The child noticed me first. Tilting his head with innocent curiosity, he looked up at the man and asked, “Daddy, who’s that lady? Why does she have a key to our house?”
Charlton’s expression faltered for a moment before he quickly recovered.
In an unnervingly calm tone, he replied, “She’s the new nanny we hired.”
It felt as though thunder exploded inside my skull, and a red haze clouded my vision.
Daddy?
He called me a nanny?
‘Why, Charlton?’ I wanted to ask. ‘If you wanted a divorce, if you wanted to start a family with another woman, couldn’t you have just told me? Why did you let that woman kill our child, then send me to prison and destroy my entire life?!’
The questions burned in my head, but my body wouldn’t move. I stood frozen at the doorway, my throat quivering as words scraped out.
“Charlton, you—”
“You’re out already? Why didn’t you let me know in advance?” he interrupted quickly, as if afraid of what I might say in front of the boy. He grabbed my arm and pulled me into the house.
I looked at this man—so familiar, yet so foreign—and felt my heart nailed through with pain.
All the questions I had prepared for years lodged in my throat, unable to escape.