One evening, I was putting away groceries when I heard my daughter’s voice coming from the hallway.
“Same place tomorrow?”
I stopped moving.
Michael answered in a whisper.
“Yes. But we need to be careful. Your mother mustn’t find out before we’re ready.”
Emily sighed.
“What if she sees us?”
“Then we’ll have to tell her everything.”
My hands went cold.
I stood motionless behind the kitchen wall, waiting for one of them to explain.
Neither did.
Instead, Emily said something that made my stomach twist.
“I can’t keep lying to her, Dad.”
Dad.
She had called him Dad for years. Normally, the word comforted me.
That night, it sounded like a secret I had not been invited to understand.
I returned to the kitchen before they could see me.
For the rest of the evening, I watched them carefully. Michael asked whether I wanted tea. Emily offered to wash the dishes. They behaved so normally that I began to wonder whether I was losing my mind.
