Chapter 2

I stared at the heart beneath Sophie’s post until the screen went dark in my hand.

Then I walked upstairs and held the phone in front of my husband’s face.

“Why did you put a heart under a photograph that erased your wife?”

Ethan barely glanced at it. He was unbuttoning his shirt, completely unbothered.

“It’s a picture, Grace.”

“She called you and my children her favorite little family.”

“She’s lonely. Her engagement just ended, and she has no family in Seattle. The kids make her feel included.”

“Why does including her require removing me?”

He sighed as if I had handed him another chore.

“If you don’t like the picture, post your own.”

I lowered the phone.

“You could ask her to delete it.”

“I’m not humiliating a coworker because you’re upset about social media.”

He climbed into bed and turned off his lamp.

“You’re exhausted. Get some sleep.”

He hadn’t misunderstood me.

He had simply decided that my humiliation was less important than Sophie’s feelings.

The next afternoon, I was between patients when Noah’s school called.

“We’re updating our records,” the woman in the front office said. “Would you like Sophie Lane to remain on Noah and Lily’s authorized pickup list?”

I stopped in the middle of the hospital corridor.

“Remain?”

There was a pause.

“Yes. Their father added her several weeks ago. She’s also listed as an emergency contact.”

I tightened my grip on the phone.

“I didn’t authorize that.”

“Oh.” Her voice changed immediately. “I’m sorry. We understood that both parents were aware.”

“Has she picked them up?”

Keys clicked in the background.

“Three times.”

People in scrubs moved around me, carrying charts and coffee, while I tried to keep my voice steady.

“What dates?”

She read them to me.

I recognized the second one.

Ethan had texted me that afternoon saying he was trapped at work. I had apologized because I couldn’t leave the hospital to get the kids.

I found his message first.

Then I found the photographs from his company’s public page.

Ethan stood in a crowded brewery, smiling with a beer in his hand. Sophie was beside him. Noah and Lily were eating fries at the end of the table.

He had let me apologize for failing our children while Sophie played their mother at his office party.

“I want her removed,” I told the school secretary. “I’m coming in now.”

When I reached the school, Sophie was already outside the front entrance, holding Lily’s hand.

Lily ran toward me.

That was when I saw her hair.

The curls that had reached the middle of her back now ended below her ears.

“What happened?”

Lily touched the uneven ends. “I got gum in it.”

Sophie smiled carefully. “It was a disaster. I took her to that children’s salon near the mall.”

“You cut her hair?”

“It was an emergency. I knew you’d understand.”

“You didn’t call me.”

“I called Ethan.” She lifted her shoulders. “He said it was fine.”

I had promised Lily that her first haircut would be special. She was supposed to choose her own clips. I was supposed to take pictures for the album.

Sophie pulled out her phone.

“I took plenty of photos. I can send them to you.”

I looked at her.

“I don’t need photographs of a moment you took from me.”

Her smile disappeared.

I walked into the school office and removed her from both children’s Authorized Pickup List and Emergency Contact forms. I also requested that I be notified of any future changes.

Sophie waited outside.

“I was only trying to help,” she said when I returned.

“Helping begins with asking.”

On the drive home, Lily kept touching her hair.

“Are you mad at me, Mommy?”

“Never at you.”

“Daddy said Sophie is family.” She watched me in the mirror. “He said she can decide things when you’re busy.”

I pulled over before answering.

“No one gets to make changes to your body without talking to you and your parents first. Not even family.”

My phone rang before we reached home.

Ethan didn’t say hello.

“Who gave you the right to remove Sophie from the children’s pickup list?”

I looked at Lily’s unfamiliar hair in the rearview mirror.

My husband had given another woman permission to make decisions for my children—and somehow, I was the one he thought needed permission.