Chapter 1

For ten weeks, every iced latte my husband brought home for me arrived the same way.

The ice was always gone.

Every weekday around six, Evan would set the sweating plastic cup on our kitchen island, hang his coat, and press a kiss to my temple.

"Less ice today," he would say. "Better for the baby."

I was ten weeks pregnant, constantly nauseous, and exhausted enough that I never questioned it.

I did not even like sweet coffee, but I drank half the cup every night because I thought this was Evan’s small way of taking care of me.

He remembered which crackers I could keep down. He took over the grocery shopping when the smell of the refrigerator made me sick. So when he told me the coffee was something he had picked out for me, I had no reason to think otherwise.

Until one Thursday, I turned the cup around before taking a sip.

The label read: 3:17 PM. Regular Ice.

I looked at the clock above the stove. It was 6:12.

For a few seconds, I stood there with the cup in my hand. Evan had not ordered it with less ice. The ice had melted.

I told myself there could be a harmless explanation. Maybe someone at the office had picked it up early. Maybe he had ordered ahead between meetings. Maybe the label was wrong.

Then, while Evan was upstairs changing, I opened Instagram.

A new post from Harper Lane sat at the top of my feed.

Harper was twenty-six, Evan’s administrative assistant, and the woman he was always telling me had no family in Chicago and needed someone at work to look out for her.

Once, when I asked why he had stayed late to help her, Evan said she had only her dog in the city.

The photo had been posted that afternoon.

Two fresh iced coffees sat on a marble table inside Evan’s office building, both packed to the lid with ice. Beside them was the navy chronograph I had given Evan for his last birthday.

Her caption read: The 70th one. Some promises never melt.

I read it twice.

Then I started counting.

Ten weeks. Five workdays a week. Seventy.

I saved the post. I did not ask Evan why he had bought coffee at 3:17, or why Harper had called it the seventieth. I set an alarm for 2:50 the next afternoon.

Then I put the cup back on the counter before he came downstairs.