Chapter 2
For several seconds, I could hear nothing except Emma crying against my chest.
The photograph shook between my fingers.
Michael looked at the floor.
Lauren looked at him.
Neither one of them looked surprised.
That was what terrified me most.
“Whose name?” I asked.
My voice barely sounded like mine.
Michael took one step toward me.
“Sarah, please.”
“Whose name is on the birth certificate?”
Emma tightened her arms around my waist.
Michael rubbed both hands over his face.
Lauren answered for him.
“His.”
I stared at her.
Then at Michael.
“No.”
“Sarah—”
“No.”
I backed away.
My heel hit the coffee table.
The photograph slipped from my fingers.
Emma bent down to pick it up, but I caught her hand.
“Don’t.”
I did not want my daughter touching that picture.
I did not want her seeing her father smiling beside another woman and another baby.
A baby born eight months ago.
Eight months.
I counted backward automatically.
Michael had been traveling for work.
At least that was what he had told me.
There had been conferences.
Late nights.
Hotel receipts.
Weekend emergencies.
I suddenly remembered every time he had kissed my forehead while carrying a suitcase toward the door.
The memories made me sick.
“You have a baby with her?”
Michael swallowed.
“It’s complicated.”
Lauren laughed.
“No, it isn’t.”
Michael spun toward her.
“Will you stop?”
“Why?” she snapped. “Because your wife is finally hearing the truth?”
“My daughter is here.”
Lauren looked at Emma.
For one moment, something like shame crossed her face.
Then Emma buried her face against me.
I felt rage rise again.
“You pushed my child.”
“She shoved me first.”
“She is seven years old!”
“I didn’t mean for her to fall that hard.”
“You shouldn’t have touched her at all.”
Lauren opened her mouth.
I raised my hand.
“Don’t.”
She stopped.
Maybe she remembered the slap.
Maybe she finally understood that if she came near Emma again, I would forget every rule I had ever followed in my life.
Michael tried again.
“Sarah, let’s sit down.”
I laughed.
It came out broken.
“Sit down?”
“We need to talk.”
“You had a baby with another woman and brought her into our house.”
“She wasn’t supposed to be here when Emma came home.”
My entire body went cold.
I stared at him.
“What did you just say?”
Michael froze.
Lauren closed her eyes.
“You knew Emma would be coming home?”
“I thought she was at your sister’s.”
“She was supposed to be.”
My sister Rachel had picked Emma up from school because I was working late.
Apparently Emma had convinced Rachel’s husband to bring her home for her dance shoes.
That tiny change in schedule had exposed my entire marriage.
I looked around the room.
Lauren’s coat was hanging over my dining chair.
Two wine glasses sat on my kitchen counter.
One of my candles was burning.
My candle.
The vanilla one Michael always complained was too sweet.
I suddenly understood.
This had not been a quick conversation.
This had not been some emergency.
They had planned this.
In my house.
“Were you going to sleep with her here?”
“Sarah.”
“Answer me.”
He looked away.
That was an answer.
I covered Emma’s ears.
Then I whispered, “You disgust me.”
Michael flinched.
Lauren crossed her arms.
“Well, now you know.”
I looked at her.
“Why are you still here?”
Her expression changed.
“I came because Michael made me a promise.”
I slowly lowered my hands from Emma’s ears.
“What promise?”
Michael stepped forward.
“Lauren.”
She ignored him.
“He said he was leaving you.”
My heart slammed once against my ribs.
“When?”
“Months ago.”
I looked at Michael.
His mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Lauren continued.
“He said after Christmas. Then after Emma’s birthday. Then after your mother’s surgery. Then after your anniversary.”
Each word was another knife.
Our anniversary.
Three weeks earlier.
Michael had taken me to the restaurant where he proposed.
He had held my hand across the table.
He had told me we had survived more than most couples.
I had cried because I thought he meant it.
That night, he had made love to me.
The next morning, he had brought me coffee in bed.
And all that time, he had a baby somewhere else.
I felt my stomach turn.
“Mommy?”
Emma’s voice brought me back.
I looked down.
Her cheek was wet.
“Are you and Daddy getting divorced?”
Michael immediately said, “No.”
I said, “I don’t know.”
His eyes snapped toward me.
“Sarah.”
“Do not answer for me.”
Emma began crying harder.
I crouched and held her face gently.
“Listen to me, sweetheart. None of this is because of you. You did nothing wrong.”
“Is Daddy leaving?”
