Chapter 2

The message Daniel sent on our sixth anniversary was still on my phone.

11:04 p.m.

Surgery's over. Everything went well. I'm exhausted.

I had answered, Come home safely. I saved you dinner.

Seventeen minutes later, his car left the hospital garage.

The route on the screen did not turn west toward our house. It went east, crossed the river, and ended outside Claire's apartment at 12:09.

Daniel came home after one.

His covered plate was still waiting in the refrigerator. The next morning, he said he had eaten after surgery, so I threw the food away before work.

I had been grateful someone at the hospital had remembered to feed him.

For months, I remembered that anniversary as another night our marriage had lost to his work.

Now the blue route across the river replaced it.

The November entry needed no replay. Eleven minutes after telling me he was too tired to pick me up, his car had left the hospital for Claire's building.

The next date was the night my husband told me to call an Uber.

November 14.

I remembered I had ordered the car and stood behind a concrete pillar until it arrived.

His journey log showed another arrival that night.

11:26 p.m.

Claire's apartment.

While I waited with water inside my shoes, he had been driving in the opposite direction again.

He had been too tired to collect me.

He had still found the energy to take her home.

I didn't need to check all 227 dates.

I needed to stop explaining away the ones I already recognized.

I picked up my phone.

Claire's Instagram account was public. Beneath her profile was a saved Story collection titled ON CALL.

I had opened it once before. All I remembered were paper coffee cups, hospital corridors, and city lights after dark.

This time, I knew what I was looking at.

Daniel's dashboard filled the screen.

A coffee cup sat in the holder. A charging cable curled over the passenger seat.

I knew that cable.

I'd bought it after his old one broke.

The next photograph showed a hand holding a granola bar above the same seat.

I bought those every Sunday and put a few in his car.

The caption read:

"Another night-shift rescue from my work husband."

My fingers tightened around the edge.

I had packed the same bars beside his lunch that morning. There were still two boxes in our cupboard.

I'd been making sure he had something to eat.

She was eating the food I bought for my husband, flaunting a care she never earned.

My phone buzzed in my hand. A text from Daniel.

You've been in the garage for a while. Everything okay?

I stared at his name. Then I looked back at the One date beneath a photograph.

July 12th.

That afternoon, I had declined the senior operations position in Seattle.

Daniel had said moving during his fellowship would damage everything he had worked for.

I typed my rejection email that same afternoon, giving up my career for our marriage.

At 9:00 p.m. that night, his car was parked at Claire's apartment.

He didn't need me here. He just needed me to stay in my place.

I closed Claire's page.

I saved the photographs beside the driving records, then I scrolled past grocery receipts and joint bank statements until I found the year-old email thread.

The recruiter's last message: If circumstances ever change, call me.

I pressed Reply.

My circumstances have changed. Is it too late to talk?

Ten minutes later, her answer appeared.

The original position has been filled.

Then a second message followed.

But I may have something better.