All Chapters of THE STAND-IN WIFE: Three weeks,One lie,No way out: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

ZARAFriday, 8:14amShe hadn't planned to think about the text.She thought about it all morning.Unknown number. Three words. No context, no follow-up, nothing. She'd turned her phone face-down and chosen the moment over the message and she didn't regret that. But the morning had arrived with it still sitting there and she couldn't put it somewhere that felt resolved.She sat at the kitchen island with her sketchbook open. Pencil moving. Eyes doing something different from what her hands were doing.Daniel came in at eight with Callum's schedule for the day. Grey suit, tablet, the quiet efficiency she'd been around for four weeks and stopped registering. He set the schedule on the counter, said good morning to both of them, and left.She looked at the door after he went through it.Nothing. Just a man doing his job.She looked at her sketchbook. She'd drawn the window without noticing. The city through the glass, the morning light, a Friday in October when everything felt slightly mo

ZARASaturday, 8:31amShe woke up to the smell of coffee.Not unusual anymore. What was unusual was the smell of something else underneath it. Something warm and slightly burnt and optimistic.She put on her robe. Went to the kitchen.He was at the stove.Back to her, tea towel over one shoulder, the focused attention of a man attempting something he had no business attempting. On the counter beside him, eggshells. Four of them. A bowl with something in it that had been whisked too aggressively. A pan on low heat the way Marguerite had told him.She stood in the doorway.He didn't hear her. He was watching the pan like if he looked away something irreversible would happen."You're going to burn them," she said.He turned. Looked at her. Looked at the pan. Looked back."I haven't burned them yet," he said."The heat's too high.""Marguerite said low heat.""That is not low heat."He looked at the dial, turned it down, then glanced at her with reluctant acceptance.She came to the stove

CALLUMSunday, 3:44pmHe looked at the paper.One name. His grandmother's handwriting, careful and deliberate.He knew the name.He'd known it for years. Had files on it. Had shaken hands with this person. Had trusted this person with things that mattered.He folded the paper. Set it on the table.You're certain, he said.I wrote it down the night your mother told me, Marguerite said. I'm certain.He nodded once. Went to the window.The Sunday street below. A woman walking a child. Two men outside the corner shop.How much did my mother know, he said. About what the name meant.Not much. She found the folder by accident. She saw the name alongside Reyes and your father's name and she knew it was wrong. Marguerite paused. She was afraid. She just wanted it to go away.She died three months later, he said.Yes.And you kept the paper.And then too much time passed. Her voice was quiet. I didn't know how to start.He turned around.Marguerite was looking at her hands. Zara was looking at

ZARAMonday, 11:23amThe house was smaller than she expected.White clapboard, grey shutters, a porch that needed painting, trees close on three sides. It sat at the end of a dirt road off a county route she wouldn't have found without him. No neighbours visible. No sound except wind in the trees and somewhere a bird she couldn't name.He unlocked the front door and she stepped inside.Closed rooms. Old wood. Something faintly floral that had been there so long it had become part of the walls. A lamp with a yellowed shade. A couch with a blanket folded on it. Bookshelves floor to ceiling. Photographs on the mantel.She went to the photographs.Marguerite younger, the amber beads already there, standing in a garden with a man who had Callum's height and a woman who had his eyes. A boy in the corner of the frame, maybe seven, not looking at the camera. Looking at something off to the left with complete attention.She pointed. You, she said.Yes.What were you looking at.A dog, he said.

ZARAMonday, 3:08pmThey didn't go far.Twelve miles east on a county road, a town she'd never heard of, a diner that had been there since 1962 according to the sign above the door. Vinyl booths. A counter with stools. A woman behind the counter who looked at them once and went back to wiping something down.They sat in the booth furthest from the door.She ordered coffee. He ordered coffee. The woman brought it without writing anything down.Zara put her hands around the cup.Outside the window the town did its Monday afternoon thing. A hardware store. A post office. A man loading something into a truck who took his time about it.Your father answered on the first ring, she said.Yes, Callum said.He didn't ask where we were calling from.No.He said he knew about the Connecticut house through other means.Yes.She looked at her coffee.What other means, she said.He looked at his. I don't know.You didn't ask.No. He paused. I should have asked.She nodded.She thought about Richard