The Lie After Thanksgiving

Because of a last-minute business trip, my husband missed the Thanksgiving family dinner.

I spent the entire day helping out at my in-laws' place in the countryside with our five-year-old son, only to receive a complaint from the downstairs neighbor just before dinner. "Ari, could you please close your kitchen window when you're cooking? I can smell the hot sauce from all the way here. My husband has a lung condition—he can't handle it."

My neighbor's words shocked me, and I immediately called my husband, who was allergic to chili peppers. "Honey, did someone break into the house? The neighbor said there was smoke coming from the kitchen."

His breathing hitched for a second before he let out a casual laugh. "No break-in. My flight got canceled, so I was home alone cooking. When are you two coming back? I really miss you."

I smiled and told him we'd stay a couple more days, but in the middle of the night, I packed up our son and drove straight home.

The Monitor

After settling my son in, I drove alone to the apartment complex but didn't rush upstairs. Instead, I stayed in the car and opened the home surveillance feed on my phone.

The cameras had been installed years ago, when my son was a toddler, to make it easier to keep an eye on him. I hadn't used them in ages, and only I knew the password.

I scrubbed the timeline back to the day my son and I had left home.

At 7 a.m., I had gotten up on time and made breakfast for Silas James and our child. I'd woken him in the process. He'd come out of the bedroom grumbling, bleary-eyed, and gone to wash up.

By 8:30 a.m., Silas wheeled out the suitcase I'd packed overnight after we finished breakfast, then hugged our son and said goodbye to both of us before heading out.

At 10 a.m., I'd locked the door and taken my son downstairs.

At 11 a.m., the door opened again, and Silas' face reappeared on the screen, but he wasn't alone. A woman followed him inside.

I knew her. She was Silas' colleague, Iris Stone, a supposedly pitiful single mother. She was wearing a white floral dress and carrying a little boy who looked about three years old.

One glance was enough for me to know the truth. That child was Silas'. The resemblance was unmistakable—the narrow eyes, the thin lips. Even the family heirloom charm hanging around the boy's neck was familiar. I'd seen it before, in my in-laws' old photo albums. It was something Silas' grandfather had passed down to him.

On our son's first birthday, my in-laws had asked Silas to bring out the family heirloom charm and pass it on. He'd hesitated, stumbled over his words, and claimed he'd lost it—that he couldn't find it anywhere. He'd said he'd buy something even better later.

As it turned out, it hadn't been lost—it had been given to his other son.

I felt like laughing, yet couldn't.

I dragged the progress bar to the very end. That night—the very day my son and I had left—Silas bought roses for that woman. The anniversary I had reminded him of countless times was one he spent with someone else.

That was also when I realized that it hadn't been Iris' first visit. She went straight to the third drawer of the wardrobe, took out clean sheets, made the bed, and changed into my pajamas. She tossed my son's stuffed toy onto the floor and replaced it with a Batman figure her child liked. Every step flowed seamlessly into the next, practiced enough to make my chest go cold.

And Silas—while Iris tidied up, he was in the kitchen making dinner. Washing vegetables. Chopping them. Cooking. Calm and methodical.

For a brief moment, I even wondered if the footage had been fabricated. Since when did Silas know how to cook?

When I'd been nine months pregnant, so heavy I struggled just to get out of bed, my mother-in-law had insisted Silas learn how to take care of me. Every time he tried, he either undercooked the food or mixed up salt and sugar.

The kitchen would end up a disaster, and he'd look at me with those helpless eyes and say, "Honey, I'm really terrible at this."