Chapter 2 - I WENT BACK TO SLEEP BESIDE HIM
I put Daniel back in his room at 3:24 a.m.
He asked if I would lock his door.
I said no.
Michael would notice.
Instead, I left the hallway light on exactly the way we always did.
Then I returned to my bedroom.
Michael was asleep on his side.
One arm stretched across the empty half of the mattress where I had been.
For twelve years, I had believed I knew the sound of his breathing.
Now every breath sounded like a lie.
I slid beneath the comforter.
He moved toward me.
His arm settled around my waist.
I nearly screamed.
Instead, I closed my eyes.
At 6:40 a.m., Michael kissed my shoulder.
“Morning.”
I opened my eyes slowly.
“Morning.”
“You okay?”
“Why?”
“You look tired.”
I almost laughed.
“I didn’t sleep well.”
He smiled.
“You never do anymore.”
There was something underneath the sentence now.
A prepared idea.
Rachel is exhausted.
Rachel is unstable.
Rachel is overwhelmed.
For months, Michael had been building that story.
I suddenly remembered every small comment.
You forgot that appointment.
You seem scattered.
Maybe you should stop working so much.
You’re getting too emotional about money.
Vanessa had said similar things.
New mothers get overwhelmed.
Except I was not a new mother.
Daniel was seven.
And I ran Lawson Medical Technologies, the company my father founded before he died.
I owned fifty-two percent through a protected family trust.
Michael owned none.
That had always bothered him more than he admitted.
At breakfast, he poured coffee and smiled.
“I’ve been thinking.”
“What?”
“You should still take that weekend at Lake Geneva.”
There it was.
The trip.
His three-day window.
Michael had been insisting for two weeks that I needed rest.
His mother even offered to stay with Daniel.
“You look exhausted.”
Michael continued.
“Vanessa said the estate work can wait.”
I stirred my coffee.
“What estate work?”
He paused.
Only half a second.
“The documents we discussed.”
I had signed several forms three months earlier.
Michael said they updated emergency access if one of us became hospitalized.
I suddenly could not remember every page.
That terrified me.
“Friday morning?”
I asked.
He smiled.
“I booked the driver.”
Daniel sat across from us eating cereal.
He did not look at his father.
Michael noticed.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing.”
I answered.
Daniel’s spoon stopped.
Michael looked at him.
“Buddy?”
Daniel forced a smile.
“Tired.”
Michael laughed.
“Like mother, like son.”
Then my phone vibrated.
A message from Vanessa.
HOPE YOU’RE STILL TAKING THAT WELLNESS WEEKEND.
YOU DESERVE TO SWITCH OFF FOR A FEW DAYS.
I stared at the screen.
The woman sleeping with my husband was helping schedule my disappearance from my own financial life.
I typed back.
ABSOLUTELY.
CAN’T WAIT.
Then I smiled across the table at Michael.
He smiled back.
May you like
For the first time in our marriage, we were both pretending.
Only one of us knew it.
