Chapter 3

Returning home, I gazed at the old house, my emotions a tangled mess. In a previous chapter of my life, Kolton Long and I had exchanged vows here, just a month later. After the wedding, he was reassigned to a military post down south. I wanted to accompany him, but he insisted that the conditions were too harsh and urged me to stay behind. This became my home for the next thirty years.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, less than six months after Kolton’s transfer, a woman named Bailee Diaz followed him there. From that point, they were inseparable, their lives woven together in a complex relationship.

The cruel twist was that I worried about Kolton being alone, with no one to look after him. I wanted to be by his side, yet every time, he turned down my company. His reasons were always the same—our parents and our child needed me nearby.

Thus, while he enjoyed the companionship of another, I was left confined within these four walls, my world reduced to the boundaries of this house.