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“May I?” she asked.

I hesitated but then handed Luke over. She lifted him easily and calmed him down almost right away, rocking him gently with one hand supporting his head. Watching her comfort my own baby broke something deep inside me. A clean snap I felt all the way down to my bones.

“His name is Luke,” I said quietly through my tears.

“That’s a beautiful name,” she answered, still smiling at him.

I looked her dead in the eyes.

“He’s Richie’s son.”

Silence stretched between us.

Her eyes moved from Luke to me, her mouth fell open but she didn’t speak.

“Richard bought me a beach house,” I said. “He pays all my bills and comes to see me whenever he can. He promised me we would have a future together. He made me believe we were building a life.”

My voice cracked, but I kept going. “When I found out I was pregnant with Luke, I thought it meant we were finally going to be a family.”

I thought it would finally make him choose us.

But nothing changed.

He kept choosing this house. This life. This family.

“I know he loves me,” I said, struggling to control my voice. “You are the reason he can’t leave.”

By the time the last words left my mouth, Luke had stopped crying.

She looked down at him for a long moment before carefully placing him back into my arms. I held him close, resting my cheek against the top of his head. Then I placed him back in his carrier beside the couch. Samantha bent down and lifted Seth from his play mat, settling him against her hip.

When she looked back at me, tears still clung to her lashes and her lower lip trembled. Her eyes flicked toward the phone on the kitchen counter before returning to me. She kept Seth close and moved slowly, watching my hands the entire time.

“Maggie,” she said softly, “I think you need help. This is not…”

I laughed. She sounded so ridiculous. So naïve and stupid.

Then the laugh died in my throat and I got eerily calm. “You don’t know who you’re married to,” I said. “You think he’s a good man. You think you know him. You don’t.”

She thought I meant the affair. I could see it in her eyes. She had no clue how much darker it really went.

Samantha moved carefully toward the telephone.

“I’m going to call Richard,” she said. Her voice stayed calm but I heard the fear underneath.

I watched her go. The truth had been building in me for years but standing in this house surrounded by all the proof it finally sank in like ice water. The life I imagined never existed. Not even for one day. The beach house was never a home. It was where Richard stored the part of his life he wanted hidden.

I noticed the knife block on the counter. My feet carried me over almost on their own. My hand closed around the handle of a large knife.

Samantha turned around.

I whispered, “You took everything from me.”

Then I moved.

She barely got her arm up in time. The blade sliced deep across her forearm and blood poured bright red all over the kitchen floor. She screamed and stumbled back clutching Seth tight against her chest. I went after her fast, the rage burning through every inch of me. She ran through the living room knocking over a side table and sending framed pictures crashing to the floor. Glass shattered everywhere.

Seth was wailing and Luke started screaming again from where he sat in his carrier. I chased her down the hallway, my shoes slipping on the blood that dripped from her arm. She tried to shove a chair in my path but I kicked it aside and kept coming.