Had it all been a lie? When we pulled into the driveway, the house looked unchanged—white siding, small garden in front, the porch swing I had built with my own hands. This was the place where our daughter had taken her first steps, where we had painted the hallway, where our wedding photograph hung on the wall across from the kitchen.
A normal house for a normal family. Inside, the air was thick with the faint smell of vanilla from the candle my wife had left burning. I found her in the kitchen, stirring a pot on the stove.
“Who is the new daddy?” I asked. The words hung between us, raw and exposed.
She turned slowly. For a brief second, so brief I might have imagined it, her expression flickered like a light that glitches before burning out. Then she forced a laugh.
“What new daddy?” she asked. “Don’t do that,” I said quietly. “Our daughter says someone else has been picking her up from school.
She says he calls himself her new daddy.”
Color drained from her face in a slow, unmistakable wave. She turned off the stove with a quick, trembling hand. “She’s probably mixing things up,” she said.
“Children make up stories all the time.”Continue reading…
