Chapter 1

My marriage counselor was sleeping with my husband while teaching me to trust him.

But at 3:40 that afternoon, I still had no idea.

"Claire, you're avoiding the real issue again."

Dr. Mara Lewis sat across from me, her notepad open on her lap.

Her voice was gentle, just as it always was whenever she pointed out something I'd done wrong.

"Ethan came home two hours late, and you called him six times in a row. Do you think that's a healthy way to communicate?"

I looked at my husband beside me.

Ethan leaned slightly forward, his hands clasped together.

He wouldn't look at me. His eyes remained fixed on the gray pattern in the carpet.

"I told you I'd be home to have dinner with Sophie that night," he finally said. "But you refused to believe something came up."

"You said your phone died."

"It did."

"But when I called your office, they said you'd left that afternoon."

Ethan closed his eyes for a moment, as if he were struggling to stay patient.

Mara set down her pen. "Claire, we've talked about this pattern before. You don't look for evidence because you want to understand your husband. You look for it because you want to prove he's lying."

She never raised her voice, yet somehow, I felt like a child who had just been caught doing something wrong.

For the past six months, she had insisted that I was bringing the trauma of my father's affair into my own marriage.

I interrogated Ethan. I checked his clothes for unfamiliar scents. I memorized every time and detail he mentioned.

It wasn't intuition. It was pathological hypervigilance.

At least, that was what she told me.

"Last night, Sophie asked me if we were getting divorced." Ethan lowered his voice. "She's only nine, Claire."

My fingertips went cold.

"I've never mentioned divorce in front of her."

"Children can still sense tension at home."

Mara picked up where he left off. "That's exactly what we need to address today. Your suspicions are no longer affecting only your marriage. They're affecting your daughter too."

The clock on the wall ticked forward.

I looked at Ethan.

He finally turned toward me. There was exhaustion in his eyes, along with a familiar kind of disappointment.

In twelve years of marriage, whenever he looked at me that way, I was always the one who ended up apologizing.

"What am I supposed to do?" I asked.

Mara's shoulders relaxed.

"Start by apologizing for invading Ethan's privacy. Then stop checking up on him."

"Trust doesn't begin after every doubt has disappeared. It begins when you decide to stop letting those doubts control you."

My throat tightened.

Ethan placed his hand over mine. "I just want the old you back."

That worked better than any accusation could have.

I remembered how, when we were newly married, he once drove forty minutes through a snowstorm just to bring me a hot coffee during my night shift.

I remembered how, after Sophie was born, he sat on the hospital floor and promised me over and over that we would never become the kind of parents who hated each other.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I shouldn't have checked up on you like that."

Ethan squeezed my hand, as though I had finally given him the right answer.

When the session ended, he went to the parking lot to get the car.

I stayed behind to put on my coat while Mara carried her notepad into the inner office.

The corner of a black phone was sticking out from between the couch cushions.

I recognized it.

Ethan had claimed he lost that backup phone three months ago.

The moment I picked it up, the screen lit up.

The sender had no name, only the initial M.

She finally believes she's the problem. Being with you has been exhausting.

I stared at the message as the faint click of a closing door sounded behind me.

The glass-framed picture on the wall caught Mara's reflection.

She was leaving the inner office, still separated from me by a frosted glass door.

I immediately turned off the screen, slipped the phone back into its original place beside the cushion, and used the hem of my coat to hide my trembling hand.

By the time the glass door opened, I was already standing straight.

"Claire?" Mara studied my pale face. "Are you all right?"

"Just a little dizzy."

She walked toward me, her concern flawless.

"Today's conversation may have made you uncomfortable. When you get home, don't analyze it over and over. Try to trust Ethan."

I zipped up my coat and forced myself to meet her eyes.

"You're right," I said softly. "I should trust my husband more."