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."

His Other Family

Left with no other choice, I always had to swallow my discomfort and clean up after him.

Even when our son was born, Silas had been clumsy and useless. The moment he held the baby, the child would start crying. He didn't know how to mix formula either, couldn't tell water temperature apart, and even now, the faint burn scar remained on our boy's lips.

That was the man who couldn't do anything in front of me. And yet, in front of another woman and another child, he moved with ease, calmly putting together a proper home-cooked dinner.

I felt as if an invisible hand was clenching my heart, squeezing until I could barely breathe.

Without thinking, I reached for the car door, ready to storm upstairs and confront him. Then the surveillance footage flickered and abruptly switched to live feed.

On the screen, Silas set the final dish of spicy stew on the table and spoke with a sigh of satisfaction. "I've finally gotten Ariana and that little rascal out of the house. Thanksgiving should be spent with just the three of us."

Iris smiled sweetly, wrapped her arms around Silas' waist, buried her face in his chest, and spoke in a voice so sugary it was cloying. "Of course. We're the real family."

What a family.

I had been married to Silas for seven years. Our child was five. With my parents' support, he had established himself in Portwell, and I had met every single one of his relatives. And in the end, he and Iris were the family. So what did that make my son and me?

I let out a short, bitter laugh.

I downloaded and saved every bit of the surveillance footage, then called my brother—Silas' direct superior and the heir to Collins Ltd. "Eli, help me look into Iris—when was her child born, which hospital, who's the father. I want everything."

There was a brief pause on the other end, followed by the sharp sound of a pen hitting a desk. "Why are you checking on her? Did she offend you?"

"Yes," I answered plainly, staring at the lights glowing upstairs, my voice steady to an almost chilling degree. "She's seeing Silas. They have a child. Eli, I want a divorce. I want Silas and her to have no place left in Portwell."

My brother moved fast. In less than half an hour, his assistant reached out to me directly and sent over a full five gigabytes of evidence and records. I opened the files. Besides Iris' public social media posts, there was also a parent–child account filled with videos—more than a hundred of them. In every single one, Silas appeared in some form.

The pinned top post was Iris' labor record. From the first contractions to entering the hospital, a full 21 hours, Silas never left her side.

The day my water broke, Silas had been working overtime at the company. I had been in so much pain I couldn't even stand. In the ambulance, I had begged the nurse to call my husband. I was terrified.

When the call connected, Silas was silent for a long time. Then he told me his project was at a critical stage, that he was about to go into a meeting, that all his colleagues were waiting, and he couldn't leave.

He promised that once the meeting ended, he would come to the hospital immediately and told me to be strong. I lay on the operating table for three hours that day, but Silas never showed up.

My parents had been furious on my behalf, cursing him endlessly, demanding to know what kind of project could matter more than his wife and child. They wanted my brother to strip Silas of his position and force him to come back. My brother, eyes red with urgency, had even told his assistant to rush back to the company and drag him out.

But I stopped them. I'd said Silas hadn't meant it, that he didn't want things to turn out that way, that he loved me. Only now did I realize the truth—there wasn't any meeting at all that day. Iris' second pinned video recorded everything, clear as day.

Birthday at the Aquarium

It was the second day after she gave birth. She had no strength left and didn't feel like eating, so Silas drove across Portwell just to buy her a steaming bowl of seafood chowder.

Her son and mine were born only one day apart.

Tears fell onto my phone screen. I hurriedly wiped them away and continued to the next video.

The third video was uploaded just the day before. The background was my home—mine and Silas'. Iris was wearing my pajamas, leaning against Silas' shoulder, her face soft with maternal tenderness as she watched the child play.

Silas didn't show his face. One arm was wrapped around her, the other helping the child stack building blocks. I didn't need to see him to know—Silas must have been smiling gently.

And what had I been doing at that time, with my son? I'd been in the countryside, at his parents' house, swamped all day, preparing the Thanksgiving dinner he wanted to serve his parents.

The frost in my chest almost solidified when my phone suddenly rang. I answered, and my son's sweet voice came through the speaker. "Mommy, did you see Daddy? When are you coming to pick me up and go home? Daddy isn't on a business trip this time—does that mean he can spend my birthday with me?"

Only then did I remember—the next day was my son's fifth birthday.

From the day he was born until now—except for his first birthday—every single year, something had always come up on his birthday: business trips, emergencies at work, last-minute meetings, social obligations. Every single time, Silas would come home wearing that regretful, heartbroken expression and apologize to our son. "I'm sorry, Felix. I've been too busy with work. I'll make it up to you next time."

It was always that—next time. Felix waited year after year.

I steadied myself, just about to make up an excuse to brush it off, when cheers suddenly rang out from the surveillance feed. To avoid Thanksgiving, Silas had decided to move Iris' child's birthday party to the next day. The venue was the city's newly opened aquarium.

Watching Iris and that child bouncing with excitement on the screen, I suddenly didn't want to lie to my son anymore. I took a deep breath and told him, "We're not celebrating your birthday for now. I'll take you to the aquarium tomorrow. Your daddy did something wrong—and I'm taking you to expose him."

'Silas, I'll see you tomorrow.'

…

The next day, I held my son's hand as we bought tickets and walked into the aquarium.

My brother had tried to talk me out of it, saying Felix shouldn't be dragged into what was between the adults, and that I should send him to our parents' instead. But I didn't agree. Compared to short-term pain, I was more afraid of Felix never seeing Silas for who he truly was.

With my brother's help, my son and I quickly found them.

Silas and Iris were wearing matching family outfits that day. Three doodle faces—two large, one small—were printed across their chests. The moment my son saw them, his steps froze. "Mommy… Daddy doesn't actually hate childish things, does he?"

Last Christmas, Felix's gift to Silas and me had been a family portrait he'd drawn himself. The lines were clumsy, the colors messy in places, the paint even spilling past the edges—but it was obvious he'd poured his heart into it.

I'd been overjoyed, hugging him and praising him endlessly. Blushing, Felix had scampered over to show it to Silas, who only took a gander and tossed it straight into the trash. "You're really showing me something this childish? It's time you grow up, Felix."

Felix had stood there in a daze. He never drew again after that.

I tightened my grip on my son's hand and was just about to crouch down to comfort him when Silas suddenly quickened his pace.