Chapter 3: The Quiet Fracture
It had been two weeks since the baby was born, and the tension in the house only grew thicker with each passing day. Emily watched James as he sat in the living room, his gaze distant and unfocused, as if he were staring at something far beyond the walls of their home. The baby slept peacefully in her arms, blissfully unaware of the storm brewing in the space between them.
Every night, James would retreat to the spare bedroom after dinner, saying he needed some time alone. Emily tried to tell herself that he was just overwhelmed, that the adjustment was difficult for him. After all, becoming a father wasn’t easy, and he had been through so much in the past few years. But the more time that passed, the more she questioned her own assumptions.
One night, as Emily stood in the kitchen, quietly rocking the baby, she heard James’s voice from the other room. It was a low murmur, too quiet to make out the words. She approached the door to the spare bedroom, the door slightly ajar.
“James?” she called softly.
There was a pause before he responded, his tone flat, almost mechanical. “I’m fine.”
Emily hesitated, then pushed the door open just a crack. She caught sight of him sitting on the edge of the bed, his phone pressed to his ear, his brow furrowed in concentration. Her heart skipped a beat. He hadn’t mentioned making any calls.
“Who are you talking to?” she asked, stepping into the room.
James’s gaze flicked to her briefly before returning to the phone. “Just work,” he muttered, his voice tight. “It’s nothing.”
The words didn’t sit right with Emily. She had never known him to be so secretive, and she could feel her chest tightening with the weight of the suspicion creeping in. She nodded, not wanting to push him further, but inside, her mind was racing. What was going on with him? Why was he acting this way?
As she walked back into the living room, a wave of doubt settled over her. She tried to focus on the baby, on the warmth of her tiny body in her arms, but the unease wouldn’t let go. The silence between her and James had grown deafening, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something he wasn’t telling her. Something that threatened to unravel everything they had worked for.
The next morning, when Emily found a receipt for a paternity test in James’s coat pocket, her heart dropped into her stomach. The truth was finally starting to surface, and it was nothing like she had imagined.
To be continued…
What does the receipt mean? What has James been hiding from Emily all this time? Read on in Chapter 4 to uncover the truth.