When My Husband Let His Mistress Destroy Our Baby

The champagne tasted wrong.

I stood in the corner of my own living room and watched strangers celebrate my birthday. They filled every room of the Brooklyn brownstone. They drank our wine. They laughed at jokes I couldn't hear over the music. James was supposed to be here. He was supposed to stand beside me and smile for photos and cut the cake. But his studio door had been locked since morning.

I set down my glass and slipped upstairs.

The hallway was quiet. The party noise faded behind me. I stopped outside the studio and pressed my palm against the wood. James never let me inside. He called it his sanctuary. He said artists needed private space. I believed him for years.

Tonight, the door was unlocked.

I pushed it open.

The room was full of her.

Paintings covered every wall. Dozens of them. A woman I didn't know, stretched across canvas after canvas. She was young. Beautiful. Naked. Her dark hair spilled over bare shoulders. Her eyes looked directly at the viewer—at James—with an intimacy I hadn't seen directed at me in years.

I stepped inside. My heel crunched on something. A dried paint tube. I looked down and saw more scattered across the floor. Brushes. Rags stained with flesh tones. The air smelled like linseed oil and something else. Perfume. Not mine.

I walked deeper into the room. The paintings surrounded me. Some were finished. Some were sketches. All of them were her. Reclining. Standing. Laughing. One showed her in James's button-down shirt—the blue one I gave him last Christmas—and nothing else.

My champagne glass slipped from my fingers.

It shattered on the hardwood. The sound was sharp and clean. I stared at the broken pieces and thought about how long this had been happening. How many hours James spent in this room while I was downstairs cooking dinner. How many times he kissed me goodnight and came back here to paint someone else.

I heard footsteps on the stairs.

"Amber?" James's voice carried up from the landing. "You okay?"

I didn't answer. I looked at the paintings and felt nothing. Not anger. Not sadness. Just a strange, cold clarity.

He appeared in the doorway. He saw me standing in the middle of his studio. He saw the broken glass. His face went pale.

"I can explain," he said.

I turned to look at him. "Who is she?"

He didn't answer right away. He ran his hand through his hair. He looked at the paintings like he was seeing them for the first time. "A student," he said finally. "Stormi Lopez. She's in my graduate seminar."

"How long?"

"Amber—"

"How long have you been painting her?"

He shifted his weight. "Six months. Maybe seven."

I nodded slowly. I thought about the last seven months. The late nights at the studio. The locked door. The distance between us in bed. All of it made sense now.

"Are you sleeping with her?"

James looked at the floor. That was answer enough.

I walked past him toward the door. He caught my wrist.

"Wait," he said. "Let me explain. It's not what you think. She's my muse. That's all. It's about the art."

I pulled my arm free. "Don't touch me."

"Amber, please—"

I left him standing in the studio. I went downstairs. The party was still going. Someone had put on jazz. A woman in a red dress laughed near the fireplace. I walked through the crowd toward the front door. Nobody noticed me leave.

I got in my car and drove.

The rain started before I reached the bridge. I turned on the wipers and watched the city lights blur through the windshield. I thought about calling someone. Cassidy. My father. But I didn't know what to say yet. I didn't know how to explain that my husband had been living a separate life in a locked room twenty feet from our bedroom.

I drove to Columbia.

The art institute was mostly dark. A few windows glowed on the upper floors. I parked and ran through the rain to the entrance. The security guard recognized me. He waved me through.

James's office was on the third floor. I took the stairs. My dress was soaked. My heels clicked against the tile. I turned the corner and saw light under his door.

I stopped.

Voices came from inside. Laughter. I stepped closer and looked through the gap where the door hadn't closed all the way.

James sat on the edge of his desk. A young woman stood between his knees. Dark hair. The same face from the paintings. Stormi. She wore jeans and a Columbia sweatshirt. A strawberry shortcake sat on the desk beside them—the kind James always said he hated.

She leaned forward and kissed him.

He kissed her back.

She pulled away and smiled. "Make a wish," she said.

James looked at her like she was the only person in the world. "I already have everything I want."

Stormi saw me first. Her eyes met mine through the gap in the door. Her smile widened. She looped her arm through James's and rested her head on his shoulder.

James followed her gaze. He saw me standing in the hallway. His face went white.

I turned and walked away.

Behind me, I heard him call my name. I didn't stop. I went down the stairs and out into the rain. I got in my car and sat in the parking lot with the engine running. The rain hammered against the roof.

I pulled out my phone and called Cassidy.

She answered on the second ring. "Hey, birthday girl. How's the party?"

"I need you to do something for me," I said.

"What's wrong?"

"James is having an affair."

Silence. Then: "I'm coming over."

"No. Stay home. I just need you to tell me how to document everything. I need to know what evidence I'll need."

Another pause. "Amber. Are you sure?"

I looked at the institute building. James stood in the lit doorway, searching the parking lot. Stormi appeared beside him. She put her hand on his arm.

"I'm sure," I said.

Cassidy's voice changed. It became the voice she used in courtrooms. "Okay. Here's what you do."