One second.
From the.
The mask hesitated.
"Of course I went."
"I spoke with your receptionist.
The silence that followed was heavy, dense, and charged with inevitability.
"Are you spying on me now?" he tried to divert the conversation.
"Who is she?"
The question fell like a stone in a motionless lake.
Daniel se raidit.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"The woman who sleeps in our bed when I take our son to kindergarten."
His face has faded.
And there you have it.
The truth.
I didn't need any more proof.
"Ethan told me so," I added.
That's what broke him.
Not the accusation.
Not the evidence.
But this secret had touched her son.
"She shouldn't have said anything," he whispered.
I felt a silent anger run through me.
"You shouldn't have put him in that situation.
Daniel stood up abruptly.
"That is not what you think."
The universal phrase of the guilty.
"Then explain it to me."
Endless seconds passed.
Finally, his shoulders slumped.
"Her name is Clara."
This name sounded strange in my kitchen.
"It started six months ago.
Six months.
Six months of shared breakfasts, feigned hugs, empty promises.
"It wasn't going to last," he added, almost as an excuse.
"But it lasted long enough to implicate our son.
This left him speechless.
"I thought I could do it," she whispered.
"Manage what?" A double life?
I looked at him with a lucidity I had never had before.
It wasn't just about infidelity.
It was a betrayal of trust.
It was the use of my routine as an alibi.
That was the burden on Ethan.
"Do you love him?" I asked.
