I stepped into the house with my daughter’s ultrasound picture still in my hand and heard something hit the bedroom floor upstairs.
When I opened the door, my husband was shirtless, pulling on his pants beside our unmade bed.
“You’re home early,” Garrick said.
He grabbed a white shirt from the floor.
“I spilled coffee. I was changing.”
There was no coffee on the shirt.
But beneath the bench at the foot of our bed was a champagne lace camisole with a tiny blue charm on one strap.
I had seen it once before.
Sienna had shown it to me after her engagement dinner, laughing as she held it against herself.
“Ethan paid a ridiculous amount for this,” she had said. “I’m saving it for our honeymoon.”
Sienna was my best friend of twelve years.
She was also hiding behind my maternity coats.
The closet door was open less than an inch, but it was enough. I saw a hand gripping the sleeve of my cream coat. I saw the diamond Ethan had placed on Sienna’s finger. I caught the perfume she had worn to my baby shower planning lunch two days earlier.
Neither of them knew I had seen her.
Garrick stepped between me and the closet.
“How did the appointment go?”
I looked at him standing there with his belt still hanging open, his hair mussed, the bedsheet pulled halfway loose.
Then I looked down at the ultrasound picture.
Our daughter had turned toward the screen that morning. For the first time, I could make out the curve of her nose.
Garrick had said he was too busy to come.
Now I knew what had kept him home.
“Is she healthy?” he asked.
Behind my maternity coats, Sienna did not move.
“She’s healthy,” I said.
My voice shook, but Garrick smiled as if he thought I was emotional about the baby.
I took one step toward the closet.
Every part of me wanted to tear that door open.
I wanted Sienna to look me in the eye. I wanted Garrick to explain why my best friend’s lingerie was under our bed while I had been alone at a prenatal appointment.
Then I saw Garrick’s phone on the mattress.
Sienna had hers in the closet.
If I exposed them now, they would delete messages, call it a misunderstanding, and agree on a story before I even reached Ethan.
The only advantage I had was that they thought I knew nothing.
I pressed a hand to my belly.
“I feel light-headed,” I said. “Could you get me some water?”
Relief flashed across Garrick’s face.
“Of course.”
He turned toward the bathroom.
I lowered my phone beside my hip and took one silent picture.
The camisole lay beneath the bench. Garrick’s shirt was crumpled beside it. The corner of our rumpled bed filled the background.
I did not touch anything.
“I’m going to sit in the nursery,” I said.
“That’s a good idea,” Garrick replied too quickly.
I walked out without looking at the closet again.
In the nursery, I sat beside the unfinished crib while my hands shook so badly the ultrasound picture tapped against the wooden arm of the chair.
A minute later, I heard the bedroom door close.
Soft footsteps crossed the hall.
Then the side door opened and shut.
When I returned upstairs, the camisole was gone. The bed had been pulled straight. Garrick’s shirt was no longer on the floor.
He was downstairs, running water in the kitchen like nothing had happened.
They believed they had erased every trace.
They did not know about the picture.
They thought my silence meant they had gotten away with it.
I locked the nursery door and opened our security app.
Sienna had her own emergency code. I had given it to her because I trusted her enough to enter my home if I ever needed help.
The access log loaded.
Her code had opened my front door six times in three months.