Chapter 2
The ringtone blared so loud it made my teeth ache.
Michael’s eyes went wide as saucers.
He dove for the phone like it was a live grenade.
I got there first.
My fingers closed around the cold plastic before he could reach it.
“Claire, give that to me,” he said, his voice cracking.
Diane leaned against the table, a smug smile spreading across her red, stinging cheek.
She knew.
Of course she knew.
I swiped to answer, then hit the speaker button before Michael could stop me.
“Hey, baby,” my sister Lila’s voice purred through the speaker, bright and familiar and wrong. “I just landed back in Chicago. Did you get my text about Thursday? I already booked the usual room, and I picked up that wine you like—you know, the one Claire hates.”
The room went dead silent.
Michael’s dad dropped his fork. It clattered against his plate so loud Emma flinched.
My daughter’s small hand curled around the back of my shirt.
“Mommy?” she whispered.
I couldn’t look at her.
I couldn’t look at anyone.
My eyes were locked on Michael’s face, watching every shade of terror wash over it.
“Michael?” Lila said, confused. “You there? Diane said you’d be free tonight, that Claire was taking Emma to her mom’s—”
I hung up.
The silence that followed was thicker than the gravy on the table.
Michael reached for me.
“Claire, let me explain—”
“Explain what?” I said, my voice so calm it scared me. “That you’ve been fucking my sister every Thursday night? That your own mother helped you lie about it?”
Diane laughed.
It was a sharp, ugly sound.
“Finally,” she said. “Took you long enough to figure it out. A woman who can’t keep her own husband deserves to know the truth.”
“Mom, for Christ’s sake, shut up!” Michael yelled.
He turned back to me, his hands shaking.
“It’s not what you think. Lila’s been going through a hard time, I was just—”
“Just what?” I said. “Comforting her in a hotel room? Buying her wine I hate? Let her call you baby?”
Emma started crying.
I knelt down in front of her, my knees hitting the hardwood hard.
I brushed the hair out of her face, my own hand trembling so bad I could barely touch her.
“Hey, baby,” I said, forcing my voice soft. “It’s okay. We’re gonna go home, okay? Just you and me.”
“I don’t wanna go,” she sobbed. “I want Daddy to come.”
Michael knelt down next to us.
“Emma, princess—”
“Don’t,” I said, cutting him off. I stood up, pulling Emma with me. “Don’t you dare talk to her right now.”
I grabbed my purse off the back of the chair.
Michael stood up, blocking my path to the door.
“Claire, we need to talk about this. Not here, not like this.”
“Move,” I said.
“Please,” he said. “I love you. You have to believe me. This was a mistake, it’s over—”
I looked past him, at Diane.
She was sipping her wine like she hadn’t just destroyed my entire life.
Like this was the outcome she’d wanted all along.
“Did you know?” I asked her. “From the start?”
She set her glass down slow.
“Michael never belonged to you,” she said. “He married you because you got pregnant with Emma, and I let him. But Lila? Lila’s family. She’s the kind of woman who knows how to take care of a man. You were always just a placeholder.”
Michael’s dad stood up, his face red.
“Diane, that’s enough.”
She waved him off.
“Stay out of this, Richard. You’ve never had the guts to stand up to me anyway.”
I looked back at Michael.
He was still standing in my way, tears in his eyes.
For ten years, I’d loved this man.
I’d moved across the country for him. I’d given up my dream job for him. I’d had his child, I’d taken care of his sick mother, I’d sat through a hundred Sunday dinners just like this one, biting my tongue every time Diane insulted me.
And all along, he’d been lying.
All along, he’d been with my sister.
“Move,” I said again, quieter this time.
He didn’t.
So I stepped around him, Emma’s hand tight in mine, and walked out the door.
I didn’t look back.
Not when Michael called my name.
Not when Diane yelled something about custody.
I just kept walking.
The drive home was a blur.
Emma cried herself to sleep in the backseat ten minutes in.
I turned onto our street, the house we’d bought together five years ago, the house where we’d brought Emma home from the hospital, the house that was supposed to be our forever.
It felt like a stranger’s house now.
I carried Emma inside, tucked her into bed, then sat down on the floor of our bedroom.
Michael and I shared a location app. We’d installed it after Emma was born, for emergencies.
I opened it.
I pulled up his history for the last six months.
Every single Thursday.
Same time. Same place.
An apartment building in downtown Chicago, twenty minutes from his office.
May you like
I wrote the address down on a scrap of paper, my hand shaking so bad the letters were barely legible.
Then I laid down on the floor, and I didn’t sleep a wink all night.
