I came home from the hospital with empty arms and a folder of instructions about rest, grief, and warning signs. Graham held me that first night. By the third week, he was taking business calls from the guest room because he said sadness made the house heavy.
No.
There was no reason.
Priya saw my face and softened only slightly.
‘We need to move quickly. We can notify the lender that you dispute the signature. We can preserve the evidence. But if he is using your identity for medical bills or guardianship paperwork, there may be more documents somewhere.’
‘Camille,’ I said.
Priya leaned back.
‘The woman from the messages?’
I nodded.
The him in Camille’s message returned to me with new force.
I want him to have it before we leave.
Him.
A baby.
The thought landed like a stone dropped through ice.
I did not cry. Not in Priya’s office. Not in the elevator. Not in the parking garage where I sat gripping the steering wheel until the veins stood up on my hands.
I called my friend Mara, who told me to come to the bar by the river and breathe before I drove home.
So I did.
I sat beneath a green awning while rain threaded the window glass. Mara ordered wine. I did not drink it. She talked because silence would have made the truth too loud.
‘You don’t have to decide everything today,’ she said.
‘I think he already decided most of it for me.’
‘Then today you start undeciding it.’
I nearly smiled.
My phone rang at 12:43.
Graham.
I watched his name flash until it stopped.
Then again.
Then a message.
Come home. We need to talk like adults.
Another.
You have no idea what you’re doing.
Another.
Do not involve Priya.
That one made my decision for me.
I drove home.
The rain had slowed to a mist by the time I turned onto our street. From outside, the house looked ordinary. Brick steps. Black door. Hydrangeas sagging under water. A warm lamp glowing in the front room because I always left one on.
Then I saw the door.
It was open.
Not wide.
Just enough to show a thin black line between door and frame.
Graham always locked the door twice. Always. He checked the deadbolt the way other men checked stock prices.
I sat in the car with my hand on the gearshift and felt every foolish brave thing I had done that morning turn to ice.
Then I called Priya and left the line open in my pocket.
I walked up the steps.
The house smelled of Graham’s cologne.
And something else.
Wet metal.
Inside, the console table had been knocked crooked. A framed photo from our wedding lay shattered on the floor. The glass had broken across Graham’s smiling face, leaving mine untouched.
His phone was near the stairs.
It buzzed as I approached.
I should not have picked it up.
But I did.
A message from Camille glowed on the screen.
I took the file like you told me. Now tell Tessa what you did, or I will.
For a second, all I could hear was Priya’s tiny voice from my pocket, saying my name again and again.
‘Tessa? Are you inside? Say something.’
‘I’m here,’
