1. Sophie
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Sophie
One Year Later
The ocean is obscenely blue.
I’m standing on the balcony of our honeymoon suite - yes, we’re finally taking our honeymoon a year late, because Caleb’s schedule at the hospital is insane and there was the pregnancy and the birth and the sleepless nights and the everything - and I should be happy.
I should be soaking in this view, this salt-tinged air, this perfect Mediterranean paradise.
Instead, I’m thinking about Anna.
“You’re making that face again.”
Caleb’s voice comes from inside the room, and I turn to find him sprawled on the bed, shirtless, watching me with an amused expression.
He’s golden from the sun we got yesterday, his dark hair messy from sleep, and objectively, I know he’s attractive.
Every nurse at his hospital knows he’s attractive.
He has that charm, that easy confidence that makes people gravitate toward him.
“What face?” I ask, walking back inside.
“The worried mom face.” He reaches for me as I pass the bed, catching my wrist and tugging me down beside him. “Anna’s fine. Andrea sent you that video this morning, remember? She was eating her little puffs and trying to put her foot in her mouth.”
I smile despite myself. “She does love doing that.”
“She’s a baby. They’re weird.” Caleb traces his fingers up my arm, and I try to focus on the sensation instead of the gnawing anxiety in my gut. “We needed this, Soph. After the year we had? The pregnancy complications, me practically living at the hospital, you dealing with everything alone…”
“I wasn’t alone. Alexa helped.”
“Alexa helps with everything,” he says, and there’s something in his tone. Something that makes my spine stiffen. But then he’s kissing my shoulder, and I tell myself I imagined it.
“I just miss her,” I admit. “Is that pathetic? We’ve been gone two days and I miss her so much it hurts.”
“It’s not pathetic.” His lips move to my neck. “It’s maternal. It’s hot, actually.”
I laugh and push at his chest. “Everything is hot to you.”
“Everything about you is hot to me.” He pulls me closer, and I let him, because this is what we came here for. To reconnect. To remember why we fell in love in the first place. To be husband and wife instead of just exhausted parents passing each other in hallways.
“I need to shower,” I murmur against his mouth. “I’m all sunscreen and sand.”
“I like you sunscreen and sand.”
“Caleb.”
He groans but releases me. “Fine. But hurry up. I’m taking you to that restaurant on the cliff for dinner, and I need time to mentally prepare for how good you’re going to look in that dress.”
“Which dress?”
“The red one.” His eyes darken. “Definitely the red one.”
I roll my eyes, but I’m smiling as I head to the bathroom. See? This is good. This is us. The playful banter, the easy affection. This is what I fell in love with.
The shower is heaven. Hot water and expensive soap that smells like jasmine and the kind of water pressure you only get in fancy hotels.
I take my time, letting the tension drain from my shoulders, letting myself just exist for a moment without worrying about feeding schedules or diaper changes or whether the baby monitor is charged.
When I step out, wrapped in a towel that’s softer than anything I own at home, I hear Caleb on the phone in the other room. His voice is low, muffled by the door, but I catch fragments.
“…can’t talk right now… later… I said later…”
Probably the hospital. They’re always calling him, always needing him. Sometimes I think he’s married to that job more than he’s married to me.
I dry off and slip into one of the hotel robes, padding out into the bedroom. Caleb’s not on the phone anymore. He’s standing by the window, looking out at that impossibly blue ocean, and for a moment I just watch him.
My husband. The father of my child. The man I promised forever to.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
He turns, and his smile is perfect. Easy. Not a hint of whatever that phone call was about. “Just the hospital. One of my patients is being difficult.”
“You’re on vacation. They need to figure it out without you.”
“That’s what I told them.” He crosses to me, cups my face in his hands, and kisses me softly. “You smell incredible.”
“It’s the soap. I’m stealing all of it when we leave.”
“That’s my girl.” Another kiss, this one deeper. “I’m going to hop in the shower. Don’t start getting ready without me. I want to watch.”
“You’re such a creep.”
“Your creep.” He winks and disappears into the bathroom. A moment later, I hear the water turn on.
I should start on my makeup. I should find the red dress and those uncomfortable heels that make my legs look amazing. I should be excited about dinner on a cliff with my handsome husband.
Instead, I’m reaching for my phone.
Dead.
