Chapter 3: Her Name on His Phone
The name on the screen was Daniela.
Not a work contact.
No last name.
Just Daniela, with a small pink heart beside it.
Ryan's hand moved toward the phone.
I got there first.
I picked it up and read the preview on the lock screen before it went dark.
*Just checking you're still coming Saturday.
Toby can sleep in his usual spot.
I already told the dog he's coming.*
I set the phone back down.
Face up.
So Ryan could see that I had seen it.
"His usual spot," I said.
Ryan didn't answer.
"She has a spot for him, Ryan.
A regular place where my son sleeps." My voice was still level.
I don't know how.
"How long?"
"It's not what you think."
"How long?"
He looked at the counter.
"About eight months."
Eight months.
One month longer than the Thursday routine he had sold me as his work-from-home day.
One month longer than every 3:15 text.
*Safely back at the house.* I had read those texts and felt grateful.
Grateful that he was reliable.
Grateful that our system worked.
"She's been picking Toby up from school," I said.
"Every Thursday.
For seven months."
"She offered.
She works nearby and she—"
"She offered." I looked at him.
"You let a woman I have never met drive my six-year-old son every week, and you told me it was you."
"I was always close by.
I was never far."
"That is not the point and you know it."
Toby was still standing near the kitchen doorway.
He was watching us with the careful attention of a child who understands that something is wrong but cannot name it.
I turned to him.
"Hey, bud.
Can you go put your backpack in your room and wash your hands?
I'll call you when dinner's ready."
"Is everything okay?" he asked.
"Everything's fine," I said.
"Go ahead."
He went.
I waited until I heard his footsteps on the stairs.
"Does she know he's married?" I asked.
Ryan's jaw tightened.
"Yes."
"Does she know about me specifically?
My name?
What I look like?"
A pause.
"Yes."
Something about that landed differently than the rest.
She knew.
She had known the whole time, and she had still put a spot in her apartment for my son.
She had still sent the key back through a six-year-old's jacket pocket.
"I want to know everything," I said.
"Not the version you think I can handle.
Everything."
Ryan pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down heavily.
He looked like a man who had been waiting for this moment and dreading it in equal measure.
"We met at the gym," he said.
"Fourteen months ago."
"Fourteen."
"It started slow.
I told myself it wasn't serious." He looked up.
"I know how that sounds."
"Keep going."
"She lives twelve minutes from Toby's school.
When I started working from home, she suggested she could help with pickup on days I had calls.
I said yes before I thought about what I was agreeing to."
"You said yes," I repeated.
"And then you texted me every Thursday at 3:15 to tell me you had done it yourself."
He didn't answer that.
"Ryan." I leaned forward.
"Did you ever plan to tell me?"
He looked at the key still sitting on the counter between us.
"I don't know," he said quietly.
I straightened up.
Took a breath.
Looked at the dinner he had been making — pasta, the kind Toby liked, water already boiling on the stove — and felt something shift inside me.
Not grief yet.
Something colder and more focused than grief.
"You need to call her," I said.
"What?"
"Right now.
In front of me.
You need to call Daniela and tell her Toby will not be coming Saturday.
Or any other day."
Ryan's hand went to his phone.
He picked it up slowly.
Then he stopped.
"She's going to want to talk," he said.
"She's gotten attached to him."
May you like
The water boiled over behind him.
Neither of us moved to turn it down.
