Part Two of the Story… 👇
marital betrayal
The screen was gray and black, mapping out a reality that had nothing to do with the one I had lived in for the last ten years. There, in the neat digital font of the clinic’s database, was Garrett’s name. His cell phone number, the one with the South Jersey area code that I had dialed a thousand times, was typed into the emergency contact box. But the primary name on the file belonged to Tanya Burch.
I stared at the address listed for her. It was an apartment complex in Cherry Hill, only fifteen minutes from the logistics depot where Garrett spent his Tuesday and Thursday nights. The route emergencies. The delayed shipments. The sparkling water that couldn’t wait. The pieces of the last three years began to shift, rearranging themselves into a picture so loud it made my ears ring.
“Emily,” Dr. Petrova said, her voice dropping to a whisper that felt heavier than a shout. “She is twenty-four weeks along. He was here with her last Tuesday. He sat in the exact chair you were just sitting in.”
I looked down at the ultrasound photo of my own baby, still clutched in my hand. The tiny, fragile heartbeat that we had spent a small fortune and three years of heartbreak to achieve was currently beating inside me, completely unaware that the world outside was cracking wide open.
“What do I do?” I asked. The words didn’t sound like mine. They were thin, dry, and hollow.
“I cannot give you legal advice, and technically, I have violated protocol by showing you this,” Dr. Petrova said, closing the window on her screen with a sharp click of the mouse. The glowing light faded from her face, leaving her looking exhausted. “But I have known you for three years, Emily. I know what you went through to get here. I couldn’t let you walk out of here thinking everything was perfect when your life is about to change.”
I stood up. My knees felt like water, but some ancient, instinctual survival mechanism kept me upright. I smoothed down my skirt, carefully folded my ultrasound photo, and slid it into my purse.
“Thank you,” I said.
I didn’t wait for her to reply. I walked out of the office, down the long corridor that smelled of antiseptic, and past the front desk where the woman was no longer laughing. When the automatic glass doors of the clinic slid open, the humid summer air hit me like a physical wall.
I sat in my car for twenty minutes before I even put the key in the ignition. My phone buzzed on the passenger seat. A text from Garrett: Just finished clearing the highway. Heading to the warehouse now. Love you, how did it go?
I looked at the message. For three years, I had made things easy for him. When he was tired, I cooked. When he missed dinners because of work, I kept his plate warm. When the fertility bills came, I managed the spreadsheets and found ways to squeeze the installments out of our modest incomes. I had protected him from the stress because I thought we were a team.
I didn’t reply. Instead, I started the car and put it in drive.
I didn’t go home. I drove toward Cherry Hill. The highway was clear, the afternoon sun glaring off the asphalt. My mind was strangely lucid. The grief hadn’t arrived yet; it was blocked by a cold, hard wall of necessity. I needed to see it. I needed to know if the man I had shared a bed with for a decade was a stranger, or if I was simply trapped in a nightmare.
The apartment complex was called The Willows. It was a modern, sprawling development with manicured lawns and identical beige buildings. I parked three rows away from the structure listed on the screen, keeping my car tucked behind a large delivery van.
Then, I waited…