Of course it’s dead. I forgot to charge it last night because Caleb was being distracting, and now I have no way to check on Anna, no way to see if Andrea sent any more videos, no way to ease this churning in my stomach that won’t go away.
Caleb’s phone is on the nightstand.
I stare at it for a long moment. I’ve never been the type to snoop. Never been the jealous wife who goes through her husband’s messages. Caleb and I have trust. That’s the foundation of everything we’ve built.
But my phone is dead, and I just want to see if Andrea sent any updates about Anna. That’s all. Just a quick check.
I pick up his phone. It’s unlocked - he never bothers with a passcode, says he has nothing to hide - and the screen lights up with a notification.
From Andrea.
My heart leaps. Anna. News about Anna.
I tap the message.
And the world ends.
It’s not a message about Anna. It’s a picture. Andrea in lingerie - red lace, barely there, the kind of thing I wore on our wedding night - sprawled across what I now recognize as our bed. Our bed, in our house, where our daughter sleeps down the hall.
The text beneath it reads: Thinking of you. Hurry home. I miss your hands on me.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe and I can’t move and I can’t think because the words don’t make sense.
They don’t fit into any reality I understand.
This is our babysitter. The sweet girl from the agency who always has a smile and a kind word, who Anna seems to adore, who I trusted with my child while I came here to reconnect with my husband.
My husband, who is apparently sleeping with her.
The bathroom door handle turns.
Something cold and sharp clicks into place inside me. Not grief - that will come later. Not rage - that’s building, but not yet. No, this is survival. Pure animal instinct taking over because I cannot fall apart right now. Not here. Not in front of him.
I close the message. I place the phone exactly where it was, screen-down, same angle. I smooth my expression into something neutral, something unsuspecting, something that looks like a woman excited about dinner with the man she loves.
Caleb emerges in a cloud of steam, towel around his waist, water droplets sliding down his chest.
I used to find this attractive. Now I want to vomit.
“Hey.” He smiles at me, and it’s the same smile. The same perfect, easy, charming smile he’s been giving me for three years. “You okay? You look a little pale.”
“Just hungry.” My voice sounds strange to my own ears. Distant. “You took forever in there.”
“Beauty takes time, babe.”
He crosses to me, and every cell in my body recoils. But I hold still. I let him kiss me. I let his hands slide down to my hips, still damp from the shower, and I smile against his mouth like nothing’s wrong.
“Rain check on watching me get ready?” I murmur. “I really am starving.”
“Cruel woman.” But he releases me, heads for his suitcase to find clothes. “The things I sacrifice for you.”
I retreat to the bathroom with my makeup bag and the red dress and the heels that suddenly feel like weapons.
In the mirror, I look the same as I did this morning. Same blonde hair. Same green eyes. Same face.
But I’m not the same. Something’s broken. Something I’m not sure can be fixed.
I do my makeup with steady hands. I put on the red dress. I curl my hair and spray perfume on my wrists and become the wife my husband expects.
We go to dinner. I smile. I laugh at his jokes. I let him hold my hand across the table as the sun sets over the Mediterranean and paints everything gold and orange and beautiful.
And when we get back to the room, when he pulls me close and starts unzipping my dress, I let him.
I close my eyes and think of Anna. I think of her scrunched-up little face and her tiny fingers and the way she laughs when I blow raspberries on her stomach. I think of everything I have to protect, everything I have to fight for, everything I will burn this man’s life down to keep.
He thinks I’m making love to him.
I’m saying goodbye.
Afterward, he falls asleep almost immediately, arm thrown across my stomach, breathing deep and even like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Like he didn’t betray me. Like he didn’t shatter everything we built.
I wait twenty minutes. Then I slide out of bed, careful not to wake him, and take my phone to the balcony.
The ocean is black now. Endless and dark and deep enough to swallow secrets.
I dial the airline.
“Hello, yes. I need to book a seat on the earliest flight back to New York.” My voice is steady. Cold. “Tonight, if possible.”
The woman on the other end types something. “We have a red-eye leaving in four hours. One seat available. Would you like-”
“I’ll take it.”
I give her my information. My credit card. Everything she needs.
When I hang up, I look back at the room through the glass doors. Caleb’s still sleeping. Still oblivious. Still thinking he’s gotten away with it.
He has no idea what’s coming.
I’m going to get my daughter. I’m going to burn his perfect life to the ground. And then I’m going to rebuild mine from the ashes.
Without him.