CHAPTER 1- THE SECOND CUP

I poured two cups of coffee that morning as always. One for me, one for my husband. He stopped touching my coffee for months now. But I kept making it anyway.

A part of me was still waiting for the version of him who used to drink it standing right behind me, one hand on my waist, complaining that I made it too strong. I missed even his complaints.

I stood at the counter and watched steam curl off his cup and disappear into nothing, the same way so many small things between us had started disappearing.

"Still hot," I said. To no one. Just to hear something other than the silence pressing in around me.

My baby was still sleeping. Four months old, and his sleep was this fragile, unpredictable thing that somehow held my whole day together.

I heard the bedroom door open quietly. Dominic never did anything loud.

He came out fully dressed — charcoal suit, tie knotted with that precision he never had to think about, hair done, every part of him composed.

He looked like a photograph of someone important. Not like a man who'd just woken up beside me.

"Good morning love," I said.

I made sure it came out warm. I wanted it to land somewhere.

"Morning." He didn't look up. Phone already in his hand, thumb already moving.

Luca made a small sound through the monitor — not crying yet, just that restless half-awake murmur.

"He woke up twice last night," I said, looking at Dominic's face for something. Anything. "I think he's going through another growth phase. He was unsettled after three."

He just nodded. Eyes still on the screen. "Mm."

That was it. *Mm.* The sound you make when someone tells you it might rain later.

"Dominic."

Firmer this time. I needed him to actually hear this one. "I think he might need you to hold him more during the day. He calms down when he hears your voice."

That landed somewhere — I saw it. A small pause. His thumb stopped moving for half a second.

"I've got a packed week," he said, still not looking up. "Back-to-back meetings. I can't afford distractions right now."

"Distractions," I repeated quietly.

I don't think he heard me say it. He'd already put the phone down, grabbed his keys, opened the fridge, stared into it for no reason at all, and shut it again.

"I'll be late tonight." Said the way you'd mention traffic. "Don't wait for me."

My fingers curled against the edge of the counter. I felt the cold marble under my nails.

"Dominic."

He stopped near the door. Didn't turn around.

"Yes?"

For one second everything I'd been swallowing for weeks rose up at once. *Where do you go at night. Why do you feel like a stranger in your own home.

When did you stop looking at me like I was someone you chose, and not someone you're managing.*

All these questions were piled in my chest.

"Nothing," I said. My voice came out steadier than I felt. "Just be safe."

He nodded. Like that was a perfectly reasonable thing for a wife to say to a husband on his way out the door.

Then he left.

The door closed behind him. I stood there for a moment after he left, frozen in place, as if something might still come back through that door if I waited long enough.

Nothing did.

I went to the nursery to check on Luca. I lifted him out before he got there, and the second his weight settled against me something in my own chest loosened, just slightly.

"There you are," I said, pressing my lips to his hair. "I'm here. Mama's here."

"You're okay," I told him, my voice low. "It's just you and me right now. We're okay."

I said it like a fact.

It came out more like something I was trying to convince myself of, and not quite managing.

The morning went on the way mornings always did now.

I washed bottles. Folded laundry that didn't need folding. Wiped down counters that were already clean, just to have my hands doing something.

I checked on Luca every few minutes even when he was sleeping peacefully, just to hear the small sound of his breathing.

The penthouse was beautiful.But it had started feeling like a stage set. Instead of a home.

Nothing in it felt like it belonged to me anymore.

I carried Dominic's dry cleaning into the bedroom and laid it across the bed — grey jacket, white shirts, the blue one, and started peeling off the plastic, piece by piece.

Everything smelled like his cologne and like hours I hadn't been part of. I was halfway through unfolding the grey jacket when I stopped.

There was a hair on the collar. Long and dark. Definitely not mine. My hands went completely still.

I stood there looking at it, waiting for it to turn into something else.

"It could be nothing," I said, quietly. "Could be from a meeting. Someone standing too close. It doesn't have to mean anything."

I picked up the collar anyway. Held it closer to the light. It still didn't mean anything.

"No."

I shook my head slightly, like the motion itself could undo what I'd just seen.

"There's an explanation. There's always an explanation." I said quietly.

I smoothed the collar back down with hands that weren't quite steady. Hung the jacket back exactly where it had been.

Luca cried out from the nursery again.

"Coming," I called, already moving, grateful for somewhere to put myself. "Mama's coming."

I lifted him, walked him slowly around the room, his breathing uneven against my shoulder until it slowed and steadied.

"It's okay," I murmured. "You're okay. I've got you."

I stood by the window with him for a long time after he settled. Just watching the city.

My phone buzzed on the kitchen counter.

I waited until Luca's breathing went completely even before I moved — laying him back in the crib slowly, carefully.

Then I picked up my phone. Dominic's name lit the screen.

Text: Running late tonight, don't wait up.

I stood there looking at it. My thumb hovered over the reply box. Saying okay felt like agreeing to something I didn't have words for yet. Saying nothing felt like agreeing too.

Before I could decide, a second message appeared underneath the first.

I caught it in less than a second. Then he deleted it. I froze, phone in hand, staring at the empty space where it had been.

My breathing slowed, my grip on the phone tightened.

"Why would he delete a message?" My voice came out barely above a whisper, swallowed almost immediately by the silence of the kitchen.

The screen offered nothing back. No notification. No trace. Nothing.

I stood there a long moment, two cups of coffee in front of me, one already cold, and felt something shift inside my chest — not loudly, not all at once, but unmistakably.

A door quietly closing on the version of this morning where everything had an easy explanation.

I didn't move for a long time.

I had no idea yet how much that deleted message was about to cost me.