My Husband’s Mistress Killed Our Baby

I spent all afternoon in the kitchen.

The pasta was from scratch. The sauce had been simmering since two. I'd even found the good candles—the tall ivory ones we bought in Florence on our honeymoon—and set them in the silver holders I'd polished that morning. Three years. I wanted tonight to feel like something.

I touched my stomach without thinking about it. Just a light press of my palm against the front of my apron. Eight weeks. I hadn't told anyone yet. I was saving it for tonight, for the look on Jericho's face when I slid the little card across the table. I'd written it in my best handwriting: *We're going to be three.*

The card was tucked under his plate.

I checked the time. Six forty-seven. He'd said seven.

I poured myself a glass of sparkling water and stood by the window. The city was doing its evening thing—lights coming on, traffic thinning, the sky going that deep bruised purple I always liked. Our apartment was on the fourteenth floor. High enough to feel above it all. I used to love that feeling.

My phone buzzed on the counter.

Unknown number.

I almost didn't open it. I thought it was spam. But something made me pick it up, and I tapped the message, and then I just stood there.

It was a photo.

Jericho. Our bedroom. The white duvet I'd picked out, the lamp I'd bought at that little shop on Mercer Street, the framed print above the headboard that I'd hung myself with a level and a measuring tape because I wanted it perfectly straight.

And Vivienne Burns.

I knew her face. I'd seen it exactly once, in an old photo on Jericho's phone that he'd explained away with a shrug and the words *college, ancient history, don't worry about it.* I hadn't worried. I trusted him.

They weren't dressed.

The phone slipped. I caught it. My fingers had gone cold and I didn't understand why I was still standing, why my legs were still holding me up, because everything inside me had just dropped straight through the floor.

I took a step back.

My heel caught the edge of the top stair.

I don't remember the fall. I remember the candles on the table, the way the light caught them, warm and golden and completely ordinary. Then I remember the bottom of the stairs. The ceiling. A pain so deep and total it didn't even feel like pain at first. It felt like silence.

Then it felt like everything.

---

The hospital room smelled like antiseptic and recycled air. I stared at the ceiling tiles and counted the little holes in them while the doctor spoke. I heard the words. I understood them. I just couldn't make them land anywhere real.

*Pregnancy loss. I'm so sorry, Mrs. Daniels.*

Mrs. Daniels.

Jericho arrived at nine-fourteen. I know because I watched the clock. He came in still wearing his coat, phone in hand, and he looked at me the way you look at a problem you didn't budget time for.

"What happened?" His voice was flat.

"I fell," I said.

"You fell." He exhaled through his nose. "Ellie, I had a dinner. A real one. Nakamura flew in from Tokyo and I had to cancel because—" He stopped. Pressed two fingers to his temple. "How do you fall down stairs in your own home?"

I looked at him. I looked at the man I had spent three years quietly, carefully loving. The man I had propped up through two failed ventures and one near-bankruptcy, funneling money through shell accounts so he'd never have to know, so his pride would stay intact. The man whose mother called me *that girl* and whose sister borrowed my credit card and forgot to pay it back and laughed when I mentioned it.

I looked at him and I felt something go very still inside me.

"We lost the baby," I said.

He blinked. Something moved across his face—not grief, not quite. More like recalculation. "You were pregnant?"

I didn't answer.

The door opened twenty minutes later. I heard the heels first—sharp, deliberate, the kind of walk that wants to be noticed. Vivienne came in like she owned the room, red lipstick perfect, a small smile playing at the corner of her mouth. Behind her, Sophia Daniels—Jericho's younger sister—leaned against the doorframe with her arms crossed and her phone already out, like this was content.

"Oh, Ellie." Vivienne's voice was soft and sweet and completely hollow. "You poor thing. All this fuss over a little tumble."

Sophia snorted. "Honestly, who falls down their own stairs?"

I looked at the pitcher of ice water on my bedside table.

I picked it up.

I threw it.

The crash was satisfying. The gasping was better. Vivienne stumbled back, mascara running, that red mouth open in shock. Sophia shrieked and dropped her phone.

I pushed back the blanket and swung my legs over the side of the bed.

"I want a divorce," I said. My voice came out steady. Quiet. Like something that had been waiting a long time to be said. "Tell your lawyer to expect a call."

I walked out.

The candles were probably still burning back at the apartment. The pasta had gone cold. The little card was still tucked under his plate.

*We're going to be three.*

Not anymore.