All day, the sound from the recorder followed me like a ghost. I heard those careful footsteps while I was rinsing my coffee mug, while I was driving to work, while I was pretending to read emails I could not understand.
By the time Ethan came home that evening, I had replayed the recording so many times I could hear every breath between the keystrokes. He walked into the kitchen with tired eyes and a grocery bag in one hand, acting like he had not spent the last several weeks building a second life behind a locked door.
“Hey,” he said softly, setting the bag on the counter. “I got the pasta sauce you like.”
I looked at him, really looked at him, and for the first time in years, my husband felt like a stranger wearing a familiar face. His smile was gentle, his shirt was wrinkled, and there was a shadow under his eyes that no amount of sleep could have caused..
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