Chapter 1

On the first morning after I bought St. Peter’s Private Kindergarten, I found my husband’s name in the box marked FATHER on a new student application.

Dominic Vance.

I stared at the screen until the letters blurred, then looked at the names printed above his.

James Vance.

Juliet Vance.

Five-year-old twins.

Their mother was Irene Foster, a woman I had never heard of in six years of marriage.

For a moment, I told myself there had to be another Dominic Vance.

Then I saw the emergency contact number.

The last four digits were 0721.

I had typed that number so many times I could have entered it with my eyes closed.

It belonged to the man who had kissed my forehead before leaving for work that morning.

My husband.

My fingers went cold against the mouse.

I opened the twins’ photographs.

James had Dominic’s gray-blue eyes and the same sharply curved eyebrows that made him look serious even when he smiled.

Juliet had his wide forehead and the small dimple in her left cheek.

Dominic had that dimple too.

I stopped looking for coincidences and opened the birth certificates attached to the application.

His name appeared on both.

Father: Dominic Vance.

The twins had been born five years ago.

Dominic and I had been married for six.

That was the part that made it difficult to breathe.

During the first year of our marriage, I had spent months going from one appointment to another after my doctor found uterine fibroids.

No one told me pregnancy was impossible, but every conversation seemed to contain the same careful words.

Difficult.

Complicated.

Uncertain.

I still remembered sitting in the hospital corridor with my test results crushed between my hands, trying not to cry before Dominic arrived.

He had knelt in front of me and taken both of my hands.

“I married you because I wanted a life with you, Audrey.”

I had looked at him through tears.

“What if I can’t give you children?”

His expression had softened as though I had asked the easiest question in the world.

“Then we won’t have children.”

He kissed my fingers.

“The two of us will be enough.”

For six years, I had carried that sentence like proof of how deeply he loved me.

Whenever I saw fathers lifting sleepy children from car seats, I told myself Dominic had chosen me over the life he might have had.

Whenever another treatment failed, I apologized to him.

He always told me to stop.

Now two five-year-old children were staring back at me from my computer screen with his face.

I reached for my phone.

One call would have been enough.

Dominic would answer in that calm voice of his, and I could ask him who Irene Foster was.

Then my eyes dropped to the bottom of the application.

FAMILY WELCOME DAY — SATURDAY

Parents and guardians were expected to attend with newly admitted children.

A strange calm settled over me.

If I called Dominic now, I would give him two days to prepare a story.

I did not want a story.

I wanted to see what kind of father my husband became when he thought his wife was not watching.

At the bottom of the page were two options.

DECLINE

APPROVE

I moved the cursor.

Then I clicked APPROVE.