Chapter 1
Series 1 Chapter 1
“You’re the cleaner Mark called, right?”
A young woman stood in the doorway in a silk sleep set. She couldn’t have been much older than twenty. Her skin was smooth, her nails immaculate, and she had the soft, spoiled air of someone life had never forced to bend.
She looked me over. When she saw my worn sweatshirt and jeans, she stepped aside and left the door half open.
She sounded mildly annoyed.
“What took you so long? The kitchen still needs work. Start inside, and make sure you vacuum the rug too.”
To her, I was only the cleaner Mark had paid to tidy up the house.
I didn’t correct her.
Ten minutes earlier, my phone had vibrated wildly on the table.
Three bank alerts had flashed across the screen in a row.
[Shared Credit Card Charge: Target, $428.50]
[Shared Credit Card Charge: Costco, $890.12]
[Shared Credit Card Charge: Whole Foods, $310.00]
Beneath the last alert was a delivery address I had never seen before.
128 Oak Street. An upscale townhouse.
I had stared at it, my palm going cold.
My husband, Mark, had texted me only moments before.
[Working late tonight. Don’t wait up for dinner.]
I had grabbed my keys and driven straight to Oak Street.
I rang the bell twice. The door opened.
Now, she was still standing aside, waiting for me to go in and clean.
I walked past her and into the house.
Everything was new. The air carried that just-unboxed scent of cardboard, wood, and upholstery.
A cream-colored sofa. A marble dining table. A huge bouquet of white roses by the window.
Several receipts lay open on the kitchen island.
Furniture from Target. Dinnerware, bedding, and small appliances from Costco. Flowers, steak, and party groceries from Whole Foods.
The last four digits on every receipt belonged to a card I knew better than my own reflection.
My card.
Mark had used our shared credit card to build her a new life.
I looked toward the bedroom door, which stood half open.
Mark’s running shoes sat beside the bed. His razor and painkillers were lined up in the bathroom. In the closet hung shirts he had told me he couldn’t find.
He wasn’t visiting this place once in a while.
He had been living another life here.
A new photograph hung on the living-room wall.
Mark had his arm around the girl at a seaside restaurant, smiling as if there had never been a thing in the world to worry about.
The photo had been taken during the week he told me he was flying to Chicago for company training.
The girl watched me look around. Instead of getting angry, she seemed eager to talk.
“This is going to be Mark’s and my home.”
She ran her fingers over the vase on the island, her face glowing.
“Mark is so thoughtful. He sends me flowers every week. He knows I hate cilantro, so he always adds a note asking them to leave it out when we order food.”
“A few nights ago, I wanted mint-chip ice cream. He drove all over town for half an hour until he found it.”
“He picked out all this furniture with me. He said he wanted the place to look exactly the way I liked it.”
Every word cut slowly, like a dull blade.
For fifteen years, Mark had given me nothing for my birthdays but a supermarket gift card picked up at the last minute.
On our anniversaries, he was always “working late.”
When the toilet backed up, when a lightbulb burned out, when our daughter ran a fever, I was the one who handled it.
He remembered that Riley hated cilantro. He would drive across town for her ice cream in the middle of the night.
When our daughter had a fever, he had never once brought me a glass of water.
“Oh.”
The girl lifted the framed photograph from the wall and turned to me with a smile.
“Do you think this looks good here? Mark says we’re throwing a housewarming party next month. He wants to invite all his friends.”
In the photo, Mark was holding her close, his smile soft and tender.
Then the lock turned behind us.
“Baby, I got takeout from that Thai place you love—”
Mark walked in carrying a paper bag.
The moment he saw me standing in the middle of the living room, his voice died.
The bag slipped from his hand and hit the floor.