After the Toasts

My post hit the trending page within minutes, and notifications flooded my screen.

"Six feet tall, eighteen, passport ready."

"What are the odds your husband murders us?"

"Lonely cougar seeking attention? The internet really has everything."

Plenty of the replies were much uglier.

I stared at them without expression.

The cold light from my phone sharpened the tear tracks on my face.

Then the phone rang.

Derek's urgent voice came through the speaker.

"Honey, what was that post? Did you see the stupid video Mason uploaded?

"I knew you'd read too much into it. It was scripted for views. Don't let it get in your head."

My nails dug into my palm as I forced my voice to remain steady.

"He sounded convincing. For a second, I thought Leo might be your son."

Derek hesitated, then answered too quickly.

"Evelyn, you cannot believe that. I swear to God.

"If I'm lying, may God strike me down."

The oath came fast and frantic.

At almost the same moment, I heard the keypad at the front door.

I stared at Derek in disbelief as he walked in.

It was the first time an emergency callout had brought him home this quickly.

He was frowning too hard to notice anything strange about my reaction.

"I'll have Mason explain it himself."

He put his phone on speaker and pressed it into my hand.

"Evelyn? You saw my video, didn't you? Don't take it seriously. The whole thing was scripted.

"I've posted crazier stories than that. Please don't let some dumb joke make you doubt Derek."

Derek ended the call and kissed my forehead.

"Feel better now, silly? You're the only woman I have ever wanted."

I spoke softly.

"When you had real emergencies before, you disappeared for three days at a time."

"I'm sorry, honey. I did lie to you."

My heart dropped.

Derek pulled a small velvet box from his pocket.

"There wasn't an emergency. I wanted to surprise you."

A diamond necklace glittered inside.

"Do you like it?" he asked carefully.

I searched his open, untroubled expression.

Suddenly, everything had an explanation.

And yet the unease inside me only deepened.

Seeing my hesitation, Derek unlocked his phone and handed it over too.

"Inspect everything, Your Honor. I'll make you something to eat."

I didn't open his messages.

Derek offered me his phone often, and I had never found anything suspicious.

On impulse, I opened his purchase history instead.

Most of the orders were gifts for me or things he had bought for himself.

My thumb was aching from scrolling when one charge caught my eye.

Swan House Private Maternity Care.

The order was dated eight years earlier.

Cold spread through my body.

With shaking fingers, I opened the archived conversation with the company.

Derek had asked whether the residence could make the down-home Southern cooking, the biscuits and gravy and chicken-fried steak, that people grew up on in Calder Hollow.

Mason had always claimed Leo's mother was an ex-girlfriend from the coastal town of Harper's Bay who abandoned the baby after giving birth.

There would have been no reason to order Calder Hollow cooking for a woman from Harper's Bay.

Then another woman came to mind.

The widow of Derek's late academy mentor had grown up in Calder Hollow.

Valerie Pierce.

Everyone in Derek's unit had always gone out of their way to help her.

I had met her too. She seemed gentle, quiet, and fragile.

My fingers went numb as I opened her message thread.

It was empty.

But she had posted a new story thirty minutes earlier.

"Celebrating my little man's eighth birthday! Thank you, Daddy, for the enormous cake. He has not stopped smiling!"

Leo beamed at the camera in the photo.

Beside the cake, a man's hand was lighting the candles.

Around his wrist was the watch I had given Derek for our tenth anniversary.