My husband and I were at his father’s funeral. The reception afterward was held in a high-end restaurant booked just for the occasion since his dad had been a powerful businessman. I stepped away to the restroom and asked my husband to keep an eye on our four-year-old, Ben. Just for a minute, I promised him, my own grief a heavy cloak. When I came back, my husband was chatting with guests, a strained smile on his face, while Ben was crawling under the tables, giggling. I scooped him up and sat him on my lap. He grinned and whispered, “MOMMY, THAT LADY HAD SPIDERS UNDER HER DRESS.”
I blinked. “What do you mean, sweetheart?” He looked at me seriously and said, “I crawl under I saw Daddy.”
Spiders? Under her dress? And Daddy? My heart gave a strange little lurch, like a trapped bird. No, it’s a child’s imagination. It has to be. But the seriousness in his eyes… it wasn’t a game. It was a confession of something he’d witnessed, something confusing to him but presented as fact.
I tried to push it away. This was a funeral. My husband was devastated. His father had meant everything to him. How could I even entertain such a thought? But the seed was planted, a tiny, venomous thing. I glanced around the elegant room, my gaze now sweeping over every woman. The wives of business partners, old family friends, distant relatives. All dressed in somber black, all looking equally respectful, equally sad.
My husband turned to me, offering a weak smile. “Everything okay?” He stroked Ben’s hair. He looked so normal. So grief-stricken. So innocent. My stomach churned. What if Ben saw nothing? What if it was truly just a child’s fanciful observation?
But the phrase, “I saw Daddy,” echoed. It wasn’t “I saw a lady,” or “I saw spiders.” It was connected to him. What could that possibly mean? My mind raced, trying to decipher the innocent but loaded words. “Spiders under her dress” could be anything – a pattern on stockings, a garter, a loose thread. Or something far worse.
Then my eyes landed on her. She was across the room, near the large window, speaking softly with another guest. She had given a beautiful eulogy earlier, her voice strong and clear despite her obvious sorrow. She was his father’s former business partner, a woman everyone respected. Elegant, composed, in her late fifties. She crossed her legs slightly as she spoke, and just for a moment, her dress shifted.
And there it was. Barely visible above her ankle, a small, intricate tattoo. A spider. Not a cartoonish one, but a delicate, almost artistic black widow, its tiny red hourglass marking unmistakable.
My breath hitched. The blood drained from my face. It wasn’t imagination. My gaze darted back to my husband. He was still smiling weakly at someone, seemingly oblivious. But the pieces snapped together with a sickening crunch. Ben saw the tattoo. And he saw my husband.
He wasn’t just talking to her. He was under the table with her. Ben saw him, maybe his hand, maybe a touch, maybe a shared moment of illicit intimacy, hidden from the grieving crowd, a moment that spoke of a secret life. A secret my husband shared not just with that woman, but a secret he was now living out, even at his own father’s funeral. My husband wasn’t just mourning his father. He was perhaps mourning a secret life he was now inheriting, or worse, continuing.
A cold, absolute terror washed over me. It wasn’t just an affair. It was an affair with a woman who had given his father’s eulogy. At his father’s funeral. And Ben saw Daddy under there with the lady who had the spiders.
The entire world tilted. The room spun. ALL OF IT. The grief, the respect, the solemnity. It was a lie. A total, horrifying, generational LIE. My perfect life, my stable family… I FELT THE SPIDERS CRAWLING ALL OVER ME.
