My legs felt disconnected from my body as I approached the bakery display. Leo fell silent, sensing the change in me the way small animals sense an approaching storm.
Ten feet.
Six feet.
Three.
“Excuse me,” I said.
My voice came out thinner than I intended.
The woman did not turn.
“Excuse me,” I repeated.
She looked up, distracted, still holding the loaf of bread.
Her eyes passed over me and landed on Leo.
Something flickered across her face.
Recognition.
A soft, startled recognition, like the expression someone gives a child they have seen before in photographs.
Then she looked back at me and understood who I must be.
“Oh,” she said quietly.
“Do you know my son?”
She slowly returned the bread to the shelf, as if buying herself a few more seconds.
“I…” She moistened her lips. “I think you should call your husband.”
“I’m asking you.”
She did not answer.
The sound of my husband’s existence inside her silence had already fractured something in my chest.
I could feel Leo watching me and hear the fluorescent supermarket humming around us, yet I could not force out another word.
She noticed.
Whatever she saw on my face softened her expression into something almost gentle.
Almost apologetic.
She smiled at me.
A small, warm, unreadable smile.
Standing there beside my son and a carton of milk, I could not tell whether it was the smile of a stranger offering kindness or the smile of a woman quietly destroying my life.
“Who are you?” I asked.
My voice sounded low, unsteady, and unfamiliar.
“I’m sorry?”
“Who. Are. You.” I moved closer until Leo’s swinging feet brushed against my hip. “My son says you come to my house when I’m at work. So who are you?”
Her expression shifted.
Not exactly guilt, but a controlled, guarded stillness.
She glanced at Leo before looking back at me.
“My name is Nora,” she said quietly. “I’ve been doing some work for Mark. It’s private, and he asked me not to say anything. I gave him my word.”
Private.
The word slipped beneath my ribs like a blad:e.
Leo had become very still in the cart, watching me with the wide-eyed fear he always showed when adults used the wrong tone.
“Mommy?”
“It’s okay, baby.”
It was not okay.
I stared at Nora, memorizing her face, the paint beneath her thumbnail, and the loose braid resting over her shoulder.
Then I spun the cart around and hurried out of the store.
“Mommy?” Leo called.
I did not answer.
I kept pushing until we reached the parking lot.
My fingers shook uncontrollably as I strapped him into his car seat.
Once I was behind the wheel, I pulled out my phone and called Mark.
The call went directly to voicemail.
I called again.
Voicemail.
