Chapter 1

I gripped my phone tightly as I stood outside the restaurant with my jaw clenched.

“I can get you a reservation. We’ll seat you in a private room on the second floor that seats twelve. Would that work for you?” the receptionist on the line asked enthusiastically.

“That works. We’ll take it,” I said, my voice hoarse.

After hanging up, I looked back at the restaurant behind me. At that moment, Sarah Grange’s sous chef, Derek Hall, came walking out of the revolving doors, carrying a crate of ingredients toward the side entrance. I almost called out to him, but I hesitated.

What was there to ask? Was I supposed to ask why she had agreed so readily, only to turn around and behave as if nothing had ever happened? Was I supposed to ask if she was so busy making a cake that she couldn’t even pick up a single call?

Mom stepped up behind me at some point and gently touched my arm.

“Conner, how about we just eat somewhere else? It’s all the same anyway. Sarah is just a woman, and it isn’t easy for her to build a career in a male-dominated field. Don’t blame her for it.”

I turned around and forced a smile for her. “It’s fine, Mom. I found another place, even better than this one. Let’s go.”

The rest of the family looked solemn. Yet, Mom asked no questions, simply patting the back of my hand.

That day, the birthday dinner went on as planned. Mom smiled through the entire meal, but every time she looked at me, her smile looked guarded.

When we returned home that evening, I sat in the kitchen for a long time. The kitchen was the only thing I had refused to compromise on when we bought and renovated the house. It had a double-door refrigerator, a built-in oven, and a six-burner stove.

During the renovations, Sarah had dropped by once, glanced around, and asked why I was making it so spacious when she would never cook at home anyway.

Back then, I had smiled and replied, “If you don’t cook, I will.”

Sarah had merely scoffed. “With your cooking skills, which are average at best, do you really need such a massive kitchen?”

I scrolled through Sarah’s Instagram feed.

Early this morning, she had posted a series of photos. A grand five-tiered cake stood on the dessert table, captioned, “Only the best for someone special.” I had foolishly thought it was meant for Mom.

I remembered how happy I was when she had said okay to my request, and I believed that with her handling it, the reservation was set in stone. However, looking back now, when she said okay, she only meant she heard me, not that she actually agreed to do it.

I scrolled further back, all the way to a photo from a year ago. In the picture, she wore an apron and stood in an unfamiliar kitchen with a full meal laid out on the stove.

The caption read, “The little things in life.”

That was Mark Taylor’s home.

Back then, he had just gotten divorced and complained that without a woman taking care of his place, he had been eating takeout for a whole week straight. So, as soon as Sarah finished her shift, she rushed over to fix everything from his stove to his range hood and even cooked a full meal for him.

Around that same time, I had brought up my own situation to her.

“I’ve been taking care of your dad for a week straight and haven't had time to cook, so I’ve been living on takeout every day. I’m sick of it.”

“Then just order from a better place instead of eating from those same few takeout places all the time.”

When it came to Mark’s affairs, she always handled everything personally. Yet when it came to mine, she couldn’t even bother to lift a finger.

The sound of the front door opening echoed from the living room. Sarah took out her coat and walked in. Seeing me sitting in the kitchen, her face immediately darkened.

“Where’s dinner? I’ve been standing in the kitchen all day, and I come home to not even a warm meal?”

I looked at her, and instead of answering the question, I asked, “Do you have nothing you want to say to me?”

My voice sounded flat.

Sarah poured herself a glass of water and chugged down half of it in one gulp.

“Say what? The kitchen was crazy busy today. Don’t start kicking up a fuss with me.”

“Are you sure you have nothing to say to me, huh?”

She slammed the glass down onto the countertop. “Are you making dinner or not? If not, I’m ordering takeout.”

I stared at her. After watching her for a long time, I finally knew for certain that she didn’t remember what today was at all.

“Sarah,” I called out to her. “Today was Mom’s seventieth birthday.”

She stopped what she was doing, her expression stiffening for a split second.

“I was busy, and I forgot,” she said matter-of-factly, as if she had simply forgotten an ingredient at the grocery store.

“I’ll make it up to her another day.”

I chuckled.

Make it up another day? In our ten years of marriage, she had never remembered a single thing I told her half a month ago, yet she remembered to put a tiny chocolate car on the birthday cake for Mark’s son.

It was never that she had a poor memory. She just didn’t care for me at all.