Chapter 1: The forgotten anniversary

Elena’s fingers trembled as she lit the last candle.

The dining room looked perfect. She’d spent all day making it perfect. White roses in crystal vases, Marcus’s mother’s crystal, the only thing of value he’d ever let her touch. The good china, hand-washed because the dishwasher left spots. His favorite meal, the beef Wellington that had taken her four hours to prepare, sitting under a warming dome.

And the dress. God, the red dress.

She smoothed her hands down the silk fabric, the same dress she’d worn five years ago when they met. Back when he’d looked at her like she was someone worth seeing. Back when she’d believed love could fix anything.

The clock on the wall ticked toward eight PM. Then past it.

Elena stood in the empty dining room, her bare feet cold on the marble floor, and waited.

Eight-fifteen.

She checked her phone. No messages. No missed calls. Nothing.

Eight-thirty.

The beef Wellington was drying out. She could smell it, the edges getting tough, all that work turning to waste. Just like every other thing she’d tried to make perfect for him.

Eight-forty-five.

Elena picked up her phone with shaking hands and called him. It rang four times, then went to voicemail. His voice, cold and professional: “This is Marcus Thorne. Leave a message.”

She hung up without speaking. Her throat was too tight anyway.

Nine o’clock.

The candles were burning low now, wax dripping onto the tablecloth. Elena watched one drop fall, then another. She should blow them out. She should put the food away. She should take off this stupid dress and stop pretending.

But she couldn’t move.

Her phone rang at nine-fifteen, and her heart jumped. She grabbed it so fast she almost dropped it.

“Mrs. Thorne?” It was Jennifer, Marcus’s assistant. Her voice was carefully neutral, the way it always was when she called with bad news. “Mr. Thorne asked me to let you know he won’t be home tonight. He’s working late on the Patterson deal.”

Elena’s chest felt hollow. “Did he… did he say anything else?”

A pause. Elena could hear typing in the background. “No, ma’am. Just that he’ll be late. Very late. He said not to wait up.”

“It’s our anniversary.”

The typing stopped. The silence on the other end lasted too long.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Thorne. I didn’t realize. Would you like me to…?”

“No.” Elena’s voice came out steady somehow. She didn’t know how. “No, that’s fine. Thank you for calling, Jennifer.”

She hung up before the woman could say anything else. Before the pity in her voice could get any louder.

Elena stood in the dining room for another minute, staring at the table she’d set for two. Then she walked to her chair, not his, never his, and sat down. Her movements felt mechanical, like someone else was controlling her body.

She served herself a piece of beef Wellington. Cut it into small bites. Put one in her mouth.

It tasted like nothing.

She swallowed anyway. Then another bite. Then another. Across from her, Marcus’s empty chair seemed to grow bigger, taking up more space than any chair should. Taking up all the space in the room. In the house. In her life.

When had it started, this emptiness?

No. She knew exactly when.

Elena pushed her plate away and pulled her phone out again. Her fingers found the photo gallery without thinking, scrolling back. Past last month, past last year, all the way back to five years ago.

Their wedding day.

She looked so young in the photo. Twenty-two, eyes full of hope, wearing a simple white dress because they’d gotten married at the courthouse. No big wedding, no guests, just the two of them and a judge who’d rushed through the vows like he had somewhere better to be.

Marcus stood beside her in the photo, one arm around her waist. But he wasn’t looking at the camera. He was looking past it, his ice-blue eyes focused on something only he could see.

Even then, Elena realized now. Even on their wedding day, he’d been looking at someone else.

She scrolled forward. On their first anniversary, Marcus had cancelled dinner to fly to Boston for a meeting. Their second, he’d forgotten entirely until she’d mentioned it, then bought her roses from the hospital gift shop on his way home at midnight. Third, he’d taken her to dinner but spent the whole meal on his phone. Their fourth…

Elena stopped scrolling. She didn’t need to torture herself with the details. Every anniversary was the same. Every birthday. Every holiday. Every single day of the last five years.

