the top of her belly. Her son pressed back.
‘We are done being convenient,’ she whispered.
Marcus came home at eight.
The door hit the wall so hard the framed ultrasound on the entry table rattled. June was sitting on the couch folding newborn socks, each pair smaller than her palm.
Marcus stood in the doorway, rain darkening his hair, his handsome face sharpened by anger.
‘You canceled my card?’
June matched two blue socks. ‘I removed access to my account.’
‘Your account?’
‘Yes.’
He laughed, but there was no amusement in it. ‘We are married.’
‘Exactly.’
His jaw tightened. ‘Do not play games with me, June.’
She placed the socks in the basket.
For months, he had trained her to shrink. A sigh meant she had asked too much. A silence meant she should apologize. A late night meant work. A new password meant stress. A strange perfume meant her imagination.
But the training failed the moment she saw Clara’s name.
Marcus stepped closer.
Too close.
‘You do not want to start a war with me,’ he said quietly.
The apartment seemed to contract around them. Rain scratched at the windows. The baby kicked hard, and June nearly flinched, but she refused to look away.
‘I am not starting a war,’ she said. ‘I am ending your access.’
For the first time since she had known him, Marcus had no immediate answer.
A flicker crossed his eyes.
Fear.
It vanished quickly, replaced by a cold smile.
‘You are tired,’ he said. ‘We will talk when you are reasonable.’
He walked into the bedroom and closed the door.
June stayed on the couch until her breathing slowed. She did not cry. She did not follow. She did not ask him whom he had been with when the card declined.
She had the answer already.
But she did not yet have the whole truth.
The next morning, a cream envelope waited outside her door.
No stamp. No return address. Just her name written in careful block letters.
June brought it inside and locked the door before opening it.
A single photograph slid into her hand.
Marcus, Evelyn, and Clara stood in a candlelit restaurant around a cake covered in pink flowers. Clara wore a white coat and held one hand over her belly. Marcus stood close enough that his shoulder touched hers. Evelyn smiled with the proud satisfaction of a woman watching a plan unfold.
But none of them mattered as much as the man in the corner.
Half-turned away from the camera, holding a leather folder against his chest, stood Daniel Harlan.
Maeve’s former attorney.
The man who had prepared the deed leaving the apartment to June.
At first, June told herself she was mistaken. Mr. Harlan had kind eyes. He had spoken gently at Maeve’s funeral. He had told June to call him if she ever needed anything clarified about the estate.
But the shape of his shoulders, the silver hair, the dark rectangular glasses were unmistakable.
June lowered herself into a chair.
Her grandmother had trusted that man.
Now he stood in the background of Marcus’s secret celebration.
Her phone rang.
Evelyn.
June let it ring twice, then answered.
‘June, darling,’ Evelyn said. ‘How are you feeling today?’
The sweetness in her voice made June grip the edge
