Chapter 6 - What Came Out in Daylight
Three days passed. Trevor slept in the guest room. He made the kids' lunches every morning without being asked. He picked Emma up from school on Tuesday when I had a dentist appointment. He didn't push, didn't plead — he just moved through the house quietly, like a man trying to take up less space than he used to.
Wednesday morning, I found him at the kitchen table with his laptop open and a legal pad beside it.
"What's that?" I asked.
He turned the pad toward me. A list — couples therapists, names and phone numbers, small notes about availability scrawled beside each one.
"I called our insurance," he said. "Most of these are covered. I thought — if you wanted — we could go through them together. Or you pick. Whatever you're comfortable with."
I scanned the list. Eight names, each with a specialty written neatly beside it.
"You did this this morning?"
"Monday," he said. "I just didn't know when to show you."
I sat down and pulled the pad closer. "This one," I said, tapping the fourth name. "She has evening slots. The kids would already be down."
"I'll call today."
I slid the pad back and poured my coffee. "Trevor, I need to ask you something, and I need the truth. Not the version that makes this easier."
"Okay."
"Is there anything else I don't know? Anything at all. Because if I find out later that there's more — I won't survive that a second time. I need to know now, while I still have a decision left to make."
He held my eyes without blinking. "No. There's nothing else."
"You're sure."
"I'm sure."
I studied his face. Six years of marriage teaches you a person's face the way you learn a road you've driven a thousand times — every curve, every rough patch, every place the light changes in the morning.
He wasn't lying. That didn't make anything simple. But it was something.
"Okay," I said, and took my coffee to the living room.
I settled into the armchair by the window. Outside, the neighbor's dog barked at nothing in particular. Normal street. Normal Tuesday sounds, as if the world hadn't tilted sideways.
My phone buzzed. An unfamiliar number.
Hi Rachel. My name is Renee. I think we need to talk.
I stared at the screen for a long moment. Then I set my coffee down carefully, stood, and walked back into the kitchen. Trevor was still at the table, phone pressed to his ear, already dialing the therapist.
He looked up and read my face instantly. "What's wrong?"
I turned my phone around and showed him the screen.
His face cycled through several things at once — shock, then something that looked a lot like fear.
"She has my number," I said. "How does she have my number, Trevor?"
He lowered his phone slowly. "I don't know."
"That's not good enough."
"Rachel, I swear to you, I never gave her your number."
"Then how did she get it?"
He grabbed his own phone, scrolled, jaw tightening as he read something. "She must have gone through my contacts. Back in February, when we were still—" He stopped himself. "I didn't know she'd done that."
I looked at the text again. I think we need to talk.
"What does she want from me?" I said, my voice rising despite myself. "What could she possibly want?"
Trevor's palm hit the table flat. "Don't respond. Please. Let me handle this."
"Handle it how?"
"I'll call her. I'll tell her to leave you alone. This ends today."
"You told me it already ended in February."
"It did."
"And then it didn't."
He looked at me, fear still sitting in his face — but underneath it, something else now. Real shame. Not the performing kind.
"I know," he said. "I know I have no right to ask you to trust me right now. But I'm asking anyway. Please. Don't respond to her. Give me one hour."
I looked at the text. Then at his face. Then at the legal pad still sitting on the table with the therapist's name circled in pen.
"One hour," I said.
I went back to the living room, sat down, and picked up my cold coffee. Forty minutes later, Trevor appeared in the doorway.
"It's done," he said. "I told her not to contact you again. I told her it was over — it had been over — and that she needed to stop."
"What did she say?"
He leaned against the doorframe, and I watched something drain out of his face completely.
"She said she's pregnant."
May you like
The room went very, very quiet.
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