Chapter 2
The days after Ava died blurred into one long, gray hallway with no doors.
People came to the house carrying casseroles, flowers, and expressions of helpless sorrow. They spoke in soft voices and avoided looking at Ava’s shoes by the front door. My mother flew in from Arizona and cried in the laundry room because she thought I couldn’t hear her. Mark’s parents arrived with funeral clothes and solemn faces, though his mother spent more time criticizing the flower arrangements than comforting me.
Mark handled everything.
The funeral home. The obituary. The tiny white casket.
I could barely stand without feeling the floor tilt beneath me. He answered the phone, spoke to relatives, signed forms, and gave statements to the daycare’s insurance investigator. Everyone said he was being strong for me.
At the funeral, he held my hand so tightly my fingers went numb.
Ava was buried in her yellow sweater because I could not bear the thought of her being cold.
Afterward, our house became unbearable.
Her room remained exactly as it had been that morning. A stuffed rabbit lay on the pillow. A half-finished crayon drawing sat on her little desk. In shaky purple letters, she had written MOMMY under a picture of me with enormous hair and stick legs.
I sat on the floor beside her bed for hours, holding one of her socks.
Mark would find me there and kneel beside me. “You need to sleep,” he would whisper.
I thought he was grieving differently. Quietly. Internally. Men like Mark did not fall aChapter in public. They became useful. Efficient. Controlled.
Five days after the funeral, I woke in the middle of the night to my phone vibrating on the nightstand.
The grandfather clock downstairs chimed twice.
2:00 AM.
Mark slept beside me, one arm thrown over his face. His breathing was slow and even. For a moment, I almost ignored the call. Then I saw the name on the screen.
Miss Greenwood.
My hand shook as I answered. “Hello?”
“Sarah?” Her voice was barely a whisper. “I’m sorry. I know it’s late. I know this is terrible timing, but I didn’t know who else to call.”
I sat up. “What’s wrong?”
There was a pause, then a muffled sob. “I reviewed the security footage from the day Ava got sick. Something didn’t feel right, and I kept thinking about it. About the timing. About what she said before she collapsed.”
My heart began hammering. “What did she say?”
“She said, ‘Daddy said don’t tell.’”
The room went cold.
I turned slowly and looked at Mark sleeping beside me.
“What are you talking about?” I whispered.
“I shouldn’t have waited,” Miss Greenwood said. “I was scared. The director told me to let the investigators handle it, but then the footage was missing from the main archive tonight. I had made a copy because something felt wrong.”
I gripped the phone so hard my fingers hurt. “What footage?”
“Your husband lied about dropping her off,” she said, her voice trembling. “He didn’t just walk her to the door. I sent you the video. Watch it somewhere private. And Sarah?”
“Yes?”
“If he wakes up, don’t let him know you’ve seen it.”
The call ended.
For several seconds, I sat frozen in the dark, listening to Mark breathe.
Then my phone buzzed.
A video file appeared in my messages.
My thumb hovered over it. Every instinct in me screamed not to press play. Some Chapter of me understood that whatever was inside would divide my life into before and after.
But Ava’s voice rose in my memory.
Daddy said don’t tell.
I slid out of bed without making a sound and stepped into the bathroom. I locked the door, turned the volume low, and pressed play.
The grainy footage showed the daycare parking lot at 8:17 AM.
Mark’s black SUV pulled into view. He got out first, then opened the rear door. Ava hopped down, clutching her stuffed rabbit under one arm. She looked so alive that I nearly dropped the phone.
Mark held her hand and led her toward the entrance.
At first, everything seemed normal.
Then a woman stepped from behind a row of hedges near the side gate.
My breath stopped.
She was tall, blond, wearing a dark coat and oversized sunglasses. I knew her.
Her name was Elise Warren.
May you like
Mark’s ex-fiancée.
The woman he swore he had not spoken to in six years.
