The Christmas Brooke laughed at my haircut in front of his mother.
The summer she “borrowed” my pearl earrings and forgot to return them.
The way Daniel always said, “That’s just Brooke. You know how she is.”
I knew how she was. I just hadn’t understood how much of her I didn’t know.
“You know how she is.”
That thought stayed with me. It sounded ridiculous. One careless photo didn’t erase eleven years. But somewhere deep inside me, a quiet voice kept asking the same question.
If she’d hidden this so easily… what else had she managed to hide?
“Not tonight,” I told myself, soft enough that only the dark could hear. “Not like this.”
Because I knew exactly what would happen if I confronted my husband at 11:46 on a Tuesday night. Daniel would deny it. The family would close around him like a fist, and I would be the hysterical wife who could not take a joke.
I sat up against the headboard.
“Okay,” I whispered. “Okay.”
I opened the calendar app and scrolled forward.
What else had she managed to hide?
Past Easter. Past Mother’s Day. Past the Fourth of July.
My finger stopped on a Saturday in October. Brooke’s birthday.
