“Dad, please. I can’t keep doing this,” Emma whispered.
“You promised me, sweetheart,” my husband replied.
“But what if Mom finds out?”
“She won’t. Not until everything is finished.”
I stood frozen behind the door.
What were they hiding from me?
When I entered the kitchen, Emma immediately stopped talking.
My husband smiled.
“Everything okay, honey?”
I looked at my daughter.
Her eyes were red.
“Emma, have you been crying?”
“No, Mom. I’m just tired.”
She hurried upstairs.
That night, I couldn’t sleep.
A week later, things became even worse.
My husband began taking Emma out several evenings a week.
Sometimes they returned after dark.
Whenever I asked where they had been, he gave the same answer.
“Just taking care of something.”
One afternoon, while collecting laundry, I found a folded paper in Emma’s jacket pocket.
It was an appointment confirmation from a private medical clinic.
