He Stole My Baby and Gave Her to His Mistress

I pulled out my phone.

My hands were still shaking, but the lens held steady.

I aimed it at the garden.

Six photos. Then a video.

David smeared frosting from the cake onto the boy's nose. The boy giggled. The woman leaned in and wiped his face clean.

A family of three.

I hit stop.

My phone buzzed.

A message from David.

"Ellie, don't wait up for me. Might have to pull an all-nighter tonight. Make sure you eat something. Get some rest."

An all-nighter.

Right. A beautiful evening, the whole family together. Of course it would be an all-nighter.

My hands and feet went ice-cold. My stomach turned inside out. I dropped to my knees on the side of the road and threw up until the world went dark around the edges.

When I turned to walk back, I didn't cry.

But my legs were so weak I could barely stand.

I made it out of the side road and called a car.

In the backseat, I buried my face in my palms. My eyes were bone-dry and burning.

One deep breath. Then I dialed my best friend's number.

"Lucinda."

"Are you free right now?"

"Just got back from the courthouse. What's going on?"

"David's cheating on me."

Lucinda Simmons went silent on the other end for a full ten seconds.

For a top-tier attorney, that was practically falling apart.

"You're sure it's David?"

"Five eights on the license plate. He called the boy Pete to his face. The boy called him Daddy."

"Send me the photos."

I sent everything. Photos and video.

Another ten seconds of silence.

"Ellie, go home. Don't say a word. Don't do a thing."

"Don't touch his phone. Don't confront him. Don't let your face change."

"Back up the photos and video three times. Once to the cloud, once to me, and hide the third copy somewhere safe."

I murmured an acknowledgment.

"I'll look into the woman," Lucinda said.

I pushed open the front door. David was busy in the kitchen.

"You're back?"

He came out carrying a bowl of soup, smiling at me.

"You look awful. I made pork rib soup. You barely ate anything this morning."

His shirtsleeves were rolled to his forearms, apron tied neatly at his waist.

A completely different man from the one holding another child in that villa's garden four hours ago.

"Meeting's over?" I took the bowl.

"Yeah, dragged on all morning."

He said it like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Drink the soup. You don't look well."

The meat fell right off the bone, tender the way I liked it.

Just like the soup from that little restaurant outside the university gates, all those years ago.

Back then, his monthly allowance was a few hundred dollars. Taking me out for a bowl of pork rib soup meant saving up for three days.

When the check came, he'd always sneak the last piece of rib into my bowl when he thought I wasn't looking.

I teased him for being cheap. He tapped my nose and said, "Once I'm making real money, I'll cook this for you every single day."

He kept that promise.

On our wedding day, he stood at the altar and said, "Ellie Pruitt, it took me eight years to get from matching hoodies to matching rings. The next eight years, I'm giving you a home."

The room erupted in applause.

I cried so hard my makeup ran.

When I got pregnant, he was more nervous than I was.

He stared at those two lines on the test for three solid seconds, then swept me off my feet and spun me around twice.

"I'm going to be a dad!"

He shouted it loud enough for the entire building to hear.

Through the whole pregnancy, he woke up early every morning to take my temperature and make breakfast. Never missed a single checkup.

He even bought a parenting book and read it so many times the pages curled at the corners.

On the inside cover, he'd written: For our little Beanie... Mommy and Daddy are waiting for you to come home.

Beanie.

That was the nickname we'd picked for our baby.

Beanie never came home.

I lost so much blood that I was unconscious for three days.