She was married to a ghost, living with a man who’d never really been there at all.

A sob built in her chest, but she swallowed it down. She’d gotten good at that. Good at swallowing everything, the hurt, the loneliness, the growing certainty that she’d made a terrible mistake.

But she loved him. God help her, she still loved him.

Elena looked at Marcus’s empty chair again. She imagined him sitting there, actually seeing her for once. Noticing the dress, the candles, the effort. Smiling at her the way he used to, back before…

Before what? Before she’d realized he never loved her at all? Before she understood she was just a placeholder, a substitute, a woman who looked enough like someone else to fill a hole in his heart?

The candles guttered out one by one. Elena sat in the growing darkness and didn’t move to turn on the lights.

At midnight, she finally stood up. Her legs were stiff, her feet numb from the cold floor. She walked to Marcus’s chair and picked up the plate she’d set for him. The food was cold now, congealed, inedible.

She carried both plates to the kitchen and scraped the contents into the trash. Five hours of cooking, gone in seconds. The sound of it hitting the garbage bag seemed too loud in the silent house.

Elena put the dishes in the sink and turned on the water. Her reflection stared back at her from the window over the counter, a woman in a red dress with mascara smudged under her eyes and lipstick faded to nothing.

When had she started crying? She couldn’t remember.

She washed the dishes by hand, even though they had a dishwasser. The hot water turned her fingers red, but she barely felt it. She dried each plate carefully and put them back in the cabinet. She hand-washed the crystal vases and put them away. She folded the tablecloth, wax stains and all, and shoved it in the back of the linen closet where she wouldn’t have to look at it.

By the time she was done, it was one AM. The house was spotless. No evidence remained of her pathetic attempt at celebrating an anniversary her husband had forgotten.

Again.

Elena walked upstairs to their bedroom. To her bedroom, really. Marcus slept in his office most nights now, when he came home at all. The bed was too big, too cold, too empty.

She took off the red dress and hung it in the closet. Then she put on one of Marcus’s old college sweatshirts, the only thing of his that still smelled like him, and climbed into bed.

Her phone buzzed on the nightstand. A text from Victoria, her only friend: Happy anniversary! How’s dinner going? Did he love the dress?

Elena stared at the message. Her thumbs hovered over the keyboard. She started typing half a dozen responses and deleted them all.

Finally, she just wrote: He didn’t come home.

Three dots appeared immediately. Then: I’m coming over.

No, Elena typed back. It’s late. I’m fine.

You’re not fine. Nobody’s fine when…

Please, Vic. I just need to sleep.

The dots appeared and disappeared three times. Then: Okay. But I’m calling you in the morning. And Elena? You deserve better than this.

Elena turned off her phone without responding. She rolled onto her side, pulled Marcus’s sweatshirt tighter around her body, and closed her eyes.

But sleep didn’t come. Instead, she lay in the darkness and counted all the ways she’d failed to make Marcus love her. All the things she’d done wrong. All the reasons he kept looking past her, through her, like she wasn’t even there.

Maybe if she tried harder. Maybe if she was prettier, smarter, more interesting. Maybe if she could just figure out what she was doing wrong, he’d finally see her.

Maybe tomorrow will be different.

Elena had been telling herself that for five years. Five years of maybes and tomorrows and hope that kept shrinking until it was almost nothing at all.

Outside, she heard a car pull into the driveway. Her heart jumped, maybe he came home after all, maybe he remembered, maybe…

The car door opened and closed. Footsteps on the walkway. Then silence.

Elena held her breath, waiting for the front door to open. Waiting for Marcus to come upstairs, to apologize, to notice she was wearing his sweatshirt and pull her close.

But the footsteps faded. The car started again. He’d just come home to get something from his office, she realized. He hadn’t even come upstairs to check on her.