Chapter Five

I printed two tickets again. I know. I need you to understand that I knew, I absolutely knew, on some level, that I was setting myself up. But I printed two anyway, because the alternative was admitting, before anything had actually happened, that he wasn't coming and I wasn't ready for that yet.

I arrived at the north gate at five to ten. November light, thin and pale, catching the last of the autumn decorations, giant harvest wreaths and strings of amber lights that wouldn't look out of place in a dream. It smelled like cinnamon and cold air and something faintly sweet I couldn't identify.

I found a bench near the fountain and I sat down and I sent Ethan the location pin.

He'd confirmed the night before. I'll be there. Three words. Unambiguous.

At ten-thirty, I bought myself a coffee. Black, two sugars, my actual order, not the one I'd been making at home for years because it was easier than reaching past him for the second sugar jar. It's funny, the small ways you disappear inside a marriage. You stop ordering what you actually want because adjusting is easier than explaining.

I was done adjusting.

At eleven, a little boy broke away from his parents and walked directly toward me with the confidence of someone who has never learned that strangers require caution. He was maybe four. He was holding a piece of cotton candy the size of his own head, and he stopped in front of my bench and held it out to me with complete sincerity.

"Thank you," I said, and broke off a small piece.

He beamed like I'd said something wonderful. Toddled back to his parents. His mom looked over at me with this expression. I'm sorry and also isn't he something and I smiled back and I meant it.

At noon exactly, my phone rang.

"I'm tied up." Ethan's voice, clipped and professional. The voice he used when he was telling someone something he didn't want to say. "Work emergency. Can we do this next weekend?"

"Sure," I said.

"I really am sorry…"

"Of course. Have a good afternoon."

I hung up. Sat with the phone in my hand for a moment. Cotton candy dissolving on my tongue.

Then I bought a ticket to the Ferris wheel.

From the top, the city made sense in a way it never did from inside it. Everything laid out in its grid, the parks green-grey in November, the river flat and silver to the east. The wheel moved slowly, swaying at the apex, and I sat in the open car with my hands in my lap and I looked at all of it and I thought: I have been so nose-close to this marriage that I couldn't see its shape.

From up here, the shape was obvious.

I rode it twice. The attendant, young, serious, clearly committed to the job, asked if I wanted another turn and I said yes and I watched the city tilt and level while Ethan was somewhere else doing whatever Ethan was doing, and I practiced, quietly, the art of not making that my emergency.

I spent the rest of the afternoon being entirely selfish, in the best possible way. Caramel apple, puppet show, the harvest installation and enormous sculptures made from dried corn and gourds, lit from below in gold and I took photos on my phone that I sent to no one.

On the way out I bought a full bag of cotton candy. Pink and enormous. I ate half of it in the car.

I came home with sugar on my coat sleeve and something lighter in my chest than what I'd arrived with. Ethan was in his study. I didn't disturb him.

I was washing my hands in the kitchen when my phone lit up. Unknown number. Not Vivienne's this time, a different one.

A photo. No message. Just an image.

I stared at it.

It was Ethan. At the amusement park. Same park, same day, I could see the harvest installation in the background. He was laughing, head thrown back, totally unguarded and beside him, her hand through his arm, the specific red of her manicure bright even in the photo,

Vivienne.

He hadn't been at work.

He'd been there. At the park. While I was riding the Ferris wheel alone and eating cotton candy a four-year-old had offered me out of pure innocent kindness, he had been thirty feet away with her.

The photo was followed, five seconds later, by a text from the same unknown number.

He lied to you, again. I think you should know who you're negotiating with.

Someone was watching us. Someone who knew my number and had access to Ethan's movements and had decided for reasons I hadn't figured out yet to show me.

My hands weren't shaking. That surprised me.

I looked at the photo one more time. At his laugh. At her hand on his arm. At the harvest lights glowing gold behind them both.

Then I screenshotted it, saved it, and deleted the original message.

Whoever was sending these , I didn't know their angle yet. I didn't know if they were helping me or using me or both simultaneously.

But one thing was now absolutely clear: there were more people involved in whatever this was than just the three of us.

And someone, somewhere, wanted me to know it.

Who are you? I typed back.

The three dots appeared. Paused. Disappeared.

Then: Someone who knows what Vivienne is actually after. And it's not Ethan.

I put the phone on the counter. Stared at the wall.

Then what is she after?

No reply came that night.

I didn't sleep until three a.m.