“What else have you hidden?” I said. “Debt? More contact? Plans to meet him? Anything with Laura that isn’t on that screen?”
“No,” he said immediately. “No affair, no secret visits, no debt. I’ve only sent what I earned from freelance work at night, and I kept records of all of it.”
I believed him and hated that I believed him. Marriage does not lose trust all at once; sometimes it loses it in pieces, and one surviving piece can feel like both mercy and punishment.
A notification appeared on his phone, and both of us looked at it. Laura’s name lit the screen.
Ethan froze. “I don’t have to answer.”
“Yes,” I said, though my stomach tightened. “You do.”
He picked up the phone and put it on speaker without me asking. His eyes stayed on mine as he answered, “Laura?”
Her voice came through thin and tired. “I’m sorry it’s late. Caleb got nervous about the robotics fee again, and I told him you were helping, but he asked if you were mad that he existed.”
The words hit me with such unexpected force that I had to look away. Whatever anger I had toward Ethan, whatever complicated feelings I had toward Laura, Caleb was just a child waiting at the edge of a story adults had mishandled.
Ethan’s face crumpled. “No,” he said, his voice breaking. “No, I’m not mad he exists.”
