1 The beginning
"June is going to have a baby… my—my baby."
The words left Albert's mouth in fragments, as though even he did not want to hear them whole. He stood frozen for a second, eyes wild, hands trembling, before cursing under his breath and slamming the door shut behind him.
The sound echoed through the house.
My knees weakened instantly. The strength left my body as though someone had unplugged me from myself. I sank to the floor, my back pressed against the wall, my heart pounding so violently I feared it would tear through my chest.
A baby.
June.
Albert's baby.
The room spun, and for a moment, I couldn't breathe.
Albert and I had been married for two years—two years that, until that moment, I had believed were filled with warmth, comfort, laughter, and love. The kind of love people admired from the outside. The kind that made strangers smile at you when you walked hand in hand.
Albert Peters, the CEO of Prestige Bank, was respected, admired, envied even. I worked from home, my world revolving comfortably around our marriage. We were inseparable whenever work allowed. Dates, laughter, shared routines, whispered jokes before bed. We were that couple.
I admired us.
I trusted him.
But trust, I would learn, is fragile.
It begins to crack quietly, long before it shatters.
The first signs appeared about a year and some months after our wedding.
They were small enough to ignore. Changes easy to excuse. Albert became quieter. Less present. He smiled less, touched me less, listened less. I told myself it was work stress. Prestige Bank was demanding, and Albert carried its weight on his shoulders daily.
I wanted to be a supportive wife.
One night, however, that illusion began to crumble.
Albert hadn't come home.
I sat curled up on the couch, my laptop long forgotten, the television murmuring to itself in the background. I checked the time again.
11:47 p.m.
My chest tightened.
I called him.
No answer.
I tried again.
Still nothing.
A strange chill crept down my spine, slow and deliberate, as though my body sensed danger before my mind did. Albert was never unreachable. Never this late without notice.
What if something happened to him?
My thoughts spiraled instantly—accidents, emergencies, terrible possibilities that made my stomach twist painfully. I stood up and paced the living room, phone clutched tightly in my hand.
Past midnight.
I dialed his number again, my hands shaking now.
Just as I lifted the phone to my ear, a soft knock echoed through the house.
My heart leapt violently.
I rushed to the door and flung it open.
"Babe, I'm home."
Relief flooded me so intensely my knees nearly buckled. Albert stood there, his face unreadable, his jacket slung over one arm. He muttered a quick thanks and stepped past me without waiting for a response, heading straight for the bedroom.
Something about that felt wrong.
I locked the door behind him and followed, my heart still racing—not with relief now, but with confusion.
"Do you mind telling me where you're coming from so late at night?" I asked, trying to keep my voice calm, reasonable.
Albert glanced at me briefly as he unbuttoned his shirt.
"Look, Susan," he sighed, rubbing a hand over his face, "I really don't have the strength for this. All I want to do right now is shower and sleep."
The words struck me like a slap.
"What do you mean by that?" I shot back. "I've been awake for hours waiting for you. Worried. Scared. And this is all you have to say?"
He didn't meet my eyes.
"If you must know," he replied casually, "I was out with some friends."
Friends.
He walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind him.
"Your friends?" I followed immediately, stopping at the door. "You didn't return my calls. You didn't tell me you'd be coming home late. Why, Albert?"
Silence.
Then the sound of running water.
He had turned on the shower.
I stood there, staring at the closed bathroom door, my fists clenched tightly at my sides. Anger, hurt, confusion—all tangled together inside me. I wanted to scream. I wanted answers.
But something stopped me.
Maybe fear. Maybe denial.
I told myself fighting him tonight would change nothing. I told myself to be calm, to be patient, to trust my husband.
So I turned away.
I went to bed alone, staring into the darkness, unaware that this silence—this refusal to answer—was the beginning of everything that would later destroy me.
Because the truth, once spoken, does not knock softly.
It crashes in.
And when it does, nothing is ever the same.