Stephen dropped the box.
It was wrapped in silver paper with a purple ribbon. He’d spent twenty minutes in a toy store picking out what was inside. He’d texted me a picture of the wrapping job from his car, very proud of himself. Look at these corners. Professional quality.
Now it hit the hallway floor with a soft thud and rolled against the baseboard.
He didn’t pick it up.
He was staring at my four-year-old daughter.
Lucy had come running around the corner from the living room, the way she always did when the doorbell rang. She’d skidded to a stop on the hardwood in her socks, right beside my leg. She was wearing the blue sundress she’d picked out herself, and two braids that had taken me half an hour to get right.
She looked up at him and smiled her shy little smile.
And Stephen, the calmest, steadiest man I’d ever dated, went white as a sheet.
“Oh no,” he whispered. “I know her.”
For a second, I thought I’d heard him wrong.
“What do you mean, you know her?”
He didn’t answer.
His eyes were fixed on Lucy. Not on me. On her. He was looking at her the way you’d look at a ghost.
Lucy pressed herself closer to my leg. She grabbed a fistful of my jeans.
“Mommy,” she whispered, “did I do something wrong?”
“No, sweetheart.” I bent down and hugged her. My heart was pounding. “No. You didn’t do anything wrong. Why don’t you go check on your crayons? I’ll be there in one minute.”
She looked up at Stephen one more time. Then she let go of my jeans and wandered slowly back into the living room, glancing over her shoulder twice.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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