Chapter 1
Jayne
“Rhys, Finn was waiting in the cold for thirty minutes. You couldn’t just call one of us and—”
“I was in surgery,” he snaps, filling a glass of water from the fridge door.
I lean against the kitchen counter to face him. “Why didn’t you say you’d be in surgery so I could—”
“You think cardiac arrests come planned, Jayne?” He drinks and then looks at me, his eyes stern. “News for you—they don’t. I had a patient rushed to the ER; they wanted a consult and…look, this happens. You know this happens.”
I pretend I’m not angry.
I pray for patience.
I work very hard not to lose it.
His response is flippant.
Like always.
When he gets aggressive, I shrink, which is why I think he does it, uses it as a way to silence me and end the conversation.
But this is important, so I try again.
“I have a job, Rhys, which means we both need to—”
“I don’t even know why you’re still working,” he cuts me off.
When was the last time he let me finish a sentence?
“I make enough money for you to sit on your ass and eat bonbons and watch Oprah,” he adds. It’s something he says because he thinks it’s funny.
It’s not.
It’s like my job doesn’t matter.
Like, I don’t matter.
“Eat bonbons and watch Oprah?” I repeat, my voice flat. “It’s 2025, Rhys. Oprah doesn’t even have a show anymore.”
He smirks, like he’s humoring a child. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” I say softly.
Unfortunately, and pathetically, I do.
He’s still in his scrubs—dark blue with his name embroidered over the pocket: Dr. Rhys Prescott, MD, Cardiology—like anyone could forget. It might as well say important in bold letters.
He sets the water glass down on the kitchen counter and rubs his forehead like I’m the problem, giving him a migraine.
“I’m just saying,” he mutters, “you don’t have to kill yourself working. You could be home…pick up the kids and drive them around. Have dinner ready. Help Mikaela with her science project. You know…be here.”
“I am here.” I keep my voice even as his words hit an old nerve. He doesn’t have to say it outright—I hear it in every sigh, every glance—that I’m not doing enough and if only I’d leave my job and be at everyone’s beck and call all the time…
But I am doing enough. I’m doing everything, all the time.
How can he not see that?
He releases a weary sigh. “You know what I mean.”
I stare at him—this man I’ve known since I was seventeen. The one who used to sneak into my parents’ backyard to dance with me under the Christmas lights. The one who promised we’d be partners.
Back then, I thought partnership meant equal.
Now it just means I keep things running while he saves lives.
Dr. Hero.
Rhys works at Camden Memorial Hospital, a gleaming healthcare institution in the heart of the city that everyone in Baltimore name-drops with pride. Camden is where reputations are made, egos are fed, and families like ours quietly orbit around the man in the white coat.
My eyes wander to the door where Finn’s cleats lie, dried in mud from his game.
Mikaela’s half-finished art project, which I was helping her with, is spread across the dining table, and there’s glitter everywhere.
They’re both upstairs, pretending not to hear us.
And somehow, in Rhys’s version of our life, I am the problem.
The subtext: “That Jayne, she’s always complaining about one thing or the other.”
My voice drops.
“Rhys, do you even know what time his practice ends?”
He blinks. “Whose practice?”
I hold back a groan that’s threatening to engulf me. “Finn’s.”
He shrugs, like it’s a pop quiz question he didn’t study for. “Five-thirty?”
“Seven.”
He looks at the clock. It’s almost eight-thirty.
I raise both eyebrows and give him a pointed look.
He looks at me, irritation swirling in his eyes. “Jayne, come on—”
“This isn’t about you being in surgery, Rhys,” I interrupt. I really need to get my point across. “This is about you taking some responsibility to make our family function.”
He straightens, defensive. “You think I don’t care about my family?”
“That’s not what I said,” I reply carefully.
Yes, Rhys, that’s exactly what I think.
“That’s what I heard,” he spits back.
I shake my head, apathy slipping in where anger should be.
I’m so tired of having the same conversation in fifteen different ways with Rhys.
