Chapter 3
I asked Laura to put Jay’s key on the table.
“He has the spare from the drawer,” she said. “I’ll get it back.”
“I want the locks changed.”
She nodded.
Before I left, I checked the back door and the windows. I hated feeling uncertain in my own house. I hated even more that Owen had been there while I knew so little about who could come inside.
Jay texted as I drove to Sam’s.
I’ll return the key tomorrow. I’m sorry.
I pulled over and answered.
Leave it with Laura tonight. Do not come inside.
He wrote back that he understood.
Owen was asleep on Sam’s couch when I arrived, one hand still resting on a toy car. Sam’s wife, Priya, had covered him with a blanket.
I carried him to the guest room. He woke just enough to say, “Dad, did you see me ride fast?”
“I did, champ.”
Then he went back to sleep.
I sat beside him for a long time. I had been on the couch in my own living room that morning, opening presents. Now I was sleeping at my brother’s house while the man I called my oldest friend returned a key to my wife.
Sam found me in the hallway.
“Did she tell you what she meant?”
“Jay has a key to our house.”
He rubbed his face. “I’m sorry.”
“I keep thinking Owen might have opened the door for him.”
“From what you told me, Jay didn’t need Owen to let him in.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“No,” Sam said. “It doesn’t.”
In the morning, Owen asked for Laura. I gave him my phone. She answered immediately.
“Merry Christmas again, my love,” she said, though Christmas was over.
“Dad says we’re staying at Uncle Sam’s,” Owen told her.
“For a little while,” she said.
“Are you coming?”
“Not today.”
His face fell. I took the phone when he handed it back.
“I’ll bring him home this afternoon so you can see him,” I told Laura.
“Thank you.”
After breakfast, I called the locksmith. He could meet me at the house at two. I told Laura when we would arrive. She said Jay had put the key through the mail slot before dawn.
At the house, Owen ran to show Laura a drawing he had made with his cousins. They went into the living room while I waited for the locksmith.
I found the spare key on the hall table. Jay had attached an old key ring I recognized from his apartment.
Seeing it there made my stomach turn.
The locksmith changed both doors. I gave Laura a new key. She held it in her palm for a moment.
“You don’t need to make me ask for this,” she said.
“I know. It’s your home too.”
She looked relieved, and I felt tired. I was trying to make choices one at a time, without using Owen or the house to punish her.
The locksmith left. Owen asked if we were sleeping in our own beds that night.
Laura looked at me.
“You are,” I told him. “I’m staying at Uncle Sam’s for a few nights.”
“Why?”
“Mom and I have something important to work through.”
“Did I do it?”
I knelt in front of him. “No. You did not cause anything. You can always tell me what happens here.”
He frowned. “Even if it’s a surprise?”
“Even then.”
He nodded, but I could see he didn’t understand why he needed the reassurance. I wished I could give him an answer that didn’t burden him.
Before I left, Laura asked to speak in the kitchen.
“I want us to get help,” she said. “Counseling. Whatever you need.”
“I need you to stop telling me only the part I’ve already found out.”
She accepted that without arguing.
“Jay came over more often than I first said.”
“How often?”
“Most weeks. Sometimes twice.”
I looked toward the living room, where Owen was making engine noises with a toy truck.
“And Owen was here?”
“Usually asleep.”
“He wasn’t always asleep. He knows Jay stayed.”
“I know.”
I took a breath. “Was Jay alone with him?”
“A few times. I ran to the store. Once I had an appointment.”
“You let him watch our son without telling me?”
“Jay was your friend too. I didn’t think you’d object to him watching Owen.”
“That was before I knew you were having an affair.”
Laura looked down. “You’re right.”
I wanted to ask every question at once. Had Jay taken Owen to the park? Had he given him food? Had Owen been told to keep secrets?
I asked the last one.
“Did either of you tell Owen not to mention Jay to me?”
“No,” Laura said quickly. “I swear.”
“Then why did he wait until Christmas to say anything?”
“He didn’t know there was anything to tell.”
That answer hurt because it made sense. Owen had trusted all three of us.
I called Sam from the driveway. He said Owen and I could stay another week if we needed to.
As I was leaving, I saw Laura through the window. She was sitting on the floor with Owen, helping him fit tracks together. She loved him. That had never been in question.
What I no longer knew was how much else I had been wrong about.
At work the next evening, I could barely focus. I asked a colleague to double-check my handover notes. Then I spoke to my supervisor about taking a few days off.
When I came back to Sam’s after dawn, Priya was awake.
“Owen had a bad dream,” she said. “He asked if you were leaving.”
I went straight to the guest room. He was curled around his blanket.
When I lay beside him, he opened his eyes.
“Dad?”
“I’m here.”
He pressed closer.
“Uncle Jay told me something before Christmas,” he whispered.
I kept my voice steady.
May you like
“What did he tell you?”
“That soon you might not live with us.”
