however remained vague about the exact city or town he came from, and why he moved, and was adamant about ever going back. Sara decided not to push him for more information, and she let it be. But what if she had probed and made him cave?
9. Love
Mark and Sara in fact really loved each other. It stemmed from their initial dialogue because they felt a very deep understanding of each other. But maybe that was because Mark was a mystery and she, the solver. It is only unfortunate that it took a lifetime, a marriage and a family a whole addition to the puzzle to solve the mystery.
After the warehouse, she could not keep Mark off her thoughts. They arranged frequent meetups and soon after were in a relationship. The two were getting serious and Mark and Sara arranged for Mark to meet her parents.
10. Mark meets Sara’s folks
Sara was indeed really excited about her parents to finally meet him because she really liked him. Her parents felt Mark was good for their daughter because he was polite and seemed like a nice young man. Upon learning about his situation, living as a squatter, they felt obligated to help him out.
They felt sorry about his situation, a young person squatting with strangers. Sara partly motivated their decision to help him, as she convinced her parents she loved Mark dearly. They made a big decision that would bring a change in their lives as well as his life.
11. Mark lived at Sara’s home
Distance makes the heart grow fonder, but proximity makes love blossom to all imaginable proportions. Sara’s and Mark’s relationship experienced significant growth now that they were closer. Mark seemed forward-thinking too. When he moved in, he looked for a job and saved his revenue, then later enrolled in a photography school. This was in line with his dreams. He had always wanted to learn photography.
Mark finished his studies at the photography school after approximately three years and graduated. Sara’s parents gifted him a high quality camera. This really helped him to start off his career as a freelance photographer.
12. A new apartment
Mark had the knowledge, skill, interest, and motivation which resulted in him building a good reputation for his brand. Mark was doing well as a photographer. With that, he could earn more and more money. And with enough capital available, Sara and Mark made a down payment on a small apartment which marked the beginning of their life together, away from Sara’s home.
From an outsider’s perspective, this was a young couple starting their lives together and carrying on with life as usual. But was everything ‘usual’ in their lives? Read on to not miss the end of the story.
13. Sara’s instincts and gut
Sara had some moments when she felt something was not right. But she could not pinpoint exactly what. She had the gut feeling something was amiss. The first two years at their apartment they built their lives and relationship, but she knew something was not ok.
She had the same feelings from when she met Mark at the warehouse because he could not talk to her about his past. The question that always kept running through her mind even when they moved to their apartment was, what is Mark hiding? Sara was apprehensive about Mark’s lack of openness. What would happen next?
14. When does the mystery end
Sara was worried. You see, the imagination is boundless. She could not stop imagining why he has hiding things from her. She pictured the worst scenarios and grew more suspicious as time went by. The thing is, a suspicion is a seed constantly growing unless proven otherwise.
Despite Sara’s attempt to get Mark talking about his past, he always provided incomplete answers or pointblank avoided the subject. They had been together for years now, but still, he just could not talk about his past. He only told her talking about his family only hurt him because he did not have a family anymore.
15. The wedding
Despite the mystery of his past, Sara liked everything else about Mark, so she chose to let it slide and carry on with their life together. After 7 years in a relationship, the two decided it was time to tie the knot. At this moment in time, they had their firstborn child already and Sara was also pregnant with the second child.
Sara was hoping to meet some of Mark’s family at the wedding. She was looking forward to this especially because at least she would know a little about the people who were in Mark’s life before he moved.
16. Mark’s family was a no show
It comes as no surprise to you, but it was astounding for Sara, upon discovering no family member of Mark’s was present at the ceremony. Sara was truly disappointed when she found that Mark had only invited his friends to the wedding because she really wanted to finally meet his family on her wedding day.
All his friends were people he had met after moving away from home. If this was not enough to rekindle Sara’s suspicions, I do not know what would be. If you don’t want to miss what is happening next in this exciting story, read on.
17. Life after the wedding
Sara was not really suspicious, as speculated above. She had a beautiful wedding and everyone had fun despite Mark’s family being absent. Their marriage life was also pretty good, aside from the occasional challenges that life may present in any marriage.
They enjoyed each other’s company as well as the finer things money can buy because Mark was thriving career wise. Mark had completely put his past behind him and was only focusing on the present and future. He was keen to build a life away from his childhood and roots, and he wanted to have a life in his new family.
18. “work?”Mark: ‘Yes please.’
Mark was open to many work opportunities since the time of his gradation. He was becoming a popular photographer. He had a really good reputation among people and even returning customers who wanted photography services just from him, what made him quickly pretty successful.
These were also well paying customers, and Mark did not have a selection of pictures he could not take. Any work was work for him, and whatever the client wanted is also what the client got. He was a willing photographer, never saying no to any photograph requests. Keep reading to find out what happens next.
19. Frequent flights
Sara was happy and grateful over the fact that Mark’s career growth meant they were living comfortable lives and not straining financially. However, there were aspects of Mark’s work which made her uncomfortable. Did she talk to Mark about this?
