Chapter 1
I wasn’t expecting anyone that evening.
I had changed into old sweatpants, put water on for tea, and finally let the quiet of the house settle around me. Marcus had texted to say he was running late. I believed him.
Then the doorbell rang.
A young woman stood on my porch, gripping her phone with both hands. She looked as if she had practiced what to say all the way over and forgotten it the moment I opened the door.
“Are you Nia?”
“Yes.”
She glanced past me into the hallway. “My name is Serena. I need to talk to you about Marcus.”
My hand tightened around the door.
“My husband?”
The color left her face.
For a moment, the only sound was a car passing at the end of the street.
“Your husband?” she whispered.
“Yes. What do you want with him?”
She looked down at her phone. When she raised her eyes again, they were wet.
“He told me you were separated.”
I almost smiled. It was too absurd to understand.
“Marcus slept here last night.”
Serena pressed her lips together. I could see her trying to decide whether I was lying.
“He said the marriage had been over for months,” she said.
The tea kettle began to whistle behind me. I ignored it.
“How do you know him?”
Her fingers shook around the phone.
“I’ve been seeing him for six months.”
Six months.
I thought of Christmas morning. My birthday dinner. The Sunday Marcus painted our bedroom while I held the ladder and teased him about getting blue paint in his hair.
There had been another woman through all of it.
“I didn’t know,” Serena said quickly. “He told me the divorce was taking longer than you both expected. He said he still came by sometimes to help with the house.”
“This is where he lives.”
“I know that now.”
I wanted to close the door. I wanted to wake up and find the kettle still quiet and my husband still the man I thought I knew.
Instead, I held out my hand.
“Show me.”
Serena unlocked her phone and gave it to me.
There were pictures of the two of them at restaurants I recognized. One was taken outside the movie theater where Marcus had told me he was meeting his cousin. His arm was around her waist. They looked happy.
I scrolled through messages.
He called her beautiful. He asked if she had eaten. He sent her the same little heart he sent me before bed.
Then I found a message from three nights earlier.
Soon we won’t have to hide anymore.
Three nights earlier, Marcus had brought home flowers because I’d had a difficult day at work.
I gave Serena back her phone.
“He told me something else,” she said.
I didn’t think I could bear anything else.
“What?”
“He said this house would be ours one day.”
I looked over my shoulder.
Our wedding photograph sat on the table by the stairs. Beside it was a smaller picture of my mother, taken the week we moved in. She had carried boxes until her knees hurt, then slept on our couch because she was too tired to drive home.
Marcus had told Serena that the life inside these walls was waiting for her.
“Did he bring you here?” I asked.
“No. I found the address on a piece of mail in his car. He told me he rented a place on the other side of town.”
“Why did you come?”
Serena swallowed. “He was going to tell you about me this weekend. That’s what he said. But every weekend, something changed. I started thinking I needed to hear the truth from you.”
I studied her face.
She was scared. She had still come.
“Do you believe me?” she asked.
My phone vibrated on the entryway table.
Marcus.
Almost home, baby.
I read it twice, though the words were simple.
“How far away does he think you are?” I asked Serena.
“At my apartment.”
I stepped aside.
“Come in.”
She didn’t move. “Are you sure?”
I wasn’t sure of anything.
But I knew what would happen if I sent her away. Marcus would call me confused, tell me she had misunderstood, and call her with a different story. By morning, he would have made each of us doubt what we had seen.
“He’ll be here soon,” I said.
Serena came inside. I shut the door behind her.
The kettle was still screaming. I went to the kitchen, turned off the stove, and came back without touching the tea.
Serena stood beneath our wedding photograph. She looked up at it, then away.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Did you know he was living with me?”
“No.”
“Then save that apology for when we know what else he’s done.”
She nodded, though I could see she was close to crying.
I picked up my phone and opened the camera. My hands were steadier than I expected.
“No more calls where he gets to hang up,” I said. “No more different stories.”
Outside, an engine slowed.
Headlights moved across the living room wall.
Serena turned toward the window. “Is that him?”
I knew the sound of Marcus’s car. I knew the short scrape when he pulled too close to the curb. I had listened for it on nights he came home late because I thought hearing him arrive meant he was safe.
The engine stopped.
Keys jingled on the porch.
I stood beside Serena and faced the door.
May you like
Marcus was home.
He had no idea we were waiting for him together.
