I didn’t want to think it. I refused to think it. Not him. Not in our own bedroom.
But that night, lying awake staring at the ceiling while my husband slept beside me, I couldn’t stop the thoughts. I reached for my phone and searched for small hidden cameras.
Earliest delivery—three weeks.
Three weeks. And every day, according to my five-year-old, the hide-and-seek game was still happening.
I sat up in the dark and made a decision: I wasn’t waiting three weeks for anything.
I went through the motions the next morning. Watched my husband back out of the driveway, coffee in hand, humming softly. Dropped Mason at school. Drove to the office. Sat at my desk.
At noon, I packed my bag, told my boss I had a fever, and headed to my car.
On the drive home, I called my husband. He picked up on the third ring, his voice slightly distracted. And behind it—music, and a woman laughing.
“Hey! Everything okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m just not feeling well. Are you busy?” I asked, focusing more on the background than his words.
“Kind of. You need anything?”
“No. Sorry to bother you.”
I hung up and gripped the steering wheel with both hands. My mind went straight to the worst possible place. I knew I shouldn’t let it. I went there anyway.
By the time I turned onto our street, my hands were steady, and my decision was firm: I was going to find out exactly what was happening in my house.
Alice’s car sat in the driveway like it belonged there. I parked down the block, walked quietly to the front door, and let myself in without a sound. The house was completely still.
Mason sat at the kitchen table, tongue between his teeth, focused on a drawing. He looked up, eyes wide.
I pressed a finger to my lips and held out a piece of candy. He took it carefully, watching me.
“Is she hiding again?” I mouthed.
Mason nodded slowly. “She said I have to count to 100 this time.”
I straightened and walked down the hallway.
The bedroom door was locked. Behind it, soft music played. A woman laughed quietly. Then a man’s voice, low beneath the music, murmuring something I couldn’t make out.
My chest went hollow.
I was so sure I knew that voice.
I had already built an entire story in my head about my husband. Standing there, hearing that music and that laughter, I was completely convinced.
I took the spare key from the linen closet hook. Drew one slow breath. Unlocked the door. Pushed it open.
Candles on my nightstand. Soft music playing from a phone propped against my lamp. Rose petals scattered across the floor. And Alice, standing in the middle of my bedroom, wearing my Paris dress, looking like she’d been living that life for weeks.
Because she had.
Next to her, a man I had never seen before was reaching for his shirt from the chair.
Alice’s face shifted from shock to something like irritation—as if I were the one intruding.
“Sh-Sheryl?? What the hell are you doing here?!” she demanded. “You weren’t supposed to see this!”
I looked at her. At the man. At my dress, the candles, the rose petals.
“You,” I said to him, holding his gaze. “Get out of my house. Right now.”
He left his jacket behind and was gone before I finished speaking.
I turned back to Alice, everything I’d been holding in rising all at once.
“How long has this been going on?”
Alice crossed her arms. “It’s not what it—”
“Alice. How long?” I cut in.
She exhaled. “A few weeks. He’d come when you were at work. I’d let him in while Mason was counting. He’d go straight to the bedroom, and I’d lock the door. Mason just thought it was part of the game.”
I stared at her. “You used my child as a cover. Do you understand what you just taught him? That adults can ask him to keep secrets from his mother.”
She tried to respond. I didn’t let her.
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