Mark frequently travelled across the country for work. Sara remained home with their son and later both their children. Taking care of babies is a handful and she had to do it alone on the days he was across the country. Sara was a stay at home mom during this period so she dedicated her time to caring for the children but she missed Mark dearly.
20. Questionable pictures
Aside from the frequent absences, Sara was uncomfortable with some of the pictures Mark took for clients. She did not see anything wrong with jobs at events for, like sports and model shoots. But some pictures were of a pretty questionable nature.
Among the clients Mark worked for were magazines. Most of these magazines needed risqué pictures. Sara was not okay with Mark working for such clients and taking these kinds of pictures. The more he got these kinds of jobs, the more the situation made her uncomfortable and looking at some of these pictures, only made her discomfort grow.
21. Continued dislike
Sara really disliked these kinds of jobs where Mark took such pictures because they made her insecure and also pretty jealous of the other women. She began feeling very doubtful and suspicious of whether Mark will keep things purely professional between him and the magazine models.
Her worries came from the stories she had heard before of what transpired between models and photographers, and she did not know if Mark would be any different. She trusted him, but could not help but be doubtful, especially with the frequent travelling, being away from the family and also some of the clients he worked with.
22. Sara, Mark, and Trust
Sara was able to separate her worries from the situation and look at it from a different angle. She reflected upon it and concluded this was work for Mark, it was paying their bills, and she had not had any incident with Mark to warrant her complaining about the pictures. She also realized she trusted Mark a lot, despite some of the aspects of his work.
Something unfortunate happened one day. The situation for the family at this point was, Mark does the work that supports them financially. She had to overlook her discomfort at the nature of some of the pictures.
23. Grocery shopping can be drama filled too
Sara’s role in the family was to take care of the children while Mark was away at work. She could not go to work because someone had to care for their two babies.
Sara used to go grocery shopping weekly and that’s why she bought all house supplies during this time too. The unfortunate incident happened when she is on one of such errands. She did her normal shopping and added extra items they had run out of at the house, only to get the shock of the month at the register when she went to pay for the goods…
24. Card is declined
Sara could not pay for the items because her card was declined due to insufficient funds. Sara was perturbed. She had never experienced this setback before. She was also aware the card had a lot of money, and maybe it was just a fixable mistake.
Not only that, but she retried the card multiple times, but unfortunately there was no change at all. She asked herself why the card was declined, but couldn’t find a reasonable solution for that. But she couldn’t just accept this fact, and wanted to find out what the real problem was. What would she find out?
25. But what was wrong?
Sara rolled her cart away from the register to give way to other shoppers, then she called the bank. She needed to explain the real problem and hopefully the bank could fix it.
To her surprise, the bank confirmed the records of their spending account and found that in the morning of that same day, all the money was withdrawn by Mark, without any explanation. But why would Mark do that to Sara? She really wanted to find out what happened to the money and why Mark withdrew it from her. To find out what is happening next, read on.
26. Mark explains
Mark was away for a job at the time, so Sara called to ask him what was going on. Mark said that an investment opportunity had come up after meeting some people at the photoshoot he was doing. He needed the money to go through with it before they began considering another person.
But why did he not inform her? Sara felt this was very odd and thought that there was something suspicious about it. It was abrupt, and he did not tell her anything. He had never shown any interest in investing, let alone talking about possible future investment.
27. Oh the Oddity
Mark did also not truly specify what the investment opportunity was really about. She felt the old pattern of secrecy was creeping up and was not very happy about that fact. Mark then explained that taking the money out of their spending account was the only way to access the money he need quickly.
He said he had put in an order for some amount to be transferred to the spending account from their savings account, but it had not been effected yet. Sara listened to him, but was still finding the situation a bit bizarre and was confused about everything.
28. Why the sudden interest?
Sara found everything that Mark had just told her odd because she knew Mark did not want to be constantly busy all the time. An investment would require him to use any free time he had away from photographing, working on the side.
Sara was also busy making their house a home and ensuring the children and Mark too are well cared for, what was pretty much for her to care about. She did really not have time to handle an investment. They all knew this, so it was very suspicious that mark would invest in something on a whim.
29. Information about the Investment
The information Sara could get from Mark about the details of the investment was that it was a startup, so not many people had knowledge of it. It was in its early stages and there was nothing about it already placed online or on social media.
Basically, Mark was telling Sara there is really nothing to tell about the investment because it was still developing. Sara felt this was very suspicious and kinda thought that he might be lying about this whole thing. How could she believe in something that doesn’t seem to even exist? To find out what is happening next, read on.
30. Suspicion is a seed, it grows
Sara continued to suspect something else was going on and the ‘investment’ was just a dumb cover up. She has begun to really listen and dissect everything Mark said. The sudden withdrawal was the beginning of a series of other unfortunate findings and events because Sara became alert. Her suspicions heightened because she felt Mark was being dishonest.
