My legs felt locked in place. I didn’t want to hear more, but I couldn’t move. “I just want to start clean, you know?
No baggage. Just us. No kids, no drama.”
That was enough. I backed away slowly, careful not to make a sound, then headed downstairs. I sat in the kitchen staring into my cold coffee, hoping it could tell me what to do.
Jenny wasn’t grieving. She wasn’t recovering. She was done—long gone, even.
Sneaking out to see some guy, lying to me, and teaching her kids to lie too. Leaving me to play dad while she erased her own life. It hurt in a way I didn’t have words for.
I thought about Mason following me around the garage last week, asking about every tool on the wall. I thought about Lila curled in my lap, whispering the same bedtime stories back to me. They trusted me.
And she was willing to abandon them like they were nothing more than a bad memory. Around 1 p.m., Jenny finally came downstairs. Her hair was twisted into a messy bun, and she wore one of my old sweatshirts, sleeves bunched at her wrists.
She didn’t look at me—just flopped into a chair and scrolled through her phone like the world was fine. “We need to talk,” I said evenly. She sighed, still looking at her screen.
“What now?”
“I know you’ve been sneaking out every night,” I said. “I saw the footage.”
“You’re planning to leave the kids here and disappear with your boyfriend?”
For a moment, I thought she’d deny everything. But her mouth just opened slightly, no words coming out. “I’m not angry,” I told her.
“But I’m not stupid.”
She shot up from the chair like she’d been shocked. “You went through my stuff? You spied on me?”
“No,” I replied calmly.
“I knocked. You didn’t answer. I was worried.Continue reading…
