Chapter 2 - Apartment 19BFor several seconds, Sophie and I only stared at each other.
Twenty-one thousand dollars.
I knew the number because I had stared at it on my banking app so many times that it had stopped looking like money and started looking like proof that I was a good wife.
At least, that was what my husband kept telling me.
“Mom’s struggling,” Ethan would say whenever I hesitated.
“She spent her whole life taking care of everyone else.”
“She’d do the same for us.”
And the sentence he used most often:
“That’s what family does, Claire.”
So I paid.
I also cleaned Patricia’s condo every Saturday because her arthritis was supposedly getting worse.
I drove her to appointments.
I ordered her groceries.
I picked up her dry cleaning.
I listened while she criticized my cooking, my clothes, my job, my weight, my marriage, and my inability to give her a grandchild after five years with her son.
Apparently, infertility was my failure alone.
Ethan never corrected her.
He usually stared at his phone.
That should have told me everything.
But love has a way of turning obvious warning signs into complicated explanations.
I loved my husband.
So I explained him.
Again and again.
Until Patricia’s sixty-second birthday.
She insisted on celebrating at Bellamy House, an expensive private dining club downtown where the cheapest bottle of wine cost more than my first car payment.
Ethan said we had to make the evening special.
I bought Patricia a gold necklace for four hundred and fifty dollars.
It wasn’t extravagant by Bellamy House standards, but it was beautiful—an eighteen-inch chain with a small hammered-gold pendant she had admired months earlier.
When she opened the box, she smiled.
For one second, I thought I had finally done something right.
Then she laughed.
Actually laughed.
“Well, look at that.”
Her sister Vivian leaned closer.
“From Claire?”
Patricia fastened the necklace around her throat and touched the pendant.
“Of course. She knows how much she owes this family.”
People chuckled.
I smiled tightly.
Then Patricia lifted her champagne glass.
“You know what I always tell Ethan? Daughters-in-law don’t need gifts.”
My stomach tightened.
“They’re here to serve.”
More laughter.
Not everyone laughed.
A few guests looked uncomfortable.
Ethan looked at his plate.
I stared at him.
Say something.
Just once.
Say something.
He didn’t.
Patricia continued.
“Though Claire does make herself useful. Three thousand a month and free housekeeping. I should have had two sons.”
The table erupted.
Something inside me went completely quiet.
I reached across the table.
Patricia blinked.
“What are you doing?”
I slipped two fingers beneath the gold chain around her neck.
Then I unclasped it.
Her hand flew up.
“Claire!”
“I’m taking back my gift.”
The room went silent.
Her face turned scarlet.
“You cannot be serious.”
“I’ve never been more serious.”
Ethan shoved his chair backward.
“Claire, stop.”
I placed the necklace inside its velvet box.
“No.”
One word.
But it felt like the first full breath I had taken in years.
Patricia stood.
“You ungrateful little—”
My phone vibrated.
I almost ignored it.
Then I looked down.
A notification from my bank.
AUTOMATIC TRANSFER SCHEDULE UPDATED.
I frowned.
I hadn’t changed anything.
I opened the alert.
The monthly transfer to Patricia’s account had been modified three days earlier.
Instead of $3,000, the next scheduled payment was $4,500.
My blood went cold.
I looked at Ethan.
“Did you change this?”
His expression changed.
Only for a second.
But I saw it.
Fear.
“What?”
“My transfer to your mother.”
Patricia stopped talking.
Ethan reached for my phone.
“Give me that.”
I pulled it away.
“You changed it.”
“Claire, not here.”
That was when I knew.
Whatever was happening was bigger than a cruel birthday joke.
I grabbed my purse.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
Ethan stood.
“I’m coming with you.”
“No.”
His face hardened.
“Claire.”
I walked out.
He followed me into the hallway.
“You’re embarrassing me.”
I turned so quickly he almost walked into me.
“I’m embarrassing you?”
“Mom was joking.”
“She humiliated me.”
“She’s sixty-two. Let it go.”
“And the bank transfer?”
His jaw tightened.
“We’ll talk about it later.”
“No. We’ll talk about it now.”
He glanced toward the dining room.
“My mother needed more help.”
“For what?”
“Expenses.”
“What expenses?”
“Why are you interrogating me?”
Because the man standing in front of me suddenly looked like someone I didn’t know.
Because I had paid Patricia twenty-one thousand dollars.
Because Ethan had access to our shared household account.
Because he had apparently increased a payment from money I earned without asking me.
And because his first reaction had been to grab my phone.
I stepped backward.
“I’m going home.”
He grabbed my elbow.
Not violently.
But firmly enough.
“Don’t do this.”
I looked at his hand.
Then at him.
“Let go.”
He did.
I left.
At home, I opened every bank statement from the previous seven months.
I expected to find care expenses.
Doctors.
Utilities.
Medical equipment.
Instead, I found transfers.
Dozens of them.
Patricia received my three thousand dollars.
Then, within twenty-four hours, she sent most of it somewhere else.
Always to the same account.
HARPER PROPERTY MANAGEMENT LLC.
I searched the company.
A luxury apartment complex appeared.
The Arden.
Twenty-eight floors of glass and steel overlooking the river.
Monthly rent started at $3,850.
My pulse accelerated.
Why was my mother-in-law paying rent at the Arden when she owned her condo outright?
Then I found a second recurring charge.
A pediatric clinic.
Three visits.
A baby boutique.
Formula deliveries.
And a furniture store.
The description on one payment made my fingers freeze over the keyboard.
CRIB + NURSERY PACKAGE.
I stared at it.
Then my phone rang.
Ethan.
I let it ring.
Again.
Again.
Again.
On the fourth call, I answered.
“Claire, where are you?”
“At home.”
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“We need to talk.”
“We do.”
I clicked open another transaction.
A florist.
Delivery address attached.
Apartment 19B.
The Arden.
I entered the address into an online property database.
The apartment lease had been registered seven months earlier.
Tenant contact:
Sophie Langford.
I knew that name.
Ethan’s executive assistant.
Twenty-seven.
Blond.
Recently promoted.
And supposedly on extended leave because of “family complications.”
My husband spoke softly into the phone.
“Claire?”
I couldn’t feel my hands.
“How long?”
Silence.
“Claire, what are you talking about?”
“How long have you been sleeping with Sophie?”
The silence changed.
Not confusion.
Not outrage.
Recognition.
Then Ethan said the most devastating thing possible.
“Please don’t go to the apartment.”
I closed my eyes.
Because innocent husbands didn’t know which apartment their wives meant.
And guilty husbands didn’t beg unless there was something inside they desperately wanted hidden.
I grabbed my keys.
“Claire.”
His voice cracked.
“Don’t.”
I whispered, “What’s in apartment 19B?”
He said nothing.
I ended the call.
Twenty-five minutes later, I stood outside the Arden.
I rode the elevator to the nineteenth floor.
My heart hammered harder with every number.
The doors opened.
I walked down the silent hallway.
19A.
Then 19B.
Before I could knock, I heard a baby crying.
My entire body stopped.
The door opened.
Sophie stood there wearing Ethan’s college sweatshirt.
Her face went white.
Behind her, mounted on the entryway wall, was a framed photograph.
Ethan holding a newborn baby.
May you like
And underneath it, written in silver script:
Welcome home, Daddy.
Related Stories
