She'd known all along.
She knew David had forged the divorce papers for her. She knew he'd been willing to dissolve our marriage just to be with her.
She'd been laughing at my audacity. Laughing at me, a housewife who thought a marriage certificate was enough to hold David, with no real power to fight back.
I was a clown, dancing around in someone else's marriage.
Convinced I could win, while everyone else watched and laughed.
The next morning, David got up at seven as usual, knotted his tie, and ate the breakfast I'd made.
"I might have a business dinner tonight. Don't wait up for me."
"Okay."
He walked to the door, pulled me into his arms, and pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead.
"Ellie, I know these past few days have been hard on you. I'll make it up to you. I promise."
I smiled and said nothing.
After he left, I found a receipt in the walk-in closet. A crumpled slip from the store.
Imported toys. Children's vitamins. Dinosaur crackers.
In the bottom drawer of his study desk, I found the statements for his second bank account.
A fixed monthly transfer of forty-five hundred dollars. Three years. Thirty-six months. A hundred and sixty-two thousand dollars.
Recipient: Corinne Henson.
A new succulent on the balcony. Chocolates on the coffee table. A parking stub from a neighborhood I'd never been to, crumpled in his jacket pocket.
Cracks everywhere.
But the old me had never noticed a single one.
My phone rang. Lucinda.
"I found it. The woman's name is Corinne Henson. The Emerald Bay house is registered under her name, but the purchase funds came from one of David's offshore accounts."
"There's something else."
Her tone shifted.
"I pulled the hospital records from that year. Corinne was admitted to the same hospital three years ago to give birth."
"You were discharged within hours of each other. Ellie, the child she had was born only six hours apart from yours."
I stared at the wedding portrait hanging on the wall. In the photo, David's smile was so tender.
Six hours.
The same hospital.
My baby was pronounced dead.
Her child was now three years old.
"Lucinda."
"Yeah?"
"Get me that child's birth certificate."
Lucinda paused. "You sure?"
"It's because I'm not sure that I need to see the proof with my own eyes."
I closed my eyes.
Three years.
Three years.
Every year I went to the cemetery. Burned paper offerings. Laid flowers. Talked to a slab of cold stone.
I told my baby that Mommy missed him.