Chapter 3

The caption read:

[Thank you, Talia, for helping me find the perfect formal dress! You're the sweetest person I've ever met.]

Something inside me broke.

I looked up from my phone.

Colin's black pickup was already at the curb.

Talia was in the passenger seat.

She wore a pale-blue sweater and held a Starbucks bag, looking exactly like the kind of young woman who had come to pick up someone else's child.

Wren came through the gates and saw her first.

Her face lit up.

"Talia!"

She ran over. Talia handed her a pink drink.

"Pink Drink. Oat milk, no strawberry inclusions. I remembered, right?"

My daughter took it, her eyes crinkling with delight.

"You really remembered!"

Talia smiled.

"Of course. You mentioned it once. That was enough."

Colin stood beside the truck, watching them with a look of satisfaction I had not seen on his face in years.

My daughter took a sip, then glanced toward me.

"Mom, Talia said we're going back for the dress on Saturday."

I kept my voice even. "Wren, we talked about waiting."

Talia turned in her seat. Her smile was soft.

"She shouldn't have to feel guilty for wanting something pretty," she said. "She's a good girl. She works hard. Sometimes children just need to know they're allowed to want things."

Wren's face changed at once.

"See? Talia understands."

Colin opened the rear door for her.

"She doesn't have to wait," he said.

Wren looked at me, her cheeks red.

"Dad said he'd take care of it. Why do you make everything feel like a problem?"

She got into Colin's truck before I could answer.

I stood there with my car keys still clenched in my hand.

Colin shut the rear door. Talia leaned across Wren to say something that made her laugh.

Then the black pickup pulled away from the curb.

That night, Colin tossed his phone onto the table in front of me as if he were handing me a grocery list.

"Move what is left in our savings to my card before nine tomorrow morning."

I looked up.

"For what?"

He didn't even raise his eyes.

"I need it taken care of first thing tomorrow."

"Don't ask so many questions."

Then he got up and went into the bathroom.

A few minutes later, the phone he had left on the table lit up.

A message from the dealership flashed across the screen.

[Hi Colin, reminder: Talia's white SUV is ready for pickup tomorrow at 10 a.m. Down payment due: $6,000.]

I stared at the message, my fingers curling tighter and tighter.

I opened our savings account.

There was barely anything left.

It was what I had been putting aside for Wren, little by little, for years.

I scrolled through the history. There were purchases and withdrawals I had never been told about.

I looked at him sleeping in our bed.

I did not cry. I did not wake him.

I entered Wren's name in her college account and moved what remained.

Then I locked Colin out.

After that, I put down my phone and waited for morning.

Across town, at nine fifty the next morning, a salesperson placed the keys to a new white SUV on the counter at the dealership.

Talia stood with one hand tucked through Colin's arm. Two friends had come to watch her take the car home. Through the glass behind them, the white SUV waited in the sun.

"I told them Colin never breaks a promise to me," Talia said, smoothing her hair as she looked at the keys.

"Everything is ready," the salesperson said. "Will you be paying by card or transfer?"

At exactly ten, Colin took out his card with a confident flourish.

"Card."

He slid it into the terminal.

The screen lit up. Talia's friends leaned closer.