Chapter 3: What the Screen Said Before He Turned It Over
I stood in the doorway for a moment.
Travis didn't look up.
He kept his hand flat on the phone, pressing it against the cushion like the weight of his palm could erase whatever was on the screen.
I walked into the kitchen and set Noah in his bouncy seat on the floor.
He grabbed his plastic giraffe and started chewing on its ear.
Perfectly content.
Completely unaware.
I filled a glass of water and stood at the counter.
My hands were steady.
That surprised me.
Because something was moving through my chest that wasn't quite anger and wasn't quite fear.
It was the feeling of a door swinging open that you'd always told yourself was just a wall.
I went back to the living room.
"Who were you texting?"
Travis looked up.
The phone was still face-down.
"Nobody.
Work thing."
"It's Saturday."
"Deadlines don't care what day it is."
I sat down on the couch across from him.
Noah's babbling drifted in from the kitchen.
"Travis.
Who were you texting?"
He picked up the phone and stood.
"I told you.
It's a work thing.
Can we focus on the chair right now?
I need to figure out if the warranty covers liquid damage."
"Does it?"
He flipped through the booklet.
"No.
It specifically excludes it."
"So the $1,800 chair that you bought instead of the $109 high chair is now damaged because our son had no safe place to sit, and the warranty won't cover it."
He set the booklet down.
"That's not fair."
"Which part?"
He didn't answer.
I watched him pick up the phone again, turn slightly away, and type something quickly.
His shoulders were angled just enough that I couldn't see the screen.
I'd been with Travis for six years.
Married for four.
I knew the angle.
I knew the slight shift of the body that meant he was managing two conversations at once — one with me and one with someone he didn't want me to know about.
I'd noticed it before.
Twice.
Maybe three times over the past few months.
I'd told myself it was work stress.
The new project.
Long hours.
I'd been very good at telling myself things.
"I'm going to take Noah for a walk," I said.
"Now?"
"Yes, now."
I got Noah into his stroller without asking for help.
Travis watched from the hallway but didn't move to assist.
He had the phone in his hand again before I reached the front door.
The street was quiet.
It was still early.
A neighbor's sprinkler was running.
Two houses down, someone was loading a car.
I pushed the stroller slowly and tried to think clearly.
The chair was ruined.
That was almost funny, in a way that wasn't funny at all.
The thing he'd chosen over his son's basic need, destroyed by that same son in four unsupervised minutes.
But the chair wasn't what was sitting in my stomach.
It was the way he'd flipped that phone.
Fast.
Practiced.
Automatic.
Like he'd done it before.
I stopped at the corner and looked down at Noah.
He was watching a bird on a fence post with total concentration, his little mouth slightly open.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
I pulled it out expecting Travis.
It wasn't Travis.
It was his sister, Dana.
May you like
The message read: *I think you need to know something.
Can you call me when you're alone?*
