Betrayal

Chapter Four

Alina

February in Riverbend had never felt so cruel.

Not bitterly cold—cold could at least be beautiful, clean.

This February was damp and raw and gray.

The sky hung overhead like a slab of lead.

Snow collapsed into filthy slush beneath our shoes, and the wind cut straight through wool and bone.

It was the kind of month that made you want to crawl into bed and wait for winter to end.

I stood in a cemetery, staring at a tiny white casket.

So small.

Made for someone so small he had never even gotten the chance to live.

There were maybe twenty people gathered around the grave.

My mother sobbed into my father’s shoulder.

Dad’s face was carved from stone, his jaw clenched so tightly a muscle jumped near his temple.

A few of Russell’s colleagues had come out of courtesy.

Some neighbors. Russell’s mother, Mrs. Lansky, stood in a black coat, her face white as chalk.

And Russell.

He stood on the other side of the grave in a black suit, his eyes bloodshot and swollen. He looked at the casket, then at me, then back at the casket. His lips moved. A prayer, maybe. Or a string of meaningless whispers.

I didn’t know.

I didn’t want to know.

The children had stayed at my parents’ house.

I couldn’t bring Max and Annie here. I couldn’t make them watch their baby brother being lowered into the ground.

They didn’t fully understand yet. Mom had told them their brother had gone to heaven to be with the angels.

Annie had nodded through her tears. Max had said nothing.

He had simply shut himself in the guest room.

They felt it, though.

Children always know when their world is falling apart.

The pastor spoke in a low, measured voice. He talked about souls and heaven. About babies being angels God called home too soon.

I didn’t listen.

I looked at the casket and thought, My son is in there.

My son, who didn’t even have a name.

He should have been born in a month. He should have grown and laughed and taken his first steps. He should have said his first word.

Instead, he was about to be buried in the frozen ground. In February. In the ugliest month of the year.

“...ashes to ashes, dust to dust...”

The casket began to descend.

Mom’s sobs grew louder. Mrs. Lansky covered her face with both hands. Somewhere behind me, a woman cried softly.

I felt nothing.

Only emptiness. Absolute and endless. As though a black hole had opened inside me and swallowed every emotion, leaving behind an icy vacuum.

Russell stepped forward. He picked up a handful of dirt and dropped it into the grave.

The sound was dull. Final.

It echoed inside my chest.

Then he looked at me. For a long time. Pleading without words.

I turned away.

People began to leave. They stopped beside me, squeezed my hand, murmured condolences.

Stay strong.

I’m so sorry for your loss.

Time heals everything.

Empty words. Polite, beautiful, utterly useless words.

Russell came toward me. I caught the scent of his cologne, the familiar scent that used to calm me.

Now it made me sick.

“Alina.” His voice was hoarse and broken. “Please. We need to talk.”

I kept my eyes on the grave, on the raw earth and the spray of white lilies beside it.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Alina, I know what you’re feeling. I understand—”

“You understand nothing.”

I turned and looked into the brown eyes I had once fallen in love with. They were filled with pain now. Desperation. Begging.

I didn’t care.

“You don’t understand, Russell,” I said quietly, each word sharp enough to draw blood. “Because that isn’t your child lying in that grave.”

He flinched. “How can you say that? He’s our son.”

“Our son?” My voice broke into a scream, and people turned to stare. “There is no ours anymore. You killed him. You killed him with your betrayal, with your affair, with the same filthy hands you put all over another woman.”

Russell went white and stumbled back a step.

“I... It wasn’t—Alina, I never meant—”

“You never meant to?” A terrible, hysterical laugh tore out of me. “Then who did? Her? Olivia? Was it all an accident? Did you accidentally end up alone in your office? Accidentally put your mouth on hers? Accidentally—”

“Enough!” He seized my shoulders. “Enough. Yes, I made a mistake. Yes, I was an idiot. Yes, I betrayed you. But I love you. Do you hear me? I love you. It was a mistake, a moment of stupidity, one moment of weakness.”

I wrenched myself out of his grip.

“Don’t touch me,” I hissed. “Never touch me again. And don’t you dare talk to me about love. You don’t know what the word means.”

“Alina—”

“I’m leaving. I’m taking the children and staying with my parents.”

“What? No. You can’t. That’s our home. We’re a family.”

“We aren’t a family anymore.” I looked at him, and all he found in my eyes was ice. “You killed our family the moment you kissed her.”

I turned and walked away, through rows of gravestones, through the gray February afternoon, through the ruins of my old life.

“Alina!” Russell shouted behind me. “Alina, come back. Please!”

I didn’t turn around.

Dad caught up and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. Mom walked beside us, still crying. Neither of them spoke.

They understood there were no words for this.

We got into Dad’s car. He drove, Mom sat beside him, and I watched Riverbend slide past the back window. Gray. Dirty. Foreign.

This city had betrayed me. This city had stolen my child.

It wasn’t home anymore.

* * *

My parents’ house smelled like fresh-baked pie and chamomile tea. Mom went straight to the kitchen. She needed to keep her hands busy or she would fall apart. Dad held me without a word and kissed the top of my head.

“It’ll be all right, sweetheart,” he whispered. “Someday. In time, it’ll be all right.”

A lie.

A kind, parental lie, but a lie all the same.

Nothing would ever be all right again.

Max and Annie were in the living room. Annie was drawing in a sketchbook. Max stood at the window. The moment I came in, they ran to me.

“Mommy!” Annie wrapped both arms around my legs. “Are you crying?”

“No, baby. I’m just... tired.”

