Reclaimed: Part 1

Lucas had married the love of his life.
At least, that was what he called Tare when they first got married. They had been married for only two years when everything changed.

Tare and Lucas met through Matt, a mutual friend. Matt and Tare had been best friends since childhood, while Lucas and Matt had worked together in the same company before Matt relocated abroad.
When Tare lost her mother, Matt returned to the country for the funeral and dragged Lucas to attend the event with him.
Tare was an only child. Her mother had been the only family she had, and losing her left her completely alone.

When Matt travelled back abroad, Lucas remained. He stayed in touch after the funeral. At first, it was simply because he knew she was grieving. He checked on her, listened to her and became the person she could lean on when the loneliness became too much. Somewhere along the way, friendship became love.

There was no formal asking out. No dramatic beginning. They simply moved from being friends to becoming lovers and before long, they were married.
Matt was happy for them. He gave them his full approval and support. He even flew into the country for the wedding and stood beside Lucas as his best man.

They were only married for two years, then Tare became sick. Her condition became serious enough for her to stop working.
That was when Lucas discovered that loving someone in sickness was very different from loving someone in health.
He loved Tare but he had never imagined that sickness would enter his marriage so early. He tried to care for her but his patience began to wear thin. His frustration became harder to hide.

And then he started calling Matt.
He complained about how tired he was. He complained about the demands of caring for a sick wife. Eventually, he began saying something that shocked Matt: he regretted marrying Tare.
Matt could hardly reconcile the man on the phone with the Lucas he thought he knew.

Lucas had always appeared to be a perfect gentleman. But this was different. This was a side of him Matt had never seen.
And Lucas was not finished. He began telling Matt that he was seeing other women. There was one particular woman he liked more than the others. Lucas was already considering making her his wife.

Tare was still his wife. She was still sick.
And most times, she was lying in a hospital bed. Yet Lucas was taking other women to their home. He told Matt about it as though he had nothing to hide and nothing to be ashamed of.

Then Tare died.
Her doctor called Lucas to give him the news. Lucas was busy with work.
He told the doctor to take care of the corpse and that he would come later.
The doctor refused. He waited for Lucas to arrive, made him complete the necessary paperwork and only then was Tare’s body taken to the morgue.

The woman Lucas had once called the love of his life was now lying in a morgue.
Matt flew into the country.
He handled most of the burial arrangements because Lucas was either too busy to function or simply too uninterested to take responsibility.
Tare was buried a few days later.

And then Lucas moved on. Quickly.
He married one of the women he had been seeing while Tare was alive. But marriage did not turn out the way he expected.
The woman he had chosen began showing him exactly why she had chosen him.
Lucas started calling Matt again.
Only this time, he was not complaining about Tare. He was complaining about his new wife. He compared her to Tare. He remembered the things Tare had done for him. He remembered her love, her loyalty and the woman she had been before sickness changed everything.

Slowly, painfully, Lucas began to understand what he had thrown away.
He regretted the way he had treated Tare.
He also realised that his new wife was not with him because she loved him. She was with him because of what he had.
Matt had heard enough.
His response was simple: Lucas had made his choice and now he had to live with it.

But something else had changed.
Matt had begun withdrawing from Lucas.
Their friendship was no longer what it had been. The calls became fewer. The closeness disappeared. Lucas noticed it but he did not understand why.

Then Lucas heard that Matt had gotten married. That surprised him.
What shocked him even more was that Matt had not told him. He had not invited him. He had not even mentioned it.
Lucas called. He sent messages.
There was no response. So he decided to try Instagram. He intended to send Matt another message but instead, he found the wedding pictures.

He stared at them.
Matt was dressed as a groom.
And standing beside him was his bride.
Lucas looked again.
Then again.
The woman in the wedding dress was not a stranger. She was not some woman Matt had met after relocating abroad. She was the woman Lucas had once married.
The woman he had watched grow sick.
The woman he had betrayed.
The woman he had abandoned emotionally while she was still alive.
The woman whose body he had once told her doctor to take care of because he was too busy with work. The woman he had buried.
Tare.
His dead wife.
Standing beside Matt.
As his bride.

Lucas dropped the phone.
For several seconds, he could not breathe.
Then he picked it up again and zoomed in on the picture as though the image might change if he looked closely enough.
It did not. The woman beside Matt was Tare.
Not a look-alike. Not a ghost.
Tare.
Alive. Smiling.

Lucas’s hands began to shake. He opened the comments beneath the picture. There were hundreds of congratulatory messages. People spoke about Matt’s beautiful bride, their love story and the small private ceremony they had held weeks earlier.
Weeks earlier?????

So while Lucas had been sitting in his house, complaining about his new wife and remembering the woman he had destroyed, Matt had been marrying Tare.

Lucas called Matt again. This time, the call went through. Matt answered but he said nothing.

“Matt,” Lucas whispered.
There was a long silence.
“Where is Tare?”

Matt’s voice was calm.
“She is with me.”

Lucas closed his eyes.
“How is that possible?”

“You buried her,” Matt replied. “You watched them lower her into the ground.”

Lucas’s throat tightened.
“I know what I saw.”

“No,” Matt said. “You saw what you wanted to see.”

Lucas stood up so quickly that the room spun around him.
“What are you talking about?”

Matt exhaled slowly.
“Tare did not die.”

Lucas gripped the edge of the table.
The words made no sense.
“But the doctor called me.”

“The doctor called you because Tare was in critical condition. Her condition worsened and she stopped responding. They believed she had died.”

Lucas stared at the wall.
He remembered the doctor’s call.
He remembered being irritated.
He remembered telling him to handle everything because he was busy. He later went to the hospital. He had never looked at Tare. He had never asked to see her body. He had simply accepted the news and continued with his life.

“What happened after that?” he asked.

“She woke up in the morgue.”

Lucas’s knees weakened.

Matt continued.
“She was weak, confused and terrified. The hospital contacted me because I was listed as her emergency contact. I flew back immediately.”

Lucas could barely hear him.
“And you never told me?”

“There was no point.”

Lucas said nothing.
He was shocked.