Chapter 2 - The Wife Who Was Supposed to Be Gone
I did not answer immediately.
Avery kept talking.
“He said the divorce was almost finished. He said you sometimes came home for visits, but that Leo got confused about where you lived.”
I pressed my palm against my mouth.
From the other side of the bathroom door, I could hear Mark moving around our bedroom.
A drawer opened.
The television switched on.
My husband was choosing something to watch while another woman explained the life he had invented around my absence.
“When?” I asked.
“When what?”
“When did he ask you?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“And you said yes?”
“I thought—”
I closed my eyes.
“No. Tell me.”
“Yes.”
The word hurt.
I let it.
There would be time later to decide how much anger belonged to Avery.
Right now, I needed facts.
“How long have you been seeing him?”
“Eight months.”
“Where did you meet?”
“At a property launch. I worked for the event company.”
Eight months.
I counted backward automatically.
Leo’s fifth birthday.
Our anniversary.
The weekend Mark insisted I should take another shift because his commission had been delayed.
“Did you know we were still married?”
“He said legally, yes. He said emotionally, it had been over for years.”
“Did you ask to speak to me?”
“He said it would destabilize you.”
I almost laughed.
Of course.
A lie that made asking questions seem cruel.
“And my necklace?”
“What?”
“The sapphire you’re wearing belongs to me.”
Avery inhaled sharply.
“No.”
“He gave it to me for our fifth anniversary. There’s a crooked diamond beside the clasp.”
I heard a small sound.
Perhaps she was taking it off.
“He said it belonged to his grandmother.”
I looked toward the locked door.
Every object in the room suddenly seemed capable of holding a secret.
“I want it back.”
“Yes.”
“And don’t contact him about this conversation yet.”
“I won’t.”
I wanted to believe her.
I did not.
“Send me what you have,” I said. “Messages. Photographs. Whatever you’re comfortable providing voluntarily. Don’t go looking through anything that isn’t yours.”
“Are you going to confront him?”
“Not tonight.”
I ended the call.
For several minutes, I sat without moving.
Then I opened a message to my older sister.
Lydia, I need you tomorrow. Please don’t call Mark.
Her reply arrived immediately.
Where do you want me?
I cried then.
Quietly.
Not because I had a plan.
Because someone had asked where I wanted them instead of telling me what reality was.
The following morning, I took Leo to kindergarten.
At the classroom door, he looked back.
“Mommy?”
“Yes?”
“You’re picking me up?”
“I am.”
“Not Avery?”
The teacher glanced up.
I kept my face calm.
“I’m picking you up.”
He nodded and went inside.
I waited until he was beyond hearing before asking the teacher whether there had been any recent changes to his authorized collection list.
She directed me to the office.
There, the secretary showed me a form submitted two weeks earlier.
Avery Lane.
Relationship to child: future stepmother.
I stared at the line.
Mark’s signature sat beneath it.
The school had not yet activated the change because a verification step remained incomplete.
I thanked the secretary for following the procedure.
Then I asked for copies of the current arrangements and explained that there was a family matter requiring clarification.
I did not tell the school every detail.
I told them what they needed to protect Leo from confusion.
Lydia met me outside.
She took one look at my face and opened her arms.
I stepped into them.
Afterward, we sat in her car while I showed her Avery’s messages.
There were photographs of dinners.
Weekend plans.
An engagement ring.
Then a text from Mark.
Once the house is settled, we can start properly. Mom already has a school in mind for Leo near her place.
Lydia read it twice.
“His mother knows?”
I felt something cold spread through me.
Linda Carter had called me the previous Sunday to complain that I worked too much.
She said children needed a mother who was present.
At the time, I had apologized.
Now I remembered her asking whether I could cover Thanksgiving at the clinic because Mark might take Leo to visit her.
I looked at Lydia.
“I think she knows more than I do.”
My sister started the car.
“Then we find someone who knows what to do with that.”
“Who?”
“A lawyer.”
I looked through the windshield at the school.
Leo’s classroom artwork hung in the window.
Crayon houses.
Paper trees.
People holding hands.
For the first time, I understood that Mark was not merely hiding a relationship.
May you like
He had been preparing another version of my son’s life.
And in that version, there was barely room for me.
