The way Lauren avoided looking directly at the cameras.
How my husband hurried her away before any teachers approached.
He wasn’t hiding her from the daycare.
He was hiding her from me!
I noticed details I’d missed before.
***
Mark came home around 7 p.m., carrying takeout bags neither of us would eat.
The second he saw me sitting in the dark living room holding my phone, he froze.
“Emily?”
I stood slowly.
“What was Lauren doing at Ava’s daycare?”
The color drained from his face instantly.
For several seconds, he didn’t answer.
Then he quietly set the food on the table.
He saw me sitting in the dark living room.
“How do you know about that?” Mark asked, looking skittish.
“That’s your concern right now?”
“Emily, listen—”
“No. You need to listen to my question and answer truthfully.” My voice cracked. “Why was your coworker with my daughter the morning she died?”
My husband rubbed both hands over his face.
And suddenly, I knew.
Not suspected.
Knew.
Because innocent people don’t react like that.
“That’s your concern right now?”
Finally, Mark sat heavily on the couch.
“We were seeing each other,” he admitted quietly.
The room fell silent.
Five days earlier, we’d stood together beside Ava’s tiny white casket while relatives cried around us. All along, he’d been hiding this.
“How long?” I whispered.
“About six months.”
That tore me apart.
“You brought another woman around our daughter?” I asked, choking on the last word.
“We were seeing each other.”
“Look, Emily, it wasn’t serious at first,” my husband said quickly. “Lauren wanted to meet Ava, so I brought her along that morning after picking her up from her house. She brought coffee for me and a smoothie for Ava from the café near her place.”
A horrible feeling crawled up my spine.
“What kind of smoothie?”