If I say something now, he’ll get defensive and accuse me of portraying him as a bad husband and father.
Then I’ll apologize.
Then he’ll say I’ve hurt him.
I’ll apologize again.
And somewhere in that twisted loop, he’ll gaslight me into believing I am indeed the problem. We’ll both forget how this even started—that he forgot to pick up our son. That he never planned to in the first place, because he didn’t even know when he was supposed to.
“Rhys, next time you say you’ll pick up the kids and can’t, I need you to let me know in advance.”
I look at his beautiful face, his blue-blue eyes, his clenched jaw.
I know this man so well, and yet, for years now, it’s as if I don’t know him at all—or maybe that’s a lie I tell myself, because the truth is, I don’t like what I know. Not anymore.
Being one of Baltimore’s top cardiac surgeons has given Rhys the much-maligned—and not at all inaccurate—God complex.
He wants us all to genuflect to him.
It makes him unattractive. It’s not the first time I’m thinking this.
“Please,” I add, schooling my face not to show emotion, because if I do, he’ll get provoked—and I don’t have the energy for another fight that leads to nowhere tonight.
Rhys picks up the water glass again, takes a slow sip, like he’s giving himself time to figure out how to respond to me. He finally goes for the true and tried.
“I’m exhausted, Jayne. I don’t want to do this right now.”
And there it is—the line that ends our communication. The one he uses to avoid giving me even the basic respect of a response.
He heads upstairs, leaving his quarter-empty glass on the counter. I stare at it, condensation pooling beneath it, a perfect ring marking its place—like he’s branded every surface in this house with his absence.
I empty the glass and put it in the dishwasher.
Then I lean on the counter and stare at the dark window, where my reflection looks back at me, tired and foreign.
Rhys and I have been together for twenty-four years. He was nineteen and I was seventeen when we met. We married eight years later and have now been married for eighteen years.
Two kids. Finn is sixteen, and Mikaela is ten.
One mortgage. In an affluent suburb of Baltimore.
Half a lifetime of “I’ll make it up to you.” And God knows how many years now of, “I’m exhausted. I don’t want to do this right now.”
I watch him leave.
I don’t ask if he’s eaten.
I don’t ask if he wants me to make him a plate, like a good wife whose husband saves lives for a living.
I just look at him take the stairs and then hear his footsteps fading toward our bedroom.
I sigh like so many women do when they feel unseen, invisible, ignored and then, I start cleaning the kitchen, putting away the leftover spaghetti I made for dinner.
“Mom?”
I turn off the faucet and look over my shoulder.
Finn stands in the doorway. At sixteen, he’s taller than me now—almost as tall as Rhys. Six-one already, and still growing.
“Yeah, baby?”
He crosses the room and pulls me into a hug.
Surprised but grateful, I wrap my arms around him, not caring that my hands are still wet.
“What’s this about?” I ask, my voice caught somewhere between a laugh and a sigh.
He pulls back, giving me a small, stiff smile. “You don’t have to pick me up anymore, Mama. I can ask Easton.”
Easton is his best friend who recently got his provisional license. I’m not comfortable with Easton driving another minor yet, but I don’t say that.
Instead, I touch Finn’s cheek. “You’ll have your license soon, and then you can drive yourself to school.”
I’m not ready for that either.
We live in Roland Park. It’s picture-perfect from the outside—tree-lined streets, porch lights glowing warm in the early evening—but inside, everyone, I think, is just trying to hold their lives together in different ways.
The high school is barely a ten-minute drive—close enough that Finn often walks when the weather’s nice.
Mikaela’s school is closer still, nestled behind stone walls and ivy-covered gates.
I usually drop her off on my way to Finn’s school—but she gets off early, so I come home early and walk back home with her.
It’s only an eight-minute walk, but that time is precious because she talks a mile a minute, telling me everything that happened in school.
Finn’s soccer practice is farther away, and in January, when it’s colder than a witch’s tit, there’s no way Finn can walk the thirty minutes. No way I’d let him.