Max said nothing. He watched me with solemn eyes, eyes far too serious for a seven-year-old boy.

“Mom, where’s Dad?”

My breath caught.

“Dad is... at home.”

“Then why are we here? Why are we staying with Grandma and Grandpa?”

“Because...” I searched desperately for an answer. “Because we need to stay here for a little while. Okay?”

Max nodded, but I could tell he didn’t believe me.

Children always know when adults are lying.

Annie tugged on my hand.

“Mommy, did our baby really go to heaven with the angels?”

A knot rose in my throat. I crouched and pulled her into my arms.

“Yes, sweetheart. He did. He’s in heaven now.”

“Will he come back?”

“No, honey. He won’t.”

“Why?”

Why.

Such a simple question. A child’s question, expecting an answer.

Because your father is a traitor. Because he destroyed our family. Because my grief killed your brother inside me.

I couldn’t say any of it.

“Sometimes that’s what happens,” I whispered. “Sometimes heaven calls the very best angels home.”

Annie nodded and pressed closer. Max stood a few feet away with his fists clenched. The pain in his eyes mirrored mine.

He understood more than I wanted him to.

Mom called us in for dinner. We sat around the big dining table I remembered from my childhood. Dad tried to keep a conversation going. Mom kept putting more food on the children’s plates. I stared down at mine.

I couldn’t eat. Every bite lodged in my throat. The forced normalcy made me nauseous. So did the knowledge that the world had gone on existing as if nothing had happened.

After dinner, I put the children to bed. Annie fell asleep quickly, hugging a stuffed rabbit. Max lay awake, staring into the dark.

“Mom?” he whispered.

“What is it?”

“This is because of Dad, isn’t it?”

I went still.

“What do you mean?”

“Us being here. You crying. The baby dying. Is all of it because of Dad?”

Oh God.

He knew. How? What had he heard? How much had he understood?

“Max—”

“I heard Grandma talking to Grandpa. She said Dad was a bad man. That he hurt you.”

The tears came before I could stop them. I lay beside my son and gathered him into my arms.

“Grown-ups make mistakes sometimes,” I whispered. “Terrible mistakes. And those mistakes hurt people.”

“I don’t want to see him anymore.”

“Max—”

“If he hurt you, I never want to see him again.”

My heart split open. My little boy spoke with such hatred that it frightened me.

“Don’t say that. He’s your father.”

“He’s a bad father.”

I didn’t know what to tell him.

Because part of me believed he was right.

“Go to sleep, sweetheart. Tomorrow will be a new day.”

I kissed his forehead, left the room, and pulled the door almost closed behind me. Then I leaned against the wall and slid to the floor.

I cried there in silence so I wouldn’t wake them.

Mom found me. She sat beside me and held me.

“My baby,” she murmured. “My poor baby girl.”

“Mom, I can’t do this. I can’t.”

“You can. For them.” She nodded toward the room where my children slept. “For them, you can do anything.”

“He killed my baby.”

“No. Fate was cruel, Alina. But Russell didn’t kill him.”

“He betrayed me.”

“Yes. And you have every right to hate him. You have every right not to forgive him. But don’t let that hatred kill you too. Please.”

I rested my head on her shoulder, the way I had when I was little—when Mom could kiss a scraped knee and make the pain disappear, when she could hold me and chase away a nightmare.

But kisses and arms couldn’t help me now.

This wasn’t a nightmare.

This was my life.

* * *

Russell called that night.

My phone vibrated on the nightstand, his name glowing on the screen. I stared at it for a long time, my finger hovering over the answer button.

Should I listen? Let him explain? Give him one chance?

No.

I declined the call and blocked his number. Then I deleted every photograph of him from my phone. Every message. Every reminder of the life that had died with our son.

A text came from an unfamiliar number. He must have borrowed another phone.

Alina, please give me a chance. Just let me talk to you. I love you. I have always loved you. It was a mistake. It was stupid. Please don’t destroy our family.

Our family.

I laughed, a jagged, hysterical sound.

You already destroyed it, Russell. The moment you kissed her. The moment you betrayed me.

I typed a reply. Short. Clear. Final.

We don’t have a family anymore. To me, you’re as dead as our son. Don’t text me. Don’t call me. Don’t come here. Ever.

I sent it, blocked the number, and turned off my phone.

That was it.

The end.

Twelve years of marriage ended in a single text message.

I lay in my old room, in my old bed, beneath the quilt I had slept under as a teenager. Faded posters still hung on the walls. Old keepsakes lined the shelf. Everything looked the way it had years ago, as though I were a girl who had come home with her heart broken by her first love.

But Russell wasn’t my first love.

He was supposed to be my last.

The one that lasted forever.

Instead, it had burned to the ground until nothing remained but ash.

I closed my eyes. Streetlight leaked red-gold through my eyelids. Somewhere beyond the window, Riverbend went on living. My hometown, now a stranger to me.

Somewhere in this city, my son lay alone in a February cemetery. Cold. Nameless.

Somewhere in this city, my husband sat alone in our big house. Broken.

And I lay in my parents’ home, shattered and dead inside.

The only thing keeping me above water was the sound of my two living children breathing in the next room.

For them, I would live.

For them, I would breathe.

For them, I would wake every morning and pretend I was all right.

But I would not forgive.

Never.

Hatred became my fuel—cold, searing, eternal.

February was the cruelest month. The month when hope died. The month when families fell apart. The month when children were buried.

I would remember it forever.

Every gray street. Every pool of filthy slush. Every blade of bitter wind.

I would remember.

And I would never forget.