Chapter 3: What He Found on His Phone
Daniel sat at my kitchen table for a long time after the children were in bed.
I made tea.
Set a cup in front of him.
He didn't touch it.
"She's been bringing those bags for months," he said finally.
"You never said anything."
"I said something once.
She told me I was home all day anyway."
He closed his eyes.
"I'm sorry, Mum."
"Don't apologize to me."
He picked up his phone.
I don't know what he was looking for — maybe he wasn't looking for anything at all.
Maybe he just needed something to do with his hands.
But he went still.
The kind of still that means something has landed.
"Daniel."
He didn't answer.
"Daniel, what is it?"
He turned the phone slowly and set it on the table facing me.
It was a text thread.
The name at the top said *Marcus*.
I didn't recognize it.
The messages were short, the way messages are when two people have been talking long enough that they don't need full sentences anymore.
*Running late.
Leave it with her as usual.*
*Already done.
She didn't ask.*
*Good.
Same time Thursday?*
*Yes.
Miss you.*
I looked up at my son.
His jaw was tight.
"How long have you known a Marcus?" I asked.
"I don't." His voice was flat.
"That's not my contact."
He took the phone back and scrolled up.
His face changed as he read.
I watched it happen — the small movements around his eyes, the way his mouth pressed together.
"She's been using my phone," he said.
"She must have added the contact under a name I wouldn't question." He set the phone face-down on the table.
"There are forty-three messages."
I didn't say anything.
There was nothing useful to say.
He stood up and walked to the window.
Stood there with his back to me, looking out at the dark garden.
"The shirts," he said.
"The trousers.
She's been washing his clothes here.
In your house.
Every week."
"I didn't know what they were when I found them."
"But you suspected."
I was quiet for a moment.
"I thought it was possible."
He turned around.
His eyes were red but he wasn't crying.
Not yet.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I wasn't sure.
And because I thought — I hoped — I was wrong."
He sat back down.
Picked up the tea.
Put it down again without drinking.
"She's going to say you set this up," he said.
"She's going to say you went through her things deliberately to cause trouble."
"She already said that."
"And what do you want me to do with that?"
I looked at my son — this man who had stared at his plate when she laughed at me, who had said nothing for months while she treated my home like a service — and I felt something that wasn't anger.
It was closer to grief.
"I want you to decide what's true," I said.
"That's all."
He nodded slowly.
Then his phone buzzed on the table.
He flipped it over.
Read the screen.
May you like
His face went very still.
"She's outside," he said.