“It’s fine, baby. You don’t have—”
“You had to rush out of work today, Mom,” he cuts me off, his face tight with disapproval. I know it’s not for me. It’s for his father.
He’s right; I did have to rush out of work when Finn called to let me know his father never came to pick him up and didn’t answer any of his texts or calls.
I’m an office manager at Cole & Associates, a mid-size law firm downtown that handles corporate litigation and white-collar defense. We’re buried under discovery for a massive pharmaceutical case right now, so it’s all hands on deck.
I started there years ago as a paralegal after dropping out of law school. Rhys was in his second year of med school then, and somebody had to keep the lights on. One brief at a time, I worked my way up, traded my bar dreams for a steady paycheck, and somewhere along the line, I got good at it.
I’m proud of the work I do. I love my colleagues. I grew up here in so many ways. The firm took care of me through pregnancies, maternity leaves, sick children, and so much more.
The firm’s now run by Daniel Cole, the founder’s son.
I started under his father, Martin, a sharp, old-school attorney with a soft spot for underdogs. When Martin retired, Daniel took over—brighter, younger, and with just enough of his father’s charm to make you want to follow his lead.
I watched Daniel grow up.
I’d just had Finn when he started high school.
Back then, he was all long limbs and teenage swagger, tagging along after his dad on office visits.
Now he’s in his thirties—confident, steady, wearing the same sharp smile he had as a teen, only without the awkwardness.
Sometimes, when he looks at me, I still catch a glimpse of that boy…
but more and more, I see the man he’s become.
“It’s fine, Finn,” I repeat.
“I don’t want you to get in trouble at work,” he insists.
I kiss his forehead. “Daniel’s not like that, Finn. You know that.”
Like I saw Daniel grow up, he’s seen my kids grow up.
“I know.” He closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them. He has his father’s eyes. His father’s handsome face. “I just don’t want you waiting around for him anymore.”
A vise grips the center of my body. As a rule, I never complain about Rhys to my children. Never badmouth him.
“Finn, your father has a critical job. He’s saving—”
“Lives,” he speaks over me. “Yeah, I know, Mom. You’re also doing important work. Just because he’s a surgeon doesn’t make your work any less.”
My throat burns, but I manage a smile. “I love you, Finn, but this is above your pay grade, okay?” I try for levity. “Now, go do your homework and make sure Mikaela does hers. Can you do that for me?”
“Yeah, Mom, I can.”
He gives me one more quick hug, a kiss on my cheek, and disappears upstairs.
The house settles into silence.
I stand at the sink and resume rinsing dishes and putting them in the dishwasher.
The children aren’t little anymore. Finn sees what’s happening, and I’m both proud and a little ashamed that he does—that he sees me as a doormat and wants me to do something about it.
Mikaela’s confused, caught between what she feels and what she’s been taught to feel.
She’s growing up in a world that tells her she can be anything—a scientist, an artist, a CEO—but somehow, even in our house, the message gets twisted.
She hears people praise her father’s work as if it’s sacred, while mine is just what I do to fill the hours.
She’s starting to think that’s normal. She asks me to pick her up and drop her off, never Rhys.
Part of it is practical—he rarely does—but another part, I worry, runs deeper.
She already believes her father’s time is more valuable than mine, that his work matters more than mine does, that he’s allowed to be busy in a way I’m not.
Is she learning that a man’s busyness is ambition, but a woman’s is neglect?
I despise that quiet double standard, even as I live with it. I’ve tried so hard to show my children otherwise—to show both of them that work is work, that worth isn’t measured by the size of a paycheck or the letters after a name.
Finn gets it, I think.
My son has seen me juggle a thousand things at once and never call it sacrifice.
He’s watched Rhys forget, and he’s watched me remember.
He understands that important doesn’t always mean visible.
But Mikaela is still learning. And I’m terrified that if I don’t do something soon, she’ll grow up believing what I did—that love means supporting someone else’s dream at the expense of your own.