“Milk, apples, bread,” he sang, kicking his legs.
“Good boy.”
The store buzzed with its usual afternoon noise—squeaking cart wheels, a baby crying two aisles away, and a thin pop song drifting from the speakers above.
I selected a carton of milk, placed it in the cart, and joined the checkout line.
For the first time in weeks, I felt the pressure in my chest ease.
Almost peaceful.
Almost normal.
Leo sat in the cart seat, humming and swinging his legs while I checked my watch and wondered what I should cook for our anniversary.
Then, without warning, he became completely still.
He grabbed my sleeve and pulled hard.
“Mommy. Mommy, look.”
The cashier’s scanner beeped somewhere behind me, but the noise suddenly seemed distant, as though it belonged to someone else’s afternoon.
Leo continued tugging at my sleeve and pointed toward the bakery display.
“I see her, sweetheart,” I whispered. “Keep your voice down.”
“But that’s her,” he said, still pointing. “That’s the lady who comes to our house when you’re at work! She plays in the room upstairs.”
My hand clenched around the milk carton so tightly that the cardboard began to buckle.
I quickly placed it on the conveyor belt before I crushed it.
The woman near the bakery had not turned around.
She looked young, perhaps 30.
She wore a short green dress, her dark hair loosely pinned up, with a canvas tote hanging from one shoulder.
I could not see her face.
I was not sure I wanted to.
“Leo, honey,” I said, crouching so my eyes were closer to his. “What do you mean, plays?”
“Games,” he answered casually, swinging his legs again. “But Daddy said it’s a secret. So I’m not telling.”
“You just told me.”
His mouth opened, then closed.
His eyes widened with the particular terror of a five-year-old who had suddenly realized he had broken a rule.
“I didn’t mean to,” he whispered.
Ten years.
Ten years of Sunday mornings, burnt pancakes, and Mark rubbing my back when I could not sleep after my mother’s funeral.
Ten years, and now my son was telling me another woman came to our house while I was at work.
The cashier spoke, but I barely heard her.