I couldn’t answer.
Michael knelt beside us.
“Emma, Daddy loves you.”
She pulled away from him.
“You kissed her.”
His face crumpled.
Emma had always worshiped him.
She waited at the window when he worked late.
She made him cards.
She saved the blue candies because those were his favorite.
And now she was looking at him like he was a stranger.
I stood.
“Emma, go upstairs and pack your pajamas, your school clothes, and Bunny.”
Her stuffed rabbit had slept beside her since she was three.
Michael rose quickly.
“Where are you going?”
“Somewhere my daughter doesn’t have to watch this.”
“This is her home.”
“And you brought your mistress into it.”
Lauren stiffened at the word.
Good.
Let it hurt.
Michael reached for my arm.
I stepped away.
“Touch me again and I will call the police.”
His hand dropped.
Emma ran upstairs.
I heard her bedroom door close.
Then I looked at Michael.
“You have five minutes.”
“For what?”
“To explain why there is another child with your name on his birth certificate.”
He stared at me.
Lauren looked suddenly nervous.
That caught my attention.
“What?”
Michael shook his head.
“Nothing.”
I turned to Lauren.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
She glanced at him.
Then she said, “Ask him why he paid for the apartment.”
My breath stopped.
“What apartment?”
Michael cursed under his breath.
Lauren kept going.
“The apartment where your husband spends every Tuesday and Thursday.”
Every Tuesday and Thursday.
Those were his gym nights.
The nights I helped Emma with homework alone.
The nights I ate reheated pasta at the kitchen table while waiting for Michael to text that his workout had run late.
“He lives with you?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“He stays.”
“How often?”
Lauren’s eyes filled with anger.
“Enough that our son knows him.”
Our son.
The words hit harder than the photograph.
“What’s his name?”
She hesitated.
“Ethan.”
Michael looked at me.
“Sarah, please understand something. I never stopped loving Emma.”
I stared at him.
“You think that is the problem?”
“No.”
“You think I’m worried whether you love Emma while you’ve been building another family behind our backs?”
“It didn’t happen like that.”
“How did it happen?”
He sat down heavily on the couch.
For the first time, he looked afraid.
Not guilty.
Afraid.
“I met Lauren almost two years ago.”
My knees weakened.
Two years.
Not a mistake.
Not one drunken night.
Two years.
“We started talking. I was going through a bad time.”
I almost laughed again.
“A bad time?”
“I felt invisible.”
“You felt invisible?”
“I’m not blaming you.”
“You are literally explaining why you cheated on me.”
Lauren interrupted.
“He told me your marriage was basically over.”
I turned toward her.
“And you believed him?”
“He said you slept in separate rooms.”
I looked at Michael.
“We have never slept in separate rooms.”
Lauren’s face changed.
“He said you hadn’t been intimate in over a year.”
My hands began shaking.
Three days before Ethan was born, Michael and I had spent a weekend at a lake house for my birthday.
So much for his dead marriage.
Lauren stared at him.
“You told me she wouldn’t even let you touch her.”
Michael stood.
“This is not helping.”
“No,” Lauren said. “I want to hear this.”
For the first time, anger shifted between them.
And suddenly I saw something clearly.
Michael had not only lied to me.
He had lied to her too.
That did not make her innocent.
She had pushed my daughter.
She had entered my home.
She had kissed my husband under my roof.
But the center of the disaster was standing between us.
Michael.
My husband.
The man I had trusted for eleven years.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs.
Emma came down carrying a pink backpack and Bunny.
Her lower lip trembled.
“I’m ready.”
I walked toward her.
Michael moved in front of the door.
“No.”
I stopped.
“Move.”
“We’re not doing this.”
“We?”
“You are not taking Emma and disappearing.”
“I’m taking her to my sister’s.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“This is my daughter too.”
Emma whispered, “Daddy, move.”
Michael looked at her.
His shoulders dropped.
Then his phone rang.
Nobody moved.
It rang again.
Lauren glanced toward the screen on the coffee table.
Her face went white.
Michael lunged for the phone.
But I was closer.
I picked it up.
The caller ID showed a name I recognized immediately.
DAVID COLLINS.
Michael’s older brother.
I almost ignored it.
Then a message flashed beneath the missed call.
CALL ME NOW. SARAH FOUND THE TRANSFER.
I stared at the screen.
Michael reached for the phone.
I stepped back.
“What transfer?”
May you like
His face told me everything.
There was still more.
