At two in the morning, twenty-six weeks pregnant with twins, I fell in my kitchen, felt a warm rush between my legs, and realized the one person who had promised to protect me was refusing to answer his phone.
Chapter 2
I had met Mark when I was twenty-two, during the loneliest year of my life.
My father, a community-college history professor, had died after a sudden stroke when I was nineteen. My mother fought ovarian cancer for another year before I lost her too. By twenty, I had no parents, very little money, and a talent for pretending I was doing better than I was.
I studied English at Ohio State and supported myself by tutoring adults in writing and conversation.
Mark came to me because his job was beginning to involve overseas suppliers. He was thirty, confident and handsome in the sturdy, ordinary way that made him seem safe.
“You make me feel smarter than I am,” he joked during our third lesson.
“You’re doing the work.”
“Maybe I just have a good teacher.”
He took me to dinner after class one evening. Soon there were flowers, weekend drives, and promises that I would never have to feel alone again.
When he asked me to move in, he said, “Let me take care of you for once.”
At the time, those words sounded like love.
They became a cage slowly.
First, Mark disliked the male students I tutored. Then he questioned why I needed to see college friends when I had him. Eventually, he convinced me to stop working altogether.
“I make enough,” he said. “Why exhaust yourself?”
His mother, Carol, agreed.
“A happy home needs somebody tending it,” she told me. “Mark works hard. Give him peace when he comes through that door.”
I wanted to be a good wife. I also wanted family so badly that I accepted rules I would never have accepted from anyone else.
Then I became pregnant.
For three beautiful weeks, Mark seemed like the man I had first fallen in love with. He kissed my stomach and talked about teaching our child baseball.
At the ultrasound, the technician smiled.
“Well, there’s Baby A.”
Mark grinned.
Then she moved the wand.
“And Baby B.”
His hand went still.
“Two?”
I laughed through tears. “Twins.”
Mark did not laugh.
On the drive home, he barely spoke.
The cruelty began as jokes. He called me Penguin when my walk changed. He pinched my hip once and warned me not to “get too comfortable being huge.”
When I said the words hurt, he rolled his eyes.
“You’ve lost your sense of humor.”
He expected dinner every night. Laundry done. Floors clean. Grocery shopping handled. When my doctor told me to rest more because carrying twins placed extra strain on my body, Mark acted as though the physician had personally insulted him.
“You’re pregnant,” he said. “Women have been doing this for thousands of years.”
So I kept trying.
That was why I climbed onto the stool that December morning.
Even after I nearly lost my sons because I was trying to meet his expectations, part of me still wanted Mark to come home.
His note killed that hope.
A week after I found it, I was sitting in the NICU holding Ethan against my chest when my phone buzzed.
Mark.
I nearly ignored him.
Instead, I answered.
“Hello?”
“So Miller’s taking care of you now?”
His speech was slurred.
“Mark?”
“Don’t act confused. Everybody at work knows he drove you to the hospital. Bet you enjoyed that.”
I closed my eyes.
“You abandoned me while I was giving birth.”
“Here we go.”
“You haven’t even asked whether your sons are alive.”
There was silence.
Then he laughed.
A cold little laugh I had never heard before.
“They’re premature. What am I supposed to do about that?”
I looked down at Ethan. His fingers were wrapped around the edge of my hospital gown.
Something in me stopped loving Mark at that exact moment.
“What do you want?”
“I want you to tell Miller he should pay more attention to his own problems.”
“What does that mean?”
Mark began rambling about how Daniel thought he was so smart, so important, always giving orders.
Then he said something that made my spine straighten.
“Next month, he won’t be so smug when his company’s designs are sitting on somebody else’s desk.”
“What designs?”
“Forget it.”
“Mark.”
He laughed again.
“I’m finally going to make real money. Me and Rachel have it handled.”
Rachel.
I knew the name.
She was an administrative coordinator in Mark’s office.
Suddenly everything fit together.
The ignored calls. The empty house. His disappearance.
“You’re with her.”
“Unlike you, she knows how to appreciate a man.”
I felt strangely calm.
Then Mark added, “And you better start packing. The lease is in my name. You’ve got thirty days.”
The phone went dead.
I sat frozen beside Ethan’s incubator.
Then I called Daniel.
He answered almost immediately.
“Emily?”
“I think Mark is stealing from your company.”
