My husband said he couldn’t afford to chip in for groceries this month—again. I bit my tongue and covered everything. But when his mom tagged him in a photo at a steakhouse with a new watch on his wrist, I messaged her, pretending to be him. She replied instantly, and what she said made me gasp …
She said, “Oh good, you finally told her.”
At first, I thought she meant the watch. Or maybe the fact he’d taken out more cash advances on his already bleeding credit card. But then she added, “It’s better she finds out now before the baby gets here.”
Baby? What baby?
We don’t have kids. We were trying, or at least I thought we were. We’d been struggling for the past year—financially, emotionally—but I still believed in us. That maybe we just needed a better job, more communication, a vacation even. Never once did I suspect he was hiding a whole other life.
I didn’t respond right away. My heart was thudding so loud I could barely think. I stared at that message for what felt like hours before I closed my phone and took the longest shower
