Chapter 3: What Was on the Phone
The screen was still lit in my hand.
It was a photo.
Rick and a woman I didn't recognize, standing close together outside a restaurant I had never been to.
His hand was on her back.
Her head was tilted toward his shoulder.
They looked comfortable.
They looked like people who had done this many times before.
The timestamp in the corner read four days before our wedding.
"Who is she?" My voice didn't sound like mine.
Rick finally moved.
He took one step toward me, hand out.
"Let me explain—"
"Who is she, Rick?"
He stopped.
His hand dropped.
"Her name is Diane." He said it like the name itself was an apology.
"We were together before I met you.
It ended.
Then last year she came back and I—" He pressed his lips together.
"It was a mistake.
It was over before the wedding."
"It was not over." Anna's voice was flat and cold.
"Show her the rest."
I looked at my daughter.
"There's more?"
Anna reached over and scrolled the phone herself.
Her jaw was set tight.
She found what she was looking for and held the screen up again.
A message thread.
Rick's name at the top.
The last message sent the morning of our wedding.
*I can't stop thinking about you.
I'll call you tonight.*
The room tilted.
"Tonight," I said.
"Our wedding night."
Rick sat down on the hallway bench without being asked.
He put his face in his hands.
"I ended it after that.
I swear to you, I ended it that same night."
"You ended it." I set the phone down on the table next to me.
I set it down carefully, like if I moved too fast something would break.
"You ended it on our wedding night.
While I was sleeping next to you."
He didn't answer.
Anna crossed her arms.
"Tell her why I left, Rick.
Tell her what you said to me."
He looked up.
Something shifted in his face — not quite fear, but close to it.
"Anna—"
"I found the messages three weeks before the wedding," Anna said, turning to me.
"I went through his phone by accident.
He left it unlocked on the kitchen counter and a message came through while I was standing right there.
I saw the name.
I saw enough."
"You went through my phone—" Rick started.
"I saw a message pop up on your screen.
I didn't go through anything." Anna's voice cracked.
"I confronted him that same night, Mom.
While you were at your sister's.
I told him he had to tell you or I would."
I turned to Rick.
"Is that true?"
He was quiet for three full seconds.
"Yes."
"And what did you say to her?"
He looked at the floor again.
Anna answered for him.
"He said if I told you, it would destroy you.
He said you had been through enough after Dad died.
He said I was being selfish." Her voice broke on the last word.
"He told me I was going to ruin your one chance at happiness."
The silence that followed was the loudest thing I had ever heard.
I looked at the man I had married.
The man who had held my hand at the altar.
The man who had stood beside me at my first husband's funeral two years earlier and told me I was the strongest woman he had ever known.
"You told my daughter she was being selfish," I said slowly, "for trying to protect me."
Rick's eyes were wet.
"I panicked.
I know that was wrong.
I know—"
"You manipulated her." The words came out quiet.
Almost calm.
"She was eighteen years old and you made her feel like she was the problem."
"Mom." Anna's voice was barely above a whisper.
"That's still not the worst part."
I turned to her.
She pulled the phone back.
Scrolled further.
Then she stopped.
Her hand was shaking again when she held it out to me.
May you like
I looked at the screen.
And this time, I had to sit down.
