He nodded. “You’re not going back there.”
I looked down again. At the document. At the unfamiliar woman’s name. At the address listed beside it. At the purchase date.
Three years ago.
Three years.
My stomach dropped. Because three years ago was also the year Eric had started staying late at work. The year the excuses began. The year everything changed.
Slowly I looked back up at my father. His eyes were filled with an anger I had never seen before.
“Dad.”
He swallowed hard. “The house wasn’t the only thing I found.”
My pulse started pounding. “What else did you find?”
He slid a second photograph across the blanket.
The moment I saw it, the air left my lungs.
Because standing beside my husband, smiling with her arm around him, was a woman holding the hand of a little boy who looked exactly like Eric.
For several seconds I couldn’t breathe.
The photograph trembled in my hands. The little boy couldn’t have been older than four. He had Eric’s eyes. Eric’s smile. Even the same dimple that appeared whenever he laughed.
My father watched my face carefully. “I didn’t want you finding out like this. But you needed to know.”
Part of me wanted to believe there was some explanation. A nephew. A family friend. Anything. But deep down I already knew. Because suddenly dozens of memories were lining up in my head like pieces of a puzzle.
The unexplained business trips. The missing weekends. The strange charges on credit card statements. The way he always became defensive whenever I asked simple questions.
For years I had accepted every excuse. Now I realized I had been accepting lies.
“How long?” I whispered.
My father exhaled heavily. “I hired an investigator this morning.”
I looked up. “What?”
“After what happened yesterday, I wasn’t willing to take chances anymore.”
That sounded like my father. Quiet. Patient. Thorough. When he finally acted, he made sure he had facts.
“His preliminary report came in an hour ago.”
I felt sick before he even continued.