Among the things she picked up was that Mark said he travelled to different places across the country, but when she ‘coincidentally’ saw Mark’s flying history, she found that he went to a particular airport frequently. But why would he lie to her?
31. Questions, questions, questions
Sara had many questions without answers upon this discovery. She wondered if Mark had a special customer at this location. Why couldn’t he tell Sara about this customer. Is it because what was going on with this ‘customer’ was not job related anyway?
Coupled with this was the fact that Mark was being less romantic with Sara compared to before when he got home from a trip. She confided in her friends about the detachment, and they validated that her worst fear could actually be real. With all unanswered questions, doubts, and suspicions Sara was becoming overwhelmed, then something happened.
32. The reveal
Something happened that made Sara form a connection between all recent events. One night, she received a phone call while Mark was on one of his trips. She answered the call, and immediately she introduced herself, the caller disconnected. Sarah wrote down the new number.
She tried calling back, but she kept being disconnected. She decided to Google the number to find any information to shed some light. Furthermore, she could not find the number on Google, what she discovered instead was, the area code on the phone number was of the city Mark frequently travelled to. Sara had had enough at this juncture.
33. Sara wanted answers
With the new developments, Sara decided boundaries had to be crossed. She could not keep respecting Mark’s privacy while things happened that she could not explain. She decided her answer lay in one place, Mark’s home computer, and started to disturb his privacy.
She knew the password from a crumpled piece of paper she had found months before, bearing it. Mark had not told her the password himself. When she gets in, she sees numerous folders arranged on the desktop. The folders are full of pictures. The full maze of what she has to look through to find something, anything.
34. Matching dates and pictures
Sara composes herself and uses Mark’s flying history list saved on her phone to have some order in her search. Mark always placed new pictures in his computer after a trip. She begins searching for pictures from a few days after his trips to the frequently traveled to city.
Well, she was in for a surprise. Starting from older dates, Sara found no photos around the times Mark had traveled to this particular city. The only interpretation was; he was never on work trips in this city. She however found a folder dated a day after he made the most recent trip to this city.
35. Mark’s secret folder
Curiosity killed the cat, some stones are better left unturned. But no, it is better to know the complete character of a person. Sara did not know what to expect to see in the folder, but she saw it because she opened it. Mark’s secret folder contained pictures of him and his second family!
Mark, his other wife, and his other two children. Sara was really shocked to say the least. She could not fathom how Mark could do this, when he did it, what prompted him and how he would lie to her. Did they know that she exists?
36. Waiting for his return
Naturally, Sara wanted Mark to tell her everything, she wanted to tear him a new one, but as usual he was absent that day. She could not confront him over the phone because of the magnitude of the situation. She had a sleepless night thinking about how the person she loved lied to her during all the years they were together.
She decided she would file for a divorce. Mark arrived in the afternoon the next day. Sara made sure to leave the kids at a friend’s place so they are not affected by the chaos that would likely erupt.
37. Off guard
Mark did not suspect anything and when Sara confronts him, she refuses to accept his trial at ‘explaining everything’. Sara informs Mark she is leaving and will file for divorce the next day. Point in case, she had already packed hers and her kids’ bags.
She moves toward the door but Mark yells something at her making her stand still. ‘I have a twin brother’, these are the words that make Sara stop. She however thinks it is a lie to cover up his deeds. He claims he can prove it. He shows the exact picture to Sara using his phone. 101
38. What did Sara miss?
Mark points at the man’s hand, and Sara sees that he is missing a finger. At this point, they sit down and Mark explains everything. His twin lost his finger to a lawnmower accident while young. He kept him a secret because Eric was always getting in trouble from a young age. He seemed to get this from his parents, who also had bad characters.
This was the reason he moved away from home, so as not to turn out like his family. He later learned that Eric’s situation worsened, and he got himself jailed two months earlier for 5 years for being a repeat offender.
39. The reunion
Eric decided to change during his imprisonment. It was eye-opening for him. He knew only Mark could help him in this situation. He called him from jail and convinced him he was willing to work on himself. Mark did not want to involve Sara in his family’s drama, so he lied about the investment. He used the money to bail is brother out and help him regain stability.
Thereafter, mark kept visiting Eric to ensure he was faring well and help him where he could. Eric was doing well. He found a job as a garbage collection and found a woman he liked. She liked him back. She had two children from her previous marriage.
40. The resolve
Mark had done a photoshoot with Eric and his new family on his recent trip. Eric called the house to ask for a particular picture from Mark, forgetting he was not supposed to call there. Sara was processing all this information at once, and it was all too much. She was glad she would meet someone from Mark’s family.
When they do meet, Eric and Mark apologize profusely for keeping all these from her. She is upset but also tries to understand the situation. Sara and Mark vow to keep nothing from each other. The two families build a solid relationship from there onwards. The almost divorce is behind them and the family picture that almost caused it lives proudly in a frame hanged on Eric’s wall.
